It was March in Nairobi, Kenya and I had just arrived from a short stay at Khartoum in North Sudan where I decided that since I have lived in Nairobi a couple of years back maybe some friends can refer me to work in United Nations office or any of the NGOs (Non-Governmental Organization) there . I was accommodated by Giada, a lesbian who my good friend Julianna lives with. I have known Giada in my previous stay in Nairobi but only as an acquaintance compared to Julianna who has always treated me like a younger brother when I was working for Bureau Veritas back then. But when I came back I was told that Julianna is living in with Giada, of course I have to kiss-ass with Giada. I did a small consultancy job with Oxfam Nairobi but they could not offer anything permanent. One evening I came from a dinner with priests, brothers and sisters of the congregation where Giada’s friend Laarnie is a very active parishioner. There was a guest who smiled at me as soon as I entered the door. “Filipino”, I told myself. She introduced herself as Violet who works as a Finance Director for IMC, a major player in the NGO world in Burundi, another country in East Africa which I never even knew existed, and she was in Nairobi for her R&R (rest and recreation) time. We started talking about her work, her family in Manila, Philippines and where she and Giada started their friendship dated back when they were co-workers in the Philippine office of Giada’s current NGO employer, CARE International, in the late 1980s or early 1990s. She also said that she became friends with Julianna when she was sent to the Khartoum office of CARE where Julianna was working for United Nations at that time. Then she started to ask me about my life, my work in the Arthur Andersen office in Manila as an auditor, which university I graduated from which happened to be the same university as hers and if I like living in Nairobi.
Continue reading “Trying to Escape the Bullets”
