Midnight Run
We went to the movies last Friday. It's interesting to see the subtle differences. First, you have reserved seating. You pick which seat you want to sit in when you buy your ticket. Second, they have two start times: one for the previews and one for the feature. The movie wasn't on Kenyan time, either. It actually started at the designated time.
They also showed a grainy, circa-1960's clip of the Kenyan flag and national anthem before the movie. Everyone stood at attention while it played. We told some students about it and they said that they had once refused to stand and were kicked out of the theater.
After the movie, we went to catch a cab home. A driver said that he'd take us, but failed to mention that he already had two Kenyan girls as passengers. Regardless, the six of us packed into his car. We were also carrying groceries that we had just bought for our upcoming camping trip.
On the way home, the car started to sputter and eventually died. The driver hopped out, fixed something, and got the car running again. We weren't very worried because it was on a busy, well-lit street in a nicer neighborhood, except the entire car filed with gas vapors and we had to open the windows.
After we turned off the main road the car died again; this time next to an unlit park. The two girls immediately became hysterical and said we were on the worst road in Nairobi. Zahir and I nervously joked about getting stuck there and that at least there were seven of us with the driver. The girls replied "It's not funny! We live here. It does not matter if there are 10 of you. They rape even the men." That shut us up pretty quickly.
We decided to make a run for the nearest building with a guardhouse rather than sitting there in the dark. I grabbed the nearest blunt object, which happened to be a can of beans we bought for camping, and took most of the money and credit cards out of my wallet and distributed it to my pockets. I'm not sure what I intended to do with the can of beans but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Before we left, the driver had the audacity to ask us to pay him for the service of suffocating us with gas fumes and stranding us on the worst street in Nairobi. We told him to go to hell and ran off. We were only about 100 yards from a main road, and made it to safety without further incident.
They also showed a grainy, circa-1960's clip of the Kenyan flag and national anthem before the movie. Everyone stood at attention while it played. We told some students about it and they said that they had once refused to stand and were kicked out of the theater.
After the movie, we went to catch a cab home. A driver said that he'd take us, but failed to mention that he already had two Kenyan girls as passengers. Regardless, the six of us packed into his car. We were also carrying groceries that we had just bought for our upcoming camping trip.
On the way home, the car started to sputter and eventually died. The driver hopped out, fixed something, and got the car running again. We weren't very worried because it was on a busy, well-lit street in a nicer neighborhood, except the entire car filed with gas vapors and we had to open the windows.
After we turned off the main road the car died again; this time next to an unlit park. The two girls immediately became hysterical and said we were on the worst road in Nairobi. Zahir and I nervously joked about getting stuck there and that at least there were seven of us with the driver. The girls replied "It's not funny! We live here. It does not matter if there are 10 of you. They rape even the men." That shut us up pretty quickly.
We decided to make a run for the nearest building with a guardhouse rather than sitting there in the dark. I grabbed the nearest blunt object, which happened to be a can of beans we bought for camping, and took most of the money and credit cards out of my wallet and distributed it to my pockets. I'm not sure what I intended to do with the can of beans but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Before we left, the driver had the audacity to ask us to pay him for the service of suffocating us with gas fumes and stranding us on the worst street in Nairobi. We told him to go to hell and ran off. We were only about 100 yards from a main road, and made it to safety without further incident.
posted by Steve Weis at 11:17 AM
2 Comments:
Steve, this story cracked me up! And I am glad you made it out alive w/your beans
I'm trained in seven deadly crafts, including the aincent Asian art of Canned-Bean-Do.
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