Understanding what time people mean can sometimes be tricky. Most of the world uses a 24 hour clock and not am or pm. Here add in that with the fact that locals use Swahili time. You start counting at 7 am with the start of the day. 7 am is 1, 8 am is 2, 9 am is 3 etc until 6 which is 12 then you start over. Levin keeps his watch on Pacific time no mater where we are so if you ask him the time he (or you) will add 10 hours (or subtract 2 is easier) and flip the am/pm. Most locals know if they are talking to a muzungo (white person) the time the muzungo gives is not Swahili time but it can cause some confusion. I had a mix up with the taxi driver the first time I asked him to get me at 6 am to go running, we got it figured out. Today I texted with our Swahili teacher about getting a ride from her husband tomorrow and she texted me in Swahili with Swahili time. I had to have the boys verify that I calculated it correctly because of course they understood it the FIRST time she explained it to us. Curious to try your hand? We will be picked up at 3 and return home at 10.
When we were on our way back from the safari I saw some people outside of smaller villages walking with big home sewn sacks full of empty plastic bottles. I asked where are they doing with those bottles? Since there is no 'recycling' in the sense that we think of but there is recycling in that people use and reuse things. Victor told me they collect them, wash them and sell them in town. Then people use them for kerosene, gas, cooking oil, etc. I have seen oil being sold this way at the market (not store but market). Later we were stopped at a tourist shop (perhaps he gets a commission? He said they have nice washrooms) to use the restrooms and stretch and I saw the staff picking bottles out of the garbage as well. The thing is.... I am now less interested in that oil at the market because I find myself over thinking the washing method as well as what might have been in the bottles previously.
I also now understand why all the milk served warm at the local restaurants. Milk here, as well as many places, is sold in the shelf stable boxes and I somehow imagined the restaurants using this. Of course it makes more sense they would not. I saw the daladalas (small buses, like a van but that somehow pack a lot of people in) returning from town with various scratched up (and dirty on the outside) buckets and containers all tried up along the back and top. I asked Victor what they had sold in town in those buckets. He said milk, they go into town and sell it to restaurants and hotels. On one of my morning runs I ran by women in town selling them out of these buckets on the sidewalk and the buckets smelled a little sour. I saw them pouring them into re-used bottles with big funnels. Back at he hotel, where I meet Paul's classmates for the run, I saw their Massai night guard walking a giant plastic bottle back to the kitchen. So now, as I understand it, when I am out and we get milk we are getting that milk and they heat it for safety rather than service. Only now I wonder about the place where the boys and I found thick milkshakes (rather than the one we had early on that was an interesting take on milkshake: frothy milk, as if whisked, and a small scoop of ice cream)..... What are they doing with that milk since it's cold? Sometimes knowing too much isn't helpful.
