Destinations - International

BODHGAYA, India — Bum ba dum dum dum, ba dum dum dum. “How long have they been drumming?” my wife asked. “Seems like days.” 

“Surely they can’t keep that pace up all night,” I said. 

Nanyuki is a small impoverished town 50 kilometers north of Mt Kenya. The “matatu” ride there is full of jarring metal thuds and seatbelt-popping jerks, and takes about three hours from Nairobi. We pass mountains of red dirt and earthmoving machines, large cement blocks and workers constructing the new superhighway that will cut the journey time in half. Men with silt-filled crow’s feet stand sweating through tattered shirts in the early African sun. Shovels. Rebar. Bulldozers. Dirt.

Boom, boom, boom, bap, bap, brrrrraaaap! Boom, boom …That’s the sound of torment.

I would wipe the sweat from my eyes if I thought it would make any difference at all. This room, if you can call it that, has been designed to sweat a sale out of us. We’ve been trapped in this art gallery for more than 30 minutes now, listening to Firman, owner...