Good times in Nairobi

Two entries in one week - lucky you! I am posting again so soon because we have another trip coming up. It is called the educational tour, and there are two options. Some people in the group are going to Uganda, while the other part of the group is going to Tanzania. I am heading to Tanzania tomorrow, and am so excited. Among some of the things we are going to do is spend a few days with Pete O'Neil, a founder of the Black Panthers who now lives in exile there with his wife, spend three days with the Maasai learning about their culture, mainly dancing and bead work, we are going to the War Crimes tribunals and to the spot where humanity is thought to have begun. So you can see why I'm excited - I'm sure there will be at least on long entry when I get back - so get ready for that.

I have been in Nairobi for about a week, and have been very busy. I've been doing a lot of work to prepare for ISP, as well as some assignments and papers for SIT. We also had some amazing visits to different organizations in Nairobi that I wanted to share:

UN Habitat
This is the UN's branch for urban housing development, and since they are based in Nairobi, they do a lot of work on slum development. The city of Nairobi is home to two of the biggest slums in Africa - Kibera and Mathere. We met with one of the people from the Office of the Director, an American named Chris Winters. He was actually a former SIT Kenya alum and a former Academic Director for the program. He gave us some words of advice about our ISP which I think was helpful for all of us. Then he gave us a brief background on UN Habitat and what they do. After about 20 minutes on that, he opened it up to questions and stayed with us for about another half hour. It was absolutely one of the best lectures I have ever had. He was amazingly smart and competent, and actually talked about the reality of the situation, and not just policy. One of the major complaints about the lectures so far has been that the people just talk about the government policy and not what is actually happening in reality. So this was a great change. He also went on a few rants about how development theories need to change and was just so eloquent about it. I was a little shocked to hear a UN guy speaking so freely, and he even said "I love talking to students this way because I could never say any of this to diplomats". He gave us all a lot of new insights, and after the hour talk with him, my brain was definitely in shock - it was a lot to take in. Another encouraging thing about the lecture was that I understood the vast majority of it and followed all of it. He used a lot of jargon and talked really fast about some semi-complex stuff. I'm not sure if I would have understood half as much of what he was saying last year. That made me feel good - as much as I dislike my classes at GW and the American academic system in general, I guess I am learning something!

MYSA
The Mathare Youth Sports Association. This is an amazing NGO that works in the slum in Mathare. Their main focus is sports as a mode of development, and they are doing an awesome job at it. It was started by a Norwegian man, but is now completely run by young people form Mathare. In order to be a member of MYSA, you have to be either playing on or coaching a team, and the teams start as young as 8. Once you are a member, you have full access to all their resources and information, of which there is a lot. They have a library with 2 computers, an HIV/AIDS resource center, peer counseling for HIV/AIDS or anything else you may need, and they also offer scholarships for various things. Every team has to participate in a community service activity at least once a year to try and help clean up the slum a little bit. If they don't participate, they can't qualify for the MYSA league tournament no matter how many games they have won. They also do a lot of leadership development and the people that were taking us around for the day were all about 20 years old and had been involved in MYSA for at least 8 years. One of the women even got a scholarship for high school through MYSA and said that she wouldn't have been able to go with out it.

There were two main highlights form this trip: one was getting a tour of the slum. I have seen pictures and videos before, but it is still always a shock to see it in real life. All the garbage everywhere, dirty water running throughout and kids playing in all the muck and garbage. The saddest part for me was that I realized that most of the young kids probably have no concept that that's not what a childhood is supposed to be like. They don't understand that most kids in the world don't play on garbage all the time and that they have houses with running water and electricity. The other thing that really struck me that you don't get in the pictures is the smell. It was really bad, and I couldn't imagine being around it all the time. I'm sure you get used to it after a while, but again, no one should have to get used to living in that kind of environment. I am very glad that I saw it and got a chance to walk through, but it was something that was really hard for me to do.

To lighten the mood after the slum tour, they brought us back to the MYSA headquarters where their dance troupe, Haba na Haba (Step by Step) did one of the most amazing performances I have ever seen. They started off with traditional dances and music that was great and a lot of fun to watch. There were both boys and girls doing it, I would say from ages 8 to 13. Then the acrobatics group came out and blew us all away. These kids (all male) were between 11 and 15 and were probably some of the strongest people I have ever seen. They did all these amazing flips and jumps and stunts for about 15 minutes. And to top it all off, they were doing it all on a concrete floor. No mats, no padding or anything. None of us could believe that they were doing this for real. They would just jump around and make these crazy pyramid like formations like it was nothing. Since again, I would never be able to describe it in words, here's another pic:

Football
The day after the MYSA visit, we got treated by SIT to a football match! It was the Harambe Stars (the Kenyan National team) vs. the Swaziland national team. It was a qualifying game for the Africa Cup being held in Ghana in 2008, and Kenya won! They still have many more games before they get there, but this is a good step. The score was 2-0. Everyone was getting really into it, and all the Kenyans were yelling in Swahili, which we all really enjoyed. The stadium was pretty small and nothing fancy at all,and had a capacity of about 30,000. But add all the people who sneak in and sit wherever they can (on the grass, on the stairs, etc) and there were at least 35,000. It was a really fun afternoon adn made me realize how much I like football! I will definitely have to go to some games back in DC (anyone want to join me?!) Another cool thing about this game was that it was the first official game for Kenya in about 6 months. FIFA banned Kenya from football for 6 months due to government corruption and interference in the league. But the ban was lifted about 3 weeks ago, and this was the first game since then. And to make it better, we won! So it was kind of historic as well, which is a cool little side note.

Maasai Market
The Maasai are a very famous tribe in eastern Africa, and are known for their beadwork and cloth. Every tuesday, there is a market in city center where they just come in with all of their stuff - everything from bead work to fabric to paintings to clothing, and baskets and handi -crafts. For you DC folk, think Eastern Market but about 300 times better. And the best part is that no price is set. They expect you to negotiate, so you can get some crazy good deals. And its also a great place to practice Swahili - and they'll give you better deals if you talk to them in Swahili. Espcially if you go at the end of the day when they are packing up. I got a lot of cool stuff, and after I got home just spread it out on my bed and stared at it for a while. I got braelets, head scarfs, and lots of other fun stuff. Its an amazing market that I'm really going to miss when I get back to the states.

That about sums up my fun activities in Nairobi. Like I said, I am leaving for Tanzania tomorrow, so I may not be able to post until after I get back. But save your energies for that, because I'm sure it'll be a long one.

Adventures in Kisumu

So I love Kisumu. It's a great little city/big town and where I am going to be spending about a month. It actually reminds me a lot of Poughkeepsie - same general size and the same atmosphere as well. I had a really good meeting with the organization I want to work with too - Kick Trading. They are a Fair Trade company who work with a lot of artisans in the area making things from recycled materials. I will leave my description of their projects, history, etc for a later entry when I actually have worked with them a little bit and know what I'm talking about. But I do want to share the story of my first days working with Kick.

I showed up on Monday morning about 11am, completely unannounced. This actually, is not rare in Kenya. It's not considered rude to just show up at an office and ask for a meeting. And it's actually a little more efficient this way. If you schedule a meeting, the other person might not show up, might be late or might forget about it. But this way, you are in the office and they kind of have no choice but to deal with you. Anyway, like I was saying, I show up and meet with the 3 main office staff members and tell them about why I am here and what I want to do. And they were so awesome, and totally open to having me work with them. But the asked me if I could come back at about 3, because they were busy setting up for a meeting. They told me that there was a group if buyers from Ten Thousand Villages (TTV) coming at 3, and if I wanted, I could sit in on the meeting. For those of you that don't know, TTV is a big Fair Trade store with stores all over the US and Canada. They're a big name in FT, so needless to say, I was a little excited about the meeting. So I headed out of the office and over to the Kiwanis compound for a few hours...

Perhaps I should talk about why and how I ended up at the Kiwanis Compund. Leah, the S.I.T. coordinator for western Kenya, is a member and has some official position in the local Kiwanis club (she might even be the president). The compund is around the corner from Kick, and while she was taking me to the Kick office, we stopped by to say hi and so that I could meet the people at the compound. They were all very nice. She told me about a feeding program they do for about 50 school kids who can't afford lunch, and said that I should come over to help out after my meeting with Kick. I agreed, and actually looked forward to it. So, when I had about 4 hours to kill before my meeting, I went there. It is an amazing place. They have a small resturaunt, the feeding program, as well as a reduced price lunch for about 50 other kids, a small micro-credit program for women, weekend activities (extra classes, music lessons, etc), and are looking to start a nursery school in the next year or 2. As if all that wasn't amazing enugh, they are also working on a project to make re-useable sanitary napkins for girls. There are a lot of problems here with girls missing school for a week during their periods becuase they can't afford pads or tampons, you can imagine how much this puts the girls back. So they are working on prototypes now, and are looking to have them ready and to sell for about 30 shillings (about $0.50). They are also looking to get the idea to an organization who can mass produce them for cheap, because as my tour guide, Rachel, said, they don't want to keep this a secret - they want as many girls as possible to be able to use them. I was really impressed by the whole compound and its definitely somewhere that I am planning on spending a decent amount of time at during ISP. There are 2 foriegn volunteers there - one American and one Canadian, and they and the rest of the staff was so welcoming and nice. Working there will be a great break from the stress of ISP.

So after helping out there for a few hours, I went back to Kick to find that the buyers were stck in Kisii (About 2 hours away), and wouldn't actually be in the office until 8:30 the next morning. I asked if I could come back then, and they were very happy that I was able to come back. I got up very early the next morning, to give myself some time to get lost. But, incredibly, I made it there without a hitch. I got there about 8, and helped them set up chai and cookies for the group, and got to know the staff a little better. The group showed up at 8:30, and at that point had a short breifing about Kick and a Q&A session. It was great for me because a lot of my questions were answered as well. Then we took a tour of the area where most of the artisans do their carving - and it was really interesting. The buyers were all really interested in taking pictures and talking with the artisans, and I couldn't help but think about how voyeristic the whole thing was. I think that that's going to be an issue that I have a lot of problems with during ISP - am I just here to study these people or is what I'm doing actually going to benifit someone? Anyway, all the people were really nice and really interested in what I was doing. One woman even wants me to email her my paper at the end! They were touring Kenya and Uganda on a learning tour - to visit the places where their products come from. One of the women I was talking to said that after these tours, the sales of products from that area of the world always increase, sometimes enough to pay for the trip itself. I learned a lot from the meeting, and was really happy that both parties allowed me to be there - it was a really encouraging first day. After the TTV people drove away, I worked out some of the details with the Kick staff, and as I was leaving, Issac (the manager), told me that when I came back he'd have some work for me to do - this made me even more excited. I don't want this to be just a one way exchange - I want them to be able to get as much from me as I am going to get from them, and his comment showed that he agreed with that, despite us never having talked about it. So between Kick and Kiwanis, it looks like I am going to be very busy during ISP! Just the way I wanted it!

I realize that I got so excited about talking about my meeting and ISP, that I left out another very crucial part of the weekend that I want to share before wrapping up. We got there on a saturday afternoon, and since offices were closed the next day, we did a little site seeing. We went to the Kakamega rainforest about 1.5 hours north of Kisumu. We had some troubles getting in - the security guard was a major bitch and wouldn't give us the student price since we didn't have a letter from our institution to verfiy we were students. So instead of paying the $3 student price, we had to pay the $20 tourist price. We were not happy about this to say the least. But we all payed and agreed to let it go and enjoy the forest. We walked around for about 3 or 4 hours, first to a little water fall, and then up a huge hill to the top of a viewing point - it was amazing. Just green for miles and miles. It was a really tough climb (we didn't actually know there was a real path until after coming down, so we just hiked up the side of the mountain...harder, but much cooler), and we were all dripping by the end, but it was so worth it. And since what they say about a picture being worth 1,000 words is true, here you go:



With that, I'll close out my Kisumu adventure, at least for now. I am heading back there in about 3 weeks, so there will be a lot more detail to come about Kisumu, Kick, my ISP and I'm sure lots of other things as well. As always, thanks for reading and thanks for all the comments - I love reading them!

"So, what are you actually doing in Kenya?"

That's a question a lot of you asked me before coming here, and I know that when I answered you, I was very vague. That was largely due to the fact that I myself didn't really know exactly what I was getting into. That's just how S.I.T. (School for International Training), and most things in developing countries works. You just have to kind of jump in and go with the flow. But now that I've been for just over a month, I can give you a much better idea of what I have been doing, and what I will be doing for the next 2 months.

In Nairobi, we have classes. Lots of them. There are 2 lectures in the morning, and then one in the afternoon, a total of about 6 hours everyday. The classes are either Swahili, development, public health, cultural stuff orfield study prep. They are usually pretty interesting, aside from the health lectures. I'm not sure why, but the people they bring in to lecture to us on the health side are all just really bland. And since it is a different person every time, they end up covering a lot of the same topics. So it's a little frustrating, but when I start getting bored in lecture, I just think to myself "this lecture may suck, but I'm in Kenya, so it could be worse".

Other than the lectures, we also spend a good amount of time traveling. The travel is why i picked this program - we don't spend all of our time in the classroom, but a lot of it out in the country. And if you've read the last two entries, you should understand why I say this is my favorite part. Going to Bodo/Mombasa was amazing to say the least, and we have more travel coming up. On Saturday, about 10 of us are going toKisumu , in western Kenya near Lake Victoria to prepare for our Independent Study Projects (more to come on that later) and staying until Tuesday. It's supposed to be an amazing area, and I'm really excited to go. I'm surethere'll be a size-able entry about it when I get back next week.

After that, we are back in Nairobi for a few more days of lecture and then we are going on a 10 day trip to Tanzania. And this one should rival Bodo. We are going on safari, spending 3 days with theMaasai learning about their culture first hand, spending some time with one of the founders of the Black Panthers who is living in exile in Tanzania with his wife, and going to the War Crimes Tribunal, among other things. To say I'm excited would be an understatement. Again, I'm sure there will be at least one very long entry after I get back from this trip.

After Tanzania, we have about a week in Nairobi before we start our Independent Study Project (ISP). What this is is pretty much a thesis. We can pick any topic relating to development or public health that interests us, and we spend a month (from April 12 until May 12) researching it and writing a 30 - 40 page paper about it. Then we come back together as a group to each give a half hour presentation on our topic to the rest of the group. For my ISP, I am planning to look at Fair Trade as a method of development - does it actually do anything for the people? I am going to Kisumu because there are several Fair Trade organizations there for me to study and it gets me out of Nairobi (I'm not the biggest fan of this city). Most of my research is going to come from first hand interviews with the people producing the crafts, books, and NGO's like Oxfam. It's exactly the kind of thing I want to be doing - working with real people regarding their development, not learning about it in a classroom. I know that's not very specific, but I should have a better idea about what my ISP will look like next week after I get back.

As far as other topics go, they are really broad and I'm really interested to hear the presentations at the end of May. In case you're curious, some of the topics are:
-Why a Luo (a certian tribe) can't be president of Kenya
-Human rights abuses in prisons
-women and development (there are a few on this)
-there are several regarding HIV/AIDS in different ways
-the effect of university research on rural agriculture
-Swahili language and development
-how soccer can help development
-there are also a few regarding the situation of refugees
-there are several on health - malaria research, infectious diseases, and malnutrition

There are a lot more, but that's just a very short list. People are traveling all over Kenya to do their research, and it should be really interesting to see what they come up with. Everyone's topic has changed at least 3 times, and just seeing that process has been so interesting. So it'll be really exciting to see how they all end up in May.

ISP ends in May, as does the program. I'm still not sure what I'm doing after the program ends, so I won't even start to get into that yet. But I hope that clarifies why I'm here for a lot of people and what I'm doing. It's been so much better then I ever thought so far, and it should only get better from here!

The adventure continues...Bodo - part 2

So last time I pretty much set the scene for my week in Bodo. So now let me get into the specifics of what I did and how I spent my time.

Sunay was our first full day there, and they took us swimming in the Indian ocean. Bodo is on the water, but on a little bay type area, so we took a boat about 15 minutes out to a sandbar off the coast of an island called Funzi Island (it;s a big tourist island, so you might be able to google it and find pictures and info). It was so beautiful and we were all just so excited to be in Kenya and in the Indian Ocean - it was a pretty sweet experience. The water was so beautiful and it was such an awesome day. We all got pretty sun burnt, despite the bottles of SPF 45 and over we put on. But that's what we get for trying to go swimming on the equator. For the rest of the week, I was pretty much the sunburn expert. People who had never really had bad burns or peeled kept asking me things like "So, does this look normal to you?", "Will this peel?" and "So, how long will I be peeling for?". I think it's the only time that my vast sunburn experience has ever been put to good use. I'm glad to say that although I did get a pretty decent burn, I was not the worst one in the group by far.

For the rest of the week, our days pretty much had the same structure. We spent the mornings learning Swahili, had lunch and spent the afternoons working on a small group research project. Mine was about all the uses for a coconut and the tree. And they do use it for EVERYTHING. But more to come on that later. There were a few days were there was a locals vs. sit student football (soccer) and volleyball games. There were 4 games total, and we got killed in both football games, beat in one of the volleyball games, and despite a valiant attempt by us at the last volleyball game, we still lost. But it was a lot of fun and everyone really enjoyed it.

After class and the various after school activities, we would all go home and spend time with our families, which I loved. My family was awesome at including me in everything, and all I had to do was ask my brother "What is (s)he doing?" and he would explain it to me and then who ever it was would let me try it. I usually failed, but my family was very patient and had a great sense of humor about it all. Most of the things that I "helped" with involved cooking, so I think I should take this opportunity to explain a little bit about Kenyan food.

It is very, very carb based. Atkins would have a heart attack if he came over here (sorry about the bad pun, it wasn't intentional, I promise). I'll describe the food in the village, but its pretty similar in Nairobi too. The main staple of dinner is called Ugali. It is literally just boiled water mixed with corn flour until it comes to a consistancy that resembles mashed potatoes (but no where near as tastey). It is very dry and bland. So to go with it, they make a simple version of vegetable stew that is actually very tastey. It could also be served with cabbage, kale, both of which I really like. Other times it will be chicken - on the bone of course, or fish. Yes, I did eat fish. About 5 times in 8 days. And I realized that I really don't like fish. Before coming here, I hadn't had any fish in about 7 years, so eating it here was a huge step for me. Especially when my mom would just hand me a whole fish that had been boiled, complete with bones, the skin and the head still on it. Yeah, I was a little freaked out by that. But I sucked it up and ate it - I could tell that it was a rarity for them to have, so I didn't want to offend them. But don't get excitied - I do not plan on having fish for a very long time after this program is over. Other then that, we would sometimes have rice in place of the ugali, which was a nice break. For breakfast (aside from the chai of course) was chapati - its almost like a pita without the pocket and a little thinner. Hard to describe, but absolutely amazing. It has quickly become one of my favorite foods. We would also have mandazi in several variations - some were similar to biscuts or donuts or fried dough. They were also very good, although a little sweet for breakfast. And the funny thing is that they use the same spices in the mandazi as they do in the chai, so everything kind of tastes like the tea. But I like it, so it wasn't too bad. Oh, and we ate with our hands. And since it was a Muslim community, only our right hand. It was a little weird to get used to at first, but now I really like it. It was even kind of weird when I came back to Nairobi and all of a sudden had to use silver wear again. And when I tried to explain to my family that it was considered rude to eat with your hands in America they didn't really get it. Ahh, cultural differences. Gotta love them.

Anyway, my mama and sister would always let me help stir the ugali or roll out the chapati or mandazi and it was so awesome. And don't worry, my brother insisted on taking pictures of me doing all of this, so they'll all be up eventually, and I'll post the link when I can. Although, at slow connections that charge by the minute I don't think that's going to be until I get home in May...The kids in my family were so cute about taking pictures. I was a little hesitant to take it out at first, but they LOVED it! They would pose for a picture and then run to surround me and look at the picture I had just taken. They all loved it and I am planning on making them an album to send back to them soon.

Anyway, like I said, it was a Muslim village, so it was very conservative. I made the mistake of letting my knee show one afternoon, and my sister made it appoint to com over and pull my skirt down to cover it. And I wasn't ever able to go out of the house without my head covered by something. Definitely an interesting experience coming from America. But I got over it after a few days and enjoyed how ridiculous we all looked with our mismatching outfits and struggling to keep our head scarves on.

As far as daily life goes, hanging out with my family was definitely the coolest part. Even when they were all speaking in Kidoge or Swahili I enjoyed listening to them and trying to figure out what they were talking about. I'm not sure that they fully understood why I was there, but they were still glad to have me anyway. I was continually amazed by everything - women carrying 5 gallon jugs full of water on their heads, how welcoming everyone was, how resourceful they were, but mostly the kids - especially the young girls. My 7 year old sister would get up everymorning at about 6 to wash the dishes and sweep out the house. No questions asked. Young girls would be carrying babies that were about half their size and e totally comfortable with doing it. They all also know how to cook, clean and pretty much run an entire household by the time they are 10. I just kept thinking about what I was doing when I was about 8. I'm pretty sure I was still eating mud and playing hockey with barbie heads in the basement. And these kids are so responsible. They would play games and have fun, but they also just understand that they need to do all of these other things and get it done. Its amazing. I'm pretty sure my 7 year old sister is more responsible than I am.

They are also so generous. They share everything they have and even gave me presents! They gave me a really cheesy straw hat, straw fans, a little basket, and my favorite - a 5 foot long woven mat that is amazing. It's got these great colors on it - straw, maroon, green and purple and I'm in love with it. Right now its rolled up in the storage room at the SIT office, but I'm really excited to have a chance to use it. Oh, Gaby and Daryn - it is going to be somewhere in the room next year. You'll just have to deal with it.

So, in writing this, I'm realizing that I could go on for days writing about this one week alone. And this is already getting pretty long, so let me just wrap up with one more story. Like I said above, they use coconuts for everything. And as you may know, coconut trees are very very tall. Some were easily over 100 feet tall. So with no machinery or electricity to get them down, you can see the problem that would arise. So to get them down, they have special people who are trained to climb coconut trees. We got to see one of them in action and it was possibly the craziest thing I've ever seen. The get up the tree by using a rope (made from the coconut tree palms) around their feet and literaly jumping/shimme-ing up the tree. They go up so fast - it takes them less then 3 minutes to get up the 100 foot tree. Oh yeah, and did I mention that they carry a machete on their back in their shorts? Yeah, they do. Like I said, crazy. So once they shimme up the 100 foot tree with only a rope and a machete they cut the cocnuts off and they just drop down. Unfortunatly I couldn't see how they manage to do this without falling out of the tree - the palms were in the way and it was really really high. We only saw the coconuts fall and then saw him shimmi back down the tree. Again, in under 3 minutes. Then he cut them up for us and handed them out to all of us. Talk about fresh!

As promised, I'll wrap it up here. I hope the length wasn't too overwhelming for anyone, and I appreciate you reading this far! So until next time...

The Bodo story, part 1

Sorry for the delay, but this has been a hard entry to write. The week I spent in the village was AMAZING, and trying to put it all into words is a little overwhelming. So since it's taken me a long time to write even this much, I've decided to split this entry into 2 parts. This one has already gotten really long, and you can expect another pretty long one later this week. But for now, here is part 1 of my Mombasa/Bodo saga. I hope you enjoy it.

From Nairobi (which is pretty central in Kenya), we took an overnight train to Mombasa, on the coast. It was a fun train ride and we were all really excited about the next 2 weeks. The best part about the ride was looking out at the sky at night. I think i had my head out the window for at least 2 hours. The night sky is absolutely beautiful. I've never seen so many stars in my life and the moon was shining so brightly. It was absolutely incredible. We got to Mombasa in the morning and spent some time shopping and walking around. I absolutely love Mombasa, but more on that later.

We only spent a few hours in the city before piling back into the van and driving about 2 hours south to the rural village of Bodo. The ride was so pretty, but I ended up sleeping for most of it. We turned down a sand road and drove a few miles into the center of the village. We were all pretty anxious about what we would find there, but all that melted away the second we pulled up. All the kids in the village were there to welcome us, jumping up and down and singing songs. I have to say that it was probably the best welcome I've ever had and it made us all so happy. We went to the pavilion that would be our main meeting/hang out spot for the week, where they had chai and snacks set up for us. After about 45 minutes, we were all introduced to our new families and lead to our homes.

Before I go on, I want to explain a little about Bodo. It's a small Muslim, rural village right on the coast of the Indian Ocean with only a little electricity for the whole village and no running water at all. Most of the men are either fishers, involved in the tourism industry, make random crafts, sell foods (coconuts, rice, meat, eggs, etc) in local markets, or are unemployed. All the women have no "real" job, but work harder then anyone I've ever seen. They clean the house, make the food, take care of the kids and laundry, etc. They are working all the time, it's amazing. And most of the men just sit around - it was a little frustrating to see. But everyone there was so welcoming and so nice - by the second day we all felt at home in Bodo.

My Family

My mama was absolutely amazing. She spoke no English, and I found out later in the week that she usually didn't even speak Swahili, but rather Kidoge, her tribal language. It was kind of a relief when I found that out. I realized that the reason I didn't understand what she was saying wasn't because my Swahili was that bad, but actually because she wasn't speaking Swahili at all. I found out throughout the week that she's a midwife, and that she also helped to start a women's group in Bodo that's similar to a micro-credit organization. Whenever she said anything, it got done - even the chickens and goats listened to her. Sometimes she would just look at me, say "Ahh, Bodo!" and start laughing. She knew that I barely understood a word she was saying, but she would still just start talking to me and asking me questions anyway, and then either laugh and walk away or nod and walk away depending on my answer. There were a few tricky situations where I agreed to do something (like, for example, agree that I was tired and wanted to sleep) when what I thought I was agreeing to was something else (like a shower or to help her cook). But luckily everything would always get resolved.

The rest of my family was awesome as well. I had a 21 year old brother who spoke perfect English and was my tour guide/interpreter the whole weekend. He would ask me questions about America - like do we have monkeys or elephants, and generally about how things work there. It was so funny that so much of the stuff we take as common knowledge just isn't here. Like the fact that Barack Obama is the senator from Illinois, not the senator of the US. Or when he asked me about men having more than 1 wife. It was an eye opening experience to say the least. It's not that he was stupid at all, but rather that they stuff that we take for granted they just aren't taught. But having him around made me really conscience of gender roles in the area. I wasn't sure exactly how to act around him, and was kind of afraid I would somehow be married to him by the end of the week. But luckily, that didn't end up happening. I just kind of felt like I was on an awkward date with him the whole time. But I am very thankful he was around and so helpful. I also had a 15 year old nephew who spoke pretty good English as well. He liked to teach me Swahili, and he taught me the names of the planets (useful, I know), body parts, days of the week, and other random things. My favorite was when I asked him to teach me future tense and he taught me how to say "future tense" in Swahili. Not exactly what I wanted...

Other then that, I had 2 sisters, one who was very pregnant and should be having the child any day, and another sister who was only around for a few days before going back to her village 30 kilometers away. I also had a bunch of Aunts, Uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins. In villages like Bodo, everyone is related somehow. Either by blood or by some other way. For example, if a father dies, his children become his brother's children. It makes for some very confusing explanations of family ties, especially coming from an American perspective. But I loved my family - I loved having people walking in and out all the time. And they were so good about including me in what they were doing and being patient with me. But more to come on that later.

For the first few days, my family would just stare at me sometimes. I can't really blame them. They also laughed at me. A lot. Again, I can't really blame them. But it was in a very good natured way, and I was also laughing at myself most of the time, so I was really ok with it all.

My House

My house was very nice - a thatched roof, mud walls on the outside (that makes them cooler as the air can flow through) and concrete walls on the inside. There was extra space between the walls and the ceiling to provide for air circulation, but it also helped with noise circulation. Everyone pretty much heard everything that went on. There were several times when I heard my family practice saying my name in the morning, or heard my mom cooking, etc. It was really nice though - I liked hearing it all.

There were 3 rooms, and I shared one with my Mama. I did have my own bed, which was more then some people could say. I was happy about that. I didn't really see the other 2 rooms though. Straight down about a 15 foot hallway from the front door was the backyard area. This was where the living room, kitchen, bathroom and shower all were (and I use all those terms very loosely). The bathroom was about the size of a cubical with a hole in the ground, the shower was a little bigger and was just a bucket on the ground. There was no real "door" to the shower, so it was a little awkward. But after about 2 days and about 314 liters of sweat dripping off of me, I got used to it. The kitchen was a little bigger and was just a fire pit with rocks they used to balance the pots on. It was pretty cool to see how much they were able to cook on that one pit. Our living room was just a big open outdoor space between the house, kitchen, bathroom and shower. We used that space to eat, have chai, talk, hang out, whatever. We spent a lot of time outside, especially at night which I loved. All the stars in the sky were so amazing and I could have spent hours just looking up at them. I felt so comfortable in the house and I really do think that I could have stayed there for a lot longer. I'm not really sure what it was - but there was just something there, and I felt so much at home.

So with that, I'll wrap up part one. Like I said, I'll update again as soon as I can about the things I did, family life etc. I hope you enjoyed reading about it, and thanks again to everyone for all the comments. It makes me really happy to know that you are along for the ride with me!