Week One

Wednesday, January 2nd
First Full Day In Kenya
I got off the plane this morning at around 8:50 and was instantaneously the happiest I can ever remember being. My heart was pounding and people in the airport were probably wondering why I was smiling so broadly.

Kelly Jo met me right outside the airport with her cab driver, Francis. He was pretty awesome. I sat in the front seat with him (in Kenya it is very rude to not sit in the front seat when you take a cab) and he pointed out all of Nairobi’s spots. It was a quick ride through the town and then we came to Njema Court, where I live! The apartment is awesome. We have 2 full bathrooms, three bedrooms, a living room/dining area, a kitchen, a pantry, and a laundry room. KJ walked me around Westlands (the name of the neighborhood we live in) and it is a really nice area. You can tell people are still politically charged. KJ stopped and talked to two women she knows outside of her own apartment complex and they had quite a heated discussion regarding the elections. The poor want Odinga and they have been reacting by rioting and killing their own people in the slums even though the issues is nearly entirely along tribal lines. That was the only encounter I had regarding the election results.

Brief election synopsis: Kibaki was the president for the past 5 years and he ran for reelection against Odinga. Essentially what happened is Kibaki stole the election, but rigging the results. Odinga is obviously not happy about it, because according to the accurate numbers he should have been sworn in, not Kibaki. So right now Kibaki has the office of the presidency and a lot of people are up in arms about it, specifically in the slums because most of Odinga’s supporters are poor. That is what you have most likely been reading on the internet and hearing on the news, but take it all with a grain of salt. All of the violence is in the slums, no very near to where I am based and it is a very small percentage of violence relative the whole population in Nairobi.

After KJ dropped me off Mike moved in and we hung out for the afternoon and made pasta. KJ sent one of her friends, Tariq over to talk to us and show us around. He is pretty awesome and he just drove us around Westlands so that we could see what’s up.

Over all the day was pretty chill, but jetlag is bringing me down!!! Tomorrow hopefully I can start to bear it. We are being confined to Njema Court complex for the day because Odinga and his supporters are holding an illegal rally in the city center and KJ says that it could get pretty intense. So the 4 other students who are here right now are going to teach me how to swim in the apartment pool!!

2 more students arrive tomorrow morning and then the 5 remaining students come on Monday.

Overall, good day but very surreal. I think the first week is going to be a bit strange because of the confinement and the fact that orientation activities can’t take place. Once orientation and classes start my entries should be a bit more interesting! As for the internship, that is going to take several weeks to figure out due to the fact that most of the organizations we are able to work for are located in the slums, which have been affected by election violence.

And now it is 1:15 am here, and I am quite jetlagged.
Time for bed!


January 4, 2008
House Arrest Release
Yesterday I did not even bother to write anything because we were all basically under house arrest yet again. The most interesting thing that happened was Mike cooked for us and then the entire kitchen went up in smoke and spices. It was just a lot of group bonding, which is awesome, but also means there were a lot of “had to be there” moments.

Today we were able to walk around Nairobi, specifically the Westlands area. We broke off into two groups, otherwise we look ridiculous as a group of 8 Americans, often pegged as “mzungus” which is Swahili for “traveler” or “foreigner.” Kim and Allen are both returning students so they showed Amanda and me around. It was pretty chill. Then we met up with the other half of our group and went to the ambassador’s house…that’s the US ambassador to Kenya.

As it turns out, a bunch of students from the previous semester know the ambassador’s son, Mark because he goes to USIU which is where we take two of our classes. The grounds are beautiful and so is the house, naturally. We all took a dive in the pool where Amanda gave me a swimming lesson, considering I barely know how to keep myself afloat. So now I will always be able to say I learned how to swim in Africa! Excellent!

Afterwards, we all went out to eat at an Ethiopian restaurant down town, which was excellent, followed by shisha, which is just the Kenyan version of Hookah, and some Tusker, which is the national beer and is delicious.

Overall, an excellent and interesting day. It was great to get out of the apartment complex. I hope tomorrow brings more of the same, but hopefully orientation activities will be taking place soon. I’m still completely ready to get everything underway. We’ll have to see what happens. Now that the city has calmed down significantly after all of the election anarchy things are really looking up.

More later.

January 5, 2008
“These are people, not statistics.”
Today was amazing…easily the best day out of the four that I have been in Kenya. We volunteered at Jamhuri Park, which is where hundreds of people who have been displaced by election violence are staying. Jamhuri isn’t actually a park, but is more or less an enormous compound which appears to also be home to annual state fairs.

I was assigned to the children’s area, so you can imagine how excited I was. Most of the children were all running around a grassy area about the size of a football field. At first it was so strange and it didn’t look like they needed our help at all. The children had broken off into groups and were being led by volunteers who were teaching them games. We joined one group and the afternoon immediately took off. I completely fell in love with those kids. They ranged from toddlers to 10-year-olds and all of them had enormous amounts of energy.

We played lots of games with them, including duck duck goose and of course pointless running around…which I have to say was their favorite. The kids loved running around shouting “Mzungu! Mzungu!” which is Swahili for “traveler” or “foreigner.”

Two particular children made it difficult for me to leave this afternoon. A girl named Cynthia and a young boy whose name I actually don’t know because he didn’t understand English very well. But these two children were brother and sister and they were amazing. They climbed on me like a human jungle gym shouting “Mzungu, how are you!?” over and over and over again. They loved repeating any English that they heard so for a solid 30 minutes all you heard out of their mouths was “how are you?” Hilarious, really.

One thing I noticed was that all of the children became extremely attached very easily. Amanda, another student from AU had a lovely group of young boys and girls chasing her around the field for the majority of the afternoon. Several little boys and girls were getting into fights over who was going to be able to old my hand when we all played Ring Around the Rosie. Another little girl refused to stand up whenever I tried to put her down because she loved being held. One on one attention is infrequent for some of these kids, and so they know to try to get as much love as they can when someone who is willing to give it comes around.

Of course some parts of the day were more difficult than others. It was so odd to see these displaced kids running around, as if this was completely normal. I think the most challenging part of the day was seeing the kids sprint to the bleachers when it was announced that dinner was ready. Of course, I had to remember that some of these people are probably better fed at this camp than at their own homes in the slums, which was also hard to digest.

Some of the difficulties were more tangible. I was playing with a little boy when I noticed that he had third degree burn all over his left arm and hands, as well as gaping holes in his already oversized shirt. Yet he ran around playing with the other kids regardless of his own situation.

I really feel good about today and am looking forward to going back to Jamhuri Park tomorrow afternoon when we volunteer again.