Ellen and I overlooking the Maasailand - where many Maasai tribe people live

10 of us from our MSID group are heading to Amboseli National Park this weekend to see elephants, lions, giraffes, zebras, and Mt. Kilimanjaro!!! I'll put some pictures up when we get back!

This week was incredible. Monday Ami, Haley and I volunteered at the New Life Center and a baby named Bud fell asleep in my arms. Tuesday I did my laundry with the help of my house help, Janet, and it took a solid hour and a half and gave me some clean and rough hands. Wednesday our class went on a field trip to Kibera, a slum of Kenya, to a children's home, to a farm school, and to a windmill farm, which was on top of a beautiful hill that overlooked Maasailand. Our professor, Fred, told us that each windmill is donated by the Belgium government since the Kenyan government can't afford even one windmill. At the end of the day, Fred bought us all lunch. Good day!

Today in class our professor Jama, who is the head of the entire MSID program told us a little about his childhood - wow. He grew up in the northern part of Kenya in a small village, and each day his mom would walk many miles to a well and bring back water by carrying it on her head. Not only did she have 20 liters of water on her head, but she would also carry loads of firewood in her arms. This woman was a mother of 12 by age 30 and also had a couple of babies who died during childbirth. He said this situation is very typical for women in the villages - even today.

Professor Jama has a sister who is a few years older than he is who was married at age 14 to a 32 year old through an arranged marriage. He said that his sister was extremely bright and her teachers all said she had the future in her hands and she shouldn't be married because she would have to quit school. Jama was at a boarding school when he found out his sister was to be married and he was very upset. He came home and tried to persuade his parents to change their decision to have his sister married, but they only laughed at him and told him to speak to his grandfather. His grandfather was one of the people who wrote the first constitution for Kenya in 1962/63, and his word was the last word for his Jama's entire family. Jama said he put on his best clothes, went to his grandfather, and told him that this decision made him very upset and should be reconsidered. His grandfather responded by hitting Jama's head with his walking cane so hard that Jama thought his skull had cracked open.

Jama said this story is one of many...wow.

We're going to the New Life Center again today! Yay! Miss you all at home! Look for pictures of the tallest mountain in Kenya!!!!!!

"Huckleberry Finn"

"I feel like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer - every day in Kenya is a new adventure," my friend Haley said as we walked to the New Life Center to volunteer. It's a perfect description and made me laugh a lot!

We've been volunteering at the New Life Center for a few days and it's awesome! It is a place for children/babies ages 0 - 3 to go if they are orphaned/abandoned. Children who are infected with HIV/AIDS get priority, and they are all get adopted! We've been working with the 2-3 year olds, and Haley and I have fallen in love with a little boy named Fedex. He was crying when we walked in the first day until Haley picked him up - then he started laughing. We're planning on going again tomorrow after school to have some more adventures!!!

Sipendi Nyama ya Mbuzi!!!

I'm debating becoming a vegetarian here in Kenya. The other day we were having "traditional Kenyan chicken" for lunch. Most of the meat in Kenya is very chewy and always on the bone. I asked me host mother what the difference between a traditional Kenyan chicken and a regular chicken is...she said it's not processed and all of that, and then she said - it's the one that's been running around outside!!!!!

Also, my host sister (Angel - 11) and I went out on the porch a lot last week to "bah" at a goat that's been in the yard and try to make it bah back at us. I looked out the window this morning before school, and the goat's skeleton was hanging from the clothesline with the rest of it on the ground! Then after school my house help asked me if I wanted a sandwich, so I went to the kitchen to see what kind it was...and there was the rib of the goat...no sandwich, thank you.

As a cherry on top, we were learning all about foods in Ki-Swahili class today. Judy, our professor told us that when we eat something in our host homes, we should always ask what the name of it is so we can learn - all I could think about was what if we had named that goat.

I quickly learned how to say, "Sipendi nyama ya mbuzi," or, I don't like goat!

End of Week 2

2 weeks down! It has gone fast. I had a dream last night that it was Dec 11 and I was flying home, and I was very sad in my dream to be leaving all of the cool Kenyans that I've met. A side effect of my malaria medicine is to have vivid/strange dreams!

The first week of classes went well. They frontloaded our Kiswahili classes so we can start to use the language and it's fun to ask "how much," or "sina ngani" when going to a matatu (public transportation) or at the market. A couple of girls and I went to a market in downtown Nairobi yesterday and it was an experience! We got some neat things - bowls/scarfs, but the salespeople there are Very intense! One scarf seller even grabbed my arm as I started walking away. They all say, "please sister, I'll give you a deal," and people would follow us with paintings or jewelry and keep trying to sell it after we've told them straight up, many times, NO.

I went to church with my host sister again today and the music was awesome. I am starting to notice the difference in womens' roles in Kenya compared to America. I don't want to compare, but the idea of women being the person who cooks and who's job is to "support" the man makes me appreciate the power that women have back home. The sermon was about marriage and how what men need to do to keep the "fire alive." The pastor said that his wife dropped all of her dreams and plans to support him when they got married, so the least he could do is be kind/romance her. Interesting views to me - different than what I've ever directly heard before.

I'm posting more pictures on facebook now so hopefully they will upload before it gets too dark to walk home from the Java, the coffee shop with free internet!!! The sun is very predictable here - it starts coming up at 6 am and is up at 7 am, and starts going down at 6 pm and is completely dark at 7 pm. Not like North Dakota days!

I'll be posting my phone number and address soon - I have them both written down at my house. Hope all is well back home and miss you all!

This is a picture from the Ogiek community's land. It is a group of hunter and gatherers who live in mud huts with no electricity or any help from the government with roads or anything. We spent an afternoon their and learned from the people.

You Sound a little Twangy!

Today was the 3rd day of Ki-Swahili and it is going fairly well! The language has a lot of patterns and the same alphabet. Today I was trying to say "ninajifunza chuo kikuuu cha Minnesota" (I study at the U of M), and my professor started laughing and said I have a very twangy accent! I'm the only North Dakotan on the trip, and most of the group thinks it's very apparent in my "O"s and "Ah"s.

It's nice getting into the routine of school and figuring out the area a bit. I have about a 30 minute walk to school each day on paths of red dirt covered with rocks and holes in the ground and garabage everywhere. I walk with about 5 other girls who live in my neighborhood. When the sun is out - it's very very hot! But when the clouds are covering the sun, it gets chilly - very unpredictable weather.

Yesterday, our group of 19 girls and 4 boys went to a lecture on democracy and Kenya's new constitution that was passed about a month ago. The lecture was given my Madeleine Albright, a former US Secretary of State who was pretty funny and witty, and Tom Daschle, a former senator from SD. Someone from the audience asked Madeleine how to help women in Kenya gain rights, and she said that women need to support each other. She said that "there's a special place in hell for women who don't help out other women!" Our professors keep telling us how lucky we are to be in Kenya to experience the changes that will hopefully take place because of the constitution. In the past, there has been a lot of corruption in the government with people in power favoring their own tribes. The corruption is visable to me in the security. Police are not to be trusted because many have other motives or are just posing as the police. We were trained to always ask a police person to take us to the police station to make sure the person is a real police if we ever interact with one.

I found out that I will be in Mombassa, which is on the coast, for my internship in 6 weeks. I'll be working with an organization called SMEP, which is Christian based micro-finance institution that provides small loans for groups of people. I don't know much more than that but will be finding out in the next few weeks!

Other than missing friends/family back home and wanting to go to a Twins basebeall game and a Gophers football game, everything is going very well. The other MSID students are great and we're all in the same boat - learning how to live in Kenya as a white "Mzzungu" - a slang word used by people here to describe a white person who they think has money.

I hope everyone's doing well at home! Can't wait to see you all in December when I'm all tan and you're not since it's winter!!!

1 week down

1 Week down, 14 to go!!! So far, everything has gone quite well. Our group of 19 girls and 3 boys spent 4 nights in Nakuru National Park right next to Nakuru Lake. It's a beautiful area, and we went on a safari every night! We saw lions, rhinos, a leopard, thousands of flamingos, zebras, giraffs, and cape buffalo! The baboon monkeys were all around our camp ground and sat right next to us when we had our orientation meetings outside.

Saturday we moved in with our host families. My older sister, Natosha (24) came to pick me up in Nairobi and then took me out to eat at a Chinese restaurant. We ordered a lot of food...and ate it all. A nice beginning to the stories I've heard of how Kenyans eat and eat and eat and finish everything on their plate.

Before church this morning, I had my first "bucket" shower. They just fill a bucket with water and use their hand as a cup to pour it over their body. I wasn't sure how to wash my hair so I just stuck my head in the bucket - hope I got all of the shampoo out!

Natosha took me to Nairobi Chapel church this morning and it was just what I needed. The worship space was a beautiful huge white tent with black, green, and blue streamers of cloths hung from the center. It was a big church with maybe 700 people in worship and everyone was dancing! The first song was in Swahili, so I didn't know it, but the second was "Blessed Be Your Name!" It was incredible to be dancing and worshiping in Africa to a song that is so familiar!

My little host sister, Angel (11), wants me to go play hide-and-seek outside now. I don't think I'll ever find them.

I'll try to upload photos of the Safaris soon!