London

London was alright. I’ve been there before for about a month, so I didn’t feel the need to go out and see anything. I did a bunch of wandering around, trying to randomly stray upon cool places. Found a couple, but mostly it was cold and rainy, I had this heavy backpack on, and I felt very self conscious of being an obvious tourist. Stayed on a stranger’s couch, through Couch-Surfing. Good idea in practice; in experience, slightly less so. One day I will write about it, but I don't feel like having explaining that complicated and mostly negative experience on only my second post.

Anyway, I made my flight to Nairobi, another red eye. Met a bunch of English blokes, mostly in their mid twenties, all white, who were going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to benefit a charity of their choice. The guy I was sitting next to chose an organization that trains guide dogs. I tried to ask him how it worked, exactly, and I still don’t understand. How does flying to another country and spending 9 days climbing a mountain, with guides and gear and, no doubt, staying at some fairly nice hotels before hand and after, raise any money at all? I suppose you get sponsored by asking friends and family. Then the remaining money, after expenses, goes to the charity. It seems like a round-about way of doing things. And more about that “feel good” feeling than contributing to any real cause. Also it is worth mentioning that none of these charities in anyway benefitted Kenya, or the people living around Nairobi, or the people these Brits were taking advantage of for their grand, pre-planned, exotic African adventure. Even “Race for the Cure” seems better to me than this.

Later on I asked my friend Stellah if she had even climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, even though I was pretty sure I knew the answer: “No, Kenyans don’t do that.” A.k.a., only rich white people do.