In ole Nairobi

- Rose Av. Compound -

Jambo! I thought I would give you all Swahili lessons and then realized that you already know Swahili, you just don’t know you know it. So if you have ever seen The Lion King then I will show you that you know Swahili but didn’t know you knew it.

Simba: lion (yep!)
Hakuna matata: (we all echo Pumba saying: It means) no worries (for the rest of your daaays)
Asante sana: thank you very much. Asante = thankyou, sana = many/much
Rafiki: friend

Masai Market
Saturday found us going to the Masai Market (reminded me of the Indian markets in Lima but nooo). They set up in different areas (that day in the centre of town) and have their rugs with all the beautiful African crafts, scarfs, pictures and so on and on and on. Very compact and busy. The sellers are wandering near their “stall” and call you over as soon as you are looking or make eye contact, oh sister, sister! Friend, friend! And I make you good offer and then try to rip you off really badly (muzungo muzungo) and you get the price down and they say i have never sold this for so little so yeah, it is an exhausting process.

Tips for buying when they are clearly trying to rip you off (always true):
- Walk away. They will follow and say they will sell it for less. Do this many times. Even if you give up and want to go away, they will keep turning up beside you.
- Hold out the money you are will to spend for what you want, some will take it and you won!
- Ask for non-muzungo prices.
- Be prepared to haggle DOOOOWN. I.e. they will say 7,000 and you can get it down to 3,000.

Church
On Sunday I went to church with Amelie and Lianne (two German SIMPacters) and it is international but aimed at the Asians (they call them Asians but are really people from India) so we sang in English, Swahili and Hindu.!. Very interesting, and on every Hindu song, either one person or a whole group of Hindus came to the front and just danced, spontaneous, random worship. It was really lovely! Interesting church experience but I have still not experienced the TRUE Kenyan church experience. Less than a week before I do!

Giraffe kissing
OK, so the title gave it away. We went to the giraffe sanctuary and we could feed and pet the giraffes (!) and if you put the food in your mouth (tiny pellets), the giraffe would selfishly give you a kiss to get the food. =). Lots of saliva but also had some antiseptic (used for their tongue cause it constantly gets cut on the trees) so hopefully it was bacteria free!















(Maybe it was not true love's first kiss)

I am hanging out with the SIMPacters that are leaving today (Katie, Lyndsay, Austin and Adam) and seeing all they are suffering to pack everything so hopefully when my time comes to go I will not buy TOO much stuff to bring back! I leave for Kisumu on the 2nd of May =).
Kwaheri!

Muzungo in Kenya

Jambo!
Hello from Nairobi Kenya! This is my fourth day here and it has pretty much been getting to know people (Kenyan’s and missionaries), some of the city and orientation! My flight was a day time one so I enjoyed that and the only problem that arose was that at Glasgow Airport it seemed I had scissors in my hand-luggage (HOW?) and after emptying out the entire carry-on suitcase it turned out they were in my first-aid kit and sealed so it was all in vain and luckily I was able to keep them.

Nairobi
As for Nairobi, I am staying at Rose Avenue (a missionary compound with 15 houses) and over the last few days I had orientation with Michelle (from Taiwan) so it was interesting to see Kenya from a Taiwanese perspective: I not only learnt about time, about security, about hospitality, about HIV/AIDS, about how to get money from my account, that chai (tea) here is very milky and sugary, that you should avoid ice-cubes, raw vegetables at restaurants and bleach all fruit and vegetables for twenty minutes, that after 6.30pm I must be in the compound and that ugali is what people eat every day twice again BUT I also learnt about Chinese customs, festivals and food so I have had lots of cultural orientation =).
But orientation is only over OFFICIALLY as I am learning new things every day! I will be in the compound until the 2nd of May and then is when I will be going to Kisumu with Rahel (who has already been here for 6 months) and am pretty much hanging about with the other short termers and exploring Nairobi until I go.

Visiting the slum, Kibera
One memorable experience was my visit to Kibera, one of the biggest slums in Kenya and it is just 15 minutes away from the city. Fey drove us there (in a land rover, the roads are quite hard going so little, automatic cars would die very quickly, all the cars here have to be tough and sturdy), parked in a place with lots of military so the car would be safe and walked about 15 minutes into the slum. Dirt roads, some mud from the rain, lots of people selling things on the outsides of the slum and then we got to the houses, all lined up in many rows with alleys everywhere. The homes have no bathrooms so you want to watch out for “flying toilets” that are found lying on the road in (some in plastic bags). Everyone seemed interested in the two muzungos walking down the road (muzungo is a white person, or for a Peruvian, a “gringo/a”) and countless little children, all the way to the railway came running out saying “How are you? How are you? How are you?” (well it was really “Howar yU?”) and they all want to shake your hand. It was very sweet. I heard from another SIMPacter (the people here for short term) that there was a kid crying his eyes out in the middle of the street and as the SIMPacter approached, he opened his eyes, stretched out his hand and in a trembling, high-pitched breath said “Howar yU?”. Very cute! Here in Kenya, hospitality is very important so everyone that talks to you, know them or not, must have their hand shaken. Unfortunately, it was too unsafe to take a camera out, Fey recommended I did it when we were with a Kenyan, so I am looking forward to uploading pictures after I go again.

I will brave the supermarkets soon and experience church on Sunday so expect to hear more on that and other things I do in Nairobi before I leave for Kisumu,
Kwaheri! (Goodbye!)

Kat