My Last 7 Days in my Favorite Place on the Planet

Sunday, April 13
Today was my last full Sunday in Nairobi and I have to say it was a pretty good one. Carrie and I had bought fabric that we wanted to get made into skirts. Victors (program assistant) is a local Kenyan and his wife is a seamstress. So after a solid morning of sleeping in we made our way into Kawangware, which is the slum where Victor and his family live. Carrie had been there once before, but this was the first time I had ventured there and only the 4th slum I have visited.

Victor met us at the matatu stage with his daughter, Megan, who is adorable, but also happens to be petrified of people in general…specifically white people. She’s only 20 months old so I guess she is still adjusting. Nicole is Victor’s first born daughter and she is 6…just as quiet at Megan is, but not quite as fearful. We stayed at Victor’s for a few hours and his wife, Rose, took our measurements and fabric. I ate myself silly with the best of Kenyan fruits and bread, and of course tea. Kenyan tea is quite possibly the best thing to happen to tea drinkers everywhere. Seriously, Lipton has nothing on this stuff. I’m bringing home a few boxes so I don’t have to live with out it immediately.

After a few hours with Victor Carrie and I went back home to study. The Kiswahili final is on Tuesday night….should be interesting. Actually, I am so horrible at languages I have finally been able to find amusement in my inability to do well with languages! Better amusement than despair I say.

Monday, April 14th
Not much to say today….all 13 of us on the program simply logged the man hours for our Swahili final and then treated ourselves to a study break by going out to dinner. I also stopped by Shangilia this afternoon so that I can see the kids at much as possible this week before I leave. None of them seem to understand that I am going back to America for an extended period of time….but then again I’m refusing to accept that fact too, so why should they?

Tuesday, April 15th
The Swahili final is over and now I am done with language classes forever!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the final wasn’t all bad. I was mostly nervous for the oral exam, but that turned out to be the easier part.

And again…I wish I had more to say, but all we did today was study. After the final, Ted and Evans came over, told me everything I did wrong on the exam, since we were able to keep a copy, made pasta and then vegged for the rest of the night.

Wednesday, April 16
Today I went back to Shangilia before getting to work on the paper and exam I have for KJ’s classes this Friday. Classes are over now, so all 226 kids are at the compound, when usually only 150 are. It was chaotic, but of course I loved it. Jackie and I walked onto the compound and immediately kids swarmed around us, latching onto limbs and batting each other away.

I’m still refusing to accept that I leave in about 5 days, so I also refuse to write about my feelings.

Thursday, April 17th
SO. MUCH. WORK.

All we did today was write papers and study for our final tomorrow. The paper is divided into 5 sections and its all about development and our internships….which adds up to a 20 page paper that we all just started today. Oh well, we have no one to blame but ourselves and I’m completely cool with that.

But then I was surprised by Evans this evening. Evans went to culinary school right after high school before going to university, so around 7:30 the doorbell rang and in walked Evans with a bunch of bowls and plates….he made us dinner!!!!!!!!!! And everything was delicious. Definitely a well-deserved and awesome study break.

Friday, April 18th
So today is the last day of the program and I think I have finally accepted that Kenya isn’t going anywhere, but I have to…for now. We all woke up around 8 am to finish studying for the final. Then at 10:00 we went to the office to take the exam (not that bad), then Diana and I ran home for a little while before our hair appointment, then went to ABC place, which is the location of the salon.

The salon is owned by KJ’s best friend Faith, who has been born and raised Kenyan through and through. She’s awesome and I love my hair cut. It’s pretty short, but it’s a change and that is what I wanted.

Right after our hair appointment Diana and I met up with Carrie, changed in the restroom, and then walked down to the party, which was also at the office. Just to be clear…the office is at a building called Rainmaker, which is the name of the business that the Wainainas own. I think I mentioned them before, but I will refresh your memory. They are a huge part of the music industry in Kenya. Simon is the manager and Eric is the musician and playwright. He is who we all go to see on Sunday nights when he performs at Club Afrique. Anyway, KJ shares and office with them. The building is beautiful, as is the yard, which is so green and filled with flowers, complete with a gazebo. We were the first three to arrive, which is why we were also the ones put in charge of setting up the bar. Three girls adorned in dresses and heels moving case after case of beer (Tusker, to be exact) is quite the entertaining site.

The party was huge. At least 200 people were there at any given point. The food was amazing. KJ had the part catered by the Center for Domestic Training and Education, which is where Amanda Parker and Rachel interned this semester. The Center takes in abused women and girls and teaches them basic academic subjects as well as domestic skills such as cooking, sewing, things like that. So the women who are currently being trained there cooked for the party and I have to say….if I get married in Kenya, they are doing the wedding.

We also had a performance at the party. Eric Wainaina wrote a play called Lwanda, which is about a man named DJ Lwanda living in a Kenyan slum. The play addresses issues of corruption, politics, foreign aid, and tribal conflict, all which fit in perfectly in light of Kenya’s recent history. Unfortunately, a lot of the play was peformed in Kiswahili so sometimes I had no clue what the heck was going on and I had to make some of my Kenyan friends explain. All in all though, I really enjoyed it.

The party lasted until around midnight. I was about to be really proud of myself for not crying at all, but then Mike and Alan announced that they were leaving. The two of them are roadtripping down to South Africa and then back up with Mark, who has a car. They are leaving tomorrow morning at 5 am, so they left the party early. They were the first good byes and that’s when it actually hit me (after several days of denial) that the program was over, which means so is most of my time in Kenya.

The last hour of the party was just saying good bye to people. At that point, most of the students on the program had started to become somewhat of a mess….myself included.

I said good bye to KJ, one last time and then Evans, Ted, and George drove Carrie, Diana and I home. We stopped at Njema for a bit and then went out for our last night on the town. It’s going to be incredibly weird to go back home and not be able to drink for a year after being legal for the past 4 months! Luckily, I haven’t developed any alcoholic tendencies, so I’ll be great.

Saturday, April 19th
I spent the day with Laura, Carrie and Diana, who are easily the three people I have been closest with over the semester. We started off at one of our favorite restaurants, Nairobi Java House and then we all went downtown to the city center for one last time.

Afterwards the four of us went out to dinner at a place called Psys, which has the best pizza in Nairobi.

When we got home everyone came down to my apartment and watched movies and fell asleep on the floor. Diana, Carrie, and Laura all left for Egypt at around 2:30 am, and at 5:00 am Liz, Amanda Parker, Amanda Padgett, Jackie, and Rachel will be leaving for their East African adventure through Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the DRC. As everyone was leaving I began to resent my decision to come home early and then immediately felt guilty. East Africa isn’t going anywhere. The continent will remain long after I am gone….and even though I did feel just a little bit if regret as I watched the cab pull away, I’m pretty sure I made the right decision. I was pretty close with my grandfather before he died, and I think it is much more important that I am home for a few days with my parents and my grandma. I am sure I would have regretted it more had I decided to stay and travel. I’m going to have to say a family death supersedes any importance of 7 days of travel. I know I’ll be back anyway.

And now it is actually 8 am Sunday morning and I need to sleep at some point, which I haven’t even bothered trying to do yet.

Sunday, April 20th
I am writing this on the plane, which is why the last entry of my blog Sundays in Kenya will actually be posted on a Monday. I know you are all just horribly disappointed.

Alright so, my last day in Kenya: I woke up at 11 after a solid and refreshing 3 hours of sleep and forced myself to pack. Afterwards I went to the grocery store to get my last carton of Pick N Peel Apple juice, which was by far my favorite beverage in Kenya. If any of you ever see Pick N Peel anywhere in the US, you are hereby obligated to pick some up for me. I also stacked up on the Kenyan tea I talked about earlier this week and 150 tea bags are now stowed safely away in my luggage. I picked up a soccer ball for the kids at Shangilia as well, and then made my way over to say good bye one last time….

My god was that difficult. I made it a personal goal of mine not to shed a tear when I said good bye to my kids and failed almost immediately upon my arrival. It was only made harder by the fact that the kids, especially the younger ones, do not understand at all. I must have spent 10 minutes explaining to Josephine and Grace that I was going back to America and that the earliest I would be back is one year. After my explanation they looked at me and replied with a simple, “Okay, see you on Tuesday!” I gave up at that point.

After about an hour at Shangilia I had to get out of there. I said my final good byes to as many of my kids as I could find and then went on my last walk through Kangemi, which is one of my favorite parts of Nairobi.

I then took my last matatu ride and my last walk down Mvuli Road and found myself home in the apartment by dark. Ted, Brent, George, and Evans all came over to say good bye, but Evans and George ended up taking me to the airport, which I am so grateful for. I got really teary eyed when I said good bye to Ted and Brent. Ted was my first real friend in Kenya…who wasn’t on the program that is, and I am going to miss him a lot. I feel the same way about all of them

George, Evans, I piled into the cab at about 8:30 tonight and made the taxi stop at Kenchick…the equivalent of fast food in America, but with no hormones and strange chemicals. It was an odd, yet somehow fitting, last meal on Kenyan ground.

When we got to the airport George and Evans weren’t even allowed in the building, so I was on my own pretty quickly and that’s when the pure chaos began.

I had to pay first for the change I made to my flights a few weeks ago, which took an hour just because the staff was all over the place. Then once I paid for the flight I found out that they still had me booked to fly into Dulles on the 28th and that they had only changed my first flight and expected me to stay a week in London. Who even has the money to do that?! I know I don’t because the American dollar is worth almost nothing. It seriously would have cost me as much as the last 4 months have! So I told them that both flights needed to be changed and apparently that is “impossible” according to the man at the counter. After a solid 15 minutes of arguing with the man I finally got things sorted out, and then they oh so kindly bumped me up to 1st class!

Then I got to immigration and the man there told me that I have been living illegally in Kenyan for the past 6 weeks or some crap like that. Apparently the 6 month visa I got while still in DC isn’t meant to be a “stay in the country” visa but a “re-entry visa” as the man put it. After 10 minutes of heated discussion with him he finally agreed to clear me, instead of having me arrested.

And now here I am on the plane typing this blog entry, uploading pictures, and listening to The Beatles while I watch some weird foreign film on mute. I even find myself enjoying the airline food!

It’s really hard leaving Kenya. I can’t say I really enjoyed the leaving part at all. It’s been such an amazing 4 months and I’m not entirely ready to leave yet. I miss my friends and family of course, which is why I know I will be fine once I actually land in NYC, but it is so hard leaving Nairobi when I have no clue when I will be back here. I read this non-fiction book earlier in the semester called Emma’s War, which I highly recommend to all of your. Anyway, Emma once said to a few of her friends “In my heart, I am Sudanese,” and lately I have found myself thinking that same of Kenya and me. I’m just going to start considering myself a world citizen because now Kenya is my home as well and I am sure that I will always feel at home in Kenya.

Luckily, I am walking away with a lot, which I know I have discussed in previous entries. I’m no longer worried at all about making sure I am able to bring the changes I have made here back to America with me. I want the confidence and the self-respect and the more relaxed nature to be a part of me no matter what part of the globe I find myself.

And now I am going to wrap up my final entry. I want to thank all of you for reading my blog! It means a lot to me that people have actually cared about what I do here. It’s been a huge part of my life and I am glad people actually took sincere interest in what I have to say! I’ll see you all around this summer!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Molly