What being brown does for me

I'm sorry to say that the hassles of doing business in Nairobi -- or more accurately, trying to do business -- are getting to me. After three weeks of sweating and cursing, we finally got an Internet connection in the office, so now, for $70/month, we can conduct business at roughly one-tenth the speed of the cybercafe across the street, which charges less than $1 per hour (and has a better soundtrack). Whatever, I call it a victory.

It's the end of the month, so time to ship off the expense reports to the home office. I had Eric run down to the FedEx office with the envelope, but he came back a few minutes later still holding it. Apparently, the FedEx people didn't let him send a package marked, "Bill to Recipient." He suggested I go down there and try, and used the Swahili word for "white person." "They will probably do it for a mzungu," he said.

He was right. I was there and back in 10 minutes, package sent, no problem. Eric just laughed. "They only need to hear the mzungu voice," he said. I laughed at the idea of me being a white person, but you also have to wonder about the screwiness of a society that doesn't trust its own people. Kenya used to be a stable country on the way to prosperity, but its leaders looted the people so bad that petty crime has become a way of life. And we expense-account expats, with our need for high-speed Internet and overnight international mail service, are among the few things still keeping the economy going.

Well, I've just glossed over some pretty serious stuff that's probably a lot more complicated than two sentences. Sorry. It's the end of the week for me -- tomorrow I'm off to Cape Town to visit Bhargavi in the Paris of Africa (she loves when I call it that). Expect pictures next week of glistening beaches, upscale shopping and dining, and mzungus galore.

Conspiracy theorists

Before I go, Chris Dufresne writes in the L.A. Times today about Saturday's USC-Arizona State game and notes "eerie" parallels with a game in 1996, when then-unbeatable Nebraska was upset on the road by ASU (and one Jake Plummer), 19-0. Apparently Nebraska was trying to become the first school to win three national titles in a row (so is SC), Nebraska came in with a 26-game winning streak (SC's is 25), Nebraska was coached by Tom Osborne and ASU has an assistant with the same name, etc.

Yeah, and Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln, and they both got shot by guys with three names, who themselves got shot by guys with two, and I still say USC rolls, 38-17.