Who takes care of lawns around the world...

• Wisconsin:  The 12yr old boy who lives down the street.
• California: 12 illegal immigrants for a 12x12 lawn.
• Kenya: 6 men with machetes.
• India: The 3 cows that regularly wander in the area.
• Indonesia: One hunched over woman with a pair of scissors.

Was almost arrested! Seriously! Normally the western factor means I get extra special treatment... but on occasion, it's the opposite. Had the ultra-corrupt police in Laos & Cambodia but this was all together different...

First, have to admit, when the Cairo hospital staff started me smoking again, did try to quit... but haven't been able to yet. And Nairobi has the strictest non-smoking rules I've ever seen. Even worse than LA! You're only allowed to smoke inside huts in fenced in areas. Very leper like!

So anyway... asked a security guard outside a shopping center where I could smoke & he directed me around a corner. Got around that corner & double checked with another security guard that it was the smoking area. A few minutes later...  a pimped out car driven by a guy with tatoos & two others in the car pulls next to me. The front seat passenger asks me to come by the window. I tell him I can hear him just fine where I'm standing. We go back & forth a few times & then he puts on a hat... it looked a little like a police hat but with the tinted windows wasn't sure. (And besides, earlier that day 3 officers offered me 20 Euros for sex! So not digging the cops right now.) I then asked the security guard that was still there to escort me but as I was getting him the two passengers get out and ready their automatic guns!

Then the harrasment begins... did I know I wasn't allowed to smoke there? No, I was told I am allowed to smoke here. By who? By this security guard. The security guard confirms that's true & but then the police say they can't take his statement, only someone at the police station can. They want to take me to the police station & if the guard shows up, good for me, otherwise I'm out of luck. Then they want my passport... I know better than to show corrupt police a passport, they take it & hold it for ransom. (Normally carry a photocopy but didn't have it.) So I lie & say it's at an embassy where I've applied for a visa. Then they want to search my car. But I don't have a car, I took the bus. After 30 minutes (which felt more like an hour!) they finally say they'll let me off with just a warning.

The next day while waiting to file a complaint against the officers, found out it's a common trick to plant drugs in someone's car & then ask for a lot of money to not arrest them. And... intresting... while waiting to file this complaint, someone in line was there to file a complaint against the officer taking complaints! Sure the complaint will do nothing, but it made me feel better~

TIA (This is Africa) 

Started with the pre-election multitude of Obama signs & on every street, people discussing his electablity in white America. (Really, that's what they were talking about.)  Then the election day... crowds staying up all night huddling around CNN... & finally, everyone jumping up & down & crying in joy. Grown, middleclass businessmen weeping like little babies. And the following day - a public holiday! Followed by a week of the clubs playing nothing but music about Obama & the churches praying for him. Then for last night's inauguration... again, crowds huddling around CNN but this time, the grown men were crying throughout the entire ceremony! Really touching.

And for the ceremony's conclusion, the US National Anthem, I got the whole place to stand up & put their hands over their hearts :)

Like I've said before, I'm a girly girl. But lately it's been worse... & it just dawned on me why - TV!

Recently bought all of 'Sex & the City' & a teen soap too embarrassed to name. (Each year on one disk for $1.25!) Now I'm fussing more with my hair & getting disgusted at the thought of putting on one of the same 5 shirts I've been wearing forever. Even bought a new shirt & priced out Botox recently. So, not only is TV bad for my self-image, it's bad for the budget too!

Never was a slave to fashion but definitely suffered from a designer label & Hollywood injection perfection addiction. But these traits had planned to leave stateside~

Even worse... exactly one year ago there was massive rioting, 1,500 people killed & 300,000 homes burned down. All masterminded by the president. Scared rigging the election wouldn't keep him in power, he had a backup plan - get the police to pay local boys $15 to kill any opposition supporter & create mass chaos. And it worked.

And it's still working. Several respected investigational reports have named the masterminds. But not a soul's gone to jail. Not a single politician’s stepped down.

Kenyans seem genuinely interested in what's happening. Most people know someone who died or lost their house. But the interest is more like they're watching a soap opera... there's no outrage. No sense that 'the system' will punish anyone.

That general helpless lethargy seems to extend even to little things. The other day on a bus the driver randomly decided to charge everyone 10 cents extra. Everyone around me just shrugged their shoulders & paid it. But I bitched & didn't. Not a single one of the 30 other passengers complained to the driver - just quietly to each other.

Why aren't Kenyans upset? Where are the protests? Why couldn't the people on the bus even complain? What was it that has made a whole country so accepting of injustices? Was it colonialism? What?!? I really don't understand...

We've all gotten his emails. I almost met him in Ethiopia... found his faxes lying around an internet cafe. But yesterday... met him! Who?... why the guy that's just inherited [fill in ridiculously large amount of money] but can't get the money because [fill in any random excuse] so he would like the money transferred into a foreigner's bank account. If we just send him our bank information we'll receive [fill in amount].

Thank god I've never known anyone at home to think it's real but know there are lots of people that do believe this kind of rubbish. And for those poor people who've fallen for it, really regretting now not having given that guy a piece of my mind!

2008 was a great year... filled with tons of wonderful, fantastic sights, sounds & smells. (Ok, most of the smells weren't really fantastic...) But the most memorable moments were:

1. Dancing by myself with desert winds blowing my hair & scarf like a music video on top of a high mountain I'd climbed & below miles & miles of red sand dunes in Wadi Rum, Jordan. (Later it wasn't so great when I realized I might not be able to climb back down!)
2. Watching wild orangutans swing thru the jungle vines in Borneo, Indonesia.
3. Having the great archeological wonders of ancient Egypt come to life thanks to Egyptologists I befriended.
4. Playing like a little kid in pouring rain while wandering thru rice paddies in Bali, Indonesia.
5. Hitchhiking all the way from the Ethiopian border to Nairobi, Kenya by telling people I needed to go vote for Barack Obama.
6. Arriving in Yemen & immediately having the cabbie & a policeman pull out their 8" knives at each other while in an argument. (Sounds scary but it 2am & so surreal it was just mesmerizingly fun.)
7. Smoking water pipes (sheesa) in Jordan, Egypt & Yemen.
8. Having a swimming contest in the Dead Sea & laughing to death because it's impossible when you float on the surface & can't kick your legs.

Of course there were tons more great memories from this past year... these are just a few of the top ones.

Cheap hotels often mean seedy. And seedy hotels aren't a good place for single women. Well, except prostitutes. And unfortunately, in many cities, a single woman equals prostitute.

Mombasa's an expensive city... so I'm at a cheap, seedy hotel. Same hotel stayed at 2wks ago. And here's the risky part -- last time some guy banged on my door at night insisting I open it. He didn't speak English, except "open door"...  thought it coulda been a mistake. BUT... talked to a Western girl, on her own, in the last town & she had the same exact thing happen at this hotel. But the hotel's the only one in my budget! So I'm taking the chance. And warned the reception guys that if it happened again I'll go to the police. But didn't tell them I'm setting up my door alarm & keeping pepperspray next to the bed.