Never Too Late?

Looking out over the Rift Valley from Mount Longonnot

SO I’ve been in Kenya for a little over a month and a half and it is safe to say that I’ve dropped the ball in terms of blogging. At first I didn’t write any posts because I didn’t have any pictures and I thought maybe I needed more time to experience things before writing about anything but before long I just became lazy and now it’s been seven weeks…. I have a plan though! This week I am going to write one post every day summarizing my trip so far.  I will try to go in chronological order but I apologize if my memory serves me wrong at some parts.

So my first post I guess will cover my initial arrival into Nairobi:

I suppose a short intro of my program would also be a good idea.  The program is called Kenya: Urbanization Health and Human Rights and is based out of the School of International training (SIT).  Usually the program has about 20-25 students, but this year there are only 7 of us.  This is likely due to the recent insecurity in Nairobi at the Westgate Mall this past year that probably made a lot of kids (or their parents) second guess going. Our program spends about 4 weeks in Nairobi, 1 week in Kisumu, 1 week in a rural coastal village called Takaungu, 2 weeks in Lamu and 3 weeks in Mombasa.  After all of that, each on of us spends 4 weeks in a location of our choosing to conduct an independent research project (ISP) on pretty much any topic that we can manage to write a proposal about and get approved by our director.

I arrived in Nairobi on the 2nd of Februrary after a long lay over in Amsterdam (could have been worse…) at 6am.  Theres something disorienting about getting off a plane in a warm place after being in a New England weather.  At first I thought “fantastic, I was so tired of the cold” but after about an hour and a half of waiting in line to get my passport and visa stamped I was dripping in sweat and already accustomed to despising heat again.  The airport in Nairobi, however, is right in the middle of a national park, so as we were making our descent, the sun was rising over the savannah and although I know the noise pollution from the airport must be terrible for all the wildlife in the park, I couldn’t have asked for a better welcome into Kenya.

After getting picked up by our program directors we were driven through the chaotic streets of Nairobi to our new home for the following week – a convent/guest house staffed by franciscan nuns in a very nice/safe area of Nairobi west.

The first week was spent getting to know eachother, taking our first classes on our program topics, and starting our swahili studies.  We all get along fantastic, which was a blessing because being such a small group posed a risk to all of our sanities if we ended up not getting along. The first week the classes were a bit confusing, mainly because the teaching style of our professors is quite frankly a jumbled mess compared to what I am used to, but their personalities and geniality towards us made class fun if not a little awkward.

Overall the first week was a lesson in adaptation/awkwardness/language/remembering to wash hands/how to convert dollars to KES in my head/learning to never bring travellers cheques anywhere in the future/how to bargain/not walking on the street at night/what brand of Kenyan beer is good/making friends in a strange country.