A dive, a scam, a scene
Trip Start
Sep 06, 2006
1
19
24
Trip End
Oct 12, 2007
Kakamega, Kenya
Thursday, January 18, 2007
"so, you might have to paint a little," she continued, indicating the stomach-turning coat of what i believed must have been a living organism stretched lumpily across the walls, perhaps willingly not detecting the despair evident in my slightly distorted facial features, "but perhaps we can discuss that with the price." i watched with a sort of appalled fascination as she took a series of tiny steps in a circle around the room, like an overgroomed poodle at a dog show, all the while gesticulating wildly, her long fake fingernails, carefully color-coordinated with the pumps, darting this way and that across my field of vision. i opened my mouth to say something. "there's even a landline!" she exclaimed, directing one accusing finger towards a feeble-looking brownish cable protruding from a detached socket. it was about this time that i realized she was consciously preventing me from speaking. small wonder, i thought, nodding slightly with a tight little smile as i maintained steady eye contact, this place should have been condemned years ago. again i had to suppress the increasingly urgent voice inside me that was screaming, "RUN!" "there's a bathroom," she said, oblivious to both the obviousness and insignificance this fact represented to me in the moment, reaching across me to push open the cracking wooden door to my right. i didn't even want to look. but she proceeded to gaze admiringly inside the shadowy nook, clearly prompting me to do the same. i was left with little choice but to shift my own glance to the claustrophobic little space, home to an untold number of colonizing organisms, which was now brazenly masquerading as a washroom.
i turned back to the plump face, emboldened by its thick coat of shimmery hot pink lipstick, determined to be decisive and firm. a wash of terror rushed across her eyes as she realized i was about to attempt to speak. "so you can move in by next week!" she beat me to the punch, the thin veneer of enthusiasm in her voice cracking ever so slightly to reveal what we both knew, that this was a joke. "just remember, when the owner gets here, stand your ground and - " "look, patrice, i appreciate the offer," i began, finally interrupting her in hopes of getting out of this hellhole in time to make curry for dinner back at the orphanage. "but perhaps this place - "
"my FRIEND!" an ear-splittingly shrill voice barged in from behind the steel bars and cracked glass of the front door. obviously delighted at the interruption, patrice raced across the room in an exaggerated display of pleasure. "darling!" she shrieked in kind, throwing open the cloudy door to unveil the imposing figure of a substantial woman, 6 foot 2 and 200 pounds at a minimum, clad in a flowing, sheathlike yellow- and lime-green garment. they exchanged handshakes and double faux cheek kisses, not a common form of greeting in kenya. my uneasiness hopped up a notch. they bantered back and forth for a few minutes in sing-songy kiswahili (evidently the large woman was not a luhya). i puffed out my chest a little and straightened my back in hopes of appearing somehow sturdier as i awaited address. finally they both turned to me in unison, the gaze of the new arrival fixed unflenchingly upon me from under severe, over-tweezed eyebrows. "RUN!" the little voice repeated, now near panic. but she was upon me, her hulking figure an eclipse-like silhouette between my body and the exit.
she extended her hand. i swallowed, the working of my throat resonating like a boom through the small, dilapidated space. i finally prodded the muscles in my right arm into functioning and gripped her palm with the tightest squeeze i could summon, baring my teeth in a feeble attempt at a confident smile. she was unfazed. "my friend," patrice said, turning to me, "this is my dear, dear friend lisa. this is her house that you will be letting." "pleasure!" i squeaked faintly. i fancied i heard something scratching around in the crumbling cupboard which had been abandoned in the far corner of the room. "yes, it is very nice to meet you," she responded at last, finally releasing my now-bloodless hand. we exchanged a few more pleasantries as i regained circulation in my right arm, discussing my work and my impressions of kenya thus far. after a few more moments of what to me qualified as time wasted, patrice mercifully cut to the chase. "so, my good friend lillian is very much in need of a house, but she can only pay..." she raised her eyebrows and gazed at me in staged inquiry. "six thousand," i said firmly, right on cue, in spite of my fervent desire to do nothing more than bring this conversation to an abrupt and immediate halt and make a beeline for the orphanage and chickpea curry.
lisa looked thoughtful, crossing her beefy arms across the blindingly bright patterns stretched painfully across her chest. "well..." her voice veered upward in pitch as she attempted to convey her just indecisiveness. i was already exasperated with this game, particularly given the fact that i was absolutely positive that i wouldn't live in this house for free, let alone for 6000 shillings ($90) a month. "maybe if you could just give me 10,000..." she continued. i couldn't be sure if i had just involuntarily rolled my eyes or not. did i? inwardly reminding myself that patience is a virtue, i attempted my best warm smile and shook my head slightly, "i'm so sorry, but as a volunteer i'm just not able to pay that much." lisa frowned a little, a deep trench materializing between her diminutive brows. "but let me think about it for a day or two and let you know," i added quickly, suddenly aware of the possibility for escape. "but actually, i happen to have another house that might be perfect for you!" she deftly deflected my sidestepping move towards freedom, "it's much, much nicer. it's on the compound with my real house. this was just my husband's compound." patrice turned to me, starry-eyed. "wonderful!" she exclaimed, "let's go see it now! can we take a tuk-tuk? it will only be about two hundred shillings!"
i cursed that evening two weeks ago at the golf hotel when i had unwittingly made this acquaintance. perched on a padded stool on the adjacent side of the large, pretentious oak bar of the golf hotel, this woman had seemed perfectly innocent. i had been sitting with two friends, enjoying a highly amusing conversation involving mutual friends in new hampshire, sipping idly on a cold whitecap (one of kenya's two quaffable beers). patrice had approached us jovially, a wiry, big-earringed friend in tow, and struck up a conversation. my only real thought regarding her was that she seemed very modern. i don't know where i got that. modern. maybe because she was wearing a business pantsuit. modern in the glossy women's magazine sense. anyway, i cannot for the life of me recall how she ever came to know that i was in the market for a new house. but she did, and she insisted that i take her phone number, and she mine, because she works in a local radio station and "knows sooooo many people." she called the next day. and the day after. and three days after. finally, late one afternoon, i agreed to have a look at this place she was hawking.
that's how i found myself cornered in the dive of all dives, face-to-face with one woman who was referring to the house as if it were already mine at 6000 a month, contract signed, and another who could probably floor me with one punch. i made a mental inventory of all my defense mechanisms. fight back? not a chance. agree to the terms? never. roll up in a ball and bare my defensive layer of spines? ah, if only. so i did the best thing i could: artfully dodge. "i really can't. i'm staying at an orphanage and i have to get home to take care of the kids." (what do they know about keziah?) "okay," patrice agreed, a bit too hastily for comfort. my eyes darted back to her, my mind searching for possible catches to this easy surrender. she looked at lisa. "tomorrow morning, then?"
to make a long story even longer, i did end up meeting with patrice at 8:30 the next morning, ignoring a pile of work i had waiting for me at home, for the simple reason that i was too spineless to refuse. stepping into the radio station's tiny office, breathless from the 3 flights of stairs i'd climbed to reach it, anticipating with mild dread the exaggerated greeting ritual of that same "modern" woman who had so charmed me when i was slightly inebriated. there she was, today donning a fire-engine red floor-length dress with overpowering brass buttons, complemented by the same shimmery hot pink lipstick from the previous day. she folded up her daily nation as i approached her desk, smiling too warmly as she took my hand. i followed her back out into the scorching morning sun, watching unhappily as she flagged down the first two passing bodabodas and vaguely wishing to fall beneath the wheels of a careening matatu to avoid having to go through with this. we boarded side-saddle in accordance with the norm for women. bumping along the main road through town as my zealous driver veered around the craterlike potholes, i unzipped the change pocket on my purse and shuffled through the few battered brown-and-silver metal coins that remained within. it occurred to me that i wasn't even sure where we were going.
about 5 kilometers out of town, past the point at which one could safely refer to an apartment's location as "in town" (which, obviously, patrice had), i was starting to get annoyed. the sun beat down angrily on the back of my neck as my carefully-ironed olive green linen shirt flapped around in the dusty wind. we passed a one-room blocky little building with a score of chickens and sulky-looking young men loitering outside. florida hotel was hand-lettered on the side of the crumbling structure. i smiled a little in spite of myself. we were coming down a hill at breakneck speed, the now-rural scenery blurring into a greenish fuzz as i wondered how much it was going to cost me to hire a bodaboda who would be willing to climb back up this hill. i craned my neck around the flapping too-big navy blue shirt of my driver, fixing a death glare upon the good-postured figure of patrice seated on the bicycle about 10 yards ahead. she didn't turn around.
a large white sign came into view at a junction with a steep, rock-littered dirt road that led off into the bush. SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF. i furrowed my brow. i thought i had heard about some peace corps volunteers who were doing deaf education around here, but they told me the place was in lurambe, not kakamega. we passed another large, unaesthetically squatty structure. LURAMBE PRIMARY SCHOOL. aaargh. not only were we out of kakamega, we were actually in a different town! i had just opened my mouth to yell something (as yet undecided) at patrice when both bikes veered off onto an unpromising-looking bumpy dirt road that obviously could lead nowhere that i wanted to live. having at this point lost any semblance of bearings, i resigned myself to the waste of a good morning and slumped dejectedly low on the bodaboda's squishy red seat as we made our way deeper and deeper into the bush.
we finally screeched to a halt at a small intersection, the one-lane road we were currently on branching off into a half-lane road. we slid off the backs of the two rusting bikes, patrice directing her eyes to me in a way that said, "don't look at me, she's the moneybags here," and i duly dipped into my dwindling change collection to pay both drivers 20 shillings. patrice opened her black leather purse and extracted a cell phone that would turn heads even in the united states. that model costs more than many people here make in a year. she flipped it open with one dangerously long pink thumbnail, scrolling through what i imagined was a colossal contact list of past mzungu suckers, finally arriving at the number for lisa, whose house she had apparently never even been to. evidently she managed to get directions, for she motioned with one flick of a gold-braceleted wrist for me to follow her, leading me a few hundred yards up the narrow dirt lane, arriving finally in front of an enormous steel gate, painted navy blue and set into a thick concrete wall with bits of broken glass bottles frozen into the top as a sort of homemade barbed wire. This compound protected by Securicor, proclaimed a small tin plaque screwed into the corner of the gate. a few hundred bits of blue-green tile had been carefully assembled to form a fairly impressive mosaic turtle which now leered mockingly at me from the otherwise nondescript concrete wall. patrice knocked. i tried to distract myself by looking out over the adjacent meadow, recently turned in preparation for a new planting. the reddish-brown earth had been left in moist, healthy-looking clods, a handful of stray white and green roots and stalks from last year's harvest peeking out from the dark soil. a few tattered strands of exhausted-looking barbed wire lined the edge of the property. i delved into a mini-fantasy in which i performed a mind-blowing break-in by putting a chair next to the fence, climbing on it, and jumping right over the wire, all undetected under cover of night. i smiled at my own cunning. i had not yet arrived at the point in the reverie where my purpose in having cleverly breached the property line of a shabby field in rural africa was revealed when the daydream was interrupted by the shrieking of the rust-hinged gate. from behind it appeared lisa, today in an equally flamboyant blue and purple number, who welcomed us into her "humble abode."
her house was the nicest i've seen in kenya. literally. we didn't go inside, but the river-rock accented facade and decorative gazebo at the back of the compound would have made the house perfectly welcome in any american upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood. she led us around the side of her own home, the three of us padding single-file across a carefully manicured lawn, under a clothesline bowing humbly low under the weight of dozens of bright articles of dripping clothing, past an enormous satellite dish atop a weatherworn concrete water catchment, and finally back to what would be my house. lisa squeezed through the iron frame of the narrow front door, me brushing aside a yellowing lace curtain to follow her. the blinding morning sun was barreling through the window on the far side of the space in which i now found myself, casting a streak of pure white across the center of the small, square sitting room. a collective 3 square feet of the floor were visible, the remainder obscured beneath an almost comical excess of blocky, heavy-looking furniture. a huge black entertainment center hosted a cumbersome, ill-organized array of books and papers in its central cavity, a small TV wedged into one of the lesser slots like an afterthought. awkwardly jammed into the remainder of the room were three large, overstuffed sofas upholstered in a velvet of several shades of brown randomly smeared together. to my surprise, these mildly nauseating sofas were partially hidden from view by the bodies of four small children which were now occupying them, all eight eyes fixed unswervingly on the fuzzy-displayed television, which was now entertaining these tykes with the beloved nickelodeon animated show of my youth, "doug." my first thought was that they must be getting some pretty good channels on that nasa-quality satellite dish outside. usually the best you can hope to do with kenyan television is the news or the occasional rerun of the early 90's series "the fresh prince of bel-air." doug's a cappella theme song was now popping and humming through the room like a smile. doug was now chatting it up with love interest patty mayonnaise. i had to tear my eyes from the television to follow lisa back to the kitchen, which was now cluttered with heaps of her personal belongings. she brushed past a closed door, saying simply, "this is a bedroom," and led me to the final door in the small building, which she opened to reveal another "bedroom," by which i mean "ironing room." the bed was piled high with layer upon layer of wrinkly clothing, and a rickety-looking ironing board blocked the entrance to the suffocating little chamber. who knows how long i stood there, staring blankly.
"um...can i see the other bedroom?" i said finally, for lack of anything better to say or do. she looked thoughtful, as if refusal was actually an option. "uh.....yeah," she responded finally, edging over to the mysterious wooden door on the other side of the hallway. she reached out to the handle. i half-expected a bizarre, chain-laden man-beast to come lunging out at us when she finally swung it open with a touch of flair. i peered inside, almost disappointed to find nothing more than another, even smaller dank little room, dark for the presence of a heavy curtain over the small window and cluttered with another mini-mountain of wadded-up clothes. i began to think regretfully of all the work i could be getting done right now. i was tired of this charade.
we stepped back into the packed sitting room, where the gaggle of little ones was still glued to the small TV. i turned to her. "these are my nieces and nephews," she said quickly with a tone of strained tenderness, sweeping her arm out in front of her to indicate the cluster of miniature figures. none of them looked up. "that's the only thing i need to ask of you when you move in. they really like to watch television in the evenings, so you could just let them come in at night and watch it for a couple hours. the TV in my house is back in the bedroom, so..." i stared at her, trying with all seriousness to determine what planet one would have to be from to believe that it would be appropriate to charge a person 10,000 shillings a month for a cramped, dirty little space five miles outside of town that came complete with a flock of TV-addicted rugrats. "couldn't you just move the TV to your own house?" i asked, incredulous, forgetting for a second that there was no point in pushing further negotiations as i would certainly not be moving here anyway. "well...i guess," she said, staring past me out the window at some unknown sight. "why don't you give me your number, and i'll let you know in the next couple days, okay?" i said, pulling out my chunky blue nokia for emphasis. patrice, who had been shuffling around behind us for the length of the tour, looked uneasy at the suggestion of being cut out as the middle woman. lisa gave me her number. with an unnoticed wave to the rugrats, i stepped quickly out of that space, content with the knowledge that i would never again enter it. to her credit, lisa was gracious enough to give us a lift back to town in her car, an early 80's cream-colored peugeot station wagon, her possession of which spoke worlds of her comparative wealth.
i hopped out in front of the kakamega diocese office where all the bodaboda drivers congregate, not even minding the chorus of "mzungu!" calls for how relieved i was to be back in town and away from that bizarre duo. i didn't even know why i was going through with all of this. i'd already been shown a flat that i found infinitely more appealing, almost smack in the center of town, second-story with two balconies and brand-new for 5500 shillings a month. timothy, a friend of mine at my regular internet cafe, had found it for me. it wasn't finished yet, still missing a bit of wiring and in need of a serious cleaning-up by the workmen, but there was plenty of time for them to do that before i needed it. it was just before new years; i made up my mind to secure that place immediately for january 10th, when carmel would be returning to the orphanage and i'd be moving out. timothy got in touch with the owner, anthony, and it was all settled.
january 10th rolled around and still no word from anthony, who had promised to have all the work done by then. timothy and i met up and walked over to the flat. it had clearly not been touched since the last time we'd seen it. we called anthony. he insisted it would be done by january 14th. with carmel back from the UK and no other place to stay in the meantime, i moved in with my friend joseph, who has a pretty nice 2-bedroom house way out in the bush along the highway to mumias. on january 14th i sauntered back into the internet cafe, looking for timothy. with me were joseph and his kenyan colleague habacook. anthony had promised to be at the house today. the four of us walked over to meet him. he was there, all right. evidently he had just let the workers back in to continue doing their jobs. the house was obviously not finished yet. even so, i felt better having met this guy in person, agreed upon some terms (one of which was that he install another set of steel gates before my front and back doors to augment the security), shaken his hand, and confirmed that the house would be absolutely, positively, without fail finished by wednesday, january 17th. i apologized to joseph for the resultant extension of his expected hospitality, who was very understanding given the patience that my presence in his home and perpetual criticism of his dishwashing system required. on wednesday i packed all my things up, struggled out of his village on a bodaboda, waiting 40 minutes at the highway for the next available matatu that would take me to town and to my stellar new place. not a moment too soon, either; peter and i are headed to nairobi on friday to pick up the latest set of incoming interns, arranging the orientation for whom has consumed all of my waking hours for the past two weeks. i was indescribably relieved to have a place to put all my things and get ready for what would be a very intense month.
timothy awaited me with a broad smile at the internet cafe, and we agreed to go directly to the apartment. we chattered happily along the way, me inviting him over for tea later that day since he was living in a small house just up the street from me. upon arrival at the apartment building, sweating and reddened from the sun, it was clear that anthony had, for once, maintained his word. the pavement was swept clean and a lock had been placed on the gate at the bottom of the staircase. i could barely contain my excitement as we climbed the stairs. anthony wasn't there yet. i was too happy to be annoyed about it. i set down my heavy backpack and laptop case and stepped over to my window to have a look at what would be my home for the next 8 months. i froze. what i saw within that sitting room was not the slick painted floors and clean, solid lines of a fresh new house that i had so delighted in anticipating, but a dingy blue sofa set, a chipping coffee table, several half-unpacked suitcases, and a baby rocker. my stomach turned over. "timothy." he still hadn't looked. "what the hell is going on?"
the next two hours were spent making angry calls, arguing with movers and eventually the aloof new tenants, who were busy putting in bed frames and a refrigerator, and generally flipping out. i don't remember the last time i was so angry. i made an enormous scene. timothy looked helpless. i called joseph, near tears. i called peter, in tears. nobody could do anything. anthony had cheated me for reasons unknown and given the place to someone else the night before. he offered to put me in a different place. i told him where to put his different place. peter insisted i come back into town and meet him for lunch. i picked at a pile of grease-and-milk-soaked sagaa and chapati, all of my possessions piled high in the chair next to me. exhaustion settled heavily down upon my limbs, and i realized that i had to stop channeling my energy into anger and frustration and start thinking about where i was going to sleep tonight. we went back to the internet cafe, where i glumly pecked at the keyboard in reply to a few stray emails. my phone rang. andrew. andrew? oh yeah, andrew. the son of the landlord at annette's old place, the apartment where i stayed for a few weeks while i was working a lot in kakamega. andrew, who had informed me with childlike cheer that perhaps that rat skittering back and forth across the sitting room was ferrying something. strange, i hadn't heard from him in months. i pressed the respond button. "hello?" "hi lillian, just calling to say hello." i exchanged a few words of greeting with him, inquired about the new year, told him i'd eventually return those cd's i'd borrowed from him. we hung up. about twenty minutes later i realized what an idiot i was. i rang him back. "andrew, is that house in your compound still vacant?" "yes, we had some students who were going to move in but it didn't work out." "can i move back in?" "um...sure." "tonight?" "well...yeah." peter helped me buy a mattress and schlep some things over.
andrew's family removed the few belongings of whichever one of them had been temporarily putting up in here, leaving me a bed frame and a desk. i put the giant brass padlock on the door that i had bought yesterday for the other house. they lent me a gas cooker, but we couldn't get the cylinder refilled anywhere. for dinner i had bread and peanuts. i started unpacking a few things that peter had collected from this very house two months ago and stored at the orphanage. a mosquito net, a pan, some mugs. an open shampoo bottle and canister of comet which had leaked all over my sleeping bag. towards the bottom of this large bag i started to notice an odd smell. i pulled out the bag of kitchen items he'd packed in there. some matches, dish soap, spices. i extracted a bag of unopened basmati rice. it was covered in a sticky black liquid. the stench leapt up to pierce my nostrils. oh no. i finally located the clear plastic bag at the very bottom containing what was once an onion and possibly a banana, though all that was left of the latter was a bag full of clotted black juice. i walked over to the sink to rinse off the vile substance covering my hands. i opened the tap. i was greeted with the sound of air rushing through the pipes. no water. that's what i forgot about this house. the water is almost never running. i rinsed my hands with the dwindling supply of drinking water i'd brought in a one-liter bottle.
i let my body fall down in the one wooden, straight-backed chair in the house and stared at the wall. the pack of vicious dogs andrew's family releases each night howled at each other just outside the window. the large, spindly body of a mosquito hawk wavered in an imaginary breeze against the cracking white paint in front of my eyes. i lifted one flip-flop clad foot and brought it heavily back down upon a thick-bodied brown cockroach that was sprinting across the bedroom floor. for one brief moment i concentrated all my energy on my hatred for anthony. then i decided it wasn't worth it. i let my head fall to the palms of my hands, my face throbbing with the day's sunburn, my elbows propped up against my knees, and took a deep breath. they say that moving is the second-most stressful thing one can experience, right after losing a loved one. it seems as if i've been moving since i got here. eight weeks at florence's, six weeks at jonathan's, two weeks at andrew's, three weeks at the orphanage, one week at joseph's, now back at andrew's for a month until i can figure something else out. tomorrow i leave for nairobi, where we'll stay for three days before returning to a hotel in kakamega for orientation week.
this is life, this is africa, this is life in africa. nobody i spoke to was really surprised about the house falling through. i'm getting used to it. but some days...some days i just want to check out for a while.
