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...)