Friday, June 29, 2012
TGIF
today is friday....meaning we've made it through our first full week of school! (the 2 weeks i was here before this was school break so we were on a different schedule running activities for the kids). The week has been hard and long, but im the 1st and 2nd grade aid, meaning i get to work with a few kids in those classes one on one, which is really fun! (and pathetically, when we do overview on math-it allows me to brush up on my skills, haha!) i will shar more about school in the blogs to come!
but the fun thing about friday is that its the weekend and on weekends we get to travel outside the rafiki compound! since i got a late start on this blog i never got to fill everyone in on my first couple weekends, so to get you all up to speed i shall start with our first weekend here!
saturday morning we drove into town (about 45 mins) and went to java house...which has the worlds best coffee!!! then we went to the maasai market and bought some goodies! after that we went to the mathare slums...and even though i'v had a couple weeks to process, im not sure if im yet in a place where i could articulate the things that i saw or how i felt about it. It was everything i expected...things iv seen in pictures or movies and yet it was SO MUCH MORE! it is such a raw picture of poverty and disparity, of hopelessness and helplessness. i wish i had pictures to show although im not sure i could capture anything remotely close to the reality of it. (we were encouraged to not take pictures). The smell alone was enough to make you cry! as we walked around the slums we carefully tip-toed around garbage, animals, small trails of waste water and feces. Kids would shout "Mzungu" (white person) as we walked by and would come grab your hand or hold onto your waist as if to say "take me with you!" As we stopped to gather ourselves a tear fell down my cheek...i looked around and saw all of what is wrong in the world and it is a burden heavier than i could bear...and i think thats what hit me hardest...i havent had to bear it (and i havent chosen to). i felt very small in that moment...and still to this day dont know what to do with the images i carry in my heart!
Sunday, we went to church with our director Yeen-Lan and after church went to lunch (a very cultural experience at ethiopian!) On our way home i was extremely itchy and noticed a little rash on my elbow...within minutes it was ALL over my body! so yeen had our driver drop us off at the hospital. After waiting there for 2 hours without being seen we left and went to a chemist (what we call a pharmacist) although it was a little sketchier than our pharmacies in the states..they asked for no form of id, didnt look up any sort of information on a computer or have any sort of doctor on call...we simply asked for what we wanted and she handed it over! over the next week or so my rash came and went and so we went back to the hospital later that week and got it all sorted out! (my guess is that it was that dang ethiopian food!)
anyways, as you can tell, weekends are jammed packed! which is why i will set aside the next blog to tell about our second weekend adventure! until next time!
but the fun thing about friday is that its the weekend and on weekends we get to travel outside the rafiki compound! since i got a late start on this blog i never got to fill everyone in on my first couple weekends, so to get you all up to speed i shall start with our first weekend here!
saturday morning we drove into town (about 45 mins) and went to java house...which has the worlds best coffee!!! then we went to the maasai market and bought some goodies! after that we went to the mathare slums...and even though i'v had a couple weeks to process, im not sure if im yet in a place where i could articulate the things that i saw or how i felt about it. It was everything i expected...things iv seen in pictures or movies and yet it was SO MUCH MORE! it is such a raw picture of poverty and disparity, of hopelessness and helplessness. i wish i had pictures to show although im not sure i could capture anything remotely close to the reality of it. (we were encouraged to not take pictures). The smell alone was enough to make you cry! as we walked around the slums we carefully tip-toed around garbage, animals, small trails of waste water and feces. Kids would shout "Mzungu" (white person) as we walked by and would come grab your hand or hold onto your waist as if to say "take me with you!" As we stopped to gather ourselves a tear fell down my cheek...i looked around and saw all of what is wrong in the world and it is a burden heavier than i could bear...and i think thats what hit me hardest...i havent had to bear it (and i havent chosen to). i felt very small in that moment...and still to this day dont know what to do with the images i carry in my heart!
Sunday, we went to church with our director Yeen-Lan and after church went to lunch (a very cultural experience at ethiopian!) On our way home i was extremely itchy and noticed a little rash on my elbow...within minutes it was ALL over my body! so yeen had our driver drop us off at the hospital. After waiting there for 2 hours without being seen we left and went to a chemist (what we call a pharmacist) although it was a little sketchier than our pharmacies in the states..they asked for no form of id, didnt look up any sort of information on a computer or have any sort of doctor on call...we simply asked for what we wanted and she handed it over! over the next week or so my rash came and went and so we went back to the hospital later that week and got it all sorted out! (my guess is that it was that dang ethiopian food!)
anyways, as you can tell, weekends are jammed packed! which is why i will set aside the next blog to tell about our second weekend adventure! until next time!
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
pray for my taste buds!
i decided to dedicate the next post to FOOD! it seems like such a small aspect of this shift for the summer, but it has in fact been one of things i've struggled most with and its been one of the largest sources for laughter for me and my team.
first...the schedule of eating here:we are on our own for breakfast (and i usually wake up 2 mins before i have to be somewhere) so i usually eat toast or an apple. tea break is at 10:30 (the tea is more like warm milk with a little spice which i must admit i can barely drink without gagging), lunch is at 11:45, and dinner is at 5:15.
and although the schedule is a bit strict for me, its not so much the timing of meals as it is the meals themselves (and expectations of us at those meals.) Ugali, cornmeal mush is a staple here. We have it nearly ever other day and it looks and tastes a little like playdo! The good news is that it can take on the taste of whatever it is served with...the bad news is that it is usually served with kale and cabbage. so heres where it gets hard for me...the mama serves you your plate (and seeing that we are considered guests at the table we are given the largest helpings) and we are expected to finish the whole plate...and if we finish with time to spare, we are given seconds...needless to say i've been eating extremely slow these days. dessert is usually an orange, watermelon or avacado slice, which i've learned to cherish!
there are some meals that we really look forward to tho..like dinner roles, which are usually served with some type of bean stew. heres my first encounter with dinner rolls: i took 2 rolls and then mama lydia gave me a 3rd and a cup of tea and had filled my bowl to brim with stew...half way through i was feelin good, savoring every bite of my warm, fluffy roll when i realized people were finishing up dinner. one of the boys asked mama lydia, "when can we leave" she looked at me and said, "when she's finished!" so i started to spead up, trying to take a couple sips of tea in between each bite of stew but after 3 or 4 spoonfuls and 4 or 5 gulps i started to feel sick and i literally had to stop and pray to jesus that i didn't hurl all over the table, hahah! the boys all stared at me with sympathetic eyes...and if it wasn't against the rules i would have passed my extras on to them...but when i caught them looking away i took my last role and shoved it in my diabetes kit, haha (i have never been so thankful to have to carry that thing around with me!) when i got home i showed the girls...who thought it was hilarious and they've spent a good amount of time hounding me about it!
other fun food stories:
*today i found a couple rocks in my rice
*yesterday after lunch i ran to bathroom and vomitted 13 times...i concluded that there is such a thing as too much rice and beans
*we're not sure exactly what caused it, but we think it might be the ethiopian food we tried in town...which seemed to give me a rash ALL over my body after which we had to take a quick detour to the nearest hospital (a trip which i will tell you more about later)
HERES THE THING...i realize it sounds like a lot of complaints but i am so grateful to rafiki for providing meals for us and so thankful to the kitchen crew for slaving away all day to feed everyone. i'm simply trying to let you guys in on some of the things im experiencing and right now its that im trying to train my taste buds to enjoy these new foods and im having a harder time then i would like!
first...the schedule of eating here:we are on our own for breakfast (and i usually wake up 2 mins before i have to be somewhere) so i usually eat toast or an apple. tea break is at 10:30 (the tea is more like warm milk with a little spice which i must admit i can barely drink without gagging), lunch is at 11:45, and dinner is at 5:15.
and although the schedule is a bit strict for me, its not so much the timing of meals as it is the meals themselves (and expectations of us at those meals.) Ugali, cornmeal mush is a staple here. We have it nearly ever other day and it looks and tastes a little like playdo! The good news is that it can take on the taste of whatever it is served with...the bad news is that it is usually served with kale and cabbage. so heres where it gets hard for me...the mama serves you your plate (and seeing that we are considered guests at the table we are given the largest helpings) and we are expected to finish the whole plate...and if we finish with time to spare, we are given seconds...needless to say i've been eating extremely slow these days. dessert is usually an orange, watermelon or avacado slice, which i've learned to cherish!
there are some meals that we really look forward to tho..like dinner roles, which are usually served with some type of bean stew. heres my first encounter with dinner rolls: i took 2 rolls and then mama lydia gave me a 3rd and a cup of tea and had filled my bowl to brim with stew...half way through i was feelin good, savoring every bite of my warm, fluffy roll when i realized people were finishing up dinner. one of the boys asked mama lydia, "when can we leave" she looked at me and said, "when she's finished!" so i started to spead up, trying to take a couple sips of tea in between each bite of stew but after 3 or 4 spoonfuls and 4 or 5 gulps i started to feel sick and i literally had to stop and pray to jesus that i didn't hurl all over the table, hahah! the boys all stared at me with sympathetic eyes...and if it wasn't against the rules i would have passed my extras on to them...but when i caught them looking away i took my last role and shoved it in my diabetes kit, haha (i have never been so thankful to have to carry that thing around with me!) when i got home i showed the girls...who thought it was hilarious and they've spent a good amount of time hounding me about it!
other fun food stories:
*today i found a couple rocks in my rice
*yesterday after lunch i ran to bathroom and vomitted 13 times...i concluded that there is such a thing as too much rice and beans
*we're not sure exactly what caused it, but we think it might be the ethiopian food we tried in town...which seemed to give me a rash ALL over my body after which we had to take a quick detour to the nearest hospital (a trip which i will tell you more about later)
HERES THE THING...i realize it sounds like a lot of complaints but i am so grateful to rafiki for providing meals for us and so thankful to the kitchen crew for slaving away all day to feed everyone. i'm simply trying to let you guys in on some of the things im experiencing and right now its that im trying to train my taste buds to enjoy these new foods and im having a harder time then i would like!
Monday, June 25, 2012
The drive from the airport to the village was my first experience in the city, so i guess thats where i'll start. Me and my 3 other team members (carson, anna, and becky) were greeted by a nice young man Ruben who escorted us to a van. I immediately traveled to the driver side (forgetting that the passenger side is switched in Africa) he started to laugh, asking if i wanted t drive us home. I half considered it but am so thankful i turned the offer down because as soon we got off the highway it was complete chaos. There are NO signs, lots of speed bumps, TONS of foot traffic, herds of sheep and goats and apparently the lanes on the road are mere "guidelines" because no one stays in their own lane. (the same is true for traffic lights...green and red seem to meant the same thing.) The road itself was hardly recognizable...sometimes its gravel, sometimes its dirt, sometimes cement and ALWAYS potholes...the director here likes to call their roads "the african massage" because as you drive you sway in every direction while the vibrations of the vehicle seem to karate chop your back!
As we pulled into the village we were greeted by Yeen-Lan, the village director here at Rafiki...she is a bundle of joy wrapped up in a petite asian body, all smiles ALL the time. She also happens to be one of the most organized people i'v ever met, it seems like her daily life is scheduled out by the minute from when she wakes to when she lays her head on her pillow. In our first conversation with us she made sure to tell us one of her favorite mottos, "if your early, your on time; if you're on time, your late; and if you're late, its unacceptable!" you can see why me and my team where a little nervous settling in, setting clocks a few mins ahead to give us a little lee-way for early morning meetings and such! Then she took us on a tour of the village and we met some of the people we'd be working with...we were all relieved that they were some of the kindest, most welcoming people ever! It was our every desire to go out into town and get a feel for the city, but seeing that we were a little jetlegged and exhausted from the journey, we made it an early night and got in bed. And although our measly 5 hours in Kenya seemed like enough adventure and excitement to last a life time... gotta admit, it gets even better!
As we pulled into the village we were greeted by Yeen-Lan, the village director here at Rafiki...she is a bundle of joy wrapped up in a petite asian body, all smiles ALL the time. She also happens to be one of the most organized people i'v ever met, it seems like her daily life is scheduled out by the minute from when she wakes to when she lays her head on her pillow. In our first conversation with us she made sure to tell us one of her favorite mottos, "if your early, your on time; if you're on time, your late; and if you're late, its unacceptable!" you can see why me and my team where a little nervous settling in, setting clocks a few mins ahead to give us a little lee-way for early morning meetings and such! Then she took us on a tour of the village and we met some of the people we'd be working with...we were all relieved that they were some of the kindest, most welcoming people ever! It was our every desire to go out into town and get a feel for the city, but seeing that we were a little jetlegged and exhausted from the journey, we made it an early night and got in bed. And although our measly 5 hours in Kenya seemed like enough adventure and excitement to last a life time... gotta admit, it gets even better!
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Hi all! this is going to be the place where i write, process and discover the mystery and adventure that I experience in Kenya this summer!
a little update on what I'm doing: I am working at the orphanage in Nairobi Kenya, run by the Rafiki Foundation (http://www.rafikifoundation.org/) for 2 months this summer! The orphanage has 99 kids, that are split into 8 cottages-each cottage run by one mother (mama). It has been so fun to get to know the kids, and the staff (stories I will share through out the next couple weeks!)
sorry for the slow start...we haven't had access to internet, but i will hopefully be updating regularly; posting picturing and telling stories to capture every aspect i interact with here in Kenya...food, transportation, education, poverty, culture, animals, anecdotes..its all to come so stay tuned!
a little update on what I'm doing: I am working at the orphanage in Nairobi Kenya, run by the Rafiki Foundation (http://www.rafikifoundation.org/) for 2 months this summer! The orphanage has 99 kids, that are split into 8 cottages-each cottage run by one mother (mama). It has been so fun to get to know the kids, and the staff (stories I will share through out the next couple weeks!)
sorry for the slow start...we haven't had access to internet, but i will hopefully be updating regularly; posting picturing and telling stories to capture every aspect i interact with here in Kenya...food, transportation, education, poverty, culture, animals, anecdotes..its all to come so stay tuned!
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