Another Dream

I dreamed of Kenya again last night...
It's so strange to dream about it two nights in a row. When I first got back from the long stay I used to think about it before I went to bed and hoped that I'd dream about it. It was the next best thing to being there, being able to see all my friends in my sleep. Weird, but comforting.

Last night I dreamed that I was on the subway to Kimana. The sheer thought of Kenya having a subway system is terrifying. I can only imagine the things that would go wrong, but last night in my dream, it made perfect sense. It was dark and slow-moving and I was supposed to be traveling with a woman named Mama Njeri, but we got separated. Luckily I knew my stop and got off in Kimana, but realized I had no one to walk with to get back "home." Plus it was getting dark.

Lukily Maraka was there in his white truck giving a new intern a ride. I remember stepping up on the running boards just as he started the truck (the wheel was on the American side, as opposed to the Kenyan side, a small detail I am just now remembering. The brain is so odd). I stuck my face in the window and said "Hey Maraka, give me a ride?" He looked surprised and said "You are supposed to be with Mama Njeri, where did she go?" I told him she left me, and with that, he let me in his truck .

There were a couple weird things after that. We drove through those small street-side towns but they all had electricity. If I were in Kimana, I would've been only 5k from the camp where I studied abroad, but then we crossed through the bush, like we were going to one of the group ranches. We never got there, though we drove through the night and into the next day, but none of us minded the drive, and we traveled companionably through the wilderness.

I'm not sure what fueled this dream. I think maybe it was the fact that I'm nerdily compiling a bird life list and had to start with Kenyan birds (because I've seen more Kenyan birds than North American birds) and I spent a lot of time with my Birds of Kenya book last night. My bird book was the one thing I was meticulous about in Africa, and while I failed many times at keeping any sort of regular journal, I did write the date and location of each bird sighting. I had names of places I had nearly forgotten traveling to: Kuku Group Ranch, Marula Game Ranch, Elsamere. It brought back so many fond memories. I really should get my old pics scanned in and make a blurb book about it. Just another '09 to do I guess :)