Folks, believe it or not, this week was even tougher than
the last. Not because I’ve been devoured
by more bugs, but because for first the time, I really miss home. My adjustment back to Kenya has been slow and
work has been on my last nerve. This
week we had our first knock down drag out fight with our client. The honeymoon is definitely over.
Now, I’ve spoken in the past about the brawls that break out
in our normal meetings. Master Pu has
referred to the activity as, “going to a fight and a meeting breaks out,” but I’ve
learned that these are just love taps like those shared between siblings. Although we all care for our siblings, very
few of us have resisted the urge to knock the shit out them from time to
time.
That has been the relationship we’ve shared with our client,
but this weekend was way different.
First of all, we were all working on another damn Saturday. Now, I’m not afraid of hard work and long
hours, but if you ask me to come in on Saturday, it can’t be just to kick my
behind. I was upset that my Saturday
would be impacted by this impromptu meeting, but you will all be very proud of
the fact that I didn’t lose my cool. Oomph,
I wonder if Master Pu can say the same. J
You see, I just sat there with my lips pursed because I wholeheartedly believed
the onslaught was unfounded (turns out I was right).
I thought my entire weekend was ruined, because I also had
to prepare for yet another audit starting on Monday. It turned out pretty nice though. One of the executives on the account who is
Vietnamese American invited me and two members of my team to hang out with her
for a girl’s day out. First we went to a
restaurant in a nice hotel called Ole Sereni that sits on the edge of a Kenyan
National Park. The name of the hotel is taken from the Maasai name for the area
meaning 'place of tranquility'.
 |
| Ole Sereni Hotel Restaurant |
We sat out on the terrace where you can actually see some
animals, nothing too hair-raising. The entire
time we were there, there were a couple of impalas grazing in the field. I took a picture, but it didn’t come out very
well. I remember thinking to myself;
this is why I came here. I’ve also seen
ostriches and giraffes in the park. The
park and hotel are actually across the street from our office. I could feel my mood lifting as soon as I
took a sip of my drink. LOL. Just
kidding.
We went out to a shopping mall called Junction that I hadn’t
been to before. This was a nice little
mall, nothing like the Sandton Sun in Johannesburg, but cute. Once we walked and shopped until we were
tired, she is a girl after my own heart...she tried on four pairs of shoes and
bought 3. LOL. We were tired and decided to head to her home
for dinner. She had offered to cook for
us. Now, I didn’t mention it, but when
we first got in the car, I realized where our differences lie.
You see, when we went to put our bags in the back of the
car, we realized that she had a large bag of chicken feed in the trunk. Yes, I said chicken feed. Turns out, she has chickens in her yard. At first I thought, who the hell goes on international
assignment and buys chickens to put in their backyard? I’ve seen a chicken killed when I was little
and I wasn’t hungry enough to have her wring one’s neck for our dinner.
What I found out was kind of cool. She keeps the chickens so she can have fresh
eggs. What happened to going to the
store and buying a dozen? SMH. Who knew?
We ended up having a very relaxing girl’s day out. You all know how therapeutic that can
be. The discussions we had helped me
remember why I’m here. The change in
mood has helped me tremendously, because the week is going well so far. Well folks, that’s going to do it for me this
week. I will see you here next week.
Asante sana,
Della Rochelle
Copyright © 2012 by Della Rochelle Williams
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