the commute

The official KEMRI truck picks me up each morning and drives me, furiously, to the Institute. I believe the driver's name is Jenga. The ride apparently used to be twice as long and to involve considerably more wading in mud. Now the roads are mostly paved. We make one stop at the entomology labs affiliated with Walter Reed. They're on a busy corner of Kisumu entirely covered in shoe venders. Shoes are carefully arranged along and across the sidewalks, and the merchants polish them endlessly. One recent innovation in sidewalk shoe sales is the vertical display, a wooden rack that lets passing traffic inspect the wares. Vertical wooden shoe racks have sprung up around the city, clear indications of Kisumu's continued economic resurgence.

Jenga was listening to a popular morning radio program on today's drive, featuring a lone talk radio personality. The personality had been asleep, on air, for three hours when I tuned in. His snores varied in magnitude, but his breathing was consistent. Jenga insisted we listen to the snoring throughout our commute.