Silver-plated infared BB gun and man in turban

I'm guessing the title of this blog made you double take and click! So I won't keep you in suspense further...

At night, nearly every night, there is a chorus of dogs that bark at heaven knows what for what seems like an endless expanse of time. And it doesn't just happen once per night.

So on one rather sleepless night I thought of how I could eradicate this vicious interuption of my sleep: a silver-plated infared BB gun. Why silver-plated? No reason really, I'm not fond of gold, so as accessories go, silver would go with more outfits (even if they are pajamas). Why infared? That's easy. There are no street lights in my neighborhood. At night it's inky black outside. Why a BB gun? I'm not a violent person by nature. But if you mess with my sleep you might be get shot in the bum by a silver-plated infared BB gun!

Now on a more serious note.

A friend gave me her no-longer-useful-to-her BlackBerry. Never having had a "fancy" phone, I was beyond thrilled!

However in order to use said fancy phone in Kenya, you have to get it unlocked so it will work here. Supposedly the only place you can do that is Nairobi. So on Wednesday before boarding a shuttle to Meru with Judie, we got the phone unlocked.

We got off the bus from Ngong to Nairobi at the Ambassador Hotel/Tom Boya Street stage (stop) and I asked the doorman at the Ambassador Hotel if he knew where I could find a place that unlocks phones... I knew it was somewhere near Tom Boya street because I'd already gotten that information from someone else. He didn't know, but told me to ask the bellman.

The bellman asked what kind of phone I had and then told me he had a friend who did that and he would take me to his stall on Accra Street. "I'm on my way to Accra Street now," I said. "Can you give me directions?" This is a risky question...as you are most often told 'it's just over there.' Which could mean 10 feet or 10 blocks.

But the bellman said, "When you get to Accra street you will see Flush Dry Cleaners and next store is a SONY story. Go inside and on the right when you walk in the door there is a man with a turban - he will unlock your phone for you. Tell him Shadrack sent you. He is my friend." Luckily for us he told us the name of the dry cleaner because there was another dry cleaner and another SONY store right next to the ones for which we were looking.

We found Flush and then the man in the turban and our phone was fixed and we were on our way in 15 minutes. While waiting the other employees in the store joked that the man fixing my phone was now an "international engineer."

There are phone books in Kenya but I don't know anybody who actually uses them. Why would you, when there is a bellman with turban-wearing- international-engineer-friend waiting to assist you?