My first week in Meru

Hi there! Meru is great! My family is a little different from what I was told before I came here. The family just has one cat and she stays in the entryway part of the house. One of my host sisters is working in Nairobi and I have 2 host brothers, but they live in a separate house that is literally right next to the main house, but I never see them. So it is just me, my host parents,the househelp, my 26 year old host sister, Susan, and her 2 year old daughter, Zahura. Zahura is so cute! She always has a lot of hugs for me and she recites poems and sings songs for me. She's almost 3 and talks a lot, but she doesn't know much english, so all I have to go on is the little Swahili that I know. I am really enjoying Zahura, but she could use a visit from that Nanny 911 Lady! When she doesn't get her way, she screams and cries until they give in to her. My family has been really welcoming and I am feeling very comfortable in their home already. Although Meru is an urban area, it doesn't really feel like it because their house is tucked away on the outskirts of the city and is surrounded by small farms with tall banana trees everywhere. It's really green here and the view is beautiful. In the distance you can see mountains and rolling hills. For my internship, I am working at Ripple International's Tumaini Center which offers counseling, schooling, legal services, and housing for young girls, up to 17, who have been abused. There are 12 girls living at the house with 3 babies, 3 of the girls are now mothers and one of them is pregnant. The girls are great mothers, you can tell that they really love their children. It just doesn't seem possible to me that a 12 or 13 year old can be a mother, then reality kicks in when I see them breastfeeding their babies. It's hard to think about what their lives and the lives of their kids is going to be like. It's great that they are able to get support from Ripples International, but I know that there are many other girls just like them that aren't recieving any kind of support for the abuses that they have endured. There are also 8 girls that come to the center during the day to be trained in how to sew and do beadwork so that they can earn an income. The girls are so full of joy despite what they have gone through in their young lives. They teach me songs and games and are even teaching me a little bit of the Meru language. There isn't really a lot of toys to play with, but they are very creative! Yesterday, we reenacted the birth of Jesus...I got to be Joseph! Tea time is highly valued here, I am now averaging about 6 cups of tea a day. I have also gotten used to eating sugar cane. The texture is like what I would imagine eating a piece of wood would be like and it tastes sweet like sugar water. I think that's about it for now!

I'm STILL in Nairobi.....

Today I officially finished the classroom phase of my program for the semester! I just had my Swahili final, which was a skit that I and my classmates in the intermediate Swahili class made. It went pretty well, so hopefully we'll get a good grade on it. The rest of the week is for finishing the first drafts of our papers. Its been challenging to work on them because all of my sources and my work are on my computer. In the last 3 days, there has been electricity at my homestay for about 2 hours total. This week my dad is gone to their farm in western Kenya and my mom has been working at the store during the day and then is administering the national exams in the evening, so I've pretty much just been sitting in my room alone in the dark for the last 2 nights until my mom gets home around 9:00. I am getting very anxious to get to Meru! Nothing really too exciting has been going on here, but just thought I'd give a quick update! Oh! and in the last week it has rained quite a bit, which I know is good for the country, but it makes it very difficult to go anywhere. There are very few sidewalks, so I'm either walking through mud or sharing the road with the cars and getting splashed with muddy water. Today its nice and sunny though! :)

On the Farm and Internship news!

On Tuesday,my class went on a field trip to Ngong, which is a Masai town about a 20 min drive from Nairobi. I was really excited to find out where we were going...and then I found out that we were going to a farm. The farm is run by the government and they test vaccines on the animals and also sell milk, eggs, and the animals for human consumption. I thought it was a weird combo as well as did many of the other students. We did get to pet the baby cows and sheep, so it made the trip worth it! They were really cute! We then went to the top of a really steep and rocky hill where there are 6 or 7 windmills that were built with the aid of the Belgium Government. The ride up there was kind of scary, I wasn't sure if our bus was going to make it, but it chugged along and we eventually made it. The view was great! I included a picture, overlooking the cliff is the Masai land where they graze their cattle and have homes. On the top of the hill were evergreen trees that reminded me a lot of the pine trees at home. It was a welcome site! :) After that, my professor took us all out to lunch! All in all, it was a pretty enjoyable day. This Wednesday is my last day of class for the semester! On Sunday, I'll be leaving for Meru and starting my internship the following Monday. I got all of the info about my new host family. I'm a little bit nervous about it, but Im going to hope for the best! It's completely different from my home stay situation in Nairobi! My new family has 2 cats, a dog, a 3 year old grandchild, and 3 kids-2 girls and a boy- that are all around my age, and househelp that is also my age. I won't have my own room anymore, I'll have a shared bedroom. It will definitely be an adjustment!

Field trip and a tour of Kibera

Yesterday, I went on a field trip for the social services course that I am taking here. There are 6 other students in the class as well. We fist went to a school that is run by an NGO in the Mukuru slum. It's actually mostly funded by the Irish government. The school was really great and they are really doing a lot for the community. The school teaches kids from what would be 1st grade all the way up to adults. Primary education is free here, but some kids still aren't able to attend school because they have to have uniforms and books and are also charged a small fee for the operations of the classroom. Some of the adults haven't been to school, so they are starting out right at the beginning. The class rooms were really nice and the kids were so cute! We told them our names and then they told us theirs and a few of the classes also recited songs they had been working on. We then went to a free clinic that is mainly for AIDS patients that is run by the coptic orthodox church. The facility was amazing, they currently have nearly 10,000 patients. The clinic offers free testing, medicine, clinic visits, even a maternity ward. The largest contributer to the clinic is USAID. After class I got in a quick nap and then my neighbor Frank called me and informed me that we were going for a walk, so he showed me around Kibera, which is the second largest slum in the world and its about a 5 min walk from where I'm staying. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before! There were dogs and chickens and goats roaming around all over and there were a ton of booths selling clothes, khangas, shoes, vegetables, fruit, you name it, it was probably sold there! There was also a crazy amount of garbage. I thought that I would be really sad after seeing the conditions of Kibera, but actually, everyone there seems really happy and you can tell that there is a really strong community bond there. The kids were absolutely adorable. When they saw me they chanted "how are you?" and some of them came up to me and shook my hand. Tonight some of my friends and I are going to make tacos for my family. My mom is really excited.

Victory is Sweet, even from Africa!

Yesterday after class, ESPN replayed the Vikings v. Packers game!! I didn't know the result of the game, so it seemed like it was happening as I watched it. My friend Janel, her host brother, and I went to a bar/restaurant here that has a lot of tvs, and they changed the channel for us so that we could watch the game. Watching soccer makes me sad, there's just something missing, so it was a nice change to watch football, and it was a great game! Farvre was looking good in purple ;) As I waited for a cab afterwards, a little boy came up to me and asked for money or food. There were about 6 other boys there too, they all looked like they were no older than 9 or 10. It's so sad to see all of the kids living on the streets, and there are quite a few of them. They look like they really need someone to care for them. Some of them do have homes or have been placed in homes, but they go back to the streets because they think that it is the best way of life for them as they get money and food from a lot of people. It's hard to look at them and not give them anything, but it is just encouraging the continuation of this lifestyle.

Today we only had one class, so I'm spending the day at a coffee shop that has wireless internet to do some research for the 3 papers that are due at the end of this semester,about 35 pages total. It is hard finding current sources here, even at the University of Nairobi, so most of my research is going to have to be done online. I just thought I'd share a picture of the view of Nairobi that is near my house!