Muh-ta-two.

Today marks day 6 in Africa, and the first Saturday I've been living with Lucy.

She and I woke up early to clean the house and left before 11 for her brother's (she calls it “bro's”) house. We walked to the post office where a majority of the matatus stop to pick up passengers and, of course, got the most packed matatu with blaring rap that you could hear down the street.

Matatus comfortably fit 7, I think ours had 10 plus the two operators. Matatus are like cabs on steroids basically—and they're in a hurry. I guess they wanna save gas whenever possible because they will do literally anything to arrive to their final destination as fast as possible.

Our matatu today was by far the craziest I've been on: we backed into another matatu, stalled going up a huge hill, drove on the pedestrian sidewalk for at least a mile (that was the best part), and the entire time were CENTIMETERS away from other cars. Matatus are constantly slamming on breaks, swerving dramatically, and cussing out other matatus (well the drivers are..) all while this loud hip hop/african/rap music is playing. It's near impossible to accurately describe what it's like to ride in a matatu besides to just say that the whole time you're holding onto your chair...and your life. I've been told that they're the most dangerous way to get around (which I totally believe) but they're also the way cheapest. One ride is 20 shillings...75 shilings is 1 USD...do the math.

We arrived at her bro's in the afternoon and spent the afternoon cooking African food and watching poorly-made African soap operas with her female relatives. It was enjoyable except that the majority of the time the women were speaking in Swahili..

On our way home, we passed by another slum. It was the really stereotypical slum: walls and ceilings made of scrap metal, wooden boards, cardboard-- I saw a couple even with walls made from rocks held together by mud. Around the slum were hundreds of children digging through mounds of trash as tall as I am—food leftovers, bottles, cans, mud, decaying animals, you name it. It's impossible to fathom what it's like to be those people; I spend a majority of my time these days thinking about how awesome my life is.

Tomorrow's Sunday and I'll be going to church with Lucy. Basically everyone here is Christian and although I may not get much out of the service, I've heard that African-Christian services are not to be missed, so we'll see! Also, I heard there's a UU church somewhere around here that I'm going to find. I'd LOVE to go to a UU church in Africa!

Hope all's well...I finally had a chance to get on the internet today to talk to Mama Hicks and am gonna go more frequently to the internet cafe up the street. 1 shilling/minute = cheap!

Kwa Heri!

Every moment I'm by myself all I can think about is home.

I don't want to be a quitter...people come to Africa every day and have the time of their lives. Lucy is really such a sweet lady..I really enjoy my evenings with her cooking dinner, watching Kenyan soap operas, and chatting about anything.

--Lol oh, last night I made dinner. Good lord. I figured that you can't mess up Ramen, right? So, two packs of Ramen, 1 egg, 2 carrots all chopped up, some African spices...it was more like noodle mush haha don't ask how it happened, but she tried her best to eat it lol so I think we've decided that she'll cook and I'll clean up haha--

It's not that I miss anything specific....it's hard to explain. I think I just miss America in general...which is bizarre because although I've always been proud to be an American, i've never been overly patriotic. Like, i'll sing the national anthem or whatever but I avoid tshirts with red, white, and blue tie dye (lol...yes, you know who you are! :] ) but every time I see a girl with USA earrings or a dude wearing a shirt that says US ARMY (which is surprisingly common) my heart skips a beat. It's different to miss your family or your house than it is to miss your country...and I miss it. It's draining being surrounded by strangers, and unfamaliar foods, and dirty places, and strange languages. I can nap all I want but I wake up exhausted.

I'm ready for college, too. In Cambodia I tried to convince myself that I'd much rather be traveling the world and doing huge things than going to college, but as far as I can tell from friends, college rocks. And going to college doesn't bring the end of “changing the world”.....there's so much to do in the States. There is poverty everywhere.

Cambodia and Africa were half to give my all to help others, and half to displace myself and learn about another culture. I've learned and going back to America isn't the end of helping others. Maybe in 2 weeks everything will be different and I'll never leave Kenya...but right now, even if I were really really enjoying every minute, I think I'd be ready to go anyway. Man, I wish it weren't like that though...I didn't expect to feel this way and it's so disappointing...I was talking to Maura about this the other day: there is no way to describe how hard this trip is unless you're explaining it to someone who's done it already. ---It is just so, so hard. Like a big, fat punch to the face with no one around to hand you some ice.

Yesterday was nice, though. I spent a long time in the afternoon walking around by myself....I admit that I was lost for a while, but I had a general sense of where I was...ish. I walked through the “rich” neighborhoods and passed the slum near my house. It was sunny and nice, and now I know my way around the district pretty well. Or, at least I know my way from the supermarket and Waltz offices to my house. It was nice to spend my afternoon doing something else than reading or studying Swahili or sleeping. And, when Lucy came home from work she gave me a Kenyan cooking lesson: Kenyan stew = delicious.

And today is my first day of work! I went to school at 8 this morning and was figured into their pre-existing schedule. I am officially the Creative Arts teacher, Miss Jen. I teach music and art...there's a book that I can look to for guidance but its so...ridiculous. The first exercises are of drawing scenes like “Draw a picture of a teacher caning a student for failing a test. The student should have tears in his eyes and blood on his hands” and i'm like...uhhhhhh what?! So, I'm gonna come up with my own stuff. I mean, there's no exam for music and art so whatever...but I'm not having them draw pictures of me beating them.......no.

I was a bit surprised that I wasn't teaching English or Math like the principal had said on Wednesday. And, because I'm only teaching those subjects, I have a really light schedule. Mondays I only have one 40 minute class, tuesdays and fridays are from 11:30 to 3:10, then wednesdays and thursdays are pretty mild, too.

I asked the principal if I could teach anything else, but they already have teachers...paid professional ones. There are 2 math teachers, 3 english teachers, 2 science teachers, at least 1 social studies teacher, and a couple Swahili teachers. That's the downside of working at a private school---they don't really need help. Help is always nice but they'd be good with or without me.

But....I didn't come to Africa to have free time until a forty minute class in the afternoon...then more free time. There's a gym across the street that I'll join to hopefully meet some people. But I am not going to let my time in Africa be spent sitting around the house. I could see myself doing this for a month or two, but after that I'm either going to change project locations or to go home and get a job. I could do tons of volunteer stuff around Augusta...I saw a commercial on tv for Habitat for Humanity that reminded me of our snr project and how it was one of the most fun things I've ever done...so I could get a job during the week and do Habitat on the weekends....there're so many ways to spend time.

On a different note, though, I've had a blast hanging out with Lucy in the evenings. I'm not sure what we're gonna do tomorrow (Saturday) but she sounded like she wanted to hang out.....which would be awesome :) I asked her about the Giraffe Sanctuary in Nairobi, whether or not it's worth going to, and she said, “oh sure we'll go check it out some weekend soon” which was really sweet. We're friends...not just people forced to live together. And, last night another American volunteer came in really late so he stayed at Lucy's with us for the night. It was fun having company even for one evening.

The other dude volunteer who's gonna be staying at our house for like 3 weeks arrives next week sometime. John had said that he was young and chill, but then I found out he's a doctor so he can't be that young. And because he's a doctor, he'll be working at a different project...not that I would need help with my art classes. So, we'll do different things during the days then spend evenings together with Lucy, and hopefully do some cool things on the weekend. AND the couple from Canada arrived yesterday to volunteer for 2 months. They seem really cool so hopefully I'll be able to spend time with them on weekends, too. I'd love to go to Uganda and Tanzania safari-ing around East Africa. The trip takes less than a week and is pretty cheap (which is always nice).

I'm going to make the absolute most of my time here and I know teaching art is going to be SO fun, but not as rewarding as teaching an actual subject would be. Like I said, time is so valuable and I need to feel like I'm making a difference...or at least doing something useful. Plus, the kids don't need 5 months of art lessons from someone who isn't that good at drawing haha

Time to make a sandwich to take to school for lunch. Kenyan specialty: peanut butter, honey, and sugar.....mmmmmmm!

PS – Tara, expect a message soon needing fun art class ideas--it's been a while since Intro to Art! I'm giving them Friday Sketches for homework! =)

Ms. Jen

Today has been such a breath of fresh air.

John, Nicholas, and Nora came over at 9 again and showed me to the school. It's the most bizarre walk to school...I walk through some really poor areas, past all the “waiting women”, and through a construction site. The school itself reminds me a lot of Khmer Help Khmer, only more organized, private, and African. I start teaching on Friday and I'm really excited.

Hopefully I'll develop a daily routine: teaching from 8am – 4pm, home by 4:30, relax and read, Lucy gets home around 6, eat dinner, watch Storm over Paradise, then go to bed. Weekends hopefully I can meet up with the other volunteers at least one night. I hope that all works out!

Nicholas and Nora have been with me at Lucy's for a couple hours today...don't know where John is. That's pretty much how things work in Kenya-- “I'll be back soon” actually means I'll be back before tomorrow sometime.

I'll make lunch soon then have the rest of the day to relax and read...and probably sleep. Naps have become a regular part of life, too. I have had a really good time talking with Nicholas and Nora..they're so fun. As good as today was, the thought of doing it for 5 months still makes my eyes water. I could stay here for a couple months, then come home and get a job. I'm 18 and I've never been employed before!

There are a lot of ways to spend time, and I have a feeling that after a couple months I'll feel like my time here is finished, like I did when I left Cambodia. I could have stayed there longer, but there was nothing more that I would have learned, ya know? I think that that will come at about the same time in Kenya. Don't assume that I've already deserted my plans and given up—I haven't. I'm just realizing that there is good everywhere, and my being a volunteer here isn't binding. If there's a point at which I feel complete, there's nothing keeping me here. Especially if I keep missing home as much as I am. It is remarkable how such a miserable morning can be flipped around so quickly like today was, though.

Adjusting. Slowly.

PS- Obama's tribe = Luo Tribe. A lot of the tribes have music-video style commercials for their tribe which usually consist of dancing and singing in a field on a sunny day. And the Luo Tribe are the most hilarious dancers. Youtube if you can find anything.

I need some friends...

Today's been nice. John, Nicholas, and Nora came to the house at 9. John and Nicholas split to go to work, and Nora and I went around Nairobi all day. We checked out the area where the “whites” are (nothing like Siem Reap!!) and then took a bus to downtown to buy a cellphone, exchange my US dollars, and walk around to check things out.

We took some local transportation, too. Matatus are basically really cheap group taxis. They stop at specific stops like buses do, and if someone flags one down from the side of the road it'll stop to pick him up. The vehicles themselves resemble old VW vans and have graffiti all over them. It cost 30 shillings to go about 10 minutes worth of driving—that's less than 50 cents. It was really nice to go around with someone—had I been by myself, I would have been completely and utterly lost. Not only do I not know Swahili at all, but i'm not used to big cities!

That's another thing I noticed today: Nairobi has everything. It looks a little different from Atlanta, for example, but it has urban clothing stores, Coach purses, fast food, huge banks, huge hotels, city buses, cars, millions of people talking on cell phones or listening to ipods or playing on gameboys, and everyone (besides a couple Massai tribe people walking around) was basically modernly dressed—girls wearing tight jeans, heels, pretty tops, hair elaborately done; guys fly sneakers, baggy jeans, shirts with Obama or 50 Cent, bling watches. I guess I'm confused why Kenya needs all the help. Everyone I saw today seemed pretty well off. But then at the same time I realize that there's a huge jump from city people and slum people...it's just hard to be motivated when most people around you look like they could live in LA.

Today was nice and I have a much better bearing for my area and the areas around. And it was sunny today, which made a world of difference. I also learned a few funny facts about Kenyans:

Kenyans eat ketchup on everything
Kenyans can't act or sing, apparently
Kenyans speak a mixture of swahili and english. Lucy will say, “Jambo, John. I'm going swahiliswahiliswahiliswahili at 7. Could you swahiliswahiliswahili before you go?”
Kenans and Cambodians both call me Jenny, even though I never introduce myself that way
Kenyans have no problem telling a shop owner that their shop sucks
And my favorite, Kenyans call cross-walks “zebra stripes”

With Waltz, it's a tradition that current volunteers go to the airport to pick up new ones, so on Thursday I'll be going with John to the airport to pick up a couple from Canada who won't be teaching or living with me, but still they're potential friends to spend time with this weekend as opposed to sitting around alone. Then next week sometime there's a guy from NY who'll be living at Lucy's, too. So, I imagine he'll be like Val (not that anyone can match up to her!) in that we'll go to school together and hang out on the weekends with Lucy and other friends/volunteers.

I'm still feeling like 5 months is a long time. Maybe some places really do only really need financial support—it's great to visit the place to which you're donating a large sum of money, but living there and being there every day for nearly half a year....might be overkill. I hope not though..I think. As nice as today was,...I dunno.

PS- the internet is kinda tricky in Kenya and very unpredictable, so I often find myself writing these blogs on MSWord and then I'll just batch upload them, so scroll down to see others that I might have uploaded on the same day. Make sense?

Time to study some Swahili
I miss you all so much

I'm in Africa.

Whenever I blog, it's generally after something really great!
“hey guys this really awesome thing happened and i'm so happy about it!!”

There have been low points before, but they were always canceled out by the high ones. There have been only low points in Kenya. I think maybe I would feel more comfortable if I had known anything about what I'd be doing or where I'd be staying or the layout of the city...I can think of a million “if only”s:

if only I had known where I would be staying,
if only I had chosen a city with a big tourist draw so it would have a touristy area,
if only I had known that the biggest slum in Kenya would be in my backyard,
if only I had known that there is a guesthouse but no schools nearby so I won't be staying there,
if only I had known that where I'm staying there will be nearly no other volunteers.
And the list goes on...

There are other ways to see the world and to mature that don't involve 1500 dollar plane tickets and 8-12 hour time differences from your family. I think I've decided that going home for Christmas was the best thing ever, but also the worst. I never thought I'd be the homesick type. Cambodia—no problem ever. But this trip is just so different. I'm closer to the US than Cambodia, but I feel a million miles farther. I can't sit around and think about this all day, though, otherwise I go crazy—so, here's how I ended up here finally:

After an 8 hour layover in London, finally boarded a plane straight into Nairobi and conveniently had an unoccupied seat next to me so I had a bit of extra room. When I arrived, Tom picked me up. I think he's the airport pick-er-up-er for Waltz organization. He took me to Lucy's house, the lady who i'll be living with for the next who knows how long. She's really generous and pleasant to be around---and fluent in English. When Tom and I arrived at her house, she was at work but John was there to greet me. He and a friend finished setting up a bed in my room, meanwhile I took an 8 hour nap in Lucy's room and balled my eyes out trying to be as quiet as possible. Crying so isn't worth it when you can't make noise...kinda defeats the whole purpose of it. It's like suppressing a sneeze. When I woke up, she had come home from work and was chatting with John. We did brief introductions and then he headed home.

Lucy and I spent the evening together, made dinner, watched some Oprah and her favorite soap opera, and went to sleep relatively early. It was nice spending time with her, eating local food, literally living the life of a local Kenyan. And see nothing's wrong here: I have good food, my own bed, friendly people to chat with. But then I imagine myself doing it for 5 months...I have to shake off whatever's putting a gloom over this trip. Just because it's not Cambodia, doesn't mean that it can't be equally as fantastic.

Airport Bloggin'

1) Oh here we go, here we go, here we go, oh here we go again...

Well, here now at my gate in the Atlanta airport for 3 hours waiting for my flight to Chicago. There was basically no line at security and my gate is so close to security that I can still see where my mom was waving bye to me. My flight schedule is Atl to Chi, Chi to Brussels, Brussels to Bujumbura, Bujumbura to Nairobi. The trip totals a modest 28 hours, 5 hours longer than the trip to Cambodia (which is farther away than Kenya is......? oh well) I'll be picked up in Nairobi at midnight tomorrow by John Pertet, the Kenyan project coordinator (same type of job as Meng in Cambodia) and taken to Lucy Mjili's house. I'll be living with her (and any potential family who she lives with?) until February when I move to the volunteer guesthouse. I've heard such fun awesome things about the guesthouse: that lots of people are in and out of there, that it's easy to make friends, that you generally work together. So, that'll be exciting whenever I get there. Also, Pertet told me that my school is about 300 meters away from where I'll be living! (not sure if he's talking about Lucy's house or the guesthouse) That's a really fantastic thing because (like Maura in India) I hope that the kids will feel comfortable coming over to the guesthouse to hang out and coming over for dinner and inviting us to dinner at their homes. In Cambodia, teaching was the main goal of my being there. In Kenya, I think it's going to be a lot more about the students and my relationships with them. In Cambodia, the kids were too poor to take time off from working to hang out and their English was so poor that (except for few exceptions) communication would be severely limited. In Kenya, though, I'll be teaching at a private school (meaning they have more money), which at first I was bummed about, but in second thought that means that the kids will have more free time!
Cambodia was so organized that I knew what I was doing every hour of every day from the MOMENT I arrived. In Kenya, I'm just gonna roll with the punches and figure it out: find an internet cafe, visit my school, meet other volunteers if there are any, find a good restaurant, buy groceries, and make a routine. I've done it once, I can do it again.
Apart from excitement and nerves about my trip, this morning has been shockingly awful for many people I know. I wish it didn't take something horrible happening for me to realize how precious life is. Each day could be your last, or could be your last with someone...so love your loved ones, and make sure that they know that you love them. I guess that's all I have to say about that.
I have over an hour more before my flight for Chicago, and once I arrive there I have a 4 hour layover (woo.) There should be some killer weather there! Talk to you all again soon.

PS – Still thinking of you. You're incredible.


2) HAH you call THAT snow?!

Well, just arrived in Chicago...I haven't gone crazy with the camera taking pictures except on the plane looking outside the window. It was literally white...everywhere! The flight was uneventful...slept, had some OJ, took pictures of snow, and studied Swahili...........which is very difficult. Atlanta snow has nothing on Chicago snow.


3) Broke sweat running in the Brussels airport

Flight out of Chicago to Brussels was around an hour late, which, in turn, made my arrival into Belgium late. So late, in fact, that my flight to Bujumbura and Nairobi had already left. So, after lots of running, stairs, and moving sidewalks, I've rescheduled the flight. Instead of leaving Brussels to Bujumbura at 10:40, I am now leaving Brussels to London at 1, then from London to Nairobi at 7pm to arrive in Nairobi at 6:30am. I've been running around with an American guy I met in the security line who was in the same boat as I, and earlier the two of us linked up with a group of 4 American women who were also trying to get to Africa. So, my second red eye flight in 24 hours...lol yay time changes. This whole situation merely echoes my motto of this trip: Go With The Flow.