Field Trip: Day One

Karibu Kenya!

I hope your flights went well. We have a few hours until the bus leaves, so, if you'll throw your suitcase in the back of the taxi we'll go run a few errands before we head to that end of town.

Keep your eyes open. You'll notice a lot of things that are different than America. More people are out on foot, and the traffic is crazier -- there is logic to it all, though... I think.


Enjoy yourself for a few minutes. We're going to stop by Java House and get some food, because I haven't eaten beef in a while -- and they have milkshakes, both things that you can't get outside of the big city. Lol. The people sitting around you now are the upper class of Nairobi, thus the very western feel of the place.

No worries. You'll see plenty of non-western things before you get back on the plane. I just want to give you a chance to realize that not all of Kenya is like "my place," as it would be referred to in good Kenyan English. Right now, you're sitting in a busy coffee shop, where you can order a latte or a milkshake and a bacon cheese burger or a quesadilla. The only real clue that you're in Africa is the language(s) you hear around you. Most of it is Swahili. The rest are Bantu languages ("mother tongues" for the different downcountry tribes). You might even catch a little German or Chinese. This restaurant is popular with the ex-expatriate community (people living in a country different from the one that issued their passport).

If you'll follow me after you finish you food, we'll stop by an ATM so you can withdraw some cash. The current exchange rate is at about 76 Kenyan shillings to 1 US dollar, so you won't really be spending as much as it feels like you are. Lol.

Even though this part of Nairobi feels safe, and it more or less is, you're more likely to get pick pocketed here than on the other end of your long bus ride (plus that jet lagged look on your face marks you as an easy target. :D). So, you can tuck most of that away into your bags where it will be safe. A thousand or so in smaller bills will be plenty to cover you for the rest of our journey across the country.

Field Trip!

So, seeing as I have no way to teleport you guys here and give you a hands on tour of my life -- although, that would be incredibly awesome...do you think God is down with granting superpowers?? -- we're going to play a game.

The basic premise of this game is that you are going to pack your imaginary suitcase and get on an imaginary plane headed to Nairobi. I'll be at the airport there to pick you up, and we'll travel together from there, until we get to here. Ready?

Today, your job is to pack your suitcase. (Seeing as this is your imagination, we're going to pretend that you already have a passport and the travel nurse has already gotten her hands on you. :P)Step One: Throw out that antimalarial prescription slip from the travel nurse. You can get them WAY cheaper here. Pharmaceutical companies in the States just like your money.

Step Two: Ditch the water filter, super intense bug spray, and anything else that makes you feel like you're going on a jungle trek. I can almost promise that they won't do anything but take up space in your bag.


Step Three: Dig out the t-shirts and flip-flops/sandals. Girls, time to pull out the ankle length skirts. Hate to break it to you, but, your knee caps are hot. You're gonna have to keep them hidden. Guys, if your knee caps are visible when you're standing up, find longer shorts. The girls aren't the only ones with...umm...attractive...knees.

Step Four: Throw in some stuff to keep you entertained on the plane and enough pesa (money) for your visa.

You, are officially ready for your trip to Kenya.

Hold on tight to your plane tickets.

Drink plenty of water on the flight.

Don't get lost between terminals of the London-Heathrow airport.

I'll see you tomorrow when you land in Nairobi.

Perspective

A down country woman was telling us earlier this week about how people come here for jobs because they make extra money here. Apparently, the extra salary is considered an incentive to work in a "hardship area."

We were a little surprised. Then we found out that they offer the same thing to get people to work in Helena, Montana.

No wonder we feel like hicks when we get off the bus in Nairobi and see everyone else dressed for New York city. Lol.

Bible club

I was able to go to school today and “observe” Ashley for the first time as she did a Bible club with the kids. Her and Melissa took that on as one of their ministries several months ago, and they’ve been doing it steadily on Wednesday afternoons, teaching lessons and doing Bible drills with the kids. Up until now, I’ve kind of stayed out of it, so that they could get their feet under them and establish themselves with the kids and come up with their own way of doing things – not that I have a tendency to take over in teaching situations or anything like that…Lol. :P

Because Melissa is in the States for a few weeks to help out with her brother’s wedding, though, Ashley wanted an extra set of hands for this week’s club. Naturally, I was more than willing to go with her. (“You want someone to go help teach elementary and middle school students? Ummm…let me think a minute. Yep!”)

Club meets outside, in the “forest” – a grove of trees that was planted behind some of the classroom buildings. The kids trickle over one by one and rifle through the boxes until they find “their” Bible, then they settle in the cool sand under the trees and flip carefully, searching for the last week’s memory verse so that they can look over it again before club starts, hoping for the bragging rights of being able to remember something that the other students have forgotten. A few curious ones from the other clubs hang around for a few minutes and some Muslim students rifle through the pages of an unclaimed Bible, amazed to see so many new books in these boxes, curious to see what makes it so different from the Quran. Wind ripples through the pages and defies the students efforts to find the right passage, while a two inch long cockroach scurries out of one of the boxes, quickly buried in the sand by several squealing girls. Today they have been marking lines in the field for the track and field day that is coming, so a few patches of bright red and yellow clothing stand out against the pale blue stripes of the rest of the group.

Ashley lines them up to do Bible drills and they flip as quickly as the wind will allow them, whispering the page number to each other as soon as they find it, not wanting their friends to have the “shame” of being the last one still hunting. A few of them are obviously lost, swimming in pages and pages of the small script, struggling even to find the center where they might be able to locate the book of Psalms, but they are learning.

Ashley teaches a quick lesson, and they come forward to write their names on a paper heart, a visual reminder of God’s love for them, careful not to press too hard or get any sand on the marker tips.

We gather them together to practice the books of the Old Testament, and I give up on trying to be quiet and observe, jumping in doing my best not to totally overwhelm whatever it is that Ashley had planned out in her head. They read through the list as a group, accents lilting over the names in a way that is probably far closer to the original pronunciations than what we grew up learning, tongues stumbling as they sound out “E-ccle-si-as-tes”

After a few more Bible drills, one of the girls prays to close us, and the kids scatter, making their slow way back indoors to finish up the day with one final class period. It’s already four o’clock, and, so far, they have been in school for eight hours today with another hour to go.

Next week is exams and then mid-term break, but they’ll be back next term, interested in what they’re learning – and more than a little spurred on by the white teachers and their boxes of new Bibles.

Lol. Can you tell I enjoyed myself? (Ashley asked almost as soon as club was over, and, yes, I plan on going back next term. :D)

The South Africans are Coming!

(Jaco, Heleen, Musa, Sueane, and Anelise)
So...these aren't the South Africans who have invaded. These ones live here and have lived here for ten years. The husband, Jaco, was actually the internship director for our internship director Jason, back in the day.

Another bunch of South Africans, though (who I don't have pictures of), have invaded temporarily. When we got to yesterday yesterday for Ashley and Melissa's Bible club, there were white faces everywhere. A group of about twenty 7th - 11th grade students from a Christian school in the Eastern Province of South Africa came here for a missions trip over mid-term break.

The kids loved having them around -- and some of their students were amazing to watch in action with the local students. I don't think we were the only ones a little shocked by the number of white faces, though. Probably half a dozen different times, groups of kids -- or teachers! -- came up to greet us saying, "We have many wazungu today, but they are so many that we can not remember their names. You, you we know." After so long being stuck in the status of "new person," it was rather refreshing to be considered an old, familiar face. Lol

They put on a brief presentation in the dining hall that the kids enjoyed, and I think it was really good for the upper primary (middle school) students to see other people their age doing things -- like giving presentations -- in a way that would be considered an "adult" job here.

Anyone in this part of Kenya who is still in primary or secondary school tends to be considered a child, no matter how old they actually are. (One of the teachers referred to the group of South African students as "only small boys and girls," even though the youngest was thirteen and the oldest eighteen. No wonder they were surprised when we got here and several of us were nineteen!) So, it was good for them to see that "children" can make choices and do things that are bigger than their individual selves.
Just for the record, though, names that involve clicking noises are really hard to learn!