first entry from KENYA!

So I officially arrived in Kenya 1 week ago. After some confusion at the airport and plenty of missing bags (none of them mine! Thank God!), we all got on a rickety bus to our hostel for the night. We were exhausted, cranky and hungry! And of course, SO SO EXCITED! The hostel was very basic. It was the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya hostel just outside Nairobi. We had tea and biscuits when we arrived, got some clean clothes out and chose bunkbeds. There was also lots of laughter and confusion about the bathrooms, because they were just holes in the floor and none of us felt too skilled yet! There were no showers that I know of, so those who wanted to clean up just dunked their heads in a bucket of water and washed it off under a cold tap that we also were using as a sink. It was pretty funny :) Then the next day we woke up at 5:00 am to get ready, re-pack, and have some breakfast. We had to get into downtown Nairobi early to avoid the famous Nairobi traffic jams! We did some tedious immigration stuff & started to get to know each other a bit more. There were 37 of us at that time, mostly girls. And surprisingly, 16 of us or so are year long students! We spent the morning becoming official Kenyan residents, then had some lunch, hit a supermarket for lots of toilet paper, and headed off to Nakuru for our week-long orientation.

3+ hours later, we were in Nakuru National Park in another (VERY basic) Wildlife Clubs of Kenya facility. At least this one had normal toilets! Though by that, I don't mean they had toilet seats...or paper. Lol. It just wasnt a hole in the ground, which made life MUCH easier. We split up into bunks again, had some tea, talked some more, but pretty much just slept and ate. We were all still very jet-lagged at that point. The next day, I and a few other girls were up at 5am again, took FREEZING cold showers (there was no hot water available), then enjoyed ourselves by watching the water buffalo that had come right up to the fence surrounding our campsite! The mist was all around us and the buffalo were just grazing, must have been over a hundred of them! One very brave one came RIGHT INTO our compound, so we gave him a wide berth. No need to get gored by a buffalo on our first day. Then it warmed up, we had some breakfast, and things got going. We did some ice-breakers & worked on some assignments meant to help us prepare for our homestays, our internships, and being safe & secure during our trip. Of course we hated doing it all, but we were brought together as a group in our mutual hate of ice-breakers! :) The staff are all SO wonderful though, they made everything very easy on us. They are Simon, Jane, Khalif, and Abdul-Aziz. The girls bonded later on as we all freaked out about the gigantic black beetles that kept ending up on their backs in front of our door. And when I say gigantic, I REALLY mean it. Apparently, if they get ahold of you, they latch onto your skin and DO NOT let go. So we were pushing them around with brooms to get them away from us and our bare feet! There were also these big flying insect/wormy things that had gotten too heavy to fly. So they just buzzed around in circles on the floor and ended up in our luggage and stuff. They were disgusting and all the staff laughed at me especially cause I was running around so they wouldn't touch me or land on my feet! Jane keeps playfully threatening to catch one and put it in my bed. That night also, around 3am, Abdul-Aziz was praying outside and a lion came right up to the fence and roared at him! He FREAKED OUT and ran back inside. The lion was a frequent visitor to us in the nighttime, but luckily he never came in like the buffalo. We did see him 3 times though! We were SO lucky. We went on 3 game drives, 1 on each night, and on the 2nd one we had the most amazing luck. We saw EVERYTHING Nakuru has to offer except a leopard. I was most excited about the rhinos, which at one point we were able to get so close to that they were just maybe 10 feet away! We also saw tons of huge giraffes, zebra, hyenas, antelope, etc...Oh and at the lake, we got off the bus and walked around as hundreds of flamingos swam and flew around us. It was incredible!

On Thursday we found out where our internships were going to be and what we'd be doing. My internship is not finalized yet, however, because there were some issues & confusion sorting it out. But I should (FINGERS CROSSED) get exactly what I wanted! This is working for Solidarity with Women in Distress (SOLWODI) in Mombasa. They go into the homes of commerical sex workers & offer them the opportunity to learn a new skill so they can find another job to support themselves. It also gives them healthcare and family planning, and I think it also has started to address the issue of child sex trafficking in the area. Anyway, when I know for sure what I'm doing & where I'll be living, I'll write about it.

Saturday we left Nakuru and came back to Nairobi to finally meet our host families. I am living with the Koech family in Sunview Estates, a nice safe gated community with a few hundred houses in it. My mom is SO WONDERFUL. She has made me feel very at home & comfortable, and she is SO smart. She's a teacher, and we have been having long, interesting conversations about everything! Her husband is not around much because he works far away in Eldoret, so I haven't met him. She has 4 kids, 2 who are in the US and 2 who live here. But I haven't met those 2 yet. They have been in their rural home in the rift valley this weekend. I hope to meet them soon. But I have met some of the neighbors! There are 2 boys who came my first night, Ken & Tony. They were great and we talked for a while. And Ken was over last night and we talked for hours with Mrs. Koech, then played cards for a while. They are great, so I'm excited to meet my 2 host brothers. Also, there is a lady named Janet who works as house-help. She's very quiet, but sweet & caring. She is from Kisumu originally and has 3 children who still live there. I went to church with Mrs. Koech yesterday. She is Catholic, and she attends this HUGE church in the center of Nairobi. I really enjoyed the ceremony, especially the music, and apparently impressed Mrs. Koech with my ability to sing along & dance to the choir. I told her I had next to no experience, but just followed her as best I could! :) She is wonderfully progressive and open to everything we talk about. I know I will learn so much from her over the next few weeks.

Today was our "first day of classes" at African Nazarene University. It's nice because I am close enough to walk to campus, just 15 minutes or so. We didn't really have class, we just met our professors, then went back into downtown Nairobi to do more immigration stuff & get our cell phones (finally). It POURED today, and the streets in Nairobi don't have any grates, so the water flooded the streets really fast. It was insane! Thankfully, I and a few friends who live really close to me had already gotten on a bus to go home, so we stayed pretty dry and warm. The bus comes right in front of my Estate, so it's a nice easy trip. I'm not sure what we'll be doing tomorrow, but I cannot wait.

The other kids on the program so far are really fantastic. Its nice to be around so many people with the same interests as me. But we come from very diverse backgrounds so its still very new and interesting to talk to all of them. It's also been very useful so far to have my Swahili background. When people tried to sell me things in the market the other day, I spoke to them in Kiswahili rather than English and they left me alone after that! Not being constantly hassled to buy overpriced tourist items was SUCH a relief. And I can already tell my Kiswahili is getting better here. If I do end up in Mombasa, I think I'll be relatively well versed by the time I come home next summer!

Alright, it's time for me to go home now and get some dinner. I'll write again soon! Kwa herini rafiki zangu (goodbye my friends!).

Alana