Monday, July 6, 2009

Here

The area we're staying in is very interesting. It's called Old Town and most of the people that live here are of middle eastern descent. There are like 5 mosques within a two mile vicinity and we hear call for prayer all over old town five times a week... I feel like I'm in Saudi Arabia or something!! But then when you go out like 5 minutes the dynamic changes and there are native Kenyans and Arabs and Indians... The "new town" is pretty dirty... I mean from what everyone I'm with who's been to another third world country says, it looks pretty much like any other urban 3rd world center. Needless to say, I have never been somewhere like here so I wasn't prepared for it, and I almost cried when a little girl with a torn little dress and no shoes came up to me with her brother and pulled on my shirt asking for money. One kid the day before gave one kid money, she went away and came back with like 10 more, so they told us we probably shouldn't give them money. So maybe when I go into town I'll start bringing some food in a bag or something... better than nothing right? A couple of us are also probably gonna go volunteer at an HIV/AIDS orphanage nearby, I know I want to but there are probably gonna be times that is rough to swallow too. All us girls are getting used to how the men look at us and what they say... apart from just the obvious stares and exclamations we all get for being foreigners. They're not ever mean, it's just uncomfortable. The food here is actually pretty good, so that's a blessing... the fruit is WONDERFUL! We started Swahili class today. We're only doing it for a week, but we learned soooooo many words and phrases just today... it was kinda overwhelming. But, hopefully I'll pick up the jist of some major phrases to say hi to people and stuff. And the gym, all the treadmills are broken and they only have bikes and weights, but its only like $10 for two weeks so whatever. We have soooo much free time in the afternoons for the next two weeks, we all get so bored. We're trying to find stuff to do. I think we're gonna go on a quest. For the third week we're taking a trip into the interior and Nairobi, so I'm pretty excited about that. I dunno, I was telling my mom that like I'm really going to try and find my purpose for being here, because it's definitely not always going to be easy (it's already been pretty hard). And really, 5 weeks can seem long, but it's really not, so I should really make an effort. I hope I do it. The only way I get internet is because I bought this internet usb modem called safaricom that you have to pay for by the megabyte. I don't even understand how that works so I'm kinda just feeling it out now, but basically I can't really go crazy web browsing or downloading or anything.

2 comments:

  1. I'd love to! It's just a matter of getting on at the same time... I'm free pretty much every day in the afternoon or evening... so for you that's like morning or afternoon.

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