Sunday, April 20, 2008
UPDATE!!!!
END OF AFRICA:
-uganda. nile river rafting. mountain biking through the jungle. etc etc
-amboseli safari. saw mt kilimanjaro. saw 3 cheetahs take down a gazelle. real crazy. we were staying out in the middle of the serengeti. there was a really intense thunderstorm one night and mike and i stayed up and watched from under a shelter as it moved away from us. lots of lightning.
-dubai. lots of beach. crazy buildings. happy times.
-mombasa. weekend on the coast of kenya. india ocean. went snorkeling. i went jet skiing. lots of beach volleyball and pool tanning times. mike and i walked on the beach until it ended. lots of little crab guys scuttling about into small holes.
-mike & my birthdays. i somewhat secretly organized for the majority of our group to go to a nice thai restaurant for mike's birthday. a crew of us went to get my favorite, indian, on my birthday.
- finals
- panic/stress/frustration about coming home. freaking out about not living one floor up from mike. deciding a chicago-denver long distance had to work.
- mike came with me to drop me off at the airport and gave me a very sweet sendoff. i probably cried. no, i definitely did.
BACK HOME
-christmas was really great this year. i normally avoid all christmas things because my parents kind of stopped celebrating years ago, but i spent approx 85% of my time with mike and his step-mom's family. i fell in love with mike's little sister, brynna. so things were great. i also missed mike immensely in the week i wasnt with him.
-i got sick the last week of november, and, well, i was sick for 3 months. got checked for TB, but, didnt have that. not sure exactly what was wrong, but i lovingly referred to it as my african disease. mike got sick about a month after i did. poor guy. it was rough.
WINTER TERM
-school was kind of a weird transition since not only was school in africa a joke, but it was on semesters so things moved soooo much slower. quarters are intense, plus i actually have to do work here, unlike africa. i really only took one good class last term
-civil rights, liberties, and justice. this class was amazing. essentially it was a constitutional law class. i ended the class with a 98% and was pretty proud of that. i became an expert on the supreme court case DC v. Heller. check it out. hilary and obama just talked about it in the last debate. (GO OBAMA!!!!!!!) anyway, its about gun control and the 2nd amendment. debate me about it. ill tell you whats up. (the framers totally didnt intend for the general population outside of militias to own HANDGUNS. ban em.)
-precepting. i was chosen to be a preceptor (kind of like a teaching assistant) for the philosophy of law course. this was especially challenging for me because i dont naturally take leadership positions in class. but, i was forced to lead small group discussions on various topics. things turned out ok.
DENVER
-so, ive been going to denver at least every month. i miss mike too much otherwise. its starting to add up monetarily and my sister keeps telling me im making poor financial decisions, but right now i dont care. i can worry about that when im an adult.
-my first impression of denver was that it was a pretend city. chicago is so much bigger i just laughed when i saw it from a distance. its just a small cluster of buildings that grew out of nowhere. BUT, i reallllly love denver.
-highlights of denver things:
*eating pho for the first time
*going to fort collins; seeing mike's family again
*helping mike with onefive things; making lots of supplier calls and consulting mike on good negotiation strategies (finally! my work experience pays off!)
*helping mike make the intro to his newest mountainboarding movie. first time in the mountains! boulder times.
*going to colorado springs for a day of mountainboarding.
MIKE
-things with mike are great great great. the future is bright and happy. every day im thankful for everything i have and think about how incredibly lucky i am to have met him. i never knew someone like him existed and im so glad i found him out in africa.
-95% sure im moving to denver to live with mike for the summer
-mikes coming to visit me in costa rica in november
-plan is to move to denv after i graduate next spring
SPRING TERM
-this term is brutal. im pretty much always doing homework. not so much sleep. busy busy
-taking my final global studies senior capstone seminar on globalization. really enjoy the class. too much reading!
-econ is going well. im finally starting to appreciate economics and am so glad i decided to add it as my (third) major. (im a little ridiculous) my econ professor really likes me cause im the only one who does anything before class and am one of 3 people answering questions.
-my econ professor always criticizes the University of Chicago School of Economics (theyre a little radical) and my sister went there, so i always bring the debate home and we nerd out and debate if privatizing roads is ACTUALLY a good idea. im still not convinced. the liberal in me is still supportive of government programs that help the poor. or, just average people. and rich people. in the case of roads.
-im now the secretary of pi sigma alpha. yes, technically a fraternity. more like a political science honors society. its kind of a joke though as we dont do a lot.
WORK
-work has been going well, pretty much as usual. my best friend just started working with us too.
-a little background, ive interned at Coleman Group Consulting for the past 3 years. We're small (only 6 of us) and my sister is the senior consultant. we primarily do strategic sourcing and procurement. our only client is a $679M not-for-profit, so we're kept quite busy. i always leave work wishing i could stay for just a few more hours to get more things on my list done. i go in on the weekends frequently too. slightly a workaholic. mostly ive just gotten real committed to the company and the client and actually enjoy my work.
-on thursday i have a meeting with my boss (the owner) to talk about the summer. patrick scares the crap out of me cause hes really intense. and so smart. and he has kind of a way of talking that makes you feel like youre an idiot. but anyway, ive decided that im going to convince him to let me keep working for CG this summer...from .... denver. my sister is supportive so i think it could work. sounds crazy, but i can do it. im looking forward to doing all my work in my pajamas this summer.
CAREER
-pre-living in africa my plan was to go into african development. my 10 year plan looked something like: graduate, peace corps in africa, work for NGO in africa, grad school at georgetown (or johns hopkins), get my dream job at the united nations!
-after africa, i sort of started getting real about what i wanted to do with my life and things have changed. a lot. ive decided that eventually after i graduate (will probably travel for a while first), im going to keep with the management consulting. 1) living in africa made me a little cynical about the possibility of making it better there 2) mike isnt in africa 3) i need to pay off my $100k of school debt, and the consulting gig will certainly take care of this adequately.
COSTA RICA
-ill be studying abroad in costa rica in the fall. my best friend is also going and im quite excited. i should be pretty close to fluent in spanish by the time i come back. we'll be staying with host families. very interesting. my goal is to be a good surfer by the time i leave. planned trip with the group to nicaragua. my best friend and i are planning our own trip to...cuba. kind of illegal, but i think its possible. paradise here i come!!!
SCHOOL NEXT YEAR
-due to Advanced Placement credit from high school, and from the college courses i took when i graduated early, plus my excellent organization and management skills (ha!) ive figured out that i can graduate one term early and save a lot of money. ill be done in march. unfortunately i had to drop honors college (bye bye thesis) and my econ major will only be a minor. im ok with all this because i already have two majors (political science and global studies) and because it saves me tons of money. my adviser is pretty bummed that i wont finish my thesis since its already half done. but oh well. i was getting a little tired of 'the integration of human rights and islam.' way too nerdy.
MY BROTHERS
-my oldest brother (hes 12 yrs older than me) just called to let us know he and his wife are pregnant. the baby is due in october. they live in hawaii and so im not sure when ill see my new niece/nephew. (eric is a marine and is stationed there!)
-my other brother (10 yrs older than me) informed us that he'll be going for his second tour, this time to afghanistan, in october. hes in the army. he actually is pretty excited to go. i dont understand it.
SYDNEY
-sydney is my 2 year old niece. she is absolutely everything wonderful about this world and i love her dearly. i missed her more than anything else while i was out of the country. my only fear about moving away is being away from her. i see her every day and am so glad to be such a great part of her life. she is quite a character and tells me funny things every time i see her. im always amazed with what shes picked up and the stories she tells me.
-funny story that involves mike: about a month ago i showed her a picture of mike and i and i asked if she knew who the nice boy in the picture way. (they've met. once. briefly.) out of nowhere, she said "that's punkin!!" i've never heard her call anyone punkin, but she thought it was the funniest thing and kept saying "he's punkin!!" a few days later, i made movie of her about mike. i didnt tell her to say anything, so everything she responds was out of her little head.
here's the movie: its only 2 minutes long. its funny for me. maybe not to you.
i guess thats all for now. have mid terms this week. there was an earthquake in illinois last week! so bizarre. life is good. im happy. cant wait for this summer to see my punkin every day.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Best Days of My Life
November 5, 2007
On Sunday a few of us went to see a popular Kenyan artist at a place called Club Afrique. It was ok.
My Monday morning class was cancelled and during our Wednesday class our lecturer told us that he was going to Europe for a while so we wouldn’t have class until late November. I’m ok with that. This is exactly how Kenya is. During my Tuesday morning class I told my lecturer (he looks like a serious pirate with sneaky eyes, a huge beard, and a gold tooth) I was going to Uganda and would be missing one class and he kind of got parent-like and joked about Museveni inviting me personally and told me to be really careful. It was an interesting moment. Also, during that class I had a funny moment with this kid, Gerald. Now, I don’t talk in class much just cause that’s my style, but I made a comment about something in the news we were discussing. Gerald is this Nigerian kid who we just found out stabbed a guy earlier this year (and it was a big scandal as to who the stabber was) and he sits near me in class. Gerald is beautiful and smart, so it was kind of disappointing that he’s a stabber, but it sort of makes sense cause everyone here talks about how crazy Nigerians are. So, anyway, in class, after I talked, he passes me this little tiny folded note that said, “Never heard you talk in class b4. Sweet!!” I nearly lost it cause it was just soooo funny to get that from some notorious stabber. I’m pretty sure Gerald has a thing for me, but whatever. Mike thought it was pretty funny.
All of us had fallen asleep and were woken up by some guy just repeating “Jinja. Jinja. Jinja” over and over again. (JInja was our stop.) So we hurried off the bus. The bus dropped off us in the most random place. It was pretty much on the side of the road. Almost immediately we were bombarded by about 20 boda-bodas (motorbike taxis.) They were all up in our shit and we were having a hard time figuring out what to do cause this trip was pretty impromptu and we really hadn’t discussed where we were staying or how we were getting there. Since I did the most research about stuff in my Lonely Planet books I suggested we go to this hostel in town that had a sister hostel near the water falls on the Nile. I also read that a ride to somewhere should be about 500 Ugandan shillings (like 30 cents) and the boda-boda guys were quoting us 6000. Aaron went and found a matatu who said he’d take us to town for 500 shillings. We pile into the bus and tell him we wanted to go to Nile River Explorer Backpackers hostel instead. He says its far away and he knows where it is but itll cost us each 4000 shillings. We’re stupid so we said ok. Not only did he not know where it was, and we stopped at two other places first to ask for directions, but it was actually really close. Stupid stupid stupid!!! Oh well, it still was only a few dollars and we just wanted to get out of there.
We get to the hostel. It was probably 10:00 a.m. There were a million people running around in life vests and helmets and there were two trucks with rafts on them leaving to go rafting. It was madness. Went inside. A few of the people working there were white and super nice. They told us to go have some free tea and figure out what we wanted to do. (We weren’t sure where we wanted to stay and what we wanted to do while we were in Jinja.) Some guy, Nash, came over and started talking to us. He worked there. He told us all these things we could do and we decided to go to mountain biking through the rain forest the next day. We checked in and got a dorm room to ourselves cause it wasn’t busy. We ate lunch at the hostel. Really good food. Uganda is amazing. It’s so beautiful. Uganda is more what I was expecting Africa to be like. Kenya is just savannah and kind of boring. Uganda has huge beautiful trees and is more like the jungle. It’s also very hot in Uganda, unlike Kenya. The people in Uganda are also way nicer and it’s a lot safer. People don’t try and rip you off (as much) and are generally friendlier. I love Uganda and want to go back.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Just a quick update. School’s been pickin up and I’ve got a paper to write. Here’s what’s happened since my last post:
Then all last week I worked on a paper for my Ideologies class. It was the first paper I ever started more than a day or two before it was due. Not bad. Started my humanitarian law paper on Friday and finished Saturday. Sunday (today) I started my development paper that’s due tomorrow at 5pm. Im gonna do it up real big and pull and all-nighter to get it finished. John and Sadie already gave up and went to bed and are just gonna turn it in late. Im a pro and am just gonna get it done. I hate procrastinating.
- Uganda road trip
- Amboseli National Park (KEI safari at Mt Kilimanjaro)
- Dubai (hell yes.)
- Mombasa (beaches!)
- Egypt (riding camels and seeing the ‘mids)
Things I miss most right now:
Sydney bean
High-speed, reliable internet
Having internet that’s in more than 3 places
Food, glorious food. Someone send me a package with a burrito, a sandwich, pasta, an egg sandwich, and a huuuge salad. Please.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Travels
October 11, 2007
Next day we woke up at like 7 and took nice warm showers and ate a great breakfast. Got back in the vans for a full day safari. Again, right away we saw lots of great animals. We were able to see the end of the great wildebeest migration. Cooooll!! Around mid-day we made it to the Tanzanian border and were able to get out and walk across the border. I’ve been to Tanzania now!!! For about 5 minutes. Then we drove across the Mara River and saw literally thousands of rotting corpses of wildebeest that didn’t make it across during the migration. Worst smell of my life. Then we ate our packed lunches at the Hippo Pools. Apparently a few days earlier a woman got too close to the water and a croc came out and ate her. We stayed away from the edge. Hippos make real funny noises. It also seemed like every other safari group that was there had personal guards armed with AK-47s. It’s interesting to see a group of guards eating lunch with their huge ass guns hanging in the trees. After lunch we went back out for safari again. At some point Shannon got the great idea to listen to the Lion King soundtrack on my ipod while driving around. Let me tell you, listening to Circle of Life while there are thousands of wildebeest running across the savannah in front of your van…that is one of the most amazing experiences of my life. We all took turns and we were pretty much all laughing cause you can’t help but just get goosebumps. Nearing the end of the day we were all exhausted so at one point we all took a short, bumpy nap in the van while Peter trekked across the savannah. After our nap we got to see a whole group of lions and lion cubs sleeping and playing by a pond. That was cool. Anyway, eventually we went back to the camp, ate, bonfired, and went to sleep.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Uneventful
September 25, 2007
So, Africa continues. Not too much has happened since the last entry. We’re now into Week 3 of school. I have had no homework yet. Not even reading. So, pretty much, I go to class then bum around all day. Classes are still frustrating as everything we do is so inefficient and the teaching style here is so different. Pretty much a professor will read his notes and expect you to copy them word-for-word. I don’t really like any of my professors and the classes aren’t very intellectually stimulating.
After going to Kibera the first time, Mike and I got sick with this cough. The first week of coughing wasn’t too terrible. The worst of it was trying to fall asleep at night. The second week of being sick, things got bad. Around Wednesday of the second week Mike and I went to the medical center on campus and they pretty much just gave us drugs. On Thursday I was really, really sick and pretty much stayed in my room all day except for classes. Our RAs kept asking us how we were and telling us if we weren’t better the next day, they would make us go to the hospital. Now, yes I was really sick, but going to the hospital seemed a bit excessive. By Friday we were still really sick and were a little scared about having TB so we decided to hit up the hospital as suggested. I realized I left my insurance card at home, so I had to jump through so many hoops to arrange to get another copy and then work with the woman at USIU who is in charge of international students since we didn’t get USIU insurance and yeah it was just a lot of time wasted. But we figured it out. Then we went to see a different doctor at the medical clinic, and after talking to him, he said we really didn’t need to go to the hospital and just gave us different drugs. So I went back to sleep. Mike and I missed the first weekend of partying in Nairobi. Oh well. By Monday I was feeling better but still had a bad cough.
Things get pretty boring here so on Wednesday Mike and I decided to catch the USIU bus downtown and do whatever we could down there. Mike wanted to take some pictures too. We pretty much wandered around and got to know the city better. We also bought the first and second seasons of Scrubs for cheap. (Instead of Season 1, the disc we got had like 10 war movies instead. Oh well. This is Africa. Season 2 works just fine, thankfully.) It feels good to know I can find my way around the city now.
Thursday night (the biggest party night of the week) a few of us were bumming around and decided that rather than be losers, we would just go out and do something nearby. All the pool tables at Fifis were taken, so we walked down the road to Safari Park and the boys had a drink at Cat’s Club (C.C.s.) It was only like 1030 so the club was pretty empty and boring. So, we went to the casino. Mike and I didn’t want to gamble so we just hung out outside. Josh and Steven both won a lot of money playing slots. Eventually other friends came back from dinner at the ambassador’s house and were at C.C.s too. By midnight Mike and I were bored so we went back home.
Friday everyone went back to Kibera, but I stayed on campus. I thought Dijana and I were going shopping, but that got cancelled. Boring day. People were going gambling again Friday night so Mike and I watched a few episodes of Scrubs instead.
Saturday was my big adventure. Pach Pach, the Sudanese refugee I brought things to, invited me to come have lunch with him at his home. Mike and Dijana were both going to come, but Dijana ended up going back to Lake Naivasha for the weekend and Mike went to Nairobi National Park with KEI so I was all alone. I was nervous at first, but all turned out well. Pach Pach came all the way from his house to pick me up so I would be safe getting there. Very nice guy. We started walking down the road to USIU when some guy in a pick-up truck just sort of pulled over and Pach Pach acted like he knew him. I thought we were planning on taking a matatu so I figured a friend of Pach Pach’s appeared out of nowhere and was giving us a ride. It didn’t seem like a taxi so I was kind of confused. Very Africa. Apparently Pach Pach had met this dude once before and they were from the same area so the guy was just being nice and giving us a cheap ride to town. For about two seconds I was nervous that I was being sold or something. I lucked out. Anyway, we got to town, then went to the Hilton to grab a bus. I’m finally getting the buses now too. We hopped onto a 46 and took it to the end of the line. Pach Pach lives pretty much in a slum. He has a pretty nice apartment. A feast was waiting for us and we ate lunch with his cousin while watching Congolese music videos. Afterwards we talked for a long time about the U.S. and about various cultural differences. Pach Pach can never get married because in order to get married in his culture, you must pay a dowry of 25 cows and he can’t afford that. He also cannot date because that would be a distraction and could lead to devious things like sex and having kids outside of marriage. It sounded lonely. We ended up leaving an hour later than planned and I was a little nervous about not making it home before dark. Luckily everything worked out and I even got home earlier than planned. Overall, a very good day. I’m sure I’ll go back there.
Sunday Mike and I both woke up late but decided to catch a bus downtown to find the Masai market since we had nothing else to do. We ran into a lot of people on the way. We took the 46 bus to Ya Ya (and missed our stop) but eventually got to the market. We’re learning. I bought some gifts for people at home. I’m pretty good at negotiating prices. Mike bought a badass spear and got a good price. After about an hour we got on a bus back downtown, then only just caught the USIU bus home.
Monday was an interesting day. The new library opened on Monday. The building is sooo huge and looks really amazing. It only cost $1.75 million to build; this if for a building that would def cost like $30 million in the US. To celebrate its opening, Kibaki (the president of Kenya) came to the school for an entire day of celebrations. Unfortunately I still had to go to my 9:00 class. After class we went down to the ceremonies where we sat in the sun for hours. While Kibaki was on campus, we weren’t allowed in the hostels cause otherwise someone could shoot him or something. So we were trapped at this ceremony. I’m sunburnt now. After there was a BBQ and we got free lunch (after waiting in line for an hour.) I guess it was pretty cool to see the president.
Today the library was open for the first time. I waited in a line for nearly 2 hours just to get my fingerprint scanned since that’s how they let you into the building. Thank god that’s over. They don’t have the wireless set up yet and you cant plug into the internet with your laptop yet either. They said this afternoon, which in African means maybe tomorrow it’ll be ready. It’s not quiet in here either. They’re still hammering away to finish the building. It’s pretty cool though. There’s a lot of space. So I think I’m going to finally sit down and look over my notes from the last 3 weeks of school. It’s so weird to not have anything to do, so I’m going to make an effort to try and really make everything I’ve learned stick in my brain. Alright, here I go.
Monday, September 17, 2007
School Starts
Our pseudo-vacation has ended and classes have begun. Last week was pretty slow for the most part. Tuesday and Wednesday we just bummed around at school and picked up new international students. From Thursday-Friday I went to Naivasha and Hells Gate National Park with Mike, Dijana, Robin, and Ladu. Ladu is from Sudan and has a car here. He offered to take us home with him in December. This is exciting. Anyway, it took a while to drive there. We were stopped at a roadblock and were questioned by this police officer that looked like a general. He seemed friendly and sounded like he was joking when he told us it was illegal to not wear seatbelts in Kenya. Robin talked to him and apparently he was serious and we would have to each pay 6000 shillings as a fine. Robin took charge and paid him off and that was that. Ohhh corruption. I seriously don’t know what we would do without Robin.
We had planned to camp in the park on Thursday and spend all day Friday in the park exploring. We got there, Robin talked to the guys, and then decided for us that it would be cheaper to stay at this resort on Lake Naivasha instead. Things were going exactly opposite how we had planned, but that is the Kenyan way. We ended up camping at the resort, but it was a serious joke. It felt like we were just camping in our backyard or something. There was a pool and it was seriously a nice place. We ate food from the local market and then crashed pretty early. Friday Mike and I insisted we go to Hells Gate even though it appeared more expensive than we planned. We got there, drove through the park and saw lots of animals. There were zebras, giraffes, buffalos, antelopes, and baboons. Very cool. Then we parked at this ranger’s station and were able to get a guide to take us through the gorges and hot springs. We would have been so lost without our guide. Apparently parts of Laura Croft: Tomb Raider were filmed in the gorge there. The springs were cool. At one point the gorge was so narrow we had to take off our shoes and walk through the warm water. Then we hiked up to the top of a hill and were greeted by a Maasai community. They were amazing. They showed us one of their mud huts, explained about their lifestyle, and then danced for us. They were so nice. They told us we could come back and stay with them for a celebration if we wanted. We bought some jewelry and then headed back to the car. We did all that by 1pm and we were exhausted. Drove back to school.
Saturday the new international students went on a tour of Nairobi. Mike and I stayed behind and caught up on sleep, walked to Nakumatt for water and some other things, and used the internet at school finally. Rosa, Aaron, and Catherine returned from Lamu and we all caught up and gossiped and had fun.
Sunday I got a call from the refugee I was in contact with here in Nairobi and he informed me he was on his way to school to pick up the stuff I had for him. When I asked how soon he would be here, he responded with “ok thank you bye” and hung up. Typical. Mike, Dijana and I waited by the gate for a long time. Eventually the refugees showed up and I took them to lunch. They were both very nice and it was good to talk to them for a while.
Monday classes started. We were warned that professors don’t even show up on the first day a lot of the time. Dijana and I had class at 9 together. We woke up early and went to the library when it opened to get our books. That took sooooo long and was so ridiculous. I only have 1 book. Crazy. Went to class and waited for the professor until like 920. Then figured out we were in the wrong class. Found the right room where the professor finally showed up at 940. The first 20 minutes he talked about why its important to read for class and do you work and work hard. He said “do it for yourself, and if not for yourself, do it for your parents who pay your fees.” Yeah right. Then he preached to us about teamwork and how Jesus is God and Jesus believed in teamwork. Bad times. We never even talked about International Humanitarian Law. So my first class wasn’t great. Went back to the hostels after and Mike and I were people of action and got a whole bunch done on campus. Then class again at 530. The professor was an improvement. Very energetic and we actually talked about African development. The professor was hitting on me a lot and he made me his secretary (even though he kept calling me Tracy) and talked about how he was going to take me on a date to get coffee. Awkward!!! Then he dropped a bomb on us. He asked if we could just not have Wednesday classes cause it interfered with his schedule. So now we don’t have Wednesday class. I’m a little bummed cause this class was going to be amazing and I want to learn as much as I can. We’ll see how this works out.
Had another class this morning. Sooo much better. The professor is so smart. We talked about current events for a while. Then we each had to introduce ourselves. Then class ended. And here I am. About to go to lunch, then my last class at 120. Oh, did I mention the library isn’t open until the 21st and there wont be wireless internet until next week and the computer lab is always PACKED? Yeah, great times. I’m out.
loves
Into Week 2
It’s been a whole week since I’ve had the chance to sit and jot down everything that’s been going on. It’s busy here, but great. Last Thursday we piled into the USIU van (driven by the great Julius Manga, the best USIU driver to ever exist. We all love him and he told me I could go live with him in the country. What a champ) and drove to a giraffe park. We got to feed the giraffes and pet them and if you put a treat between your lips, the giraffes will kiss you. It was really amazing. Then we went on a walk through the park, led by a guide, and we ran into one of the male giraffes (named Joc…we called him Old Joc haha) and were almost chased down. A bit scary but still very cool. We got a lot of cool pictures from that day.
Friday was the start of us really learning true Kenyan culture and it was a bit frustrating. It seems that there is always very little communication about what is going on so we are always pretty confused about where we are going, what we are doing, etc. Friday we really got a crash course in Kenya time too. Something you would expect to take maybe a half an hour will take at least 2-3 hours here. It can be a bit maddening. Friday we all met at 1030am to go to Machakos (a town in the country) to visit Robin’s family and go to an orphanage for the weekend. We all thought we were leaving Nairobi at 11 and were going to meet up with some of Robin’s friends from church, then drive to Machakos (a two hour drive to get 60 miles away.) Upon leaving the school we all found out that we were throwing a party for the orphans and had to pick up supplies. We went to a mall and were there forever. Then we went and ate pizza and we were there forever again. Robin then informed us we weren’t leaving Nairobi until 4pm. Robin constantly disappears too and we have no idea where he goes until an hour later he shows up from somewhere where he had to do some business. Kind of shady and weird. Anyway, we had to trek across Nairobi with all these bags of food (that we all had to pay for unknowingly) to where Robin’s mom’s bus was going to pick us up and drive us to the country. We were on time, and then Robin’s friends started filtering in. It was more than just a few friends; more than 20 people showed up. Then apparently we couldn’t be picked up where we were so we had to trek across Nairobi again and finally crowd into a bus. We probably didn’t end up leaving until 6pm. Once we arrived in Machakos, someone threw a rock at the bus and broke a window. One of the Kenyans insisted on removing the broken glass and I swear to god if we went over a bump John would have probably been impaled by this huge piece of glass. Anyway, we finally got to the house and pretty quickly figured out that this wasn’t just us and some of Robin’s friends going to Machakos for the weekend…it was a church retreat. Talk about awkward times. Thank god most of our group isn’t Christian and could be awkward together. Another thing about Kenyan culture is that no matter what you eat 3 meals a day. If you ship lunch and your second meal is at 5 o’clock, that means you just eat dinner at midnight. Sooo as soon as we got to the house, they started preparing dinner. We didn’t start eating until 1am. We were all so exhausted and just didn’t care about eating anymore, but we couldn’t go to sleep. What a day.
Saturday we were woken up by loud Kenyan hip hop at like, 8am. I don’t think Kenyans sleep. We left for the orphanage a few hours late. All of us were a little frustrated by what was going on, but a day with the orphans changed all that. At first I was holding the cutest little alien-looking baby named John. Then I had to go help prepare lunch and peeled sooooo many potatoes. I was really bad at it, but I really enjoyed sitting around talking for a long time about life with good people. I felt like a woman. Then more playing with children. I fell in love with a boy named Moses. The kids are all so amazing and happy. They take care of each other too. One kid started attacking me with a piece of string and this kid to the left of me just went up to him, yelled at him to stop, and then came over and patted me on the leg to sort of say “youre ok.” This kid had to of been only 4 years old. He was my little protector. A bunch of the boys went to town to get food and came back with two live chickens. Josh and John both killed the chickens. I watched although they did it rather inefficiently and it was sort of hard to watch. Near the end of the night Dijana and I talked to the woman who owns the home and she told us stories about 2 of the kids and just her motivation for helping the kids and afterward Dijana and I just had to go and cry cause it was just so heavy. Overall a good day though. At the end of the night we had to walk home and it was totally pitch black and we couldn’t see where we were walking at all. A few times I completely fell into a whole and seriously could have hurt myself. John and I were just both holding onto each other hoping we wouldn’t break our necks. Then, when we turned off the main road onto our small village road, we apparently went the wrong way and were attacked by guard dogs. Luckily no one was hurt and the owners came and led the dogs away but for a minute I seriously thought I was going to have to kick the fuck out of a dog. John came very close to being bitten. We finally got home and had a long time to chill before dinner was ready. Mike and I sat outside and talked for almost three hours. Mike’s probably my best friend here. He likes good music, movies, everything. He’s a film and television major and he always has cool stories. He’s from Denver. Anyway, we all finally ate dinner, then crashed.
Sunday Robin said he was going to take us to a place where the water from a stream went UP a hill instead of down. We all sort of didn’t believe it but figured wed see when we got there. We took one of these small 3-wheeled taxis way out into the country. It was so beautiful. We were dropped off and ventured down this path where we ran into some guys near a stream. Apparently we were in such a remote area that a few of the people we saw had never seen a Muzungu (white person.) THAT was cool. So we started jumping and climbing down these huuuge boulders. So much fun, but kind of scary cause if you slipped you would probably die. We all thought we were going to the stream where the water went up the hill but as usual Robin didn’t really inform us what we were doing so we were really only just walking on the rocks for the hell of it. We chilled near the bottom for a while. Eventually we turned around and went back to the road. Not surprisingly we had no way to get back to town so we started walking. A two hour walk to town. Yeah. We saw lots of goats and cows being herded through the mountains. My face got really burnt on that walk. Eventually we got home, at some leftover goat and then got on the bus and went home. Oh, and yeah, we never had time to go to this stream that goes uphill. Big surprise.
Monday Dijana, Mike, John, Ladu, and I went to Kibera. Kibera is the largest slum with over 800,000 people living there. John lived there for 6 weeks last summer and volunteered at an orphanage and made a documentary about the slum. So John took us there and had his friend, Peter, give us a grand tour of the place. A lot of the movie the Constant Gardener was filmed in Kibera. It was truly a heavy experience. You had to be very careful where you walked or you could slip into grow sewage water. The whole place was like a giant maze. Everywhere you go little kids shout at you and say “How are you?!” Except that they say it with emphasis on the ‘you’ and its cute. We had a really delicious lunch for less than a dollar, then went back to the orphanage to play with kids. I fell in love with a kid who wouldn’t talk. He was adorable. This orphanage was a lot different than the one in Machakos. There were way more kids, far less room to play, and everything was total chaos. Anyway, we left Kibera and took a matatu (sort of a Kenyan bus) back to Nairobi. We got to Nairobi around 630 pm and it was impossible to get a matatu back to campus. We started freaking out a little cause at 7 it got dark and was then very dangerous to be in Nairobi without a local. We trekked everywhere for a while looking for a cab but eventually the USIU bus was able to come pick us up on the way to the airport to get more new kids. We lucked out, we could have been in pretty big trouble. After that day of being Nairobi I felt like a pro at walking through traffic and dodging cars. Seriously, wow, I almost died a few times. We finally got home from the airport at like 1130. We left Kibera at like 5. Such a long time to get home. We reunited with the rest of the group. We’re such a family and it was hard to be separated for a whole day. Sadly three of our group went to Lamu today until Saturday and I’m seriously going to miss them.
Yesterday was a nice, relaxing day. I slept in really really late, went to Momma Rosie’s for a quick chapatti. Then an episode of Arrested Development with Mike. Then dinner with the group at Momma Rosie’s again. Then we all watched 300 together. Then sleep. I needed a break. Today is a similarly relaxing day. All we have planned is to get our library cards and user IDs/passwords for the school computers. Hopefully I’ll get the wireless shit set up. UGHHH Ok, time to go grab a samosa cause I’m hungry!
KISSES!