Just a Few Pictures Before I Go

Meet my adorable family! You may notice that there is one thing that is not like the other... But anyways from left to right: Scovia (the house help), Isabella, Mama, Chris, and me. Vanessa is at boarding school and thus not pictured.

I have a million other pictures of my host family, as the kids love taking pictures of themselves and videos of me studying, but the internet is being far too slow and it's almost dark so I really need to leave the internet cafe.

Just a Trip to the Coast

Hello my blog readers,

It's been quite some time since I've had the internet to post, and unfortunately this will be my last for quite some time again. On Wednesday we leave for a few days in Mombasa, on the coast, and then ten days in Shirazi, a tiny village nearby. Shirazi is a pretty isolated Muslim village where they don't speak any English and have never seen Wazungu before. I'm really excited for that experience, as I know that my Swahili will get so much better when I'm forced to speak it that consistently. We’re going to continue having intensive Swahili every morning and then our afternoons will be basically free to go to the beach and swim in the ocean, but also to do a group assignment. I’m in a group that is supposed to study traditional medicine there, which will be very difficult to do only in Swahili but I’m pumped about it. It will be really good training for our Independent Student Project (ISP), which is the last month that I’m in the country and off studying something on my own.

Since I last posted, I’ve had quite a few interesting experiences here in Kenya. Last night, I went out to a Kenyan night club which was really fun. We went to one and there were way too many Wazungus there so we left for another one to find some Africans. This morning I went to church with my host family. They’re Pentecostalists, and it was one of the most engaging and enjoyable services I’ve been to. There was so much joy and singing and praying despite the fact that so many of them are so destitute. I’ve had some pretty ridiculous attempts at bargaining in the local markets. Unfortunately, that is something I still really need to work on, though I’ll probably always get Mzungu prices which are far higher than they should be.

Swahili in the morning has been fantastic, and we’ve been spending our afternoons either prepping for our village homestay or having lectures or going on trips. This week we’ve visited a bunch of really amazing NGOs that are doing really incredible things for the country. It’s been strange to realize that there doesn’t seem to be too much I can do here in a service sense. It is so important that the aid comes from within, from other Kenyans or at least other Africans, that I’ve really been struggling to find a positive way that I can help other than just sending money from the States. On Thursday we went to see WOFAK, Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya, which really enlightened me to this fact. The organization was started actually started in Kenya (a rarity amongst this kind of organization) and it provides support to women and children affected by AIDS. We actually got to go with a few of the social workers into a slum to see the work that we do. We split into small groups to visit families, and we went to this tiny little household in Koyole, a one room concrete house crammed with two beds and a tiny stove. There were four children and the mother was nowhere to be found, the eight-year-old daughter raising the twin two-year-old girls. When WOFAK arrived the twins weren’t even walking yet. The WOFAK women, all Kenyan, come in every day to bring food and care for the children, who are under consideration for being taken away from the mother for a while. When the WOFAK women arrived, the children were so happy, but reacted so differently towards us Wazungu. All of the children look at us differently. They all stare at us when we walk by and just see us as good luck cash machines, so it provides a very strange role. It’s something I’m struggling with, trying to see myself from their eyes.

But things are generally so wonderful here! I basically only have to worry about Swahili, although I do have a paper due tomorrow that I’m currently avoiding by blogging to you fine people, and get excited for the next few weeks on the coast. I hope everything is wonderful back in the states, because I miss you all! And I'll unfortunately be missing the High Holy Days, though there is a synagogue here in a Nairobi, so Shana Tovah and and an easy fast. I'll be celebrating in my own way in the village, Rosh Hashanah is the same day as Eid though, very exciting! And I'll be fasting for Yom Kippur.

Back around the 3rd of October,

Alix

PS - some pictures for your enjoyment that I stole from other people:

Homestay Excitement and Kibera Slums

Hello all,

I’ve had no internet for quite some time, so there is a lot to tell. The most important part is that we moved into our homestays on Saturday, and my family is wonderful! I was a little wrong about the information before. I do have three little siblings, but I have two sisters and one brother. Vanessa, 15, is really sweet and outspoken, but unfortunately she had to go to boarding school yesterday. Most of the schools in the area are boarding schools, and even though her school is less than half a mile from our apartment we still wont see her at all. She has a weekend home in October and a visiting day at some point, but she is so close and so far. She was so sweet to have taken me in as a sister immediately. She gave me a little stuffed animal of Winnie the Pooh in a Tigger outfit which her mom gave to her. I tried to say no, she should take it, but she said it went from mother to daughter to sister. Chris, 13, is a cards whiz. I brought them a deck of cards from Washington DC and we’ve been playing nonstop. He said I’m the first person to have ever beat him at split. I’ve also taught them how to shuffle Conset style, which they’ve gotten really excited about. Finally I have Isabella, 10, who is so sweet and observant! They’re undoubtedly fascinated by me because of my white skin and American background, and she noticed immediately that I was left handed. She’s quiet but them more I’m around she comes out of her shell.

In addition to the kids, there is also Mama Carole, who is so sweet and has taken me in so soon! She does work for the UN as an Administrative Assistant in the Environment Department, helping to organize the big conference in Copenhagen. There is also a house keeper, who so far I have a confusing and undetermined relationship with.

There are intense water shortages here, and the water runs the electricity so there have been intense rationings. The water is turned on from Wednesday to Saturday and the power is turned off Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 6 AM to 6 PM. They leave the tap on all day when they’re there and run when the water turns on to collect the water into big dubs. They then boil the water for “showers” in the mornings. I kind of enjoy it, actually. Other than that, we’ve been playing a lot of cards and watching bad TV. I watched “So You Think You Can Dance” for the first time here, as well as a ridiculous English dubbed Spanish soap opera. I was also lucky enough to watch Cinderella 2 and the Little Mermaid 2, which the kids love.

Today we had our first full day of classes, with three intense hours of Kiswahili in the morning and then in the afternoon we had a Society lecture by way of Carolina for Kibera. Kibera is the big slum in Kenya, the biggest in Africa and the second largest in the world. We had a discussion and then asked a lot of questions, and then we walked through the slums to get to the clinic. It was one of the most intense experiences I’ve had, though I haven’t yet had the chance to fully process it. We walked through the slum, as no car could get through, and walked past shacks with tin roofs and children repeating in a chorus “How are you! How are you”” as that’s the only English they know. The paths were covered in trash and what smelled like human waste. They’re known to have “flying toilets” there, where you go to the bathroom in a bag and let it fly. The kids were sweet and very excited to see Wazungu (basically Gringos), but most of them were filthy. Running in the middle of the streets we mini water paths, I suppose for some kind of irrigation, that looked like they may have been covered in human waste. It was hard to walk through there, but when we got to Carolina for Kibera, we were happy to see such a diamond in the rough. They offer completely free healthcare for local residents. It was an area that most Westerners got to see, and I was glad to have experienced it. I’m not sure I could have handled it for more than that hour, though.

Overall, I’m having a wonderful time. My family is incredibly sweet and loving, the other students are great, and I’m learning Swahili quickly. By the end of the next class, I’ll probably know more Swahili than I’d learned in the six years of French I took. My internet time is sparse, hence the rarity in posts and emails, but I think it will pick up as things get a little more regular.

Miss you all! Lalaa Salama (good night!)

Alix

Lack of Internet Brings Late Posts

Written on Saturday, September 5, but no internet

Hamjambo mabibi na mabwana!

I’ve been here so far a week and have been having an incredible time. So far we’ve just been in orientation, getting to know each other and a little bit of Nairobi. We were staying before at the Mary Ward center and then we moved to Kopling for the past three nights. There, we found more glow in the dark Jesuses. I think they may be a necessity in any religious facility here, and you wont here me complaining.

Today we’ll move into our homestays, and I’m so exciting to meet them. I’m staying with a women called Mama Carole. She’s a widow who works for the UN and has three daughters, one in university and two in high school. Many high schools in Nairobi are boarding schools so I may be living just with the mom. They live in a lower middle class family, so I’m actually living in the most affluent neighborhoods of the homestays.

Yesterday was a really exciting day. In the morning we had our first official Swahili class which was absolutely fantastic! The classes are only five people, and it was the first time I didn’t actually hate a language class. I spent so much time being terrified of being called on and having no idea what was going on, but here it all works out! I learned so much in basic greetings that I feel pretty good about meeting my homestay family today. In the afternoon, we went walking around Nairobi with our language teachers, and we got to ride a matatu, which are these little busses for fifteen people that only young people around. They’re all neon colors and play really loud rap and hip-hop and play music videos. All over the busses are random logos, like Fox or Jazz Quartet, and on the inside are pictures of stars like Chris Brown, Rihanna, and more. We tend to be the only mazungus (whities) on the matatus.

A couple of interesting things about Nairobi: it’s really dirty here. Everything looks like oldie times because the air is really dirty like an old picture. There is trash everywhere, and where there is a break in the main trash there are fires for burning trash. I guess it’s better than using a landfill when you just can’t waste any land. The two neighborhoods that we’ve been in so far are all gated communities of houses or apartments with a guard there all nights. I think the homestay will be like that too. A lot of the walls outside of the compounds have barbed wire, and they place we were staying at for the last three nights had broken glass on top of the gates.

I’m really excited for my homestay! More information when I get it.

Alix

I kissed a giraffe and I liked it...

Hujambo!

I’ve been in Kenya now for almost two full days. It took forever to get here, about 24 hours from when I left the house in DC for the airport to arriving here in Nairobi. I’ve been doing a lot of journaling, which I think is good. Things have been a little crazy since we’ve arrived, as they’ve been trying to shove a lot of information in before orientation ends. I have a lot to say, but I’ll just give you a few highlights so as not to bore you.

Yesterday we went to this place called the Giraffe Center and got to see a bunch of giraffe and baby wild boars that looked like they came straight from the belly of Pumba from the Lion King. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures for myself because British Airways casually misplaced my bag with my camera in it, but I should be getting it back tomorrow, but I’ll try to put up pictures from other people soon. It turns out giraffes are completely ridiculous creatures. They have giant faces and giant eyes, which apparently never ever shut. Giraffes sleep only 5-30 minutes a day but always sleep with their eyes open because their eyelids aren’t big enough to close around them. Apparently they live for 10-15 years, closer to 10 if they live in an area without tall trees to shade them. This is because they often die from their eyes burning. Also, apparently they really like to kiss you. Somewhere there is a picture/potentially a video of me kissing a giraffe, and I promise to share it with you all once I get it from someone else. Somehow the guides convinced us all to put a piece of food in our mouths and have Daisy, the giraffe, eat it. I figured I should try whatever they told me…

In other news, we’ve been staying in Karen, an affluent suburb of Nairobi. It’s named after the Dutch women Karen who is featured in Out of Africa. We’ve been staying at this nunnery, which means I actually have my own little room and amazingly this place has wireless internet, although pretty spotty. There’s a drought here and the electricity is run by water, so there are pretty frequent power outages. The most important thing of note here at Mary Ward is that every room has a Jesus hanging from the cross, which is pretty normal, BUT the Jesuses in our rooms happen to be GLOW IN THE DARK! I discovered this at 4:30 this morning when my jetlag was getting the best of me. It was a fantastic finding.

Perhaps the most important thing we’ve done so far here is today we had what was called a Drop Off. We weren’t told much about the activity, just that we were going somewhere and had to get information and report back. Me and two other girls got dropped of at Nyumbani (meaning home in Swahili), a little orphanage in Karen that I completely fell in love with. It was started by this guy Father D’Agostino, who was amazingly both a priest and a doctor. He started this orphanage for HIV+ children whose families had died from AIDS. They currently have 100 children who are just the cutest things I’ve ever seen. They live in these little cottages with 14 other kids and a nun, and they become a family. They all grow up together, and they were just the happiest children I’ve ever seen. I know they were putting on a show for us visitors, but even just playing themselves or in their classes they seemed so happy despite the fact that on the campus was a cemetery with 17 of their former “family members.” The orphanage provides medicine and education for the children and teaches them how to become adults. Later they even pay for their college. I just fell completely in love with this place.

So those are my highlights! Orientation lasts until Saturday when we get to meet our homestay families and actually get started with the semester. We’ve been learning bits and pieces of Swahili so far, so I’m looking forward to actually getting in the swing of things and exploring Nairobi.

Thanks for reading!