My colleague came to visit me today. He’s been busy recently teaching and I’ve been busy, uh, seeing Kenya, as instructed. As he caught me unawares I was in pajamas at 3pm which set a strange enough tone but then he presented me with a bag. He sometimes brings me sweet potatoes from his farm so I asked him what he’d brough for me. I was surprised when he said it was a tortoise. I nervously asked if it was alive, he laughed and said no. I subconsciously held the bag further and further from my body, afraid to look inside and see my decomposing tortoise gift. Eventually he said, ‘Lizzie, I can really see you’re fearing animals now. I understand now why you don’t keep fish in your house in a tank’ (like all the other Europeans). He reached into the bag and pulled out a carved wooden tortoise box he’d had especially made for me. I felt like a fool and realised sometimes Kenya isn’t as foreign as you expect it might be!
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