This was a special day, in which our former Whitworth student Moses Pulei came to visit us. Moses is one of the most complexly busy individuals I have ever known. He’s connected and to involved with international businesses and the governments of several African countries, most obviously Tanzania, Kenya, and South Sudan. He has recently extracted himself from negotiating millions of dollars in food aid for South Sudan since to do so would have meant he’d have to bump back 50% of the budget to Sudanese officials. For $500 million, that’s a huge chunk of money going to government sycophants instead of starving children.
Moses had said he’d arrive at 11:00, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen, and I was right. However, this time the delay was the fault of a piki-piki (motorcycle taxi) driver who ran into a cow and caused a big jam on the road coming into town. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt—not even the cow—and all was cleared up in just over an hour. So we had a couple hours to catch up with each other before going to lunch at Picasso’s. John has somehow brokered a connection between an American businessman and Moses for the sale of corn to be shipped to Kenya. I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember Moses saying it would be 90,000 tons. How in the heck did John know someone who could do that?
 |
| Moses Pulei, Ph.D. |
 |
| Masai Moses choosing a goat for dinner. |
John also would like Moses to set up a meeting for him with another former student, Alfred Mutua, who is now the governor of Machakos County, Kenya. Alfred has just announced that he will run for president in 2022, which is a very credible candidacy as he is extremely popular as a governor. (https://citizentv.co.ke/news/im-still-in-the-2022-presidential-race-says-governor-mutua-192218/) John plans it be in Nairobi for the first part of next week, and he’d like to see Alfred if possible. We’ll see.
Mama Kundayo reappeared and sent us a dish of chicken stew. I went out to talk with her and learned that she had spent Tuesday and Wednesday at a cousin’s funeral. Somehow that led Mama to her usual criticism of African men being unfaithful bastards. According to her, African men are no good because they have a main wife in town and then other “wives” and children in different villages. All the wives usually ignore each other because, if any jealousy or rivalry is shown, it could lead to poisoning or very bad witchcraft. When such a man dies, the legal, main wife inherits from him, and the other wives and children are left destitute. “No good,” says Mama. Papa Kundayo still lives in the family compound, but we never ever see him anymore, so maybe he has become persona non grata because of bad behavior.
While we were talking, Mama decided that John and I needed ugali to go with the chicken stew, so she yelled her order to the kitchen staff. That meant that John and I had a pretty complete meal. John steamed some broccoli, sliced an avocado, and we were ready to eat. For dessert, we had a perfect mango on vanilla ice cream. Life can be wonderful.
No comments:
Post a Comment