well, here i am in kenya.

So I was at a housewarming party for a new ACORD colleague, who has been in Kenya for one month and who has met at least 50 people who were all at her housewarming party. She has gone on horseback riding safaris several times, goes out on the town 3-4 times during the week, has started a non-profit in Kibera, and is generally a very friendly but very driven person.

Anyways, I talked for a while to a Russian who works for the Russian embassy. We talked for a good solid 10 minutes – quite possibly 20 – about Solaris, which I had recently seen. He talked about having been in a Moscow cinema to see it when it first came out, how within the first 15 minutes 15% of the audience had left, another 20 minutes and half of the folks had left, at the end there were 15 people and they were only left because they were sleeping. But still, it is a really good movie. Based on the book by that Polish guy, Lem someboday, neither of us could remember his last name. Good things about the movie. Etc etc etc. Solaris, Solaris, Solaris.

So after talking 10 to 20 minutes about Solaris, he says, without missing a beat, ‘I have made a mistake because of the whiskey. You are talking about Solaris. I am talking about (some other movie whose name I forget – also russian, also science fiction, but not at all Solaris).’ I spent a significant amount of time talking to a drunk Russian about Solaris, who kept touching my leg while making points about Solaris, and he wasn’t even talking about Solaris!

I was then trapped into talking for a short while with a seriously sleezy guy in an altered state (and unfortunately the partner of a co-worker) who kept saying things like ‘if I say Habari yako? what do you say? Huh? Huh?’ until I said something about not having to prove my Kiswahili to anyone, man, and walked away.

I think I’m going to have a dinner or something at my house for co-workers and have it be an alcohol free party. ha HA! Just sit back and watch how people interact without social lubricants.

# posted by debbyscott @ 9:16 AM