My New Year's Eve began prematurely thanks to an idiot of a bird. My hatred for cockerels has now far surpassed my hatred for barking dogs. This cockerel in particular was positioned outside my motel room and was so stupid that he started spouting his mouth off not from sunrise at 6am (which would be fair enough) oh noooo, this cockerel saw me turn the light on very briefly at 3:15am as I nipped to the toilet quick and for some reason he thought that was his cue to begin his day of screaming every 5 minutes until the others joined in at their usual start of 6am!
My day of relaxing finally got into the swing of things at about 10 when the cockerel decided to go for a walk. At around lunchtime I emerged from my slumber and tried to delay my celebrations as long as possible. The bakery that I sniffed out yesterday was visited again and so too was the Internet cafe. I learnt a new Swahili word today, "mazumbu" it's what everyone has been shouting at me since I got into Lodwar and I found out it means "white man." I don't think they're saying it in a racist fashion as alot of the times its said with a big smile on their face but its worrying for the future that the toddlers shout it before they can say hello.
I am without a doubt the only mazumbu in the village and this brings positive and negatives. Maintaining a big smile and an air of positivity helps people to recognise you for good and so they offer to help you etc. If you don't do this and you're having a bad day and get frustrated then this can easily turn the public the other way. Lodwar seems to like me as I'm trying very hard to be nice to and humour the drunks that have really put me off this town.
Thankfully my motel is a little walk away from the city centre and a lot quieter so pestering is only every half hour not a constant conveyor belt as it has been in other places. After getting myself a good feed, I returned to meet up with the policemen and commence the celebrations. The hotel was preparing for tonight's showcase and there were a good couple of hundred seats being laid out. The main event tonight was the talent show, then there was a catwalk and then for the first time ever in Lodwar...fireworks. Antonio said that he had never celebrated a New Year's Eve and was particularly looking forward to tonight as he had never seen fireworks before. Just another thing for me to take in and appreciate as we are both the same age and I probably held a sparkler for the first time when I was 5 or 6! This made me even more excited for tonight, I was happy to be with people I knew and now on top of that I was really excited for Antonio.
There were a couple more officers that arrived late that were getting a lift back to camp tomorrow. This meant there were around 5 of us all sat outside enjoying a fine Kenyan lager called Tusker. I sat there for a few minutes, did the maths, and it doesn't take long for me to introduce drinking games when I notice there is myself and at least one other person in my presence that's drinking. I started off with the easiest game I could think of, a game that involves counting to 21. It's perfect, we could do it in Swahili and not only was it a drinking game but educational for me. I had 1-10 nailed so I wouldn't take long to feel like less of a "muzumbu." and fit with the local language. Unfortunately, introducing the game was as far as I got. It turns out that these Kenyans weren't really feeling the games and so we were civilised for much the afternoon.
One thing I like to do when sitting outside and drinking is people watch. Africa is without a doubt the best place to do it as you are not just watching their actions but their attire. I have seen some rare fashions and in Lodwar I have seen a lot of England shirts. I know they must travel from charity shops and some how find their way onto the body's of Africans which is great. I almost jumped out my seat when I saw one shirt in particular though. I used to work for a company called Challenger Sports in America. They are a British soccer coaching company and send British coaches over to USA to coach. Each year they have a different style shirt for the coaches and I spotted a man with a Challenger Sports coaches jersey on from my first year in 2006, talk about rare! I was half tempted to see if there was a name on the collar, could've been mine!
At around half 8 we picked our seats for the night. The talent show was supposed to start at half 7 but I think they delayed it until people actually started to turn up. The place packed out eventually at 9 and I was treated to the finest talent in the North of Kenya. This was no joke of an event, the Kenyan Senator (he's 3rd in line for PM) he was there in the VIP section to take in the fireworks also so I was expecting huge things from the talent etc.
I sat and endured 3 hours of Swahili rapping. The majority of the raps were sung over the original song so if the man bobbing around on the stage stopped moving his lips, more often than not, this would not degrade the quality of the performance. It was that bad/good depending on whether you like the original performance in the first place. The finest lip syncing in Kenya stopped for the big countdown. The countdown started at 60 seconds which was also quite memorable and we all turned around in our seats to watch the fireworks erupt from behind the back fence of the hotel garden. I was sat under a tree so we shuffled a little to get a good view of the night's sky.
3..2..1 Happy New Year! I could hear some fizzing and see a bit of light and smoke through the gaps in the fencing. Then all of a sudden the crowd turned around and sat back down again. Was that it? The first fireworks ever in Lodwar turned out to be one poxy Catherine wheel and a couple of floor sparklers. Not one rocket. I was gutted then laughed but then was even more gutted for Antonio, this was huge for him and the worst thing was that the people that weren't allowed into the garden for whatever reason were the ones that saw the whole "display"
After midnight I was ready to tear up the dance floor so was expecting to start packing the chairs away. Mr Smirnoff that had been my companion throughout the diabolical rapping and even worse DJ was pretty keen on it too but unfortunately we were both yet again, disappointed. We hadn't had the catwalk yet! The next two hours consisted of fashions from every tribal outfit in Africa to everyday work wear. The whole thing would've been pretty decent if it was all condensed before they lit the Catherine wheel off but I had to call it a day at 3am as I had been sat down for a good 6 hours. I went to find some food then went back to my room. I was still happy to experience a Kenyan new year but could sense a lot of very drunk Africans combined with no security and was not keen on getting caught up in something that would tarnish my night.
A New Years to remember in much the same way as my Christmas. Different.
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