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.

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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