weekendi

I know I am a few years behind, but mad men is a really good show. I have spent all morning reading Slate's TV Club about the 5 (yes, that totals 5 hours) episodes I watched yesterday while recovering from Saturday night. SO MUCH IS GOING ON. wow.

This weekend was easy. I had homemade Mexican food (= delicious) with friends from work on Friday night. Saturday I woke up slowly and my buddy Matt (one of my favorite people in Nairobi is inevitably a dude from D.C., go figure) came over armed with half a dozen eggs and chapati and he, Federico and I made a killer breakfast burrito. We sat around then wandered out to the pool around 3pm, where we sat and read for a few more hours. The whole day just happened organically and it was appreciated.

Saturday night I met up with 3 people visiting from Organizing for America on a consulting gig with USAID (also a D.C. connection, thanks Shira!) and went to an epic concert. It was outdoors and we were in the VIP section. It was pretty impressive. Christopher Martin was there (not of Coldplay, would have been a tough audience, although he may have written his own wikipedia page) and some other reggae/pop acts from Jamaica that kept singing to the "beautiful Kenya ladies," all of them suggested during their performances their wife was in Kenya, which made everyone swoon. Following the concert, I hopped in the most hilarious taxi. The driver was easily 80 years old, wearing an over sized suit coat and a trucker hat, the back door kind of swung open every time he took a turn too sharply (I sat in the middle) and he called me Madame. I arrived at a party to meet Federico and his friends in a big garden on the outskirts of town. It was beautiful. Picture this: big garden that just spilled into hills from the back porch, house beats from two dedicated DJs (they played for about 6 of us until 5am), big movie screen with black and white 1920's films projected on it, endless cocktails and a group of people to talk to from Kenya, Spain, Italy, Chicago, Denmark and Britain. You can't ignore the romance of it all here, as an ex-pat in tends to engulf you at times.

Sunday I recovered from that evening. All day. Watching Mad Men. Federico and I migrated from the sofa to the grocery store by 7pm and the USAID-Youth crew came over for pasta.

I watched this, which is good (thanks, Kate):


i was due to go to Dadaab next week for work, but due to al-Shabaabs' country-wide threats, the bosses are anticipating an RSO travel ban and all non-essential (read: interns) staff are not permitted to go. I'm pretty upset, it would have been wonderful to go back to the field. Also i have been listening to Sven Kacirek's Kenya Sessions, a creative blend of tribal music and European beats that my roommate left on the coffee table.

And I've been reading. Will you live to be 125 years old? Would you want to?