I told Christina I would never do this. I told my parents I would never do this. I told myself I would never do this. But here I am... doing just this: walking down a dark, unlit back ally in the middle of the night. It’s been pouring rain all day. The road is littered with potholes and mud puddles. Every shadowy form that emerges from the shrubbery on the side of the road sends my mind racing. Our friends got robbed at machete point on this same road just last month. I think it was about the same time of night too. I’m on high alert: supremely aware of my surroundings. This is unarguably the sketchiest position I’ve found myself in here so far.
Just a few hours earlier my biggest problem was trying to figure out why the waitress at some hole-in-the-wall restaurant here in Rongai couldn’t manage to get our bill straight. She keeps insisting that we’re going to have to pay an extra $3 because she had to get my chicken from the restaurant next door after she ran out. Apparently the restaurant next door charges an extra three dollars for its chicken. Her restaurant ran out, and I’m stuck paying for it. I may have gotten a little heated with her and told her if she couldn’t do me the decency of informing me that she was borrowing chicken from the considerably more expensive restaurant next door, then she could expect to never see us again.
But now my mind is anywhere but on overpriced street chicken. I’m walking next to a 90 pound Kenyan woman who offers about as much security as a neutered Pomeranian and we’re walking into one of the diciest neighborhoods in this city. It’s so dark that I can’t even see 20 feet in front of me, and while I may not be able to see anything, my white skin glows at night here like a light stick at a rave party. My pale complexion and stupid ponytail are just screaming, “Rob me!” Hopefully my wicked mustache will ward off any would-be-muggers.
Walking back from the restaurant earlier that night, Christina and I rounded the corner of our apartment only to run into a woman who we know well from the community here. She’s sewed up more than a few pairs of pants for me and we’ve enjoyed many cups of tea at her house. Her 17 year old daughter is about to pop out her first kid and we know things have been a little tight for them recently. We get to chatting with her and she informs us that she’s “stranded.” What does that mean? Apparently, after some misunderstanding with one of her fellow church members, our friend has had a hit put out on her. What!?! She’s been told that within three days, she’s going to be found and killed. Over a simple misunderstanding. So now she’s stranded here: Too scared to go home, which is nothing more than a tin shack offering no security whatsoever, and too nervous to know what to do from here. She’s scared that this person might have hired thugs to whack her. Does that actually happen!?!
Christina and I gently prod her inside with us, where we sit around, drinking hot tea and talking about the situation. We come to a few loose conclusions, but nothing more can be done tonight. We insist that she sleep here with us, where it’s safe. Christina grabs some blankets while I string up a mosquito net. But then our friend makes a discovery that undoes all of the comfort and ease that we’ve just tried to help provide her with: she realizes that she’s left her medication at home. And I’m not talking about some melatonin to help her get to sleep either. This woman is HIV positive and she must take ARV’s every day, on schedule, if she’s to keep from getting extremely sick and having her immune system greatly weakened. We only have one option: trudge back to her house to get her medication. Great. If I’m supposed to be learning some great cosmic lesson right now, I concede! I’ll go back and eat at the chicken lady’s place again, I swear!
Christina and I gently prod her inside with us, where we sit around, drinking hot tea and talking about the situation. We come to a few loose conclusions, but nothing more can be done tonight. We insist that she sleep here with us, where it’s safe. Christina grabs some blankets while I string up a mosquito net. But then our friend makes a discovery that undoes all of the comfort and ease that we’ve just tried to help provide her with: she realizes that she’s left her medication at home. And I’m not talking about some melatonin to help her get to sleep either. This woman is HIV positive and she must take ARV’s every day, on schedule, if she’s to keep from getting extremely sick and having her immune system greatly weakened. We only have one option: trudge back to her house to get her medication. Great. If I’m supposed to be learning some great cosmic lesson right now, I concede! I’ll go back and eat at the chicken lady’s place again, I swear!
So here I am, walking next to a twig of a woman, through a neighborhood where people get mugged for cheap watches, late at night, lurkers around every corner, my firsts clenched in my pockets and my eyes bugging out of my head. How’s this for some perspective? My grumbling earlier in the night seems suddenly pretty petty compared to what I now realize is an almost constant reality for many people living here. Sometimes it takes being in a position like this before you can appreciate the security we live in. Point taken. We got the meds. Can I go home now?
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