Busia: A Weekend in a Border Town

Originally posted at http://karibusauri.wordpress.com/

We spent the weekend in Busia, where Stephanie used to live, and met up with some folks from Innovations for Poverty Action/Poverty Action Lab (IPA/JPAL), where she used to work. Busia is the essence of a border town: aggressive, trade-driven, dirty, and bustling. Busia also has the distinction of being the location where Jung almost got arrested. Apparently guards frown upon taking pictures at the Kenyan/Ugandan border. But our trip wasn’t all harassment and almost-arrests. On Saturday night we had one of the best dinners we’ve had while in Kenya at Chauma, where we actually ate something beside ugali, chapati and chicken! We also watched the World Cup games (go USA! go Republic of Korea!), went to a nightclub (a real nightclub!), and bought a good amount of dry-goods for the upcoming weeks (read: ramen, cookies, and chocolate), which made the crammed, hot, 2+ hour matatu (minibus) ride back completely worthwhile.