So I have this truck that's broken down.  It's broken down in Northern Kenya, about 12 hours from Nairobi.  It's pretty much my main means of transport into the bush, but now I'm stuck using public busses and the ever-hated matatu. 

Well, last week I set about to finish fixing the old beast.  I travelled to Wamba with a mechanic.  We spent the next day pulling out the transmission, looking inside it, putting the transmission back in the vehicle, pulling it out again, looking inside it again, and so on and so forth until we came to the conclusion that the transmission needs to be repaired in Nairobi.  "Yay! Another ride in a matatu to Nairobi!" I thought to myself very sarcastically. 

Well, I made it to Nairobi and I even got the transmission fixed in about two days.  That was three days ago.  Now I'm still here.  Why? Because in Kenya they have a saying, "Hakuna Haraka", which means "no hurry".  It's pretty much the way of things here and that probably well explains the guys you see just sleeping on the side of the road as you drive around the country.

No Hurry is a nice mantra when you aren't too excited about doing something, and it's equally useful when you need an excuse to be lazy.  But when you have nothing else to do, it get's really frustrating. 

You see, the thing keeping me held up in Nairobi is that a shop-owner owes me money.  I bought some parts from her and when it was clear that they weren't the right parts, I returned them.  I paid 20,000 shillings - a handsome sum of change around here - and I want my money back.  It's that simple.  So she said she'd give me the money on Friday.  Friday came and went, no money.  She said, "Tomorrow... No hurry..." Well, like the musical Annie, tomorrow is always only a day away and it seems that's where my money is perpetually stuck.  Arghhh!

So I wait... and wait... and wait... pretending to be in no hurry, but knowing that I am in a hurry to fix it and move on with my life.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get my money.