Fresh from the Bush...

This morning, I was taking care of some business upstairs in the DIGUNA office when Kim Lopit-called for me from the door of the storage room below.

 

“Andi, whoa-ee?”

 

And so I naturally answered back with a booming Lopit, “Yoooo?”

 

This all, unfortunately, just before I realized what I’d done, turned red and scrambled out, muttering my apologies for not behaving in a way befitting an office.

 

Definitely not my only shiningly uncivilized moment in the mere day’s time we’ve been in Nairobi.

 

I’m telling you, we blow into this town with “Fresh from the Bush” written all over us. We gawk. We get excited about dumb things. We forget that nearly everyone around us understands English.

 

Worse, we greet people and answer them in Lopit, a tongue entirely foreign to Kenyans and our missionary counterparts here.

 

Tuesday was two-for-one pizza day at this gas station pizza joint (!!!!). You couldn’t have painted a more awkward scene at the counter while we were trying to order our food.

 

We yammer incessantly. We speak in inside jokes. We run in a million directions at once.

 

In a week and a half, I’m flying home with Kim, and I am terrified at the number of people we will inadvertently offend or bewilder or misunderstand or… bring to hate us. We’re a force to be reckoned with, and I’m not sure British Airways or our fellow international travelers are ready for us. And, clearly, I’m not ready for them.

 

Tomorrow I’m locking myself in at DIGUNA and getting some things done while I (hopefully) adjust to being where I’m at. ‘Cause, the alternative—being let loose in Nairobi again like crazy people… Yikes.