Apologies to the vegetarians

With the world social forum now officially over I can go back to normal life. For the past five days I’ve been leaving the house before the sun comes up and getting back after dark. Most of the events were being held on the other side of Nairobi so I’d get on a bus to downtown at 6:30, meet up with Allison and the four people she was with at their hotel and then get a ride to the Moi International Sports Center to get there around 8:30 when the first sessions were scheduled to start. We’d attend sessions and events until around 5 and then catch a ride to downtown where I’d get in line to take a bus home usually arriving around 7 totally exhausted. In the evening I'd basically crash on the couch and watch the news until we eat around 8 and then around 9 head to bed to do it all over again.

The World Social Forum was quite an experience. Uhuru Park where the opening and closing ceremonies took place is just downtown and is used for things like graduations, and presidential inaugurations. Desmond Tutu helped open the forum along with some speeches by other “important” people with lots of musical and cultural performances in between. The closing ceremonies were similar with lots of music and speeches by Danny Glover and Wangari Maathai, a famous environmentalist.

My dad would describe the people attending the forum as a bunch of anti-capitalist hippies and there probably were a group of those but people were there from all over, discussing a huge range of issues. Being on the more revolutionary side of things meant that there was no shortage of controversy and there were a few protests that caused some excitement. First were the protests over charging 50 shillings at the gate to Kenyan’s to attend for the day which resulted in them allowing them in for free. The protesters would tell you that they had to charge the gate en masse to force their way in. There were also protests over the price of food within the sports center. Wilson Hotel was given to prime spots within the gates while a “food court” was set up under tents just outside but there were no signs and few people really knew it was there. Not only was the food at Wilson’s beyond the reach of most Kenyans (about 400 shillings or $6.50) it is owned by the minister of internal security, a person associated with the repressive colonial government. On the last day of workshops a protest was staged by a bunch of kids and youth as well as some adults demanding free food. The people working there started giving free food to the kids, but the adults started helping themselves, even to the food of other customers until the place was cleaned out. As for the sessions and workshops, I went to three two and a half hour sessions today and I’m still processing the tone of information. In general a lot of great ideas were put forward but as usual unless they are put to some use all the talk is useless. This year’s forum did add a fourth day of sessions that brought together groups working on similar issues to create actions plans in an effort to ensure that the forum isn’t just about theorizing but time will tell whether it was successful.

Now for where my earlier apology comes in. Allison and the rest of the delegation she was with from the American Friends Service Committee ended up kind of adopting me into their group so on Wednesday night when they planned a group dinner they invited me along. Carnivore is a must go restaurant for many people coming to Nairobi and as you’ve probably guessed from the name they specialize in meat. You pay something between 25-30 dollars which includes soup, salad, dinner, and dessert and coffee ortea. First we had cream of spinach soup, then salad and then they bring out hot cast iron plates and the feasting begins. Everyone gets a baked potato and then servers come around with skewers of every kind of meat you could want and keep coming until you surrender by lowering the white flag in the middle of the table. Beef, lamb, lamb chops, pork roast, pork ribs, turkey, chicken, chicken wings, chicken liver, crocodile, and ostrich meatballs to name a few. We barely had room for dessert and coffee and I needed very little to eat for breakfast the next morning. Not that that ended up being a bad thing, I’m not really into spam and bread.