First Few Days in Africa

Hujambo Rafikis!
So brace yourself, this could be quite a lengthy post.

For those of you who haven’t heard, we got to Nairobi after a very smooth plane ride… we had quite the layover in Amsterdam, around 4 hours, which was a little rough—I wasn’t feeling well and Jake was really tired and Asante was… well, not. ☺. Jake kindly let me sleep on a chair and table while we waited for the boarding time. Other than that, the food was good, we had good seats, Asante was well-behaved (thankfully he slept every single takeoff and landing!), and everyone was in good spirits.

When we got to Nairobi, it was pretty late—2 guys from the school picked us up and took us back to a professor’s house to stay for the evening before going to our flat the next day. Asante got up at 2a and was awake until 5, but it was okay because we weren’t that tired either. We eventually got up around 11, and a kind man named Lawrence picked us up to take us to Nakumatt, which is basically Kenya’s Wal*mart type store (complete with blue vests). We bought some basic, basic necessities (like a mattress), and then came back to our place to begin putting things in order.

The first night we were here we were invited to Lawrence and his wife, Dorcas’ house, for dinner. It was AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS. I love love Kenyan food. It was actually cool because as we were talking, we realized that both him and I have gone to the same Leadership Summit! He came to the states a little bit in 2006 and went to Willowcreek in Chicago. It was fun to talk about. He says that there is a satellite location in Nairobi of Leadership Summit, but it’s kinda far away. It’s at a huge Baptist church towards the heart of the city. Depending, it might be fun to go next year and talk about it with those of you BSUers who go too!

It wasn’t until today (Wednesday) that we’ve gotten all of the stuff that we know that we need. Actually, as I write, Jake is out braving his first independent matatu ride to Nakumatt to pick up a few things that we need for the househelp.

Speaking of, many of you know that we weren’t really sure if we would get househelp, but we decided to go ahead with it…. Lawrence’s younger sister, Grace, is going to be our househelp. She came for the first time today, and she did a great job. She’s really sweet and has great initiative. We’re going to be having her help with laundry, watching Asante 4 hours a week, as well as some light cleaning and shopping. It is so crazy that a good wage is less than a dollar an hour. I think she’ll also help us with learning Kiswahili. Asante seems to really like her. I think I’m going to ask her to only speak Kiswahili to Asante so he begins to pick it up. There’s a 2-year-old here named Annabelle—I heard that she knows both Kiswahili and English, and she was 1-year-old when her parents moved here.

Asante is doing very well… he is completely adjusted to the time, and he’s even okay sleeping in his own room (something we didn’t have for him in the states!). The first night he got 9 mosquito bites, but they don’t seem to bother him at all. Everyone loves him – he has friends come visit him everyday so far to play with him. He LOVES it when we’re around other Africans… he reaches out for them and likes to be held. Everyone is quite surprised by his willingness to go to anyone who wants him.

Jake’s classes begin on the 8th of September, but he has orientation all week next week, starting on the 1st. This is where he’ll register for classes and things like that. We saw that they are beginning a new masters of arts here called Organizational Leadership. The classes look so cool, but it’s actually a distance education course. And you have to be involved in an organization on the leaderships level in order to get into it. I think it sounds fun though.

Anyway, that’s how things are going. Although we’ve had a lot to set up, the days have gone by slowly. I’ve been really homesick. I really miss the community, I miss our family. I surprisingly miss a lot of food and conveniences… mostly a vehicle. I can’t really get around by myself here… they say that white women and children shouldn’t ever be out alone. Soooo, I’ll be stuck here during the day—everything is kinda far away. Many people here have cars, but I just don’t think it’s in our budget. I miss the ministry of the BSU. I miss game nights and having a tv on during the day. Internet is hit or miss, but a guy here is working on networking, so we may be able to have internet in the house regularly in a few weeks or months. That would be really cool! But of course no telling for sure.

We’re going to post pictures, so be on the look out!