correction: nairobbery

nairobi has a distinct way of welcoming you. it's full of smiles and cheap soda and as soon as you assume you're comfortable it sneaks up on you, and steals your phone.

i should start with the fact that the past two days (read: my first two days in africa) have been problematic with electronics. yesterday i dropped my digital camera and the lens jammed = broken. so, i swallowed my wallet and went downtown to buy another one. $140 later i was relatively pleased and ready to continue documenting this adventure. then i got back and realized my memory card didn't fit in the camera. WTF?! the corporate man is trying to keep us down. so, i will soon wander back out into the concrete jungle in search of a memory card that will fit.

following the (expensive) camera purchase i went to catch the bus. i was proud of myself for finding the hilton and remembering the buses. after a little wait and reminiscing of fancy christmas dinners in the hilton, my bus came and about 40 or so kenyans all push to the door. as i'm getting on i feel someone tugging at my purse, so i turn around and catch a middle-aged man trying to get into my bag. he shrugs and grins and waves as i board the bus and i'm thinking "ha! i caught that sucker, thinks he can rob a mzungu, no way." then i sit down and it dawns on me that sonofabitch was grinning and waving in appreciation, he was now the proud owner of a cell phone. at least he didn't get my wallet (?!) i'm not going to buy a new phone (out of principle) until i get to eldoret this weekend.

i should share though that we went to walk through city market and spoke to people in broken swahili and one old woman saw me coming and yells "oh dear! i have been waiting for you my whole life! {holds my hands} now! come look in my shop" her name was pamela. her breath smelled of rum. she thought i was 18 (and was later appalled to discover i was 25 and unmarried without children). she had an obama bumper sticker on her shop and teared up when she spoke of him, since "he is her brother."

last night laura and i found a pool hall and heard inappropriate jokes from two kenyans while listening to beyonce and catching up. it was wonderful. and tonight i am going to dinner at the house of my former homestay. hense why i have to go find a memory card, because i'm sure the little boys have grown so much. i also came back to the hostel and found two large turtles mating as i went to take a shower. i would have taken a picture, but ya know...

{sigh} africa: the continent that will eat you alive without a sense of humor.

nairobi

made it (back) to nairobi. after a long flight, delicious airplane food and a great movie: "away we go" with john krasinski with a beard AND in a visor for a good 15 minutes = recipe for success. and i need a bit of a nap, but otherwise it is perfect here. i arrived with megan and kei and our hostel is wonderful with a garden and friendly dogs and children roaming around. the roads are still a reddish-brown since it rained this morning, our taxi driver could not have been nicer (even though we got him lost), the chinese (?!) food i just inhaled was delicious and tonight i have the distinct pleasure of seeing miss hartstone and going out on the town for big, cheap beers.

i'm really happy right now, and definitely miss you all.

final london

mini-guard

buckingham palace

last morning in london. i am currently hanging out with aavani, watching her dance in the corner (apparently you can put Baby in the corner) and checking out the news from across the pond. yesterday was so nice. i sat for a few hours at a coffee shop then walked around in search of the national photography gallery, but by the time we found it, the building had moved. blast! then we had delicious sri lankan food at olivia's (future) in-laws house. it was wonderful to sit and drink wine and talk and play "football," which went really well until i kicked the ball over the fence like a true sports hero. market today. nairobi tonight. still excited.

by the way, pandora and lala don't work outside of the u.s., so you should probably never leave.

007

so, more or less every day i can be found in a t-shirt of sorts and pants (especially after the pedicab driver at wonderland haggled me for wearing leggings--not over it yet, apparently), but low and behold miss olivia wrangled me into a red dress and high heels for our james bond themed new year's eve event. and we had a "brilliant" time dancing and drinking and being dressed up. then today i woke up at 3pm. i made it outside for a walk as the sun was setting. then i made dinner {gasp!} and i didn't even burn the pasta.

i like this

albert bridge (olivia's home) at sunset

us with baby bottles of vodka--they were confiscated at the door

olivia, elaine and i on NYE
fancy peoples

londontown

bam! i made it to london without a terrorist trying to set his underpants on fire. and although it is rainy and slightly cold (think: seattle) it has been nice. today we celebrated aavani's first birthday with a carousel ride, noise makers and sushi followed by (me sleeping through the first 15 mins of) avatar. i learned that we shouldn't mess with indigenous people (duh) and that smoking really does kill, even sigourney weaver.

aavani in her party outfita friendly brit just fixing a phone

the v&a museum

my carousel partner

mary-lee, aavani and i

newark is beautiful.

We (justin and i) made it safely to newark, new jersey--the land of parking lots and bottle openers on bathroom doors-- and it turned out to be as beautiful as we imagined it would be. excited to be heading to london in the morning, will talk to you all soon.

History

i had a dream you were two towns from me. got to sleep and spent whole night runnin'

Wow. I'm still on cloud 9. The final days in New Mexico were priceless. I spent five days in Silver City. I ate 6 burritos, canvassed up and down dirt roads and got rather intoxicated off white russians at a local bar dressed as Joe the Plumber, just dancing in circles with a plunger. The finals two days in Las Cruces were exhausting. We averaged two hours of sleep a night. Spent our mornings schmoozing with walk-in volunteers and our nights printing an entire forest worth of turf. I probably drank my body weight in Red Bull and needless to say, I enjoyed it all.

On the 3rd a friend and I cruised around Precinct 66, at the foot of the Organ mountains, just getting dirty, and listening to music, taking turns driving and running to doors, making sure to get out every last vote. That night I took a nap, we had a hope circle with flashlights where 100 or so volunteers expressed their joy with the campaign (meanwhile we had 100,000 door knockers to organize, so I wasn't too keen on the sappy moment--but it was nice in hindsight).

Election day was the longest day of my life. We got breakfast at Denny's at 5am then I (fake) smiled for every volunteer that came in last minute. Bri and I escaped and went canvassing one last time where we coined the term "drive and dive" where one of us would literally start driving and the other would dive in the back seat on top of door hangers, my laundry and lawn signs. For two hours of sleep, we were so happy.

Then the states started turning blue. First PA. Then OH. Then Virginia. And he won. Evan, Bri, Lani and I ran to my car to immediately start celebrating. The office was full of people off the streets and by 9pm John McCain was giving his concession speech. We hugged strangers and stood outside. We snuck into the office when everyone left and watched Obama's speech, alone, giggling and ignoring people knocking on the front door. I rode over to the Dem HQs with some random dude, immediately regretted my decision and walked back, talking to Ryan and Aaron and making jokes and consistently saying "Wow." We raced in the parking lot, tried to make prank calls to McCain supporters and drank champagne from Solo cups. The organizers started to drop like flies, across the couches and on their way home. I stayed up, laying on the floor, talking about something nice with wonderful people. Then we found Speed, an old guy from the 60s with a funny nickname, and he lit off three huge fireworks in the parking lot. It was an infinite feeling. Just watching explosions in the sky of blue and purple, while feeling drunk and fulfilled. I sat and talked to a woman from Sierra Leone, then chugged a gallon of water and went home. We slept three in the bed, well two and half 'cause Bri was in the crack. ("it's like Obama's tax plan, you're in the crack, but you still get a blanket!") woke up miraculously not hungover, went to the Bean with Gus one last time and said my goodbyes.

This post is for myself. You definitely had to be there. But I'm sure millions of Americans had equally incredible moments they will remember forever. One man brought us all together. Si se puede.

...and we did. more work lies ahead, but for now, the euphoric ride is unlike anything else.