We Are the Champions, My Friends

Work is going really well-- mainly because of the awesome team of collaborators I have assembled.  Two of them visited from the States this week, and since it was their first time in Kenya, we had to do some fun things, while also working hard to prepare for the advanced workshop.  First to arrive was Julia (pronounced Hoo-lia), a former student of mine from back in the day when I was a post-doc at Lewis & Clark.  In May, she graduated from there, where she was a star student working with my friend&colleague Greta doing research AND was a lead singer of a band called The Dancing Hats.  Basically, she's my idol.  

To welcome her to Kenya, and to celebrate our dear friend&colleague Maureiq's birthday, a bunch of us (including Jeff who was in town from Portland and Jason who is our friend&colleague from work) went out to the Nairobi-equivalent of food carts for supper.  They are actually food stalls, which are even better than food carts because, while still in a parking lot, you don't even have to walk around the parking lot to peruse all the options!  About 25 menus are brought right to your table in a cacophonic flurry, from which you can order some impossible-to-predict amount of food, which you then have to pay for in a series of endless small transactions, while simultaneously digesting your portion of the feast, with one of many fresh-squeezed exotic juice combinations.  It is super fun and super delicious.  This was followed by a late night game of Cards Against Humanity (you can visit their funny and abusive website here, download the game for free, or suggest new cards).  Have you played it?  If not, do.  It's hilarious.  Not-exactly-blog-material type of hilarious.  Maureiq was the unexpected, but absolutely undisputed, champion of our game-- though she will deny it if you ask her.

Happy Birthday Maureiq!

 

Later in the week, we took another break from the grind and wanted to wish my old roommate Nasimiyu a fond farewell (she is moving to Ethiopia), so a gang of us went to my local (The Waiyaki Way Lounge) to check out their new karaoke night.  This was my first time doing so in Nairobi, which is hard to believe because I love karaoke.  Of course, what most people don't realize/admit/capitalize on is that everybody loves karaoke.  Even people who claim to hate it, love it (they just want to be begged more). Live band karaoke (where you don't sing along with a slightly muzaked, slightly shortened version of the song "in the style" of the most famous artist to ever record it, but instead you actually sing whatever you are going to sing with a BAND, LIVE, standing behind you, FOR REAL) is the best thing ever invented, other than sabbatical.  Sometimes, when famous musicians do unexpected covers, I think it is them expressing their love of live band karaoke, with themselves as the live band (e.g., Jeff Tweedy's rendition of the Black-Eyed Peas). To illustrate the point that anyone can and should do it-- on the little slips of paper you use to sign up at the Waiyaki Way Lounge it says-- "If You Can Walk, You Can Dance.  If You Can Talk, You Can Sing."  I, of course, would argue those are ridiculous prerequisites.

Greta & Elliot bringing down the house (center), 

flanked by me & Jeff and Julia & Nasimiyu debating song choices.

Anyway, anyone who knows me knows that I am a fan and has maybe even seen a performance of my signature song (Try A Little Tenderness).  I think it might be on youtube somewhere actually but I am not going look for it and, even if I did, I am not going to link it-- it scares the uninitiated.  Our mötley crüe sang a wide variety of songs-- including a couple of raps which were really impressive (we thought!)-- and the customary array of classic hits and ballads.  Greta, my dear friend&colleague who was visiting sang a rousing duet with our new friend Elliot, and were crowned the winners in the competition for the night.  That's right folks, we ARE the champions.