When in Kenya, do as the Kenyans do

even if that means dancing around a football stadium in front of hundreds of Kenyans as a mzungu…more on that a bit further down.

On Wednesday, our team visited a youth group in Dondora (the largest dumping site in Nairobi), that makes briquettes out of paper and sawdust. They sell the briquettes to school food service programs for very cheap, which means more food for kids (shout out to Oma! although your food was much better, these kids were eating porridge (flour, water, and some sugar anyone?)). Seeing their process was very interesting and we even got to help them out a bit. A member of the group then took us to visit a school to see the briquettes being in use. We came right after lunch, so the kids (at least 200 of them) were just running around until classes started again. I don't think the area we were in is visited by many mzungus, because they treated me like a celebrity. Kids literally swarmed me, each wanting to just touch my hand, to check if it was real or something haha. I could barely move through them, and apparently they were all saying "she looks like the people on tv" in Kiswahili. Their smiles and energy were awesome. I'd love to go back and visit them! 

At night, Daisy, Molly and I went to a Kenyan Premier Football (soccer) game with three guys who work at CFK with us and live in Kibera. The stadium looked like a colosseum, and it was where the Kenyan Olympic trials were held a few days ago! As I was trying to take it all in, I noticed bands of Kenyans slowly moving around the football field with drums, dancing and cheering. Our friend David who we were with asked us if we wanted to go dance with them, and although Daisy and Molly looked at him like he was crazy, I figured I'd probably only be at a Kenyan football game once right? So I ran down to the group of people with him, and joined in. They started going crazy - a mzungu at a football game? and dancing with them? for the team that represented the poorer sector of Kenya? When we passed the section of the stands filled with people, tons of people stood up to take pictures of the mzungu dancing with the group. A young girl started bowing down to me, saying something in Swahili that meant she was praising me. It was weird, exciting, thrilling, and a one of a kind of experience. At half time, the dancing group of about 10 people grew to about 50, and Daisy, Molly, and Jeffrey joined David and I in dancing with them. This group was even crazier, and some guy gave me an African necklace haha. After that we just watched the rest of the game, went out for some food afterwards, and then went home. It was our first time being outside of our house after 6pm, so I finally got to see the moon and stars! Its too dangerous for Daisy and I to ever be out at night, but the three guys walked us home so we were okay.

Today, Thursday, we went into the city center to the University of Nairobi for some meetings. One professor we met with about our project was really encouraging, and reminded us that she loves learning everyday, from everyone, no matter who they are. Whether they live in a slum, or have multiple degrees, she looks for what she can learn from people. Ive definitely learned so much from everyone here, and I never want to close my mind off from someone just because of their social class or reputation. Its definitely a good mindset to have :)

I then spent an hour and a half at a bank trying to withdraw money…lets just say African standards of customer service are not much different from American. I've been pretty okay with running on KT (Kenyan Time) so far, until I had to deal with this today. Kenyans are basically always on KT. If we have a meeting at 10 am, it will actually start at 11 am. The only time they act American is when driving, they drive as fast as they can just to slam on their brakes, and speed up when someone is crossing the road in front of them (although sometimes people stop for Daisy and I if we are not crossing with any Africans, mzungu advantages). 

Afterwards, Daisy and I went to the supermarket in searching of anything we could bake (even though my host family has never used their oven). My host mom said I would start missing home 2 weeks after being here, and I guess that was expressed by my need for a warm chocolate chip cookie and some chocolate milk. Unfortunately they don't have Trumoo here, or frozen cookie dough, or sticks of butter, or chocolate chips (that was the hardest to ask a store clerk where it was, especially since chips mean fries here). Our shopping trip basically failed (we didn't end up baking anything), but I did get some ice cream and chocolate milk. And yes I ate the entire 500 ml of ice cream today (and 5 chapatti)…but it must have been healthy for me because the nutrition facts were in arabic :)

Tomorrow, Daisy and I are traveling with David to visit his aunt's farm and his grandmother in western Kenya. We will almost be on the Ugandan border, and finally get to experience some rural Kenya! We bought malaria meds today and are ready to experience a 6+ hour matatu ride, bucket showers, maybe milking a cow, and some amazing stars. I won't have internet there…but expect updates when I'm back Sunday night!

Note: Our house got wi-fi, so I can basically Skype/talk whenever now! But its a little to slow to upload pictures here...so they will come Monday. And I added a video on the "children's smiles" post from the orphanage. thanks to all who've been reading this. i love getting comments and knowing you guys are sharing in this experience!