Backpacking Part II

I can't believe I'm coming home in a week and a half! Time has absolutely flown, and it's so weird to even imagine being back in the U.S. so soon. It's finally starting to hit me though... This morning I had to say a final goodbye to my host family in Shanzu, which was harder than I ever would have imagined a few months ago. It's so weird to count down the days....

Kari's here though and we're now off on the second part of our month-long adventure! After spending a couple days on the coast near Mombasa, we took a bus down to Dar Es Salaam this morning to check out more of Tanzania. We'll spend the day exploring the city tomorrow, and then head to Zanzibar for two days of beach and relaxation. On our way back to Nairobi we're planning to stop and camp in Arusha, Tanzania for a couple nights, near Mount Kilimanjaro. It's supposed to be absolutely beautiful. Then we'll have a night or two in Nairobi before we say our final goodbyes to the people, country, region, and continent we've come to love so much... It's so hard to imagine.

Well, that's it for now... I'll be back in the U.S. in just 10 days!

Backpacking Adventure Part I

So...it's been a while. And now I'm in Rwanda. I'll start from the beginning...

I arrived back in Nairobi from Mombasa two weeks ago tired and not ready to study. I spent a night at my friend's host family's and then all of us students moved in to this guest house and conference center for three days and nights of cramming, exams and 20 pages of last-minute paper writing. By the end of the week, I was absolutely exhausted. But everything was done!
So on Friday morning I got up early, turned my papers in, met up with Joice (the house help at my first home, who finally left the family) and the two of us hopped in a matatu headed for Nakuru. I stayed with her family in the rural area of the Rift Valley for a night and two days, and it was so much fun (aside from the sheep intestines we had for dinner Friday night). Then late Saturday night I boarded the bus headed for Kampala, Uganda that my friends had caught in Nairobi. We stayed in the capital city of Uganda for 3 nights, but unfortunately the first night I spent in the bathroom of a traditional dance center with my head over the toilet. Thankfully, whatever I had only lasted about a day.
We're now in Rwanda, which is absolutely beautiful! It is such an amazing country, and it's been so interesting to learn more about its history and the genocide in '94. We spent two nights in Kigali, the capital, and then boarded a bus to Gisenyi, a city on the boarder of Congo. We talked to a couple locals and they all said Goma, the DRC's city right across the boarder from Gisenyi, has been very safe lately... so we decided to go for a little adventure. :) So Friday we crossed the border and spent the day in the Goma. (Side note to mom: YES, we were safe, YES, we knew what we were doing beforehand, and NO, we did not step anywhere outside the city or where it would not be safe. Oh, and we won't be going anywhere dangerous again, so don't worry). It was really cool to see the city after the volcano erupted in 2002 and buried most of the place in lava. We saw rocks of lava everywhere, and the city was pretty empty in terms of infrastructure cause not much has been rebuilt yet. The coolest part was walking and talking with the UN peacekeepers from India that are currently on a mission there. It made all my studies on international security really come to life.
Tomorrow we're starting our voyage back to Nairobi though, cause we need to be back by the 14th in time to pick up my friend Kari from the airport. We're planning on taking matatus to Lake Victoria tomorrow, then a ferry across to Muanza, Tanzania, and then another long bus ride back to Kenya. But once Kari arrives, Backpacking Adventure Part II begins!

So long for now... See you all in just a couple weeks!!

A mix of emotions (and pictures)

My host family on Easter!! Well, most of them anyway. This is outside our house in the compound.
The beautiful beach at Lamu island (from the post a few weeks ago).

The sun setting at Lamu island (Mom and Dad, I was walking through the sand barefoot on my cell phone with you guys when I took this picture... remember??)

The beach on the northern coast of Mombasa on Easter day.

My bedroom! And blue mosquito net, that's less than perfect, and the sheet that never comes out from under me thanks to the heat. Unfortunately this picture doesn't quite do it justice... you can't see the cockroaches and 5-inch long milipedes. Really though, I'm gonna miss this room. Especially when I go back to sharing with 4 people, including two kids, in Nairobi...

____________________

Aside from the fact that I want to break this computer right now because I've spent about an hour trying to upload pictures to the blog and it's still not working (gotta love technology in Kenya), this week has been a crazy mix of emotions. Here's yesterday morning for example. I wake up at 6:30 a.m., an hour before my alarm, and can't go back to sleep because I'm thinking about all the things I need to do and people I need to see and gifts I need to buy and errands I need to run and papers I need to write before I move back to Nairobi on Saturday. I eventually just get up decide to get an early matatu into town to get a start on it all. Then in the matatu I start thinking about how I don't want to leave my family and my village and Mombasa and even that dirty, sweaty matatu because I love my life here right now, and once I leave it will never be like this again. But then when I get off the matatu, I realize there's a brand new giant hole in the sole of one of my flip flops (which I've worn exactly every single day since arriving on the coast), so I'm going to have to add that to the list, which is continually getting longer. At lunch break I grab a matatu to the market near north coast to try to get a new pair of sandals, which was a huge wrong turn on my emotional rollercoaster. I don't know if I've written about this before, but these are the things I won't miss about Kenya:

1. Getting marriage proposals and "I love you baby"s from complete strangers at least every other day.

2. Having to hide my phone in matatus so that when the guy next to me asks for my contacts I can say I don't have a phone.

3. Hearing "hey mzungu (white person)" or "jambo mzungu" from about every other person on the street in Mombasa.

4. Having to know exactly how much everything costs or should cost beforehand so that when they tell me something's 400 shillings, and it's really supposed to be 50 shillings, I know they're giving me a mzungu price.

5. The old man who has kids my parents age who waits for me on the street outside of my internship and tries to give me presents and take my picture and take me home with him.

Now, this is just what I won't miss about a normal day. Going to the market, alone, as a blonde white girl is not good when your patience and emotional energy is already running low. When guys are literally grabbing your arms, pulling you to look at their items, shouting "mzungu" and "hey baby" at you from all directions, you better be ready to hold your ground. After about 20 minutes of that, I quickly realized this was not my day for bargaining. I gave in, took a matatu back near work, and bought a pair of sandals for twice the price at a shoe superstore.

But that's not the end of the story...

For the past week I've been dreading going back to Nairobi. The city in general is more dangerous, more fast-pace, more stressful, more dirty, more over-populated, and on top of that I have about 25 pages of papers to write and research for when I get back. Plus two exams.

But then I met up with two of my friends from the program for lunch, and before we know it we're talking about going to our old hang out in Nairobi when we get back, and sleeping in Carolyn's host family's soft beds (with real mattresses, not foam!), and having running water, and faster Internet, and seeing my friend Rachel again who's been across the country, and starting our traveling journey... and suddenly I'm excited to go back to Nairobi! But I don't want to leave here! But I can't stand the "mzungu, I love you mzungu" here! But I don't wanna leave life with my host family! But I have 25 pages to write and two exams to study for and no computer! Ahhhhh!

Kinda get the picture?

Anyways, Mama's taking me to the bus station Saturday morning at 10 a.m. and shipping me of to Nairobi whether I like it or not, so there's no need putting too much thought into deciding how I feel about it. The good news is, because my other two friends on the coast have been experiencing similar bipolar episodes lately, we've unanimously decided that our 28-day journey next month will include at least a couple days back here in Mombasa. So this isn't goodbye for good, Mombasa. Just goodbye for now.

Easter in Kenya

Thanks for the Easter posts McConnons! I missed you all yesterday. Although Easter here was really fun too. I woke up late that morning because the night before some friends and I were out all night (bars and discos don't close til 5 a.m... either that or they don't close at all). After my host sister had tried knocking on my door and calling my name, Mama finally sent me a text about a half hour before we had to go that said "hi we are getting ready for church are you okey?" It was funny, cause no one sleeps past about 7 a.m. in my house (except for me, of course, although the heat usually wakes me up by about 8). The majority of Kenyans are Christian, so the Easter holiday is big here. Friday and Monday are national holidays and most offices and schools are closed. My host family is Catholic, so they celebrated as well. We all went to church at 10 a.m., where there were hundreds of people crammed into a church the size of...well...the size that isn't supposed to fit that many people. The service lasted until 1 p.m., with lots of singing and dancing and sweating and more sweating. It was probably about 90-some degrees in there, let me tell you. After the service we went home and had lunch and just hung out for a while before two of my host sisters and I took 4 of the grandkids down to the beach for all the Easter discos. The whole weekend is literally one big party here, with giant signs all over the place advertising party after party. One sign near my house read something like, "Good Friday Party: Go-Go Dancers at 10 p.m." Slightly ironic? When we got there, the beach was absolutely packed. It was like walking through the state fair, but on the white sand of the Indian Ocean with hip-hop music blaring and camels weaving through the crowd (of Africans, not Minnesotans). We went to a disco called Surfside where people danced all night, even the kids. It was nice to be on the edge of the ocean, where we could catch some cool breezes and have some relief from the heat. We eventually grabbed a matatu home at around 9 p.m. because the 3-year-old fell asleep (miraculously, amid the blaring hip-hop and noisy crowd).

The previous weekend some friends and I caught a bus, and then a ferry, to Lamu -- an island off the northern coast of Kenya that's one of the oldest and most preserved Swahili towns in Kenya. It was absolutely beautiful, with over 12 kilometers of beach and old, traditional structures from hundreds of years ago. There are only two cars on the whole island -- instead everyone uses donkeys for transportation. Everywhere you walk there's donkeys just chilling by themselves, not tied to anything, or wandering along the beach without anyone with them. A couple guys we hung out with there said that when they're not using them, people just let their donkeys wander and eventually they'll come home again. It's so sweet how they treat them almost like pets. There's even a donkey hospital on the island! And trust me, that's pretty amazing in a country where it's often hard to find a decent people hospital. After a late night swim one night I rode our friend's donkey named Beyonce to get some nyama choma (barbequed meat) in the wee hours of the morning along the coast of the Ocean. It was amazing. His other donkeys, among them Obama and Shakira, were already at home asleep for the night. It was a pretty relaxing weekend in all, filled with lots of swimming, fresh fish-eating, and boating on a traditional dhow (like a sailboat).

Before I go, I have a quick note for the Bye-Nagels... The other day I was packed in the back of a crowded matatu when an old Backstreet Boys song came on the radio. For a moment there, I almost thought I was in the back of your mini van, squished between Kyla and Kyri and Katie and Krista in Germany, not in Kenya. :)

I've found that the longer I'm here, the harder it is to write blog posts. Everything that seemed new and different before no longer seems so new and different anymore, and it's hard to remember sometimes what I should explain and what's different from home. It's a good thing, really. I feel so comfortable here in Kenya, and more specifically on the coast. Today the program director came to visit me at my internship and reminded me that I only have three weeks left here, which made me so sad! I don't wanna leave my host family or Shanzu or Old Town or the Indian Ocean or anything. The comforting thought is that I'll only have a week to stay in Nairobi and then I'm free to roam wherever I want for my last month here in Kenya.

Tuesday was Maulid, an Islamic celebration to mark the birth of Mohammed. The women in my organization had their celebration on the patio of their restaurant overlooking the Indian Ocean just before the sun set. Because it was a special religious holiday, the girl I worked with suggested I wear a hijab, as all the women there would be wearing one (of course). So that day I dressed in a long black skirt and brought a scarf that she helped me put on my head. I was a little nervous at first, but all the women seemed to appreciate that I dressed for the occasion, and many shot me smiles from across the patio. For the ceremony, we all sat cross legged on mats in a big circular huddle around a finely decorated rug with different bottles and incense and ornaments on it. The women sang song after song, each leading a different part, with intermittent readings in between (that I could not understand whatsoever). Then after about an hour we stood up and a few women came around and poured rose water on our heads and painted scented oil on the back of our hands. I'm not really sure what everythng meant, but I sure came out smelling nice. I asked one of the aunties what the rose water symbolized, and she said she didn't think it meant anything, but that it was just tradition. We finished just as the sun was setting, and then we all had samosas and fried potatoes and donut-type things together, still sitting on the mats. It was really a beautiful ceremony, and it was so relaxing to be sitting outside in the breeze of the ocean surrounded by peaceful, loving song.

Last night when I got home my host mama's second oldest son's wife, Mary, one of the many relatives in the compound who have readily adopted me as part of their family, told me her younger sister was here to measure me for an African dress. Mary said she brought back cloth from Tanzania that she thought would look nice on me and she wanted to give me the dress as a gift. She also told me to tell her when I had about 3 hours free so she could do my hair (she runs a little streetside salon on the edge of the compound). I'm really excited about the dress, but the hair could be interesting... I'm not quite sure what she has in mind, and if she realizes how different my hair is from everyone else here. But I guess we'll see! Either way it will be fun. She's such a sweet woman.

Last week Patrick and Carolyn came over to attempt what is nearly the impossible in Africa: making homemade pizza. It took us about an hour at Nakumatt, the largest supermarket around, to search for ingredients that resembled food from back home, but we eventually made do. The main problem was that we could only find individual dough/crust-type things. And I have a very large family. So we arrived home ready to make a dozen pizzas, only to find that the oven, which mama hadn't used in over a year, was broken. That also complicated our plans for dessert: brownies. We ended up using a round frier-type thing that they use for chapati to grill/fry the pizzas, and once one was on the frier we threw a pot over the top to try to melt the cheese. One by one, we made a dozen pizzas! Well, nine edible ones...three were burnt to a crisp. The real problem came after... no one liked the pizza! I know, it's hard to imagine anyone not liking pizza, but almost everyone hated it! My teenage host brother and cousin, who will eat just about anything, were hilarious to watch -- they literally were almost gagging over it. All the kids said they'd had pizza once before and hated it. Thankfully mama liked it (we originally decided to make it because she had said she liked it and wanted it), but that's because she used to work in a hotel or something where she ate it a lot and got used to the taste. After dinner, and after Mama finished eating not only her pizza but the boys' as well, she helped make an over for the brownies by heating sand really hot... I'm not exactly sure how she did it but I know she heated the sand and then we put the brownies in a pot inside the sand with charcoals on top. They turned out to be delicious, and cooked in only about 25 minutes. Thankfully the brownies were a big hit! By the time we were finished it was getting late so Mama insisted Patrick and Carolyn sleep over. The three of us and my host sister, brother, cousin and Auntie (the house help) stayed up until past 2 a.m. playing different card games and laughing and chatting. It was so much fun. Everyone was tired the next day, especially the boys who had to get up at 5 a.m. for school.

Well, that's all I've got for now. Until next time!

Mombasa Madness

Now that I'm here on the coast, I can't believe that I ever complained about the heat in Nairobi. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, people on the coast call Nairobi COLD! And Nairobi weather I'd say is comparable to midwest summers. I had been warned it would be hot here, but I had no idea how hot and humid and unrelenting it is. We usually "shower" (bucket bath... remember the no running water part?) twice a day just to wash off the sweat. Then as soon as you dry yourself, you start sweating again! And fans are few and far between. We have one in our main room, but that's it (and don't even ask about air conditioning). It's a good sign that it's hot if Kenyans complain about the heat -- in Nairobi you'd walk down the street in a tank top and capris and pass by Kenyan after Kenyan in full suits and long pants and long sleeves and sometimes even jackets! It's unbelievable. Even more unbelievable is that, amidst all the heat, people continue to drink hot tea throughout the day! At my house we drink it at least twice a day, steaming hot tea made with whole milk instead of water, and lots of sugar. Not to mention the fact that all meals three meals a day are hot as well. The food is good at my new house though, which is nice considering the quanities they like to serve me. :)

Life at my internsihp is, once again, a whole separate world. I work at an organization called Old Town Development Forum (Jumbe) and, as its name suggests, it operates in an area of Mombasa called Old Town where all the buildings are protected historical structures from the Portugese and Arabs centuries ago. It definitely has more of an old, small-town feel to it, although it is nevertheless always bustling with activity. Much of Old Town is occupied by Muslims, and therefore most of the women my organization serves cover themselves completely, some even covering their whole face but their eyes. I have no idea how they survive in the heat. The woman I spend most of my time with is Asha, who's 24, and she's taken me to her house several times for lunch (which is about a 2 to 2 1/2 hour break here). She, however, has gone to the upstairs apartment to cook for her uncle and left me with all her aunties and cousins and periodic guests downstairs. It's been really fun, and interesting, to get to know these women and how they live. Lunch is great, and very filling, and all the women eat with their hands (well, one hand), which is very common on the coast. As for work itself... I don't know if you could really call what I've been doing work. There hardly seems to be anything for Asha -- basically the only person who ever comes into the office -- to do, much less work for me. For now I'm just going with it though, and perhaps an opportunity will arise. In the meantime, there's plenty of observing to be done all around me.

I'm still absolutely loving life with my host family, and already I know I won't want to leave to go back to Nairobi! Yesterday I went to the beach with two of my host sisters and brother and cousin and we took 5 of the grandkids (ages 2, 3, 4, 6 and 10), and we had so much fun! The beach is absolutely beautiful, with white sand, palm trees, blue sky and lots of sun. Too much actually...my shoulders are burnt to a crisp today. The beach was filled with young guys playing soccer, people chatting in the shade, and men guiding camels down the shore offering to give rides. We were playing in the water all afternoon until the sun started to set at about 6:30 and we had to go home. We live basically just across the road from the Indian Ocean (just far enough not to feel the breeze), so it was just a quick walk there. The water is shallow for a long ways so you can walk out really far, and because it's so shallow the water is really warm. It felt great not to be hot for a whole afternoon!

Happy belated St. Patrick's Day to all the McConnons! I missed you guys this week, and I'll be missing you even more on Saturday. I hope the party goes well, and don't have to much fun without me! (Especially with the helium balloons, Fran and Cecelia.)
And all you in Madison and Minnesota (and Iowa), I want spring break stories!
Can't wait to hear from you!

The Coast Life

After two trips to the hospital in two different cities for digestion-related issues that all started with bad water (I'll spare you the details), I am now settled and getting used to life on Kenya's coast. And I'm absolutely loving it. I feel like I'm in a whole separate world out here, with its own culture and traditions and people and lifestyle. My host family is wonderful. They've never hosted a foreign student before, so everyone in the compound was eager to greet me upon my arrival Sunday evening. We live in a one-story cement house with no running water, but we do have electricity, which is a plus (although I often wake up to my 15-year-old host brother blaring hip-hop at 5 a.m. in the morning while he gets ready for school). My host mama is a big, dark, African widow in her 50s who's sometimes quiet but very sweet. I can tell she worries that I'm always happy and comfortable and feeling at home. She has 6 children, two of whom live in the same house as us, and 7 grandchildren. The whole compound is filled with aunts and cousins and children and grandchildren, so family and friends are always passing through, sharing a cup of chai or a meal or a story. My 20-year-old host sister and I have breakfast together each morning before she heads to class and I catch a matatu to the city for my internship. We live in an area called Shanzu, which is about a 30-minute drive outside of the city (the island of Mombasa). At night after we eat dinner the family (and whoever else is over) usually congregates in the in the main room and watches TV, chats, and the teenagers and I play cards (the ones I brought from Minnesota) or other games. Last night I was sitting on the sofa during this time and I could see three rats running around the room at the same time. I thought I had just gotten used to cockroaches... but RATS! And THREE of them! When the family noticed me watching them they all laughed, thinking it was funny that I had brought my feet up on the sofa. My mama told me not to worry, that she would "put the medicine" tomorrow.
Unfortunately I'm out of time for today! I'm so sorry to all those who've emailed me and haven't gotten a response yet... My last days in Nairobi were crazy busy and since I've been on the coast I've had no Internet access at all. I'm going to try to get back into the city this weekend to write more though. Until then!

Moses and the Nile

What a weekend.
Within it was both the scariest and the most relaxing moments of my adventure here in Africa so far. Before I jump right in, I'll give you a little background.
A dozen of us on the program took an overnight bus to Uganda this weekend and got dropped off at a random gas station in a city none of us had ever been, in a country none of us had ever been, at about 7 a.m. Friday morning. Having gotten various amounts of sleep ranging from about 0-3 hours, we all complacently (and groggily) packed ourselves into a matatu claiming to bring us to the place we wanted to go. We finally began to wake up when we stepped out of the van about 20 minutes later to find ourselves on the bank of the rushing Nile River, surrounded by the most beautiful green I've ever seen, smack dab in front of Bujagali Falls (I suggest you wikipedia it to get the full impression). After quickly changing into our swimsuits and gobbling down some breakfast, we hastily aboarded our rafts. Yes, we were about to raft down the Nile River. (This is where the scary part comes in...)
Ironically, our guide was this short, skinny, Ugandan 25-year-old with dreadlocks named Moses (we were on the Nile... catch my drift?). It's probably a good thing he didn't start describing all the safety precautions to us until after we were in the raft and I couldn't back out. We rafted all day, and even stopped at a calm spot to have lunch on the rafts (the safety raft carried it along for us). It was so much fun to be in the water after almost two months of stifling hot weather and to just take in all the beautiful scenery around us... that is, until we hit our second level 5 rapid and our raft completely capsized and we all went flying. When you're trapped under a person first and then the raft and then raging currents from all directions and you don't know which way is up and you don't know where the rocks are and you swallowed a bunch of water and you have more water up your nose and you feel like you have the wind knocked out of you... well, it's TERRIFYING! Finally Moses somehow grabbed me and pulled me to hold onto the side of the overturned raft while other safety guides in kayaks plucked up the rest of my friends. Needless to say, we eventually re-flipped our raft and all got back in to resume our journey, but wow, was that scary. Moses said it was one of the worse flips he's seen recently. Overall though, the experience and the Ugandan guides were great --I'm definitely glad I did it. The Nile water is amazingly clear, and in smooth spots we were able to get out and swim along with the currents. It was an unbelievable experience.
Now for the relaxing part... what could be better than sitting on the bank of the Nile during "glory time" (for those of you who know my mom), watching the sun set over the rapids, and enjoying a cool drink, delicious food and great company? I don't think we could have picked a better spot to stay, hearing the rush of the river just about 50 yards away from the room lined with triple-decker bunk beds where we all stayed. Even the bathroom stalls, which were somewhat luxurious considering they were more than simply holes in the ground, had square holes cut in the doors where your head was so you could enjoy the scenery -- literally at all times.

It took some motivation to wake up before sunrise on Sunday to catch a bumpy, hot, 12-hour bus ride back to busy, bustling Nairobi. But, in less than a week I'll be on my way to a new life on the coast! I can't wait. I don't know all the details so far, but here's the low down: I'll be living with a family on the coast about a 25-minute matatu ride north of Mombasa, in an area that the staff here call "pretty rural" (it's amazing how fast things get "rural" outside of the city). I will, however, have electricity, they say. During the week, I'll be matatu-ing into Mombasa to work with a micro-finance organization that gives loans to women's groups in the rural areas surroundign the city. From what previous program participants say, it's hard to judge the quality of an internship from its description alone, but so far it sounds like it will be exactly what I'm looking to experience.

Before I part, I want to give a quick shout out to the Petrons. Thanks for your comments -- it's great to hear from you! Sean, I checked out your blog and it looks like you and Cecelia are having having some amazing adventures yourselves! And Megan, you bet I'm channeling my inner McConnon. :)
Love to all!

Kenya moments

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA LOU AND MARCELLA!! I'm sending you lots of warm birthday wishes from Nairobi. :)
Second of all, I'm running out of time to write but I'll quickly explain these photos!
1. My friend Patrick and I visited a Masai village outside of Nairobi on Sunday with one of our program staff whose family lives there. We climbed up on these big rocks overlooking the rift valley and it was absolutely beautiful. It was a nice, peaceful escape from the city for a day and it was really cool to see how traditional Masai still live. We were literally dropped off in the middle the dry, dusty savannah by our tuk-tuk driver (could be described as a cheap, 3-wheeled taxi) and had to walk about 20 minutes through bush to their home with no electricity and no running water.
2. Typical Nairobi traffic. Notice the random vendors mulling about trying to sell knick knacks through your car window. A couple weeks ago some guys even tried to sell us puppies through the window!
3. My (new) youngest host sister and I.
4. A group of us after climbing up Ngong Hills, looking over the Rift Valley. We went to see the one working windmill the government has built up there to bring power to the village of Ngong. Apparently the second windmill has been waiting for a replacement wing from Denmark (I think?) for almost 7 years!
5. The edge of Kibera slum. My new home is right on the edge of this area (although my actual home looks very different from this), so it definitely has a different feel in the neighborhood. I walk about 40 minutes to school now, but it's an interesting walk, passing by everything from the slum to one of the biggest outdoor markets to the Sudanese and Polish embassies.

Well, I'm off to another big adventure this weekend...
Stay warm in Minnesota!

One Moment at a Time

Before I left for Kenya, my mom gave me an envelope full of quotes for me to read one at a time, as needed. Well, this week's quote was particularly fitting. Written by Leo Bascaglia, it reads, "Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time."
This road through life this past weekend was full of bumps and potholes that I had not foreseen, and yet, in retrospect, I think everything worked out for the better. I switched to a new homestay on Friday after I learned my sister had stolen a few things from my bags, and that she often stole little bits of money from the house help (who basically has nothing) but my host mom never does anything about it. This, on top of my other frustrations with the family, led me to decide it was time to try a new route. The whole move was pretty haphazard, with the staff of the program here giving both me and my host family only about a half hour's notice. Although it was sad to leave the Joice (the househelp), I already went back to visit her for lunch today and we have plans to visit her family in the rural area together in May. All in all, I think it was definitely the right decision.
And my new family is absolutely great. They are so loving and kind, and a lot closer to what I imagined my homestay experience here would be like. There's a mom and dad and two girls, ages 7 and 10 (three years apart like Katie and me), and they've all been really welcoming. I share a room with the girls and the househelp, so it's a tight squeeze (with only 3 beds), but it's definitely cozy. Their 5-year-old cousin stays over a lot as well since his mom is sick, so then there's 5 of us, rotating and sharing beds. My first morning there on Saturday I was woken up by skinny legs climbing over me at 7 a.m. and a little voice saying "I want to play cards," in my ear. Then on Sunday I came home from a friend's to find the househelp and the girls and neighbor kids sprawled on the floor with the Minnesota deck of cards, one of them shouting "GO FISH!" Every day so far I've come home to new neighbors or cousins or relatives in the house, which makes for a lively atmosphere. And there's no end to the food! "We eat a lot here," Mama Sheila said to me the other day with a smile, "so that we're ready to face the many hard things in this country."
Last night I tagged along with my Mama Sheila and littlest host sister to the corner barbershop and got my hair chopped ("cut" would sound to precise) by a woman who'd never worked with a white person's hair before. It was definitely an experience! I figured it wouldn't turn out great, but with the heat here it's hard to keep your hair down for more than an hour in the morning anyway, so I figured I could deal with however it turned out. Once I helped her even out the front (one side was about an inch and a half longer than the other), it looked pretty decent. Rachel's bringing a scissors to school tomorrow, so we'll just put in a few finishing touches. And the best part is, it cost the equivalent of about $2! Definitely the cheapest haircut I've ever had.

There's so much more to write about -- from volunteering Saturdays with a group of children who are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS, to being all but thrown into a classroom in the slums to teach English, to the fiasco of picking up a simple package downtown -- but it's hard to capture life here in just a few paragraphs. I'll try to update again soon!

P.S. I had my first warm shower on Saturday since leaving the U.S. Enough said.

A few photos so far...

The first picture here is of Carolyn, Patrick, Rachel and I with Sarah Obama in Kisumu. We are in the family compound and you can see their house in the background. The second photo is of the rift valley, some of the most fertile land in Kenya. We stopped at a scenic overlook to take pictures on our way to Nakuru the first week. Next is a picture of Jasmine and I at Lake Nakuru, in front of all the many, many birds! Finally, the sunrise over Lake Nakuru, which was absolutely beautiful.
P.S. No worries Eileen, I've taken PLENTY more photos, these are just a few to whet the appetite. :)

The Kisumu Adventure

I don't think I ever could have imagined what an adventure this past weekend would be! Three friends and I took a bumpy 8-hour bus ride to western Kenya, drank Tuskers at our hotel bar with locals, slept on rock-solid beds with cockroaches galore, ate fresh fish fried with our hands on the shore of Lake Victoria, took a motor boat ride to a remote fishing village, saw hippos splashing and swimming in the lake, and so so so much more. But I think I'll leave you with just one story for now. And I'll try to get right to the point.

I met Sarah Obama! (Barack's grandmother, for those who don't know.) While in Kisumu, we decided to venture out to Kogelo, a small village not far from town where Obama's family lives. We'd heard of a few people who'd gone before, and they said it wasn't too difficult. Just catch a matatu and you'll be there in about an hour and a half, they said. Well, we learned the hard way that it's not quite that simple...at least not for rural-Kenya amateurs. After spending some time wandering the Sunday market in town, we thought we'd catch a ride to Kogelo at about noon and have lunch there before looking around. So, we started asking around for a matatu going in that direction.
This was our first learning experience: matatus in the Nairobi are a different animal than matatus in the rural areas. First of all, matatus (remember the small, run-down vans I wrote about earlier?) in the city are capped at 14 passengers. And believe me, 14 hot, sweaty people in a run-down van is an experience in and of itself. But in our matatu to Kogelo, we had TWENTY hot, sweaty adults in the van. Not to mention the bundle of corn, the box of bananas, and the other random produce someone was traveling with. But what was worse is that after abour 2 hours, we started to question if we were even going in the right direction. In rural Kenya, the luxury of highway signs is few and far between. Finally we stopped at a small town, yet we were only shoved into another matatu that said they were going in the direction we wanted. After about an hour in that one I tried to ask the driver if we were nearing Kogelo, but whatever he shouted back to us did not sound like an affirmative. Just as we were starting to freak out (we had a night bus to catch in a couple hours to get back to class in Nairobi on time the next morning) the matatu spit us out in another small village. That is, if you could call something this small and remote a village. We quickly realized that we would not be having lunch. Nonetheless, upon our immediate arrival about 20 Kenyan men surrounded us, pleading with us to pay them to take us to Kogelo on their motorbikes. Amidst the chaos, we finally spotted a guy with a car (which looked slightly more assuring at the time) and decided to go with him. Once packed inside the old blue junker, a few men once again surrounded us, and before we knew it we were being pushed down a slope to get the engine to start. Once we picked up speed, the dust from the road began billowing out of the floorboards (or what was left of them). And off we were into...well, we weren't quite sure.
Finally, we arrived at a gate with a few cement, one-story houses inside. A security guard approached us, and after exchanging a few words he invited us in. Once we signed the guest book, there we were, in Obama's family's home. He motioned us over to a spot on the lawn where two old women were sitting in lawn chairs. It was Sarah Obama and her friend. We introduced ourselves and talked to them for a few minutes in broken Swahili (Sarah doesn't speak any English), and then a young guy appeared, who introduced himself as one of her grandsons. He showed us around their small compound to the graves of Barack's father and grandfather. Then he translated for us as we chatted a bit more.
The time we were actually in Kogelo went by in a flash. By the time we figure out how to get back to Kisumu, we were starving, thirsty, dirty, sweaty and exhasted, but nonetheless it was a fantastic adventure.

That's it for now... thanks for following along! :)

A Day in the Life (Part II)

Hmm...where did I leave off. I think it was on the way to school. Well, first off, I'm one of the lucky ones here because I only live about a 15-minute walk from the University. But even so, it's definitely not like walking to class down State Street. I'd say it's an exercise in alertness. My first and foremost objective is to not get hit by cars. The clean cut boundary between side walk and street back home is not so revered here. In Kenya, these are the rules most drivers seem to follow: if you can get there quicker by jumping the sidewalk, jump the sidewalk. If there's open road whatsoever in front of you, slam on the gas. And if there's pedestrians... well, they better get out of your way. At the same time as watching for cars, however, you also have to manuever the rocks and potholes and gravel beneath you. And then, of course, there's not running into people. I think it's pretty safe to say that on any given street at any given time of day, there are plenty of pedestrians. And pedestrians who walk on the left side of the road, not the right. As for crossing the street...it's pretty much luck of the draw. The funny thing is that while we Americans are often just struggling to stay afoot in our jeans and t-shirts and thick-soled sandals, many of the Kenyans around us are simply strolling along in their freshly pressed suits, shiny dress shoes, and for women, heels! I don't know how they do it.
Ok, enough about the walk to school. Classes so far are good - there's Kiswahili, Country Analysis (Kenyan politics, economy, etc.) and Development. I'm really liking all the professors, and I'm definitely learning a lot too. The only complaint I have is that classes are long. They're in two-hour blocks, and we have three each day, but often they've doubled up Kiswahili so that we have four hours of it in a day. The nice thing is, Kenyans love their chai. Classes start at 8:30 and at 10:30 we have a break for chai. Then we have another two hours before lunch, when we usually run (literally) in small groups to nearby restaurants and quickly gobble down some food. We've been able to find some good stuff, and even some that slightly resembles food back home. I never thought that after only a couple weeks I'd miss ketchup (not pink, runny "tomato sauce") so much. And salt. And pretty much anything other than curry and rice. My family is pretty traditional in their food, so our meals are generally predictable. Either rice or ugali (a doughy substance that is in dire need of salt), cooked cabbage or kale/spinach/lots of curry flavoring, and some kind of meat or bean stew. It's not that it's terrible...it's just that once a day is enough for me. Let's just say I've made lunch my big meal of the day.
After class we've got a couple hours until sunset, so we usually find some type of adventure. Whether it's wandering downtown, exploring the neighborhood, or meeting a new host family, this is usually my favorite part of the day. Then when the sun starts to set, we all part ways and settle into family life at home - which for me is extremely quiet. If my host mom beats me home, I can generally find her sprawled on the couch watching "Sebastian and Catellina" or some other beloved melodrama. If I'm lucky, she'll be watching the news. My host sister is usually either at the kitchen table or in our bedroom "doing homework"/surfing facebook on the house girl's phone. And the house girl is in the kitchen...working. Sometimes my host mom will be holding my host brother on the couch. I don't think I've mentioned him yet, but he's severly disabled. I wish I knew what his condition was, but the house girl doesn't even know and she's the one who takes care of him. And she says my host mom doesn't like to talk about it. He's six years old, but he can't walk, can't talk and can't even sit up by himself. I think he's pretty heavily medicated too, so that he doesn't have "convulsions," the house girl says, and often his eyes just roll to the back of his head. It's sad, but he's definitely well-loved. My host mom talks to him all the time in her cooing, yet somehow always booming voice. "How's my boy! How's my boy! Aren't you just the best boy in Kenya!" she'll say as she walks by him.
Dinner is a pretty casual affair. And it is also very late - around 8 or 8:30. When the food is ready, the house girl simply lays it on the table in insulated blue tupperwear containers, and we all serve ourselves as we please before taking a seat in front of the TV. There's occasional chatter, usually started by myself, but mostly it's pretty relaxed. Although I was slightly disappointed by the "family time" at first, I've found from talking to other students that my family seems to be pretty typical. Evidently, if a family in Nairobi can afford a TV, it often becomes a constant passtime. Even so, my family is very welcoming and hospitable and makes me feel at home. Plus, when I'm done eating, I'll generally keep the house girl company in the kitchen and we always have a good time. If there's one thing she does well, it's laugh. I'll tell you more about her some other time.
This weekend a few friends and I are hopping a bus (for about 7 hours) to Kisumu, by Lake Victoria. With a guide book, our backpacking backpacks, and somewhat comprehensible Kiswahili, we'll venture into unknown (to us, anyway) territory. No doubt there'll be good stories to tell you next week.
Until then!

A Day in the Life

Between itching the fresh mosquito bites on my arm, I'll try to squeeze out a blog post. Unfortunately one arm must have slipped out of my sheets last night, and a few mosquitoes had a hay day. Since Nairobi is not technically a malaria zone, not everyone sleeps with a mosquito net, but I think I might have to start - seeing as I have a wandering right arm.
Anyway, I thought I'd start by describing for you an average weekday for me here in Nairobi, as we're all starting to settle into somewhat of a schedule. I generally wake up at around 6:45 a.m., leaving some wiggle room in case my host mother decides to take an extra few minutes in the bathroom. By the time I'm up, the fancy silver platter is always laid out on the table containing a hefty black thermos of chai (the thermos is probably at least a year old and yet it still has the sticker on it). Next to the loaf is my breakfast: a Supa Loaf ("Don't say bread, say Supa!" the label proclaims) and a tub of Blue Band. I don't think anyone in the city of Nairobi calls in butter. It's strictly Blue Band. I usually use some of the honey my host mom has left out from her chai to spice up breakfast, but generally it's not too exciting of a meal. I just try to inhale as many slices as I can to last me til lunch - at 1 p.m.
After breakfast I ask the house girl to heat me some water so I can bathe (yes, bathe - what we do in no way resembles a shower). Then, with my half bucket of boiling water, I attempt to clean up in the tub, which is no easy feat when you have long hair. Once I'm dressed I ask the house girl where my shoes are (Kenyans always have their house helps clean their shoes every day, and I can never find them in the morning). Then, I'm off to school.
I meet my friend Patrick at a corner just a couple blocks away, and then we wait for another friend to get (sometimes violently) thrown from the matatu she takes from her house everyday. If you're wondering what a matatu is, imagine an old, colorful van full of people screeching by a corner and snatching an innocent victim from the corner, then throwing them out a few blocks later. It's what we call cheap public transportation here. Some vans are painted with pictures of Jesus, some display murals of rap artists, and one I saw the other day had the familiar "Yes we can!" painted on the back. Needless to say, riding in a matatu is never boring.

So, I guess I'll have to start with the rest of my day another time...somehow it got to be almost a quarter to 7, and the sun's about to start setting. I also promised the house girl I'd make the brownie mix I brought from the U.S. with her tonight, so I better get going. Again, thanks for all your comments! Much love from Kenya.

Many worlds in one

I never imagined that after just a week and a half in Kenya I would have so much to write about! I'm going to have to try to narrow it down to just a paragraph or two, so here goes.
First of all, thank you thank you thank you for all your comments! It's so fun to finally get online and have so many personal messages from home! Moe, you better send me a picture of your dress immediately, I'm dying to see it! Colin - a new car?? No way! Theresa, I hope the two-piece PJs worked out, and I can't wait to hear the details. :) And I hope you're sleeping well. Kaela...feeling better I hope?

As for life in Kenya, in only a week and a half I have had so many different experiences, met so many different people and seen so many different ways of life that it is hard to sum it all up briefly. One thing I can say is that I've really been struck by the dichotomy of life here in Nairobi. One of the reasons I came to study in Kenya was that I wanted to experience a way of life different from ours in the U.S., and yet I find that many of the Kenyans around me are simultaneously trying to be more American. When my host mom gets home from work, she immediately plops down in front of the TV (yes, we have one) and starts watching foreign soap operas or melodramatic American movies, in front of which we take all our meals. The room I share with my soon-to-be 14-year-old sister is splattered with posters of Justin Timberlake, Sean Paul and Rhianna. And the weird thing is, my classmates are experiencing a similar home life with their host families as well.
There's more. Morning tea is served to us by our house girl, Joice, on an old fashioned silver platter, yet we have to lug small tubs of boiled water from the gas stove into the bathroom every time we want to bathe. On my way to school everyday, I wander down the dirt roads, passing Kenyans in fine suits and shiny dress shoes, while 7 and 8-year-old boys beg me for money, some holding a bottle of glue under their shirts and up to their noses. My host sister, Rosetta (the one I share a room with) skips any meal she can get away with because she wants to be a supermodel in the U.S. one day, and yet our modest flat is just over a mile north of the largest slum in East Africa, where approximately a million people are crammed into an area about the size of the UW campus, many starving to death. Just last night as my host mom and I ate our dinner in front of the TV - Rosetta eating nothing - we watched as the newsanchors talked of the 10 million Kenyans currently starving because of the current food crisis.

Unfortunately this isn't nearly everything I'd like to tell all of you, but I guess the rest will have to wait for another day. I have to get home by dark, when the streets are safer, so that limits our after-school activities. But to sum it up, I'm loving my experience so far, and I hope that the more experiences I have and the more I learn about these issues in class, the more I'll understand the complex, contradicting world around me.

I miss you, I love you, and I can't wait to see you all (kinda) soon. :)

So far... Sun, Safaris and Swahili.

I only have a few minutes so I'm just going to write three things.

1. Yesterday morning when I woke up in Nakuru National Park I brushed my teeth while watching a group of zebras walk by.

2. Today while we were walking down the street in Nakuru (a small city), a man sitting by the side of the road shouted to us "Yes we can!" while grinning.

3. Tomorrow I move in with my host family: a mother, two daughters (10 and 14), and a 4-year-old little boy. I'm excited, but a little nervous too!

I miss you all... Kwaheri!

The Universal Current

In a few hours, my parents will drop my off at the airport and, with a backpacking backpack and two small bags, I'll board a plane bound for a place I've never been. At any other time in my life, I would have been terrified. And I admit, the thought of not seeing the faces of my family and friends for several months is not one upon which I like to dwell. Yet there is something inside me that, amidst the excitement, butterflies and exuberance, feels surprisingly at peace. I know there will be hard times, I know I will have to adjust to new things, and I know I will miss everyone I love here at home. But I also know I am ready. I have had times of sadness, times of loneliness and times of true joy and love in my life, and through each I have learned great things. I've come to appreciate that change is usually a good thing, and even when it isn't, you can usually learn worthwhile insights about life from it. I've found a new appreciation for the small things in life that give me joy. And I've discovered a path for myself that will help me understand a life more similar to the majority of the people living in the world today.

Blogging, on the other hand, is a slightly different story. I've never done this before, so bear with me as, together, we embark upon unknown territory. 

Before I leave, I'll share with you a quote that speaks to me in times of uncertainty. In one of my favorite books by Paulo Coelho, he writes, "Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life." 

Kwaheri! (Goodbye...)