The Gift of Time

Looking back, my original plan to stay in Nairobi for only three weeks seems extremely foolish. I've been here for just over that amount of time and am about halfway through the work I need to do. I've found that it's difficult to estimate how much time it will take to study a fossil collection, and another student at the museum who is here for an entire year told me that she was advised to figure out how much time she thought she would need and to double it. Because you never count on days like I had today - where I spent the morning running around town printing and xeroxing the application materials for a research permit, and then spent the afternoon identifying pieces of rhinoceros bones. There are about 200 bone fragments that I need to identify as either hippo or rhino, and unless you are really familiar with those animals the way to do that is to figure out which bone your fragment is from and then compare it with the relevant bone from both a hippo and a rhino to see which one it resembles. Second to elephants, the white rhino is the largest terrestrial animal alive. The osteology department has skeletons of rhinos arranged in big boxes and on shelves. So imagine going through boxes pulling out these huge and heavy bones and you can see why I only made it through about 1/5th of the work I had intended to do today.

So I was walking home at dusk, freaking out at how little work I had gotten done...and I thought, okay, I have the money, I don't need to be back in DC for anything...so I am going to give myself the gift of time and stay in Africa as long as it takes me to get through my dissertation work and not worry about it anymore.

Life in Nairobi

Life in Nairobi is good. I'm working like crazy and decided to extend my trip, partly because there are more fossils to study than I anticipated and also because I'm really enjoying being here, which is kind of surprising. I was in Nairobi last summer for four or five weeks and was dying to leave towards the end of my trip, which is why I had planned a shorter visit this time. I think a big difference is that this time I have my own apartment, and last summer I was staying at a place with my professors and other students and post-docs - all a great crew, but let me tell you, sharing a bathroom with one of your professors and her husband, and seeing your advisor first thing in the morning when you go the kitchen to make coffee were not super-pleasant experiences. Oh, and I also caught the parasite last summer too. This time I am boiling all of my water.

Also, I will be the first to admit that I am leading a really sheltered life here. I basically just go back and forth between my apartment and the museum and don't have to deal with 'real' Nairobi too much (more about that later). I'm staying in a beautiful apartment that charges about what I pay for my rent in DC, but has, I kid you not, daily housekeeping service (which is why my bed is made), a pool, and on-site laundry service. I also have a huge balcony where I've been doing yoga.
View from my balcony - the pool is in between the two buildings. I went for a swim this afternoon, which is, frankly, how I'd like to be spending my time in October in the future.

David Sedaris on Undecided Voters

“I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

You know you've been working too much when....

....you're walking barefoot in your apartment and step on a tiny flat rock that your shoes probably dragged in and you start examining it because it looks like a flake from a stone tool.

No messin' around

I had been advised to avoid being in Nairobi during the rainy season - late October through December. And I can see why - there's no messin' around when it rains here. Sheets and sheets of water come down, but usually for an hour or less. And these are only the 'short' rains - I can't imagine what the 'long' rains (April-June) are like.

Tina Fey on Sarah Palin

'If she wins...I'm leaving Earth.'

$1 = 73KSh (Kenyan Shillings)

You do the math.

In Bloom

Ah, Kenya. The land where there are no crosswalks and red lights and car lanes are optional. Forget assaults, beatings, kidnappings - the biggest danger in Nairobi, by far, is getting hit by a car. Or more likely a matatu, which is a banged-up minivan used as a taxi that fits about, oh, twenty-five people, and the driver always speeds like he's just escaped from prison. Makes crossing the street quite an adventure and probably takes a couple years off my life every time. Choking on the polluted air, that's another danger. Needless to say, both of these factors make spending time outside rather tricky, which is a shame because October is a beautiful month to be here - it's springtime and the weather is mild and the flowers are in full bloom and the colors are gorgeous at sunset.

Aside from the occasional hiccup things are going well - I have an office at the museum with plenty of lab space, which means that I can work after hours and go in on the weekend. The work is going exceptionally well - have some interesting fossils and am reminded why I fell in love with paleoanthropology in the first place. I've been working long hours and am considering extending my stay here by a week as there is quite a bit of material and my plans for South Africa seem like they're getting a bit complicated. And complicated is the last thing I want right now.

OMG

The museum now has wireless internet. This is a place that barely has electricity and toilet paper. Seven years ago, the first time that I visited Kenya, we had to go to a shopping center in another part of town to use an internet cafe. Five years ago, the second time that I was in Kenya, an internet cafe closer to the museum had opened. Last year, for the first time, the apartment building had wireless internet. And now the museum. Wow, how times have changed.

Arrived

Ah, Kenya. Land of the cheerful people and the dusty and rattling cars. There is such a distinct smell to Nairobi - unlike anything I have experienced before. It smells spicy and earthy and like a burning campfire, and it hit me the second I walked off the plane. I made it to Nairobi okay but unfortunately one of my pieces of luggage has not. By sheer dumb luck the checked piece that did arrive had the most important stuff in it - toiletries, socks and underwear and the food that I had packed for the night I arrived. Good reminder to pack more carefully next time. I got in late on Sunday night after 19 hours on three different planes with next to no sleep and no food (I'd rather starve than eat most airplane food). So I got to my apartment, had a little food and a quick shower, and had to be up 8 hours later to go to the museum. I woke up feeling not so great, undoubtedly due to the lack of food and sleep, but still trudged to the museum to meet with the department heads and get everything organized. I was there for a few hours and started to feel worse and worse, attempted to go to a restaurant for some food (long and bad story), and by the time I got home was massively sick. But I took a bunch of pills, slept all afternoon, went out for dinner and made it to the grocery store so things should run a bit more smoothly now.

I'm staying in a great apartment and should be set up with an office in the museum tomorrow. Today I found about 3/4 of the fossils that I need to study, which is an exceptionally good start to my time here.

'Life is just one damned thing after another'

I thought this quote was by Winston Churchill though apparently it's from Elbert Hubbard. Not that this sentiment hasn't been expressed by just about every person on the planet at some point.

I've been in DC for four days and am leaving for Kenya tomorrow. In the past four days I've had to deal with getting a visa for Mozambique, putting together an application for a research permit in Kenya, going to a travel clinic for updated immunization shots and malaria medicine, calling my insurance to get a three-month supply of prescriptions, dealing with GW bureaucracy to get reimbursed for travel expenses, going to the dentist, making doctor's appointments for when I come back, meeting at the Smithsonian with my dissertation co-chairs, organizing my research for Kenya and South Africa, making hotel reservations and other travel plans, registering with the US embassies abroad, seeing friends, trying to squeeze in yoga classes, etc etc etc. Today, as I was running around, it really hit me that it is never going to end. I've chosen to have an active life, I'm a 'doer', and things will probably never. slow. down. for. me. If I wasn't traveling I'm sure I'd be running around doing something else. So, it's time for me to stop waiting for things to calm down and instead find a way to not let the business in my life overtake me.

I really think that for the next few months, perhaps the next year, I need to do some major simplification of my life. Finishing my dissertation, yoga/meditation, friendships, and preparing for the next phase of my life. And that's it.