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