Can We Pretend That Shooting Stars in the Night Sky are Like Airplanes?

Olturot: not an impressive landscape

Yes, I wrote the title correctly. While BoB and Hayley Williams in America might be singing about how they need to wish upon a shooting star, I’m learning that in Kenya, things that excite me seem mundane to them, while things that seem perfectly normal to me are new and different for them. Perhaps the best example was when I was in Olturot, a town in Northern Kenya. It was night, and unsurprisingly, given the complete lack of light, the sky was incredibly bright with stars. I even saw some shooting stars, and was happily showing my Kenyan co-workers them. However, they were interested in other things. Apparently, Olturot is right in the flight path for planes flying from Europe down to Nairobi. They were therefore able to see an airplane or two flying by. They were all really excited, and thought it was really cool that they were actually able to see airplanes. Meanwhile, they were pretty underwhelmed by the whole shooting star thing.

Similarly, the whole trip, I thought the terrain was really incredible, while the rest of the staff didn’t think anything of it. At one point though, we went into a forest. I remember thinking that it was the first time while in Kenya I felt like I could be back in the Pacific Northwest. Everyone else though was super amped about the forest, to the point where we stopped to take pictures. Here is a picture of Semeji, our security; me; “Uncle Sam” our translator; and Sokotei, our cook, in the forest that was normal to me, but mindblowing to everyone else.