if you have a pair, you apparently don't care

okay... so i have narrowed down the rudeness in this culture to the following statement:

"if you have a pair, then you apparently don't care"

i say this because the other day lauren and i were doing errands in town, and a boy probably about 14 years old just leaned up against a truck about 3 feet away from where lauren and i were standing on the sidewalk (and by sidewalk, i mean rock-hewn ditch), and he just stared at me.

so naturally, lauren yells at him and asks him in swahili what he thinks he's doing, and he makes the following statement: "she is good to look at", and goes right back to staring at me like it's his right.

now, mind you i'm thinking at this point that i could literally just throw him over my shoulder and spank him for being rude, but apparently in this culture if you have a penis, you can be as bold and as outspoken as you would like - to whomever you like.

lauren though? oh man... lauren is about 5'6, blonde, and one heck of a fiesty texan girl. she knows enough of the language after her 5 months here, to give any man a good tongue lashing. the part that's ironic though, is that she usually gives the tongue lashings on my behalf because i dont know the language yet... so here you have me, a 6' amazonian white girl, standing in the middle of the ditch kinda looking blankly at a 14 year old kenyan thinking "i have no idea what you're saying, but i could kick your butt, so i'm not worried"... and then a little blonde texan half my size stepping in front of me to "protect" me. oh man... it's so funny.

the only reason lauren can do that is because the men here are SOOOO unconfrontational. they might think they run the world and can do anything they want, but if anyone seriously questions that right with a loud enough voice, then they back down.

seriously, i can't wait for the first time i get to shake my fist (which has a fake 20 shilling wedding band on it to ward off some of the men) at an obstinant kenyan man and shout "MY HUSBAND WILL BEAT YOU!" until he backs off. seriously, that will be a blog in its own... not even kidding. it'll be soooo awesome. that will be my favorite day in kenya, i think.