The Only Time it Helps to Be White is When You're Crossing the Street

So there is an overwhelming amount of information I could share about all the things that have happened in the time since I lasted posted but I'll try to just hit you with the highlights:

It's really hard getting used to everyone here staring at you just because you're white (then imagine the looks/comments you get while running since you're white and no one runs in Nairobi). Literally, people slow down in their cars and roll down their windows just to stare or say, "Hi, how are you?" the token English phrase memorized by Kenyans of all ages.

Pedestrians here do NOT have the right of way. The other day a magical event happened as I was walking home from school with a couple other girls: a man stopped his car to let us cross the street! This is literally unheard of. We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves, especially when two minutes later we managed to dart across the street and avoid getting hit by a matatu. The feeling of pride evaporated 5 seconds later when we were almost hit by the matatu coming from the other direction.

This is what fish looks like when you buy it anywhere in Kenya: watch out for bones!

Some interesting foods that mama has made me: boiled potatoes with peanut butter (interesting combo), tembi (basically noodles with sugar), lentils (hallelujah a vegetable), boiled potatoes with baked beans, lots of other heavily fried foods, and last night we had samaki (fish) with ugali.

I am learning a ton of Swahili but momma speaks to me in English at home. I think she thinks it's a joke that I'm trying to actually learn her language. But my brother Chuna comes over for dinner sometimes and he's awesome because he always tries to help me with Swahili and he's really nice and a welcome break from the constant interaction with my momma.

Ok onto actual activities that we've done recently. Last Friday we visited the Kibera School for Girls, a part of the organization Shining Hope for Communities. It was incredible because the co-founder is an SIT alum so she was able to answer all of our questions in a really meaningful way and she gave great SIT advice. It's definitely an organization worth looking up, they are doing great work and one of our SITers actually worked there over the summer. Basically they provide primary school education to some of the most at-risk girls from Kibera. It was also our first walk through Kibera which was fine but definitely mixed opinions about walking 26 white people through Kibera. I did learn how close it is to my house though, it's basically right in my backyard (figuratively speaking because I don't really have a backyard).

So then on Saturday we visited Mathare. Two slums in two days. Mathare is a much older slum that Kibera and we went to visit the Mathare Youth Sports Association, which seems like a really cool organization although we only got a small glimpse of what they actually do. Mathare, again, intersting slum to see, not a fan of the way they walked us through it. Felt a lot like slum tourism and basically the whole thing was a heavy topic for all of us here so if you want more details I'll tell you about it off the blog. But we did get to see the MYSA library and learned that they're reaching 25,000 kids from the Mathare area which is incredible!

Post MYSA visit we went to watch a soccer game at City Stadium. We had been warned to avoid going to any soccer games at all because of the potential violence, but when our Office Coordinator Miltone wanted to take us we obviously said yes. One of the girls had also been warned about the part of the stands call "Russia" so where did we sit, Russia, obviously. That was an experience in and of itself. Imagin parading 26 white kids into any all-Kenyan setting, and then imagine that the setting is a football stadium full of rowdy and avid Gor Mahia fans. We were greeted with chants of "Wazungu" and directed to a central row in the stands. There we endured a lot of teasing and joking comments from the crowd. We also learned some wonderful chants in Swahili, which I'm sure should never be repeated. We were having a fine time until it got progressively rowdier and the game we were actually there to see didn't start for another 45 minutes so we ended up bailing before the game even started due to the excessive drunkenness, sexism, and marriage proposals coming from the crowd.

All in all that was an exhausting day, after which I got dropped off at Susanna's homestay family's house because our moms are basically sisters and she lives closer to my Grandma's house where I was supposed to have dinner. Unfortunately mamma was either on African time or she forgot about me because I chilled at Susanna's house for almost 2 hours before mamma finally came to collect me and take me to Grandma's for dinner. Slowly making the rounds of my extensive Nubian family. Did I mention that my mamma comes from a polygamist family and has 34 siblings? Yes, we are somehow related to everyone.

I have two more stories to tell: one about my Sunday experience at a Nubian wedding announcement party for Susanna's sister that involves kissing a girl and one about meeting a real-live Kenyan runner who may or may not now be a stalker. There's some ambiguity there because he doesn't speak English.

Sifahamu Kutumia Choo

So I successfully moved in with my new family! I live with my Mama Zahra (which is pronounced like Sarah, go figure!). I also have a 14 year old sister named Fatilna, who’s in standard 8 but she left on Monday to move back in to boarding school. That makes the house a lot lonelier because she was super sweet. She gave me a bracelet on my first night at home. She also broke my camera, but I’m waiting to get upset about that until I take it to the camera store somewhere in Nairobi to see if they can fix it. Only problem is that I have no idea how to get from my neighborhood to downtown or when to do it since we have class all day.

Look, it's me in front of the Nairobi skyline, and Uhuru Park.

So back to the family: I have my mom and my sister who left for school and I also have an older brother who’s 22 and taking time off from school. He’s living with our grandmother, though, while I’m here because the house only has 2 small bedrooms and so I would have to sleep with my mom if he was home. His name is Chuna (spelling or pronunciation, no idea). Our house is nice but modest…I’ll put pictures up if and when I ever get my camera fixed. I’m also becoming a pro at bucket showering since our house has no running water.

My mom is great and very concerned for my health and safety. She keeps telling me that she’s my Kenyan mama and she’s super excited to cook all different food for me while I’m here. I’m actually concerned that I’m going to come home fat. You should see the way people eat here, plus it’s all starch. My family keeps asking me if I’m on a diet when I don’t take so much food, and then they give me more anyway. It’s mildly disgusting.

Mama also won’t let me run around my neighborhood since it’s in Kibera and she doesn’t think it’s safe, so I have to figure out how to run from our school building. At least I have a half an hour walk to and from school every day so I get some exercise in.

What else? We started real school on Monday so we have Swahili classes all morning and then a lecture for a few hours in the afternoon. Learning so much Swahili it’s overwhelming, but my brother and mom are trying to help me with it.

I fell in a drainage ditch on the walk to school the other morning: check that off my Nairobi bucket-list.

Tonight I’m supposed to learn how to make chapatti, but so far my mom hasn’t actually let me help do anything, instead I sit in a chair in the doorway to our 2x2foot kitchen space and watch her cook. Wish me luck!

Kwa heri. (Oh and if you’re wondering what the title has to do with anything, it relates to the fact that I couldn’t understand how to use the toilets in our house since we don’t have running water so they don’t flush, still workin’ on it.)

This looks like a secure way to transport our belongings, right?

Wazungu and their Protectors

Ok so I do have pictures but we're in the office getting ready for homestay so I don't have time to upload my pictures and I promise I'll do it later...

Habari zenu? Ok so we’ve done a lot since I last posted on day one and I don’t want to bore you all to death…feel free to give up reading, I promise I won’t be offended.

Here is a series of random thoughts:

I’ve been running every morning since we got here…altitude definitely makes a difference, or I’m out of shape, either way. No one runs near the city because they all just walk so much. Basically that means I get a lot of really weird looks because not only do I already stand out enough as an “mzungu” but I’m also running. I did get a fist pump from another mzungu I saw out running earlier in the week though, great moment of solidarity.

We were staying in the Karen district of Nairobi for the first few days. Yes, named after Karen Blixen of Out of Africa fame.

We had French toast for breakfast at the guesthouse we were in, no maple syrup. I miss Vermont. Also there are lots of cows here, but they’re just skinnier.

My room at our guesthouse in Karen had a crucifix with a glow in the dark Jesus on it so I could tell he was watching me all night long.

The bus we ride around in as a whole group is called the Jazz Quartet bus and is of the prom-bus variety with a paisley wallpapered ceiling. It’s pretty bad-ass.

The roads here are impossibly narrow. Sitting in the front seat of the bus is like taking your life in your own hands. Red lights seem to be more of a suggestion than a stop signal. And I swear it’s a moment of Harry Potter-esque magic that two cars can fit past each other on the road without swerving off the edge onto the red clay dirt “sidewalks” on either side of the road.

What we’ve been doing:

We had our drop-off assignment on Tuesday where I got dropped off at Kenyatta Hospital with two other students. We basically had to walk around the hospital and talk to random people to learn as much about the hospital as we could. It’s a public hospital here in Nairobi and it looked nothing like a hospital you’ve ever seen before in the U.S. It was all made out of concrete, Ryan decided it was of the post-apocalyptic architecture style. In the end we sort of failed the assignment because no one would talk to us without the permission of the Chief Public Relations Officer. At his office no one could figure out what 3 white kids were doing asking questions about their hospital but eventually the CPR came and talked to us for a few minutes. He was pretty cool, his name was Simon and he did his masters on the effects of globalization on health in Kenya. Simon also taught us that the man is always the leader in Kenya…definitely not helping the alpha-male complex of the only 2 guys on our trip.

Okay so, PROTECTOR COMPLEX!

We met Donna, Oloch’s wife, who is hilarious! She gave us the rundown on ethnicity in Kenya and we learned that it all boils down to circumcision here. That’s the major dividing point between different ethnic groups.

The next morning we had girl-talk time with Donna where she warned us about the above-mentioned protector syndrome. Basically, since we’ve all been stripped of our family and friend groups and our familiar environment we feel very vulnerable here. According to Donna, this vulnerability makes us biologically more likely to seek out a protector. A.k.a, fall in love with anyone: our taxi driver, housekeeper, homestay brother, random man on the street, etc. Apparently there’s an average of one secret marriage between a student and a Kenyan every semester! We’re taking bets on who’s going to come home married. “Anytime we think we’re in love, we just have to take a step back and remind ourselves, it’s just biology.”

Anyways, we did a walking tour of the city with our Swahili teachers! Took a “Citi Hoppa” bus (great name) into the center of Nairobi, “town,” to start getting our bearings. The tour ended at the Sizzling Grill, with two whole floors of “sizzling hot clubs.” We got our first real Kenyan food and tried Ugali…which tastes exactly like nsima, in other words, pretty much has no taste. Our meals here are basically all starch all the time.

We moved to Salveberg, a new guest house closer to the city and right near our SIT school building. Lots more cultural meetings in the morning and then we got a walking tour of our new digs. We found Java, a coffee place with free wi-fi and American food. Definitely planning to make my way back there for a chocolate chip cookie hot fudge sundae when I really need a pick-me-up. Also, for those of you who know me well, you’ll appreciate this. I cracked already and bought a bag of Peanut M&Ms at Nakumat, the grocery store. Couldn’t go five days without m&ms, whatever.

Today we had a three hour Swahili class. So much to try and remember but it’s a good thing because…drum roll please…we found out who our homestay families are today and we move in with them Saturday afternoon!! (Oh, we also had a lecture from a guy who runs a Gender Violence Recovery Center that was great and inspirational for ISP ideas.) So, I’m going to have to live with a real live family and communicate with them in Swahili, I’m so anxious about it.

My family lives in the Olympic neighborhood, which borders Kibera slum and is the farthest away from our school offices so that will be an adventure. Luckily I’ll have three of my fellow SITers in the same neighborhood as me. I’m living with a Muslim family so that will be an interesting learning experience. The mom’s name is Zahra and so far all I know is that she has a daughter at college in Uganda, a son who also goes to college there but will be home for the fall because of school fees, and a daughter in eighth grade. Good thing all those toys I brought for small children will be getting put to good use. Woops.

Anyway, sorry this was such a rambling mess, it’s so hard to summarize everything we’re doing. Hopefully I’ll get to write again soon after I meet my new family!!

Kwa heri.