Kenyan Time

For all of you who have traveled to different countries or if you are Eric Burnett, you understand that American time is a vast exception to the world. For the first 26 years of my life, I have been decently punctual. I blame this on my family. Every Christmas, we need to get a seat, so we depart our home at least thirty minutes before mass begins. “Better early than late” is our motto in this household. In college, I was that annoying kid who would be sitting outside the lecture hall before an exam, feverishly going over flashcards. Nowadays, I always travel with a book or magazine in case I will be waiting for someone or some function to start.

I’ve finished my fair share of novels in Kenya. (Really, for all of you who haven’t read Tom Robbins, I would advise visiting your local library.)

My trip to Mombassa this past weekend propelled me to a new level of understanding Kenyan Time. My roommate mentioned that we would be leaving on Saturday morning to go to Mombassa to visit his uncle. I was ecstatic; I have been desperately missing my banjo and interestingly, with all the rich musical culture Africa has, there aren’t any acoustic instruments to play around here (or so I thought… keep reading). He said that he knew of a music shop and my chances of finding one there were far better than up the coast in Malindi. If nothing else, he knew that they sold guitars and I could pick one up there.

In the morning, I went to the school (our usual meeting place), only to discover that he needed to do some business in our brother school. He said that he would be back around noon or one.

Three Scrabble games and a ‘are you okay?’ text message later…. it was 3 o’clock and he was finally back. I was pumped and ready to go. But nope, we had to wait for his aunt, and my “boss,” aka the Principal of the school. (By the way, this city is like camp, everyone is related somehow).

At 5PM, with 7 human beings packed in the car—my roommate, the principal, and her four watoto, we were barreling down the coast to Mombassa. By the time we got there, I was hungry and tired. We stopped at two more relatives’ houses where I sat idly in the car playing Snake on my old-school Nokia phone.

We stayed at Abu Bakar’s uncle’s home. I have one picture of the living room here—but it was an extremely humble place in Old Port. The next morning, I was so excited to find my musical instrument. We got in the car and made our way to the music shop… nope, we had to eat first. Chai, goat meat, rice (what else?), and then we were on our way. Nope, we went to another relatives house. I understood little of what they were saying. We did this much of the morning—from relative’s house to relative’s house, watching crappily-dubbed Mexican soap operas and reruns of The Big Bang Theory (how the hell show did that win any Emmys?) I just went along, having no idea what was going on. More Snake, more waiting.

Finally, we pull up to the music shop. Closed on Sundays.

When we finally reached home Sunday night around 11 PM, I resolved to get the guitar/banjo by myself in Mombassa the next weekend. But last week, luck was on my side! I found a little music shop in Malindi selling electric guitars and I asked if they could place an order for a banjo. They said that someone had come in trying to sell one recently, but no one had interest in it. I said that I did… so they said they would find the guy… and to come back today—Monday, Februay 6^th, 2012.

I walked up to the store today…

Closed. I guess everyone operates on his/her own watch. Let’s pray they could find a banjo in the interim. (Probably not likely).

Signing off,

Adam

PS- My high score in Snake is 3056, I bet none of you can beat it.