Qatar + Kenya 卡塔尔和肯尼亚

非文

8/30/2023

小娄游世界第三十篇。原文链接：lucidlunacy.org 网页链接

Like I mentioned in the last post, this is mainly going to be photos and commentary. I was in Qatar for a one day layover before heading off to Kenya, mainly because Qatar offers extremely cheap luxury hotels for those on short term stopovers and I was curious to see what they were like. It was nice, but mostly reinforced my earlier feeling that I don’t place much value on how nice my accommodations are – certainly not enough to pay full price for a hotel like this.

正如我在上一篇文中提到的，后面这些发文主要是照片和评论。在前往肯尼亚之前，我在卡塔尔停留了一天，主要是因为卡塔尔为那些短期停留的人提供了非常便宜的豪华酒店，我很想知道它们是什么样子。说实话真的很好，但是也同时验证了我之前的感觉，即我不太重视住宿的奢华——当然更不会为这样的酒店支付全价。

You know the blast of hot air you feel when you open an oven for the first time after baking something? Qatar felt like that, but constant and from all directions. 你知道烘焙后第一次打开烤箱时感受到的炽热吗？卡塔尔就是这种感觉，而且自始至终，始终如一，全方位。

The Souq Waqif, a traditional marketplace. It was an interesting blend of raw materials (e.g. shops selling bolts of cloth) and luxury goods (e.g. jewelers), perhaps reflecting the heterogeneity of a culture which rose so rapidly and unequally to wealth. Souq Waqif，一个传统市场。这里既卖原材料（例如出售布料的商店）也卖奢侈品（例如珠宝商），有趣组合，也许反映了一种文化与财富如此迅速和不平等地上升的奇特现象。

Fun story: I didn’t realize US citizens needed visas to enter Kenya (and, Kenya being one of the working legs of my trip, it was the one place for which I didn’t check visa requirements in advance). So I ended up applying for my visa to Kenya while on my flight to Kenya, which was a rather nerve-wracking experience – I have no idea what I would have done if I didn’t get it in time, since I was coming from Qatar, another country for which I did not have the necessary visa to stay for more than a day or two. But it worked out in the end; I got my approval right before they checked.

趣闻：我没有意识到美国公民需要签证才能进入肯尼亚（而且，肯尼亚是我旅行的工作程之一，而我没有提前检查签证要求）。因此，我最终在飞往肯尼亚的航班上申请了去肯尼亚的签证，这是一次相当刺激的经历——我不知道如果我没有及时拿到签证，我会怎么做，因为我来自卡塔尔，另一个国家，没有必要签证的话我只能过境停留一两天。好在签证及时到达，在进入安检口之前，我终于拿到了批准。

Servants toting wheelbarrows followed people around the marketplace, carrying their purchases. 推着手推车的仆人在市场上跟着主人，替他们拿着他们买的东西。

Signs in Qatar depicted people wearing thobes and hijabs instead of the usual stick figures, which I thought was funny. 卡塔尔的标志是戴着托布和头巾的人像，而不是通常的棍子人像，很有趣。

My boss came to Kenya as well to work with me on a moonshot research project, which was a lot of fun but also a ton of work. I was pretty exhausted by the end of the month, though.

我的老板也来到肯尼亚，和我一起完成一个＂登月＂研究项目，工作量很大，也很有趣。到月底的时候，我已经筋疲力尽了。

One of my coworkers carrying food back to our office. Kenyan food (or at least Nairobi food) has a lot in common with Indian food – lots of curries, flatbreads, and the like. 我的一个同事把食物带回办公室。肯尼亚食物（或至少是内罗毕食物）与印度食物有很多共同点——很多咖喱、软饼等。

My boss buying a coconut from a roadside vendor. There are a lot of these fruit carts on the streets. 我老板在路边小摊买了一个椰子。街上有很多这样的水果车。

Like Florence, I think Kenya is a place for organized tourism – it’s probably to come here as part of a tour group with a preplanned itinerary and knowledgeable guides to show you around. That’s for a lot of reasons – the country isn’t particularly safe, there’s a lot of corruption, and walking around isn’t that nice. There’s not a lot to explore and discover – mostly you’ll razor wire-topped walls and construction buildings. That said, it’s also a very rapidly developing country, so the more business- or investment-savvy seem to all be very excited by Kenya.

像佛罗伦萨一样，我认为肯尼亚是个很适合旅游团的旅游胜地——它可能会作为一个旅游团行程之一来到这里，有一个预先计划的行程和知识渊博的导游带你参观。这有很多原因——这个国家不是特别安全，有很多腐败，自己一个人到处走不那么安全。没有太多可以探索和发现的东西——大多数情况下，你看到的是铁丝网围着墙壁和建筑。也就是说，它也是一个非常快速发展的国家，因此商人企业或投资的人似乎都对肯尼亚非常感兴趣。

Sheet metal being used as a fence。 金属板被用作栅栏。

A ramshackle restaurant at the roadside. Kenya’s inequality puts even the US to shame – these structures exist alongside Mercedes S-classes and luxury high-rises. 路边的一家摇摇欲坠的餐厅。肯尼亚财富的不均甚至更甚于美国——这些建筑与梅赛德斯S级和豪华高层建筑并肩而存。

Nyama Choma, an African specialty and one of the better meals I had there. You walk into this open air market lined with grills on which huge hunks of mutton and beef are grilling. Immediately, you’re surrounded by vendors offering you samples, and after tasting to your hearts content you point at the cut you want. Sit down, and a few minutes later they’ll bring you your hunk of meat, cut it, and season it right at your table. Delicious! Nyama Choma，非洲特色菜，也是我在那里吃过的比较好的饭菜之一。这个露天市场摆放着烤架，上面烤着大块的羊肉和牛肉。一走进市场，你周围立刻围满为你提供样品的小贩，在尽情品尝后，你就指出想要的那块肉。坐下，几分钟后，他们会把大块肉带给你，切开，然后就在你的面前调味。美味！

Nice market near our office. The vendors will very aggressively proposition you (or maybe it was because I was a foreigner). 我们办公室附近有个不错的市场。摊主会非常积极地向你推销（或者可能是因为我是外国人）。

One of the famous cultural idiosyncrasies of Nairobi is the matatus – colorfully decorated, privately run shuttle services which defy all traffic regulations and race along while blasting music at near deafening volume. 内罗毕著名的文化特质之一是马塔图——色彩缤纷的装饰，私人运营的小巴士，无视所有交通法规，一边飞驰，一边以近乎震耳欲聋的音量播放音乐。

My coworkers and I going for a matatu ride. Everything about using a matatu is a bit disoragnized – the drivers have set routes but sometimes decide to take different ones, they have no schedule because they’ll wait for the matatu to be full before leaving, sometimes they’ll decide to go home early and tell everyone to get off, the bus doesn’t come to a complete stop when picking up/dropping off… It’s a unique cultural experience. 我和同事搭乘马塔图。关于乘坐马塔图的一切都有点混乱——司机已经设定了路线，但有时决定走不同的路线，他们没有时间表，因为他们在离开之前会等待马塔图满员，有时他们会决定早点回家，告诉大家下车，车在上下人时也不会完全停下来......这是一种独特的文化体验。

Matatu with its lights blazing at 5 AM. 凌晨五点的马塔图彩灯闪烁

My boss took me to a cool artist collective in Nairobi. This is a sculpture at the entrance. 我老板带我去了内罗毕的一个很酷的艺术展。这是入口处的一座雕塑。

One of the artist studios in the collective. 艺术中心的工作室之一。

There were a bunch of chickens running around the artist collective. This rooster, if you look closely, is walking on top of a hen. The hen has not yet realized that there is a talon on its back, but in a second or two it will realize and be quite unhappy. 艺术中心的周围有一堆鸡在奔跑。如果你仔细看，这只公鸡正踩在一只母鸡上。母鸡还没有意识到背上有一双爪子，但一两秒钟后，它就发现了并且非常生气

Colorful dragonfly in the forest preserve. 森林保护区里五颜六色的蜻蜓。

There’s not a lot of nature in Nairobi, but there is one forest preserve which has been maintained against the odds. This was a waterfall in the preserve, which is a massive tourist highlight because of how rare nature is in the city. 内罗毕没有太多的自然景观，但有一个森林保护区维护得很不错。这是保护区的一个瀑布，这是一个当地的旅游亮点，因为城市里的自然风光非常罕见。

Butterfly resting. The butterflies in Nairobi were different from those I’ve seen elsewhere in that they rest with their wings open, making them much easier to photograph! 休息时的蝴蝶。内罗毕的蝴蝶与我在其他地方看到的不同，它们张开翅膀休息，更适合拍照！

非文的话：

小娄同学回归正常上班族生活大约一个月了。感觉他还挺适应的，除了第一个星期因为时差每天早上五点钟就起床。于是，清晨的第一缕阳光中，我总会被空气中弥漫的煎蛋香味唤醒。谁呀？原来儿子因为时差晚餐时一般都没有味口，早早就睡觉，早上早早醒来时就感觉饥肠辘辘，于是就起来自己煎鸡蛋吃😆😆。现在已经闻不到煎蛋的香味了。不然每天早上六点在食物香气中挣扎是起床还是继续回笼还真不是件容易的事儿！

这篇文章比较短，让我翻译起来轻松不少。这个周末是Labor Day 长周末，也许儿子会把动物大迁徙的文发出来？期待中…