The birth of an alien!

18 Sep 2008 2 Comments

by Ally in Intro

After attending a Board meeting, my boss informs us that our project shall be  relocating to one of the field countries we serve. Excitement for starters…(hey, some of us have never worked  further than 2 bus rides away from home…and all of them 20 minutes long! :))…and then mad panic! My family! My friends! My house! My life!…to change in just a matter of weeks! Weeks! (hey, at a certain age, the last thing a gal needs is to be uprooted and moved to a different environment, with the promise of a single paid-for leave back home…catch my drift?). So now, here I am…now an alien and hence the birth of this blog; to let you catch up on my musings…both real and imagined! hilarious and sad!

Wow! so much to learn…culture shock …home sickness…possibilities….the list is endless…don’t get me wrong, am open to the new experience, adventure, meeting new people, seeing new places, experiencing new things…yea…so bring it on, am ready…i think! [gulp!]

End of the alien?

11 Aug 2010 Leave a comment

by Ally in Uncategorized

What to say?
It’s taken me along time to decide this but it seems like for now, the alien shall be put to rest till further notice. The reasons for this being that,being home doesn’t give plenty of alieny things to yap about…and since alieny things made this blog what it is (and some good days we’ve had, haven’t we?), let’s wait for alieny chances in the future (they may not be too far off…who knows)
so,the reason of writing blogging today, is to tell you that the alien has taken a break. Mark you, it doesn’t mean that the writing is gone, nooo, far be it from me to deny you of my yappings. So,watch this space for a sister blog coming up, which can now allow me to write all and nothing about home.
Thanks for supporting the alien, let’s hope you shall do the same to the sister!
Toodle-loo!

Of interviews!

23 Jun 2010 Leave a comment

by Ally in Nairobi, Work

It’s amazing how regardless of how old we get or how many interviews we attend, this ‘little monsters’ still cause us to fidget and have butterflies in our gut. So maybe the number of butterflies fluttering about reduces in number with every interview you attend, but they are still there nonetheless.

So the other day, I get called for an interview and the first thing that rushes thro my head is ‘what will I wear?’ And it doesn’t stop there…’what will they ask? What will I say? What shall I carry with me?’ I mean, why do we try to pre-empt the entire interview (at times even with its conclusion and success rate) before it even happens, and get totally worked up about it?

So, I go ahead and buy me a suit, and oh boy, I’d forgotten what a hassle that is. I mean, some of us only get suits when it’s extremely necessary; otherwise, we just like keeping it a tad casual. So after the shopping trauma, I succeed and land on a lovely navy suit. Now this suit made me look so good that I was tempted to walk out of the shop wearing it (if only it wasn’t a Saturday and I needed that suit that Monday morning). Am vertically challenged, and have painfully accepted that anything that fits my hips is always too long, so had to have it ‘shortened’ for the perfect fit…and oh boy! You should have seen me!

Monday rolls around and few minutes before 10am (my interview time) finds me nicely seated at the venue with a mug of tea (well, once a tea lover, always a tea lover, doesn’t’ matter that butterflies are doing amazing things in my gut!). The interview went quite well (if I may say so myself… courtesy of the glass of water I walked into the room with, the butterflies had lost much of their fight) and after about 40 or so minutes I was out of there. Unfortunately, after that comes the other tough session of waiting for the results, so now got all my fingers crossed (that and anything else I can manage to cross), my prayers lined up, as I wait to hear the results.

I hope with this the butterflies will go down substantially for my next interview in future!

It’s mid-year already?

15 Jun 2010 Leave a comment

by Ally in Nairobi

Hard to believe how fast time is moving.

Just the other day I was quitting (albeit not voluntarily) the ‘alien club’ on a long bus ride from the land of a thousand hills to the land of…hhhmmm, let’s see….land of marathoners? Land of ‘kitu kidogo’? I can’t believe am having a hard time trying to figure out what my country is best known for…that’s not a good thing! Especially in this age of ‘najivunia kuwa Mkenya’ psyche.

Oh well, that’s not what this page was to be about. I really just don’t know where the time has gone. All I remember is one day I took a long bus drive thro’ several borders, the other a train ride for some fun n sun at the coast, next thing I knew I had gotten engaged and taken a break from the employment scene, and now the vuvuzelas are here! No sooner than I’d put my feet up than it was time to get back on the ‘rat race’ not to mention with a wedding to plan. Whew! Really….is it only me or is this year moving a tad too fast? Who’s chasing the days anyway?

All in all, I thank God that He’s actually given me renewed energy and zeal to face each coming day.

So, it’s June already. I just came back to the ‘place of cool waters’ from a short trip down coast (pardon me, but since I’ve lived here, am still trying to figure out where this cool water is; got an idea? Holla!). For the first time since…well, since I’ve been going there it rained cats, dogs, and I can assure you a few goats in the process. The weather was absolutely beautiful and cool for those of us who hibernate during the day while in coast. Now, if only that was the standard weather, and I’d have my bags packed already…this is not to say they are not packed just in case! So, for two days, I actually didn’t need a fan! Believe it or not! On getting back to Nairobi, the weather looked almost the same as it did at the coast (minus the rain of cos) but am freezing my putrushki off! Place is not raining, but it’s got that feather drizzle which makes you look like your hair is graying! Now this is original African ‘steel wool’ kinda hair…so, add some drizzle and…do the math! (reminds me an old ‘hair glo’ ad J)

PS/ I solemnly promise from here, to be a better ‘alien’ as I pick from where I left off days  ago (it may be months, but to me it seems like just days).

The train ride

29 Jan 2010 Leave a comment

by Ally in Back home, Holiday-ing

I can’t believe that as old as I am, I actually had never taken a train ride to Mombasa. So, major stakeholders decided that we were going to indulge in a train ride as we went to the coast for New Year celebrations. The 2nd class carriage trip cost slightly over 2,000 KES, and included dinner, beddings and breakfast. It actually turned out to be the perfect adventure to close the year! The trip starts with the train manager coming round chatting up all his passengers (and we are talking of a train that was at least thirty carriages long!). He gave us infor on how we shall hear a bell ringing (oh the good ol’ school days), which would mean that it was time to make our way to the restaurant carriage for dinner/ breakfast. Then of cos there was the usual warning ‘keep your valuables safe!’

The bell did ring and we were directed towards the general direction of the restaurant. Now, you don’t want to go moving around on a moving train! You get bashed, shoved, pushed, and anything else you can think of, as you are trying to move through relatively slim ‘hallways’ and jump between connecting carriages. I sort of envied the men as we did this…they only had their shoulders to worry about; us, we had to worry about our valuable chests! Not an easy task I tell you!

The meals were really quite good I must say…RVR are actually doing a good job (not that I know how the previous service was like…lol). For dinner, we were served a starter (tomato soup and bread), a main meal which you could choose a combination of beef stew, chicken, mixed veggies, rice and roast potatoes! Plus dessert…a fruit salad. Any drinks you had to pay in cash. After our filling dinner (by the way, you could actually ask for seconds…believe it or not!) we made our way back to our cabin (the nightmare journey again…that makes you question if the trip to the restaurant was such a necessary venture…lol). Trip back was actually longer…probably because I was fuller and relatively slower!!

We got back to already made beds. We had a 4-bed cabin, meaning that there were double-deckers! Now, what fascinated me about the top banker was the ‘harness’ which is attached to keep the occupant safe from falling off the bed as the train moved!  We chatted our way to late in the night, with most discussion based on adventurous school memories (isn’t it amazing how you think you’ve heard it all, till someone proves you wrong when it comes to most hilarious stories?).

The 24 hr bus ride

25 Jan 2010 1 Comment

by Ally in Back home

Been a long long time since I last wrote…not to worry, I’ll catch you up on what’s been happening.

But as you guessed, things haven’t been that bad, in fact I think that’s part of the reason I’ve forgotten to write to you…hehehehe…well, gotta say am first grateful to God for all He’s seen me thro’.

People, listen to me when I tell you He’s a great God and an Awesome Daddy!

It all started on the 19th Dec 2009 (still can’t believe that  it’s 2010…when I was just getting used to 2009! Where are all these years rushing to anyway?)…so I ventured on the famous 24 hr bus ride from Kigali to Nairobi! Wow! Is the least I can say for the trip.

The bus is supposed to take off around 6…AM! So you gotta be there by latest 5.30am so that your stuff is all nicely tagged and stuffed in the cabin. So we set offer a little later than we were supposed to. Well, not before some very loud Kenyans let themselves known to be in the bus….(men, what’s wrong with my countrymen at times, I mean, do we have to complain loudly enough for everyone in the bus to hear? Mark you, not that these complains are what I’d call ‘valid’…but oh well…guess they were just being Kenyans!) Those are the times you are glad that your nationality is not stamped somewhere on your forehead…well, that’s until you have to unleash your passport! Oh well….so much for undercover!

I had enough stuff to carry with me, hence I’d booked two seats for myself…let’s see, one big suitcase,  two big bags (these went in the cargo hold), then to sit with me, I had 2 small bags (small is relative seeing as one contained all the breakables I had left behind), my guitar, and a bag full of art and carvings souvenirs I’d been given as I left Kigali! So you can see how ‘loaded’ I was.

Our ride started at a slow pace when we got to the Gatuna/ Katuna (depending on which side of the border you are on) border, where we found loads of buses had just arrived, meaning the queues were from here to Timbuktu (well, maybe not the actual Timbuktu…but you get the picture!). It was quite cold, and as we queued, it drizzled, stopped, and the sun shone as we were still on the queue. In total, I stood on one particular queue (on the Uganda side) for over one and a half hours! (I don’t like struggling much, so I guess that’s why I was among the last from our bus to get served, such that the turn-boy had to come for us…hehehe…VIP!). About two or so hours into Uganda, our bus had a tire burst (thank God we were neither speeding  nor going downhill at this particular time, coz we all know how this long distance buses are driven…). This led us to arrive smack in the middle of Kampala crazy traffic. The bus ticket includes lunch and a drink which we were served on arrival at Kampala as they loaded more cargo onto our bus. From there we set off again for Nairobi. My bum’s never been so numb…had to keep pinching  it to ensure it was still there, coz clearly, I couldn’t feel it after it’d been grounded same spot that long!!

Well, we arrived in Nairobi bright and early Sunday morning (20th), and safe, thank God!

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