Hustlers

I am rarely hustled while walking around on the street. I expected to be hassled more by hawkers, scam artists, beggars, and prostitutes. When walking around Nairobi, I am rarely approached by anyone. When I am, it's usually just someone curious about where I'm from.

I met one guy named Martin from Somalia that way and had some tea with him. He was a writer for an opposition newspaper and had to leave Somalia with the rest of the staff when the government cracked down. They fled the country on a spice boat that took a week to get from Mogadishu to Mombasa.

Martin was studying to be a veterinarian and was trying to go to grad school at UCLA, where he had a brother. He had some funny questions about America. He was worried about skinheads and wanted to know if he'd be safe in California. I assured him that Westwood was probably safer than Mogadishu.

He also wanted to know what our national dish was, why each state had its own flag, and what our biggest animals were. He had never heard of bears and I had a hard time explaining what they were. I tried to draw a picture and he asked me if it was a pig.

He was even more confused when I told him that bears were omnivorous, caught fish, sometimes attacked people, and could stand on their back legs. I didn't mention that California is famous for its bears, because then he'd probably worry about being attacked by bears while at UCLA.