Apparently the Silicon Valley is not in San Francisco, well not exactly… ok… so you are thinking, kwani you dint check online… of course I did, but this is not like figuring out where the General Direction of Ongata Rongai is from Nairobi… but the fun has just began 15th May 2011.
Hotel, Motel or Hostel… I settle for hostel, for the simple reason that I like people and I don’t mind being a cheap skate, an image of the movie Saw and some other psycho movies cross my mind but I think, hell… I come from the Muginki country and they never scared me (I should write of the threat I once received from a guy claiming to be Mungiki), so how do I get a cool place to stay, Mkaigwa suggest I use AirBNB a start-up out of the valley, well it worked perfectly, this is after trying couch surfing for a few days, I meet some really nice people and within the hour we are laughing at some pretty tired jokes…. am jet lagged.
I decided to take a walk, am hungry so I get my map, need a local sim card (The cost of a call when roaming is between 120 and 350 depending on what network you connect to, AT&T, Sprint or T-mobile) , well I don’t get one, the Bloomingdales mall closes at 7:00 and my Kenyan self can’t convince the dude to sell me a sim card.
On my way back am thinking, out of every other 3 black dudes I see, one is crazy, homeless or drunk, deep in this thought I see another one walking towards me, he is wearing a Keffiyeh, (That is the white and black Arabic headscarf) his zip is open.. that is disturbing, a tall black woman is walking a step behind him, he looks dark skin, Somali maybe…. Walks up straight to me and says.. “Habari Ndungu”….. this is more than a suprise, I am 15424.58 KM from home, a guy talks to me in swahili straight up… the next 30 mins and $10 less I walk away from Ahmed, as he turns and starts crying, the man now an ex-con, left Kenya a boy in 1982 after a tiff with the brother, now homeless.., running from Immigration to avoid deportation,…our topics of conversation include, prison, Kibera, San Francisco, his brother, Eastleigh and for some reason Koinange street – so how did he know am Kenya.. I am still to figure that one out, he claims it was divine, I am starting to believe him.
I am not sure this is a good start for me, I had hoped to bumped into Mark Zuckerberg but Ahmed, bless his soul takes spot one on the blog. follow me on Twitter for faster updates on my journeys
