Welcome to Town

Town center is about an easy ten fifteen minute walk from our house, but keep your eyes open, because you'll probably start to notice different things -- things that I can't tell you to look for, because they don't seem different to me anymore, as soon as we walk out of our compound. Actually, I guess that even the fact that we live in a compound with several other houses is different, huh?

I'd tell you that there isn't a lot to see here, because, in reality, it's just another small town -- think Benton City, but with an actual population. But, because this isn't the sort of small town that either of us grew up in (unless you were really born in Somalia and you just never told me about it), there is a lot that you are going to want to take in.


The smells are a strange mix of just about everything, the slightly spicy smell of cooking food, the sweet scent of fresh fruit warming in the ever present heat, the sour smell of rotting trash, tepid puddles, and...uhhh...how do you say this nicely... animal excrement, the hot dust that Eastern Washingtonians know all too well, and a little rubber and car emissions just to add some excitement to the mix.


Yes, people really are staring at you, and no, they generally aren't doing it to be offensive. You just happen to be the most exciting thing walking down the street at the moment.

REMEMBER: Driving here occurs on the left side of the road, so be sure to look both ways before you cross, or you might end up a little thinner than when you landed in Kenya....


A normal shop, like the bookstore we just passed, has everything on display behind a wooden or glass counter and you just tell the shop keeper what is that you would like -- great way to practice Swahili, unless they decide to take mercy on you and carry out the transaction in English, at which point you'll be hard pressed to get much more Swahili out of them.


You've pictures of the market before, so, after we pick up the last of our things at the supermarket (one of the only shops in town where you wander through aisles picking out your own things, and the best place in the district to get western style things), we'll head in there and pick up some vegetables and rice and we'll be on our way back to the house.

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