Sakoni (Market)

Mondays and Thursdays are market days. There were some things that I needed, so mid-morning I asked a girl my age name Esther, who knows English to go with me to market. We walked to the main road and got a matatu over. There were 2 goats and about 20 people piled into one of those 12-passenger vans that was quite worn out (they even have to tie the door shut with wire so that it doesn't open accidentally while driving). It was pretty comical. It was fun to have a buddy to go with. She helped me buy the traditional Maasai attire (pictures coming soon), get them fitted and then other food items. Interestingly, you can find most basic food items: tomatos, onions, potatos, rice, flour, oranges(but these are green, not orange), bananas, sukuma wiki, lettuce..
Everything's slow... you greet everyone, and of course everyone wants to talk to the Mazungu Maasai to quiz me on what I know. But I was able to answer questions well and understand them more often on the first try, which is always fun. They were also impressed with my use of the Maasai hand signs for numbers. So 1ish Esther said that we'd need to wait until evening to get a bus back home (there is no public transportation most of the day). It's probably 10km away from our house, so I'm thinking, I'm finished here, I just want to walk and get home. But everyone keeps saying "etii kelakua, oleng" (it is far, very) But I'm thinking, not really... and I don't have that much stuff that is heavy that would start to make it difficult. It was a relatively cloudy day so my normal deterrent, the hot sun, was less of an issue. But I couldn't convince her. I would just go, but I didn't know the way.

So we begin the normal Maasai just filling (it feels like wasting) time. We got food at a local restaurant, which consisted of small chunks of meat on the bone and potatoes in a lot of grease and chapatis (Kenyan tortillas). It was a pretty good meal. We sat with some other ladies from the church community and we had fun talking about how many kids everyone has, how many they want(Esther is engaged), why I don't have any, etc. We then went over to the local hair salon, which is also the place where you can buy feminine products and random toiletries, charge up your cellphone, or you can come to just buy a cold soda, sit and chat. So we sat and chatted. a lot. Many people come in and out. With each entrance of someone new begins the usual round of greetings and then the sequence of questions what's your name, how are you, and your husband, how is he?, where is he? how old are you? Where are you from? Where are you staying? When did you come to Kenya? Where did you learn Maasai, etc.. It's exhausting.
I just wanted to go home. By now it was after 5pm, with no sign of going home. Soon Esther said the bus was getting ready to go, so we headed toward the bus (I was the first person on, it took another half hour to before we actually left), After so many questions, I had no interest in talking. A man tried to make conversation in English. I felt horrible, I couldn't even talk to him. I just wanted to be by myself. But amazingly God is so good. 2 little children climbed on the bus and one snuggled in next to me. His comfort sitting with me (I even picked him up and held him) was a gift. I didn't have to talk to him, I did a little. But just the loving presence of a child was what I needed. Outside the window, another little one was happily drinking milk right from the carton. She was spilling on herself and the ground, but she was perfectly content with her milk. It made me smile.

The challenge with Maasai culture for me so far is there is no clear end (or at least not an easy one). The bus took us to the nearby girls school and then we walked home. Now in the States, as you get to your place you usually go home, not here. If you've spent the day with someone you continue with them to their house. So Esther came over to our house. We gave her a drink and she stayed for a while. I longed to just vent to Matt, but I couldn't. Plus, everything I tried to say to Esther in Maasai or English on our walk home and at my house, she misunderstood. Everything took multiple tries in both languages before I made any sense. It was just so frustrating. I didn't want a guest, but you can't not invite them in... Eventually we parted ways and market day was over, 10 hours after it began.