Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

Yehaw!!!!  Marsabit's heavy emphasis on the cattle industry really made me feel like I was in an Old West town.  It was great.  It was a day of "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Me standing outside the Agrovet Store (right beside the restaurant)

After having been joustled around in the 4WD vehicle for the past week, to get back down to level land, warm air, sunny skies and a little buzzing town was just one of those aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh moments of life.  We were anticipating having our first hot bath since our trip started, only to arrive and find that our generous host, Stephen, had bad inlaws.  They were actually outlaws in this dusty cow-town who had stolen all of his stored water for our bath.  Ha!  So much for a warm bath.  We each got a little basin of water which was warmed for us to spritz ourselves off.  Hey it did the trick!

We decided to enjoy the day, shopping with all the vigor of ants eating a pile of sugar.  We shopped for and bought bananas to munch upon as we walked about.  When we asked where to put the banana peels, they said--oh just anywhere.  I suppose a goat would come along and eat it up anyway! 

Marsabit Goat

What I pondered as I walked the streets was how good it felt to walk the streets where people of all sorts of walks in life were busy.  Busy sewing, or selling food, or operating an internet cafe, or staffing a bus station.  This town is probably about 4 blocks long and wide.  But it felt like I was home, or nearly home.  For all my appearance of being a down-home girl in the U.S. (yes I work on an organic farm, I eat less carbohydrates than most everyone I know, and I think of myself as a simple liver of life.), I realized I like being in the city, or at least near enough a town where I can go get a pop if I want one.  So, I'm perhaps not quite the earth mother I pretend to be in the U.S. 

When all was said and done, I was glad to be heading back to Nairobi.  I was glad that this was my last day in the north of Kenya where scarcity is the norm.  I was also glad that I had done this northern circuit--for I've seen people struggle with joy and in pain through the scarcity.  Their life is not my life--I would fizzle and struggle up here just as they would in the cities of N. America should they find themselves suddenly transplanted.  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, but it was good to be here in Marsabit in the transition between 2 very different worlds. 

Josie Posing with a Tailor

   I will never forget.  I will always remember what it means to be without water.  Not even a drop.  Please read more about Marsabit under that sidebar page of this blog.