Kenya Travelogue - Day 1 (shoulda posted two days ago!

As I sit here 24 hrs, almost to the moment, of getting on a plane to start this trip, I have time for my first moment of “tell all.”

Truthfully, stuff was much more interesting about 10 hours ago, but I wasn’t in the mood! And didn’t have time to write. Yep. That was when a member of our travelling party lost their passport in Amsterdam. Uh-huh. (Stop giggling. It was a legitimate and completely understandable misplacement of a document that was ultimately recovered.) First of all, let me say, thank God for American Express – and I am not being sacrilegious. I truly mean it. I am ever so grateful for that slightest beacon of sanity amidst the chaos (drama, fear, and panic) of lost passports on foreign soil.

(When I called last week to tell Amex I’d be in Kenya, flying through Montreal and Amsterdam – so don’t shut down the card when you see the charges! kind of call – the representative directed me to the international number on the back of the card. She said, Call us if you need anything. If you lose your baggage, you’re covered – call us. If you have to update travel logistics midstream, call us. Lost documents? Call us. Need a wet team, drop squad, emergency air-evac? Call us.
Okay. I could be exaggerating a tad but, that’s what it sounded like she was saying to me. Felt like I had a Marine on standby in my wallet!
And when shinola hit the fan, “call us” turned out to be the best travel advice I had gotten all month! God save Amex. Seriously.)

Any way.

I’m in typical travel gear, which is to say, prioritizing comfort over pride! Though I did buy a whole new outfit for the plane ride (why, diva, why?) but it’s essentially a semi-fancy set of sweats. Ran out of time, couldn’t tame the fro, so I threw one of my biggest headwraps on it as I walked out the door. That wrap, it turns out, is a crowd favorite, with silver and gold highlights over a simple black and grey pattern.

I love being around international people. Yes, there is a bit of rudeness that pervades a good part of the EU (LOL) in certain areas, but there is also an expectation of radical diversity when you are out. By “radical,” I mean, you expect to see not just people of different colors, but different continents, multiple ethnicities and various faiths when you’re in a truly international airport.
I was stopped twice to inquire of my origin –folks kind of assumed they “knew” who/what I was. You know, those kinds of questions that have built in assumptions of the answers. The first, Are you Muslim? High compliment from a Pakistani man in an elevator. That I suppose is the headwrap combined with the long pants and swing sweater. The second, You’re from Somalia, yes? No, but thanks. I tend to think of the Somali’s as fine featured and smaller – but perhaps my 21 straight days of working out is really doing something!

I tend to smile when people say something that lets me know their thought process is basically, well, since she’s clearly not American, what could she be? I get that at home, as well as abroad. I suppose I enjoy those remarks because sometimes I feel that we Americans can be so rigid, so anti-culture, so still so pre-occupied with deciding on a “norm” and fitting everybody into it. It just breeds “inauthenticity.”
On the other hand, perhaps it’s really just a moment for me to be reminded that we truly are a global community and that includes Black folks, especially. And we’re all over. Like cousins. Just looking like each other and confusing passersby.
And that is a good and comforting thing, don’t you think?