Kenya, 1993
Went to Kenya on a class trip in 1993. 21 days of riding in vans, looking at animals and being treated like royalty. No roughing it for us spoiled brats!

Before leaving home, I ran down the list of all the stuff they told us to bring: laundry soap, shoes (walking, rugged hiking and formal (never needed the formal shoes or the hiking)), they even said to bring a dinner jacket and a tie, etc, but never needed those, either. But what I did need and forgot were shirts. Just regular, ordinary shirts.

So imagine my surprise on the other side of the planet with only one shirt, the one I was wearing. I figured Africa would be just like any other touristy place, with tons of souvenir shops selling shirts with "Jambo!" "Hakuna matata!" (this was pre-Lion King even). No luck. They wisked us around pretty rapidly, and none of the resorts sold shirts. Nor did the roadside curio shops we went to. After close to a week of me washing my shirt in the sink every night, and it maybe dry by morning, we got to Nairobi and I found a shop. The three women working were very upset at my presence in the store. They scrambled around to find a white woman to ring me up, and even then nobody said a word to me or even looked at me and they acted very afraid. I'm not sure which culture line I crossed, but it was a very strange experience.

Not a horror story by any means, but humans are funny critters and I'd love to know what the experience in the store was all about.
( setimret likes his metaphors mixed, not stirred, Thu 21 Apr 2005, 17:00, Reply)