In the afternoon we came back to the hotel for a bit. I thought a lot about what had just happened and prayed for clarity… while washing my trousers in the basin. They were dry in plenty of time for dinner at the Carnivore restaurant, which is apparently in the world’s top 50. They start off by bringing you soup and salad, then they bring everyone a hot cast iron plate and start coming around with big skewers of meat and sliding a piece onto your plate. They keep coming until you surrender by putting the flag down. I had lamb, beef, chicken, ostrich meatballs, turkey and a sausage, but declined the pork and crocodile.
Dinner at Carnivore's
Earlier in the day while driving in the van we had come up with some ‘awards’ for everybody. After Paul said a speech Frances and I read them out, and I think most people appreciated them.
Most improved bargainer – Joy
Best prepared – Di
Best attendance – Marilyn and Bryan
Most cheerful traveller – Colleen
Man with the shortest stick – Vern
Best behaviour – Jean
Best packed traveller – Frances
Most decorative – Kate
Best team players – Ian and Beryl
Most creative – Bridget
Best Maasai jumper and daraja la kwanza kiswahili award – Sam
Did not complete – Neville
Man of the match – Paul
(Sam got two ‘awards’ as a kind of payback – earlier in the week he had been showing off by coming out with a new Swahili phrase every day. I’d picked up a phrase book in Sydney and between Paul and I decided to play a practical joke on him. On a piece of paper I wrote, ‘I had a nice time’ and ‘Nina uyabisi wa tumbo’, with the intention he would get up in front of everyone in Emali and say it. It actually means ‘I have constipation’. He didn’t actually do it, because his child’s translator told him it wasn’t right – which is probably a good thing in hindsight. Anyway it would seem he wasn’t told what it actually meant, because when we revealed all he said ‘Ok, this is war’ and later must have asked the drivers for phrases, and started saying ‘Bridget yada yada’, ‘Paul yada yada’. I figured it was time to call it quits so consulted the book on how to say ‘you too’ (na wewe) if he said it to me, or ‘him too’ (na yeye) if he said it to someone else.
Anyway that’s the background to the daraja la kwanza kiswahili award. Which again is a kind of joke, but perhaps a Biblical one, to bless when you are cursed. It means ‘first class Swahili’.
Postscript: At the end of the trip Sam told me what it was he was saying: ‘Bridget doesn’t understand what I’m saying.’)
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