Kenya Dig It? ~ Pancookies

At this time last year, I was sitting on the student-rented floor of the study abroad school office in Mombasa, eating chocolate chip pancookies with three other displaced people: Michael, Juli, and Jazmín.

 

It was the first time I was living on my own—a snafu with the living situation resulted in me getting a flat a few doors down from this place, a sort of quad—four bedrooms, one living room and kitchen, all situated above Tito The Artist’s little T-shirt shop, so I could stomp on the floor if I wanted to say hi to him. I was the only one there, and I was living like a bachelor—instant meals bought at Nakumatt, eating out a lot.

 

The shower was the worst. Plumbing on this street consisted of a guy who would deliver a bunch of cannisters of water two or three times a week, with which we’d fill a big tank at the top of the building; when the water was gone, so was the plumbing.  The landlord advised me to keep a nice big bucket of water around in case I needed to shower on off-days, but no matter what I did to prevent it the water always wound up hosting mosquito larvae.  So I decided to take the Porn Solution: on off-days I went over to the other students’ flat and used their shower, just to rinse off—in Mombasa they really prefer you do this twice a day.*

 

The only trouble there was that our academic director lived on the third floor of this building—along with his wife. Athman’s wife had taken a dislike to Jazmín, and so whenever anyone did something that displeased her, she would inform Jazmín.  My infrequent use of the shower turned out to be one of those things, and after the second time she laid into my confused friend for wasting the building’s water, I started checking with Jazmín for permission to do things that might, inexplicably, get her into trouble.  “Mind if I cook here—my stove’s out of gas.  I don’t want to get you in trouble …”

 

But this time I was just there to hang out with these three, because it was Thanksgiving, and we were in a strange place, and I’d gotten some bad news. And so here we were, sans turkey, sans family, munching on a plate of what were supposed to be chocolate chip pancakes but wound up being little crunchy pancookie things.  We sat and talked philosophy, food we missed, religion, death (my friend’s mother had just died), movies,** books (Michael and I explaining Roald Dahl’s macabre writing), and the silly things we were thankful for (ceiling fans and the 23° axial tilt on the Earth were my contributions). Periodically one or another of us would go off to call a family member, significant other, friend, whoever.

 

It’s odd to have a holiday in a place they don’t celebrate it.  I always think of my friend Afshan here, trying to observe Ramadan while the rest of the country goes about its business.  One day was strange enough for us—quiet and friendly and a little melancholy. It was an odd one—but one I will always remember.

 

Friday we all found a really great Chinese restaurant and then had spectacularly good ice cream*** while listening to live jazz, and it was a lot more upbeat.  So Thanksgiving weekend wasn’t completely pathetic. Although it was also the weekend where I was involved in a goat slaughter and a barfight, so I’m not sure how the whole thing averaged out.

 

 

*Americans, it turns out, are quite gross for showering only once a day, or even skipping a day sometimes. I tried to explain that it’s because where I come from you aren’t constantly damp and sweaty, but that didn’t always work.

 

**For some reason, in Kenya our taste changed for the worst. One day while channel surfing we found an hour of music videos from the late 70s and early 80s—stuff like “We Are Family” and “It’s Raining Men”—and got so excited that we had to call Juli over to watch and laugh with us. Another day I seem to recall we watched a bootleg copy of The Little Mermaid II: Return To The Sea or somesuch on somebody’s laptop.

 

***It was like eating an Andes mint that melted in your mouth. It was orgasmic.