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September 8th 2009

Published: September 9th 2009

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beccacw

Kenyan Breakfast!

Sorry it has taken me so long to post, and sorry this post is so looooong. I can’t believe I’ve been in Kenya only a week! It seems like forever already. So much has happened since I’ve been here, and I don’t want to bore people too much, so here are a few things to sum up my stay here, in bullet format!:

-I have black snot all the time in Nairobi. The pollution sucks, and there is clearly no cash for clunkers here.

-one of the first nights I was here, I was still jetlagged and went to sleep early (like 8 or 9 pm. I say “early”, but turns out that has actually been the norm for me my whole week here!). I kept asking people what time it was because I knew we had to wake up early (like 7:30) and I wanted to be sure to take a shower before breakfast. People were talking outside when I was sleeping and I thought it was cause they were all in line for the shower, so when they all came in I asked people what time it was (they said

Our bus

the bushbaby

11:30. I thought I slept in really late.) and whether there was still a line for the shower, assuming it was morning. They said no, so I was like ok, I’ll take a shower then. I was getting all ready and wrapping up my mosquito net for the day, but then someone questioned me about why I was going to take a shower so late. Turns out it was 11:30 pm, not am, and everyone laughed at me and then went to sleep ☺. I am also now known as the sleep talker, apparently due to the conversations I have with nobody while everyone else is asleep…haha.

-it doesn’t feel very weird to be here. Maybe it is because during our orientation they went over all of the safety and security issues all the time and really tried to scare us (so I come to Nairobi and it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be), or maybe because I am comparing my time here to my time in Nicaragua (where the places I lived were much poorer quality), but I really don’t feel yet like I am on much of an adventure. People here speak good English,

some of the group

in the immigration office -- we are now Kenyan residents!

I have hot water in the morning for a shower, I have electricity (most of the time), I take reliable public transportation (where you are just a little more squished than in the US and at a greater risk of theft), my family watches a lot of TV, and I have delicious food forced down my throat whenever I am home with my host family. There isn’t much that I’m doing (at least during the Nairobi part of my stay here) that seems like I will be pushed much out of my comfort zone. I am having a good time nevertheless, and I’m happy I’m here, it’s just a lot more comfortable than I expected!

-the power goes out all the time (and so unpredictably). We were at an internet café our second day in nairobi to make contact to our families, and those of us who were lucky enough to get signed on to facebook or email didn’t get a chance to send anything because the power cut off. One girl had just signed in to facebook, and a few days later when we got another chance to get online, she discovered that the computer had left her

rural Kenya

this is what I think of -- isn't it pretty? unfortunately this was from the bus, so I didn't get to spend any time there.

logged in and someone had changed her whole profile to Swahili and sent messages to all kinds of people from her account!

-people not only drive on the left side of the road, but they also walk on the left side of the sidewalk. When not paying attention I have run in to quite a few people walking the opposite direction on the same side of the sidewalk as me! And it can be scary crossing the street. Traffic is ridiculous and matatus (the public transport minivans) often drive on the sidewalk so you have to be looking in all directions and stepping out in front of fast-moving cars (that you hope will stop for you) to cross the street. On top of that, you have to look right first and then left (as opposed to in the US where you look left then right) for oncoming traffic, which made me just miss getting hit by a bus when I felt home safe crossing the street one time! Don’t worry though I’ve gotten used to looking left and right multiple times while crossing

-There’s still so much British influence here. People always say “sorry?” if they don’t understand

view from inside the bus

they drive on the left side of the road. it is also terrifying to watch while driving because they are very risky when they pass -- often it looks like a head-on collision is imminent...ahh!

you, Kenyans drink tea like 7 times a day (and will never forget to break for tea, no matter how late or busy they are), they say the “jam” to describe traffic, etc.

-it is not hot here. At all. A lot of people in our program (not me!) have gotten very burnt doing regular everyday activities (ie, walking to school, etc.) but we all bundle up pretty thoroughly every day, especially at night. I would say it is in the 60s or 70s pretty much all of the time here, but I’m not reallllly sure. ☺

-During our orientation week (last week) we stayed in Lake Nakuru National Wildlife Refuge. We took safari 3 times, and I saw impala, zebras, (water?) buffalo, rhinos, baboons, flamingoes, giraffes, a python!!!, and a dik dik, but unfortunately no lions, hippos, or leopards, and this park doesn’t have any elephants ☹.

-during orientation one day we were just relaxing and eating lunch, when suddenly everyone around me gets terrified looks on their faces and starts screaming. I couldn’t figure out what was going on but I was already very panicked when I looked over and saw a big buff male

rift valley

on a cloudy day...sad! it was sooo beautiful though. the picture does not do it justice.

baboon climbing in to the room where we were eating…I originally though it was a gorilla, so that combined with everyone’s screaming got me scared enough to apparently leap over the girl next to me while everyone, screaming, clambered to get to the far side of the room away from the baboon. When one of the cooks finally got through our massive crowd to scare the baboon away, he scolded us for running screaming away from it and we all had a good long laugh about what wimps we were.

-one of the program coordinators is a maasai who had a lot of fun during our orientation sneaking up to baboons and scaring them. It was pretty funny watching him do it, but I would never dare to. The baboons would get so mad at him and scream and run away…haha!

-the baboons ended up getting very brave and so one time when only one person was in our 12-person “sleeping quarters” (previously it was a family compound for one of some farmer’s wives and her kids), a baboon snuck in and stole my umbrella and hand sanitizer from my bed ☹. I’m glad at least I wasn’t

more rift valley

there to see it…I don’t think I could have dealt with the fear…haha!

-The fact that I have 6 siblings is not a big deal here…Kenyans are just like “oh, me too”.

-my internship is at a very rural hospital (I think) near Mount Kenya, in Kianjokoma, Kenya.

-someone tried to sell me a hat at the market that said, in big block letters, “MZUNGU”. Mzungu means white person.

-shaking hands is really important here. If you want to greet someone that you know, but they are standing with three other people you don’t know, you shake all of their hands even when you only have something short to say to the one you know.

-There are a lot of street kids at the market (and all around, really). One of them came up to a girl in our group who grew up partly in Kenya (she is a Somali refugee) and asked if we were all students, and when she said yes he was so disappointed because he knew then that we didn’t have much money. The same kid came up to me later, anyway, to ask for money, but we have been instructed

unloading the bus

i just liked the light and the reflection of the trees on the bus

not to give them anything because it “encourages begging”. I am not really sure I agree with this policy, but I treid anyway to tell the kid (in English) that I didn’t have any with me. Obviously though since he hadn’t gone to school because he was too poor, he also didn’t speak English. I was eating an orange at the time (a fruit which, by the way, is green here), so I gave him half and he seemed very grateful and walked away. Later I saw some street kids eating discarded, half-eaten fruit out of the trash can, which broke my heart.

-my homestay family is wonderful! My host mother is very welcoming and cheerful, and always is cracking jokes and laughing at my (not so funny) jokes. My little sisters (8 and 5 years old?) are adorable but the little one is shy of me and wont respond when I talk to her or even really look at me (she storms past me when she sees me). The older one, however, always smiles at me and comes to shake my hand every so often as a greeting when we haven’t seen each other for a while (ie,

some of the group!

cherese, stephanie, and kiah, who i spend most of my time with

when we wake up in the morning). My host dad isn’t home yet because he went on a mission to Ethiopia, but he’ll be home this Friday (he is a 7th day Adventist pastor). Naomi (house help), is really funny and we have come to be pretty close even though I don’t really understand her English accent and she doesn’t really understand mine. She promises to make me an excellent cook of Kenyan food (surprisingly similar to Greek food) by the time I return!

-we pray quite a few times during the day with my host family, which is really nice. At night we sing at least two religious songs before we pray to go to sleep. I am almost always just singing words to my own tune, because no one bothers to teach me the tune to the song before we start singing.

-Kenyans hand wash their clothes just like Nicaraguans, but they do so in a surprisingly different way (ie, no serrated board to rub the clothes agains). I had no idea there were so many styles to handwashing clothes.

-I take matatus (minivans) and buses to and from school, or walk about 1.5 hours

tree at sunset

in the compound where we stayed for orientation

each way. The first matatu I ever took was deafeningly loud because it was blasting American rap music. It also had 3 tv screens showing the accompanying music video, which I didn’t really expect in a supposedly poor ($) country. My seat was really the seat of the guy who collects money during the ride, so he was basically sitting on my lap the whole ride. I had a lot of fun despite all of these shortcomings (and the fact that the matatus are the site of most petty theft…) and I look forward to riding matatus all over Nairobi!

-My matatu driver today was so impatient at the traffic that he took to driving (more like speed racing) down the sidewalk which also had quite a few pedestrians. I was kind of scared but it was also kind of fun because we were beating all the traffic. If a (probably corrupt) policeperson saw him though…he would have been arrested and all of us passengers probably would have had to walk the rest of the way to wherever we were going (matatus are almost always packed to the brim with people at that time of morning).

-ill post