"NOW you're African!"

had my hair done today!!

It took about 5 hours total and is giving me a major headache, but it looks so crazy! There's my hair and fake hair, brown and black—and there must be over 100 braids! The whole time the ladies commented "so white!" (talking about my scalp haha) But they also kept saying “smart sana” which means “looks very smart”, and one even said “NOW you're an African!”

Also, today I introduced Pipeline IDP Camp to Sudoku. I brought my book so that I'd have something to do while my hair was being braided, and after explaining it to a couple guys I basically had a line of men asking for a page from my Sudoku book—and then later on, I heard some men yelling across camp to each other. I asked Naomy what they were talking about, and she said “they're frustrated with your new game” lol! 3 hours later they were still working on the puzzles! Anyway, it was fun to see these grown men so invested in Sudoku :)

Otherwise today was pretty tame..it's been rainy all day so most people kept in their tents. I visited friends around camp then headed back to the house where I hung out with Emma and Tabs (they live in camp....but are always hanging around the house). Tomorrow I'm going to town for the afternoon to send e-mails and start fundraising for the house I'm trying to build. I want to leave Africa having given a family a new, better home. Rather, having given 2 families new better homes. In a perfect world, I'd have the funds to tear down a really run down tent on camp to replace it with a metal-sheet house. Then, I'd have a family who lives in a nice tent move into the house, and the family with the run down tent would move into the nice house—that way everyone gets an upgrade. I'm gonna e-mail all the people I can, and try to figure out how much, for example, 5USD or 10 USD will buy. Like, I know that 20USD can buy wood for the frame of the house. I'm gonna figure out some other figures...there's just no way to describe the standard of living here. And it's even harder to describe how comfortable I've become around it.

I'm also calling a local dentist whose number a past volunteer left to see if he'll come to the camp to give out free dental exams that he promised last year. People here don't have yellow teeth, they have brown teeth with black spots on them..that is, if they have teeth at all. There's so much to do that it makes my head spin!...or maybe it's just the braids..

Love you all!

Girls Weekend!

This weekend really was a ton of fun – Grace (40ish), Lucy (24), and I went to Lake Baringo, about a 2 hour journey from Nakuru. Lake Baringo's known specifically for its crocodiles and hippos, and let me tell you it did not disappoint!

The three of us stayed in a tent RIGHT next to the water's edge, and as soon as night fell we heard the hippos emerge from the water and wander onto the land munching (so loudly!) on grass RIGHT next to our tent! Had our tent been open, we could've touched them! Hippos are rumored for being really aggressive and dangerous, and while I won't argue with that, they're really only dangerous if you get in between them and the water. If you frighten them, they won't munch you to death or eat your arm, they'll just run like hell into the water and bulldoze you over if you're in the way!

Saturday we lounged around the whole day and watched the hippos in the water (they stayed in the water during the day just off of the banks so you could watch them play and swim around), ate some delicious food, went on walks, and enjoyed showers that weren't out of buckets! We came home to Nakuru this afternoon (Sunday) and I've spent the evening playing with Rachel and Tabitha...and tomorrow I'm getting my hair done!! It's probably gonna take around 6 hours...gah...a lady in the camp, Mary, is doing it. Having things like that done on site are difficult because say she tries to charge me a really high price, it's hard to bargain because 1) you see what her tent looks like, 2) she'd probably say “sister, please help me” and 3) I have to see her every day for the next month so it's not like I can simply refuse her price. I'll have Naomy come with me to make sure I get a good price, and also to take a picture :)

On a different note, I've been drinking some kinda fishy water lately...everyone says it's okay though! At Lake Baringo all three of us drank water out of some random tap that connected to the shower water...the guy at the counter said it was okay to drink, but he also would have to be the one to go through the hassle of boiling water for us. It tasted fine, though...a little metal-y. I asked Elizabeth earlier about the water out of the huge, black container behind the house, too. She said it was treated with chlorine, and that Shamarie used to drink it straight. That, combined with Lucy's drinking the water here straight, was enough to convince me that I didn't need to be so paranoid. Plus, I've been here for approaching 3 months...I think that if I were going to get seriously ill, it would've happened by now! I'm more worried about the milkshake that I mistakenly drank on our last night at Lake Baringo—it's hard to remember not to take dairy! If I didn't put it on here, which I'm assuming that I didn't, I developed lactose intolerance while in Cambodia...good thing I hated milk anyway! (...)

I'm finally in Nakuru having some of the most memorable experiences of my life, I've been thinking a lot lately about all the people who liked to think (or say) that this trip was a dumb idea, that I would benefit more from going to college, or even that it wouldn't happen at all! Sometimes I imagine myself switching eyeballs with someone, so that that person could see some of the things I see every day here, and I'm positive that you'd never guess that those images belong to MY eyes! This is such a once in a lifetime type opportunity—I'm so fortunate to be here and am learning more than I ever will learn in a classroom. There's no education like experience!

I've also been thinking a lot about practical ways to “change the world” because I really think that deep down that's basically what everyone dreams of—being able to cure some illness or hunger and thirst or saving all the animals—whatever your passion is. The world is so, so, so incredibly enormous and in need that thinking about it too much makes my eyes water and head spin, but this whole trip is the spark that I needed to get going. It's easy to watch the news and think, “wow, that's horrible” and then flip to cartoons—but we don't HAVE to sit back and wait for someone else to do something! We can get up off of our couches and take action! Or hell, at least try...if we're supposed to be the generation to “heal the world”, why does it seem like we're the laziest yet?! I mean, more people vote for American Idol than our own presidential elections!! WOW. And I'm gonna make sure that this isn't a phase that I'm going through, cause I know we all feel save-the-world-motivated at times...this is gonna be IT.

YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE, and once every day's over...it's never coming back. This may have something to do with the fact that my birthday's coming up, too, and I'm feeling really old (lol.....no, but really...)

Anyway, that's my word for the night—thinking of you all, and having the time of a lifetime. I wish you were here to share it with me.

AND I'm getting excited for camp!! :] hope YOU are, too!!

My first three days in Nakuru have been everything I hoped.



Last time I came here, within 2 minutes of stepping into camp, I was holding a baby and being kissed on the cheeks by old mamas. This time was no different: I've met at least a hundred people on camp, all of whom have kissed me on each cheek with a firm “Habari yako! Karibu!” = “How are you! Welcome!”


Naomy is the lady on camp who's responsible for the volunteers, and let me tell you, she's sent directly from heaven! She's gotta be the most loving woman I've ever met, and she's so involved! I see her every day and she wants to know what I'm doing, what I've done during the day, if I need any help, if I want her to come anywhere with me—she's an absolute angel! The other volunteers here are great, too. Two of the girls are nurses from Canada who work in the small clinic on camp, another girl, two others, Lucy and Grace, are both from the US, and one male Kiwi lives down the block. We all went out last night for dinner with a few other young Kenyans who live around here—it was good, good fun!


This house is unlike anywhere else I've ever lived in my life. Going to Thailand and peeing in a hole in the ground for a week is nothing like having that hole in the ground as your only option! There are two toilets, one outside for during the day, and one inside for at night. Both are holes in the ground. If you want to take a shower, you boil some water and mix the hot with some cold until it's warm...splash it on your body, dump it on your head, and you're done! If you want to have some cold juice, well too bad.....there's no refrigerator! Laundry is done outside in a big basin of rain water and hung on a line, and if you're hungry for a snack, just ask Auntie and she'll make it for you!



HAH communicating with Auntie is an experience, too. I know more Swahili than she knows English lol but it's really helping me with my kiswahili! I always have my little pocket dictionary (thank you, Popo) on me and am thumbing through pages every time I want to say something to her. I can tell that my Swahili's gonna be pretty sharp by the time I go back to Nairobi!



Elizabeth, the mama of the house, is fantastic—she works during the day and usually is home by 7. Until she gets home, Rachel, Tabitha, and I play around. Rachel's 7 and Tabitha's 12...they're both really fascinated with my hair, especially when it's wet. Last night they were my hair dressers and I put mascara on them. It's so fun to be a big sister! Having siblings does take away a lot of privacy, though. I was lying down in my room about a half hour ago for 10 minutes max, and Rachel must've peeked in at least 20 times, just to make sure mzungu didn't need anything :) And when we're all in my room together (which is basically every time I go, they follow) they go through my jewelry and socks and play games on my cell phone. I've never been told that I'm beautiful as much as Rachel says it. Actually, she's lying next to me in bed right now reading over my shoulder :)
“Rachel, what do you want to say to my friends in the USA?”
“Hi to your parents! She's a good friend for you! Have a beautiful day! My sister loves you; she is beautiful”
It's so different from in Nairobi when it was just Lucy and me, but I love it just as much here! (I miss you, Lucy!!!)


Each morning I wake up, take tea and bread with Auntie, get dressed, brush my teeth with a bucket, and head to camp. Right now we're working on building a chicken coup, but work has been rreeeeeeaaaallllyyyyy slow because, like I've said before, everyone here operates on “Kenya Time.” Then on top of that, the kind of wood that they have is too hard for the nails, so it's been tricky trying to assemble the coup. It's 12x20, so pretty big! I hope it's done before some serious rain comes, which according to the thunder outside will be pretty soon!

Tuesday, Naomy introduced me to Josephine, the lady on camp who makes jewelry (well, I'm sure everyone makes jewelry, but hers is fantastic) that I'm gonna bring back to the US to sell. I compromised with her a price that she'd sell them to me for, but I think she's under the impression that mzungu just wants a lot of her jewelry really cheap...so I spent a while trying to convince her that SHE will make money! She's an older lady who speaks 0 English, like Auntie. Also, her husband just had to have emergency heart surgery so on top of their not having money for food, they have to pay these ridiculous medical bills. So, selling her jewelry for her seems like the best way to help! When I left, she kissed my cheeks and hugged me to tight I thought I'd be smushed! Then, Naomy took me to a neighboring tent where I met Jecinta. Jecinta's a 15 year old who should've been in school, but her school had upped her school fees and had sent home students who couldn't pay. Her family was obviously stressing, but I was never asked for any money. They made me tea (as is custom...good thing I like the tea! I drink about 5 cups a day! The porridge is a whole different story, though...bleh..) and ugali, and we chatted about Obama and their family. They have an 18 year old son they want to introduce me to haha oh here we go....anyway, I talked with Jecinta a bit about school, I asked her if she makes good marks (which she does), and we talked about her favorite subjects, etc.. When we got up to leave, Naomy promised the family that she'd do everything she can to find some money to help pay the 2,500 in school fees (that's about 25USD). Jecinta and I agreed to meet the following morning for my first Swahili lesson! I had already decided that I would pay 100 bob to whoever agreed to teach me, and I was so glad it was Jecinta. When Naomy and I were walking home, I said to her, “I'm going to pay Jecinta's school fees.”
The lesson the next morning was SO helpful! She was really a great teacher—high schoolers are the best Swahili teachers cause in school they take both languages. We sat together for a couple hours in her family's tent, and after afternoon tea, I handed her the small, homemade envelope (Rachel helped me make it the night before) that had the 2,500 shilling inside. She and her mom opened the envelope after I had left, but I heard them both shreik and yell and start to cry. Hah and then I cried the whole walk home.. Such a small gift meant so much. I'm positive that this is where I'm supposed to be.
Today's Thursday, and I spent the entire morning with Jecinta's mama. We went to see Jecinta at school (I gave them the money yesterday and the NEXT day she was there again! I feel on top of the world!) to make copies of some receipts for her school fees. I ate three lunches today..2 with mamas on camp who insisted “Jen! Kuja hapa kukula na mimi!” = “Jen! Come here to eat with me!”, and one with Auntie when I got back to the house...I can't say no to these mamas! Or at least, they won't let me say no! :) Lucy, Grace, and I are going on a little trip this weekend, so I'm about to head over to their house with my Lonely Planet book so we can decide where. Happy late birthday also to Brittany and Chelsea! I hope everyone's great back in the States, and I think of you all often!
Rachel says, “Lucy's a good girl, I like to write, and have a beautiful day! Bye to US!”

NAKURU

John and I finally arrived in Nakuru around 3 on Monday – it was so good to finally GET here!! bI'd been literally dreaming about working at the IDP camps and now I'm doing it!! Getting to Nakuru was the easy part: John and I grabbed a matatu from Nairobi, waited for 2 hours (are you getting that Kenyans do a lot of waiting?) for it to fill with passengers, and then began our 3 hour drive to Nakuru. Instead of going all the way into down, though, just to take another matatu from town to the IDP camp (20 minutes outside of town), John had the matatu drop me off at a place called East Gate, where he assured me a moto bike would meet me. So, there I sat, the only mzungu in site, next to a highway with 2 duffel bags of stuff. Each matatu that passed (maybe 50) stopped to ask mzungu if she wanted a ride, and every time I'd respond, “sitaki, moto anakuja hapa, asante!” = “don't need it, a motobike's coming, thanks!” Finally another mzungu walked by and looked at me funny saying, “hey mzungu, are you waiting on something? Cause, uh, you're sitting in the middle of nowhere by yourself...” When I clued her in, she said “Oh! You're Jen!!”This mzungu's name is Lucy, another volunteer at the camp through a different organization—there may not be any other Waltz volunteers, but there are 4 (soon to be 5) other volunteers!! AH what a great surprise it was! We went to my new home for the next month and a half and dropped my bags in my new bedroom. At Elizabeth's, I have my own room (there are two beds, though, which means that if another volunteer comes I'll be bunking with someone else), there's a huge living room, electricity, tons of chickens, and delicious food—I'm good. A year ago, or even 8 months ago, I would've walked into the house and thought, “This cannot be where I'm living. Oh my god, there are bugs everywhere, it's blazing hot, there are spiders in my bedroom, there are no bathrooms—this cannot be real.” But it's amazing now how all my standards have changed. Instead, the house is beautifully decorated, I have my own bedroom, and the family is absolutely incredible. Not to mention, it's only a 20 minute walk to camp. THAT might be the best part! It'll be a big change from Nairobi, but it's exactly what I've been wanting. It feels so good to be here. I can tell already that my time here is going to be the most impacting yet. Happy Birthday, Mama Hicks!! I love you and couldn't have done any of this without you! See you in May!!

Goodbye Nairobi!

Well as nice as last weekend was, I was bound to have a bad one sooner or later.

It started out nice enough, though! The Canadians came into Nairobi for the weekend, and Friday was Martine's 22nd bday, so after school on Friday I met them in Nairobi for dinner. There was a ton of traffic so getting to town took about an hour in one of the local buses. Btw, I really like all this public transport—i wish augusta had more! What a good way to save gas and money! People like to say that public transportation is difficult to get the hang of, but not if you just talk to people and figure out how to get where you need to go! Anyway, so I finally got downtown in the evening and met them at dinner. And what really gets me is that the place was NICE! Really nice! We stayed there for a long time, then finally when I reached for my purse (which had been hanging on my chair), it was a whole lot lighter than it had been. I looked inside and there was my wallet—no phone, no ipod. I spent the rest of the night looking for it (or for a sketchy guy listening to a new, shiny ipod) but these people are professionals, there was nothing I could do.

I don't know what I was thinking bringing my ipod...i've been listening to my Swahili recordings so much, and I knew that I would have about an hour long bus ride to downtown...bahhhh. Lesson seriously learned. I'm not gonna write a whole lot about it, but just.....ugh.
This past week was my last week teaching..I said goodbye in all of my classes, took a ton of pictures, and replaced phone numbers of friends from school. Friday, Wycliffe (the french teacher) and I walked through Kibera Market to the building (rather, metal sheets held in a square with barbed wire) where he volunteers after teaching every day—he volunteers with people with HIV and AIDS-- counseling them, passing out supplies, and being really awesome. I think that when I get back from Nakuru I'll volunteer there in Kibera for a couple weeks! Plus, Wycliffe has become a great friend who I want to keep in touch with from Nakuru and from the US.


On Saturday I went with Lucy to a traditional Kikuyu wedding celebration! It was probably the most disorganized thing I've ever been to, though. We left the house around 10, got to Nairobi at 11, waited until 1 for people to arrive at the meeting point, piled into 2 little sedan cars (there were 7 in each car), then drove to Limuru, a neighboring town. When we got to Limuru (which, I found out, wasn't even where the party was), all of the women walked 10 minutes down the road to some lady's cousin's shop where we stood awkwardly for a half hour...rather, where I stood awkwardly as the only mzungu for kilometers being stared at by a group of at least 20. I'll hand it to Africans—they have absolutely no problem just standing and STARING at someone shamelessly. Anyway, once we'd finished standing around, we walked back up the road and got into the cars again (I'm not even sure why we stopped there?). We drove about 10 minutes up another road into the mountains when the other car's tire blew, so we pulled over at a rest stop (which had the most spectacular view i've ever seen) and waited for somewhere around an hour and a half for the men to repair the tire. After the tire was fixed, we were on our way again to...somewhere. We stopped at a gas station finally where the women decided that they were sick of waiting around to go, so we all piled into one car and drove the last half hour to the groom's family's house—everyone here has their house and then they have their home, where they grew up with their parents. Usually their homes are in the country, have big living rooms with tons of couches, no flush toilets, no showers, no refrigerators, and no sinks. Imagine how much more work everything is!

Big parties like that always have incredible food—i ate until I thought I would explode, and then was served even more. It was delicious, though—every single bite! (all except the fermented porridge...i had to dump mine into Lucy's cup...ew.) After we ate, there was a long ceremony (all in Kikuyu) introducing both sides of the family, having each person stand up give his blessings to the to-be married couple. I was playing with a baby (because there was really no sense in my pretending to understand Kikuyu) when all of a sudden I heard a man say in English, “Mzungu! Stand up and introduce yourself!” I was the only mzungu, so obviously it was me...haha I tried my best Kiswahili which made the whole crowd roar laughing. Lucy and I rode home with a car full of women from the party. On the way back to Nairobi, though, we were stopped at a routine police check. (ugh) They had us pull over and open the boot. They asked for the driver's license, asked where we were going, asked where we were coming from—it was as if we were guilty of some crime.

Then, he saw mzungu in the back seat, shined his light in my face, and asked to see my identification (ugh) so, I pulled out my Georgia drivers license and handed it to the guard. But apparently that wasn't good enough (although it always had been at past checks) because they demanded that I hand over my passport and visa...which obviously I don't have with me all the time. Imagine if my wallet had been stolen the weekend before with my passport inside!! What a pain! So, the fact that I didn't have my passport obviously meant that I was an illegal alien from Somalia.. “Do I look like I'm from Somalia?!!” They insisted that I get out of the car and go to the police station while Lucy goes to the house, gets my passport, and brings it to the police station. But the big lady driving stepped in and she said, “AW HEEELLLLL NAW! IF YOU THINK I'M GONNA LET A YOUNG LADY GO ANYWHERE WITH YOU, YOU MUST BE CRAZY!” (looking back, it's hilarious!) Finally with light bantering and giggling at the guard's stupid jokes, we were allowed to leave. While not having a copy of my entire passsport on me may not be a good idea, it is definitely not illegal! But, making photo copies will be the first thing I do when I get to Nakuru. UGH! Everything is so corrupt here!! These police checks are done by security guards holding big bats, who prod through your car hoping to find some tiny little thing out of line, then insisting that you should pay them 2 thousand bob or else they'll take you to the police station. It's all so, so, so corrupt and ridiculous.

****************************
I spent the entire day on Sunday saying goodbye to friends—said goodbye to Emelda and her grandma next door, hung out with Keylion, Wyclife, & Nayaragi, and bought a couple CDs from the little boys down the street. When I met up with Wyclife, he gave me a going away present, a published book of journals of 7 kids who grew up in Kibera...as I was thumbing through it thinking “alright, cool book,” I flipped to a random page that started, “Hi, my name is Wyclife.” It was HIM! He'd been involved in the project to make this book, and had written one of the journals! AH WHAT a cool present!!!!! I was so thankful, and he told me to read it on the way to Nakuru and bring it back whenever I'm back in the city.

I will miss it here so much, but I know that bigger things are waiting in Nakuru! Can't wait!

I also found out that there aren't any other volunteers in Nakuru, which is a good thing and a bad thing: Good because, of course, being by yourself makes you a lot more approachable, and the majority of the friends I've made I met when I was walking around Nairobi by myself. It helps to not be in a little mzungu posse everywhere you go. Bad because there are times when you need a little western break...be it the need to talk about music, politics, whatever that they don't have in Kenya, or the need to speak fluent, fluid English with a native English speaker (except Lucy, her English is flawless). It'll be good and bad, but I have a feeling mostly good! I'll be living with Elizabeth (the mama), her two daughters, and their Auntie.

John and I leave Monday at 9--talk to you from Nakuru!! =D

On the road again!

This weekend was so fun!

I'd forgotten how much I LOVE traveling—especially by myself! From Nairobi to Kiserian (where the Canadians are) is about a 2 hour trip which, in the States, would involve getting in the car, driving myself to Atlanta, and driving home. But in Kenya, you take a bus downtown, bargain with matatu drivers for a good, local price, connect to another matatu in Rongai, until you finally reach Kiserian. And if you're hungry on the way, you don't stop at a gas station to buy Mentos and a Coke, you stop at market where you bargain over ndizi (bananas) and chai (tea). I studied Swahili in the matatus and several times was offered help by other passengers. And, have I talked about matatus before? I would've taken a picture but I was the only mzungu for miles and didn't wanna be extra foreign—matatus generally have 15 passenger seats in them, 1 seat for the driver, and 1 seat for the conductor (the guy who constantly opens and closes the door yelling the price, shoveling passengers inside, collecting money, etc...but our matatu had at LEAST 25 people in it!

Anyway, it was an incredible weekend and it was good to get out of the house!
This week will be one of my last teaching—i gave notice to Morris (the principal) the other day telling him that i'll hopefully be in Nakuru in 2 weeks. I'm really going to miss the friends I've made in Nairobi...but I need to go to Nakuru. I've been talking about it for so long, and I know it's the right place for me.

And I think spring break's coming up for everyone—have fun!!