Nairobi Dreaming - Complete!

Chapter 1: Arrival

About eight hours into my flight and three movies set in America later I managed to temporarily forget I was on my way from San Francisco to Kenya.

I surfaced a little disoriented, my heart and mind stuck in New York City, to find myself on an airplane comfortably ensconced in first class, the large man across the aisle from me starring at me like a cat watching a canary, one hand on his belly, the other wrapped around a glass of what looked like whiskey. His blue eyes were watery and red, a shock of white hair was out of place over his forehead. The rest was slicked back with too much pomade. 

We starred at each other until he said, "Have you ever been to Africa before, girl?"

"Girl?" I repeated. "I'm twenty-eight."

He laughed, stamping his plastic whiskey glass on his tray as he did so. "God, don't tell me you're another one of those god damned feminists. Really, I've just about had it with your lot."

"I'm definitely a feminist," I responded with conviction.

"Well if I had known that I never would have bothered." He took a swig of whiskey and kept starring at me. I blinked at him and thought about whether or not I felt like having a fight with a stranger on the plane. I had watched all the movies I cared to watch and I had, very stupidly, packed my reading material in my luggage. 

"I'm pretty sure you don't even really know what a feminist is, boy," I said, taking care to over - emphasize the "boy" part.

He laughed again and this time his laugh was accented by heavy wheezing. "I'm older than  you," He said. "It doesn't work that way around, does it?"

"Doesn't it?" I smiled. 

He snorted. "Suit yourself. But back to the question at hand, young lady."

"Which was?"

"This your first time to Africa?"

"Yeah, actually."

"You going to get outside of Nairobi?"

"I'm staying there for two nights then heading to Kisumu, out West. So yeah."

He looked pleased. "That's a good thing. You know, Nairobi isn't Africa."

I squinted at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nairobi is this big messy metropolis," He said, using his hands to illustrate his point as he talked. He turned the palms in to face each other and drew them out, far apart. "A big city. Africa is endless skies, mountains, deserts; limitless landscapes. It's big animals. It isn't a city. If you stayed in Nairobi you'd never know Africa."

He finished on what I think he thought was a poetic note, his gaze a little vague, his expression self satisfied.

"You know," I said, "My mom's from Mexico city and I go there a lot to visit family. Every now and again I come across these really confused tourists in the city who all but tell you they thought Mexico was one big beach. They're like, what's with this city? And it's kind of crazy when you think about it. Mexico city is in fact the largest city in North America. It's bigger than New York. " I sighed, "Which makes me think you're here to be on safari. Am I right?"

"It's the only real way to experience Africa," He replied. "And you? You look like a do gooder. Off to go help some starving children?" His tone was as scathing as mine had been. 

"I don't think they're starving," I replied.

"I knew it," He said and repositioned himself so that he was facing out the window, his face turned away from me. 

I smiled at the back of his head.

Four hours later the airplane touched down and as jaded as I tended to be about travel I was excited. I needed to be somewhere that wasn't Oakland and this was about as far as I could get.

"Karibu," The pilot announced, "Welcome to Kenya."