still no pictures

...sadly. pictures are worth 1000 words, but this is my best attempt:

Elle-Diz (aka Laura Hartstone) came to Nairobi for the last two days. Man, oh man! was it great to see her. We ate sushi by candlelight (unintentionally, the restaurant lost power..) the first night, then got to have a big ole slumber party last night. It was so good to just sit and talk over njera and beer for hours and laugh about stupid stuff we did/saw/heard about while in Seattle. Feels like a long time ago now, but that was a good year...

I have an American passport. I assume you know this by now. Most of the time I recognize how lucky that is. Just by some higher power circumstance, my soul was birthed on U.S. soil. For better or worse, the world really is our oyster. Yesterday I went to the U.S. Embassy to meet with a consular officer there, 'cause we are beginning to implement a satisfaction survey among immigrant applicants regarding their health screening with a panel physician and we needed to check out the space and see how feasible it is to ask immigrants to self-administer a survey, etc. I learned some things: there are immigrant visas, which are about 4,000+ a year from Kenya which are applicants that have a family member in the States and there are the Diversity visas, which is a lottery and you apply and pay 800-and-some-odd-dollars (a person) for an interview, but there’s no guarantee. The Diversity visa gig was started to however many years ago to fill in the gaps of the labor workforce, but now due to the influx of Mexican immigrants, there isn’t really that gap anymore and it’s assumed the Diversity visa program will fade out soon(ish). Also, people pay other people to help them “get the interviews,” and there are cases of individuals who have paid up to $25,000, to people posing as US Consulates (I recognize it’s no sadder than hopeful Mexican immigrants that pay their life savings to border runners that lose it all when they’re discovered in the trunk of the car.)

The American Dream carries a lot of weight.

(the post needed some color)

The Embassy smells like America (maybe they ship in the air). The whole building looks as though you have walked into an American building, down to the light switches. The Marines don’t smile as they guard the doors. There is a store where you can buy Fruit Loops and Velveeta. It has central AC. And once a year they have an emergency drill. A loud sound goes off and you’re instructed to get under your desk and move away from the windows. We were fortunate enough to be there for the hypothetical attack, so half of our meeting took place under a desk and in the stairwell on our way up to the roof. I actually enjoyed it. It was like being in an alternate universe that felt like home, while simultaneously realizing how ridiculous home is.

download this song. and this one. and this profile of lori berenson was good. and this man, scares me. tgif.