Giraffes, new friends, more learning.

On Sunday, Daisy, Edith, and I went to our host parent's church, Nairobi Pentecostal Church (Edith goes to a different church, which we went to last weekend). It was more traditional, but not too different from the penetecostal church I visited in Boston. Molly was there too with her host mom, and out of a congregation of a few hundred people, there were 5 white people there haha. People were very friendly - the girl I sat next to introduced herself to me, gave me her number, and told me to call her if I ever wanted to hang out when I am at Nairobi University. It was a beautiful day - the sun was finally out! Since its winter here, this is only the 4th day I had seen the sun, so you all better be enjoying it at home! 

After that, our host family took Daisy, Molly, and me, to the Nairobi Giraffe Center. It was awesome! We got to feed the giraffes, saw some tortoises, got lost on a nature walk (where some dogs almost chased us…), and even saw Pumba! It was good to finally see some African wildlife after being here for a week and a half.

PUMBA!

My host family

Molly, Daisy, and I then went to Kibera to have lunch with Erik, Moses, and Walter, three guys who live in Kibera, but work at CFK to improve their community. I didn't want to go at first, because our host family offered to take us to some other tourists sites in their car (not riding in matatus is a rare occasion, and a real luxury). But that morning I had specifically surrounded this day to God and whatever plans he had for me, so I trusted that going to Kibera (even though I am there every day) was what he wanted for me. 

Walking through Kibera still in our church clothes (aka the sandals I wore in Danielle's wedding plus mud, trash, and waste) was a little rough. But after jumping over ravines of waste, piles of trash, and many puddles, we made it to Erik's little shack. It was one room (probably ¼ the size of my dorm room this year), with a sheet dividing the sleeping area and living room. They had a tiny tv, with a couch and some chairs. They bought us sodas, and had made tiliapia (which probably cost a fortune for them) and ugali. It was amazing to see how welcoming they were although they had so little. They kept making jokes, saying everything we have they have in Africa. For instance, we have spacecrafts that can only be in one place at one time, but they have witchcraft (politicians here actually play witchcrafts to improve their chances of winning, it was in the newspaper yesterday). When I talked about what I was studying and told them I wanted to be an astronaut, I had to explain how you even go up into space. They had never heard of space shuttles, the international space station, or what the moon is like.

They told us a lot about their lives too. Tribes are very important in Kenya. There are 42 different tribes, all with different languages, cultures, dress, looks, names etc. A local Kenyan can determine what tribe different people come from just by seeing them. Often this causes a lot of tribal tension (like when elections roll around). They were all part of the Luhya tribe (as is our President), in which everyone has a middle name based on the time of the day they were born. So I would be Lyndsy Akinyi Muri, because I was born at 3:30 am. 

Neighborhood children would often walk in, have some soda, sit around for a while, and then leave. In Kibera, your neighbors house is your house - if you don't have dinner, you go to your neighbors looking for food. They guys were shocked when we each told them we only knew a few of our neighbors. One of the girls that kept coming in was named Michelle. She was actually named after Michelle Obama, along with the many children born in the past few years named Barack or Michelle. 

Daisy, Erik, me, Michelle, Moses, Walter

I was so glad we went to their house rather than doing tourists activities. It was such a blessing to see how passionate they were about helping their community, encouraging other youths to not turn to drugs, educating others about HIV and contraception, and encouraging peace rather than tribal tension.  It was humbling for me to see what living in Kibera is like, even if only for one meal, and showed me how independent/self-centered/un-neighborly we can be in America.

Another note: 

Every time I say my name Kenyans say ryndsy? yndsy? It takes them a while to get it...and they spell it Leansey Moory. I guess I could accumulate some vowels since I haven't had any real ones my whole life.