This is how one governmental leader described the series of events over the last week here in Kenya on the news last night. Though a formal conflict has not broken out in the country, the seemingly endless death toll that has emerged in the last seven days has been heart wrenching. But even more frustrating than the series of events themselves is how preventable each accident could have been with better regulation by the Kenyan government. Many of the Kenyans that I’ve talked to, rather than showing sympathy, have expressed [...]

Updates: I’ve been going to Kibera, I got braids, I gave blood at the hospital yesterday, and I’m going camping tomorrow.  I started going to Kibera with Jeremy to help with the girls’ play, which was this Saturday. At first I was incredibly pissed off that people lived like that in the slums, and that no one was doing anything about it. But after being with the girls for a while, I realized that yes, it sucks that they live in a place like that, but they’re making the best [...]

Well I guess it’s time to start the real “study” part of “study abroad” (couldn’t avoid it forever I guess). Last week we started our first week of real classes after returning from a 5-day-long orientation at Lake Nakuru National Park. Highlights from orientation week included: Trying to learn 21 new names. So far it has been just the 5 of us who came early for the August-Intensive Swahili Pre-Session. Now there are 26 of us total—making it a lot more difficult to go places. A group of 26 wazungu is a pretty [...]

So getting internet took a really long time. I’m actually writing this on the 3rd, because I couldn’t get to an internet cafe, and the service stores close early on Sat and don’t open on Sun. So I’ll tell you about my day today! I met my host mom, she’s an adorable Kikuyu woman with a 17 year old son. Her husband died about 16 years ago, and she lives alone with her son, but has a househelp come once a week to clean and do the laundry. We watched [...]

Hamjambo marafiki! Yeah, we had plaid day at school… So let’s get to it. As my August Swahili Intensive class comes to a close (final exam tomorrow. Don’t worry mom, I’m still going to study, even though Tufts only sees these classes as Pass/Fail), I’ve outlined some of the highlights from the final week before the other 20 students from the program arrive: Giraffe Center visit–this place was super touristy (wazungu everywhere), but also really awesome. The five of us took a bus 45 minutes outside the city, to a twiga preservation park. They [...]

Habari! I’m still alive and, for the time being, malaria-free and well! My second week in Nairobi proved to be a little less hectic than my first. I’m finally settling into my daily routine, which consists of being up and out the door by 8:25 for 8:30 Swahili class (luckily, I live right across the street from Nazerene University, a university/church combo, with a small collection of simple classrooms). We have 4 hours of Swahili language class (I’m in the “Intermediate” class with two other girls. It’s basically 4 hours of [...]

It is physically impossible to come to Nairobi and not encounter a matatu. These small privately-owned vans are literally everywhere. From “Jesus Van” to “Cash Money”, they always have creative names. I saw an ad in the newspaper that said “Men are like matatus. If you miss one, another will come right along”. Whether that is true or not for Kenyan men, I’m not quite sure, but as far as matatus go, that’s a pretty accurate description. Whether you are being yelled at from across the street (if you’re an mzungu this happens a lot) [...]

Hamjambo familia na marafiki! I have officially been in Nairobi, Kenya for 5 days now, but it might as well been a month. Driving to the Cincinnati airport last Sunday afternoon with my mom seems like ages ago. After frantic last minute packing and unpacking (initially my suitcase was over the limit), I began my 28-hour-long journey to Kenya. Following an uneventful flight to DC, I boarded an overnight flight to Zurich, Switzerland. As my first experience in Europe, flying into the misty green hills of Zurich Monday morning was [...]

We had a field trip today for our Development in Kenya class. We drove to the “Eastlands” to see what some people did for work… I don’t think I would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. As we drive past what looks like the slums, we go down this road that I would have NEVER have thought to walk down. The bus stops(?) and my professor says, “We’re Hereeeee!!!!!” WHAT?! So we get off the bus and start walking down the road, as we keep walking [...]

I’ve had SUCH a great time the past week… that I can’t help but feel a little anxious for the upcoming one. Here’s a rundown: September 4 The MSID crew had to wake up early to make an early arrival into Nairobi and meet our Host Families…  I was getting prepared to meet my new family for the new school year and living in a city I know NOTHING about. I suppose the only thing I can do is stay positive… Yeah well that positive attitude lasted all of five [...]

I have made it safely home to Nairobi! It was a decent bus ride, no problems. We had a Saw marathon showing. It was so nice seeing my Nairobi family again, I think they missed me! We stayed up for a couple hours just talking about everything that’s been going on and telling them about my experiences and everything. And the next morning I got an amazing breakfast of tea, samosas, and eggs. Better than the white bread I’ve been getting recently. It was great! We headed to Methodist Guesthouse [...]

Holy hot. That is all I have to say. Our taxi picked us up at 8am this morning to bring us to the bus station downtown. It was really hard saying goodbye to some of my friends and their families last night. But we’ll see each other again in a couple weeks. The bus ride went well, pretty smooth riding the whole way. We got to jam to some amazing 90′s music for a while, and then the ride got real good when they played Scream 3. Now that’s a [...]

This morning we were told to meet at the University of Nairobi at 8 a.m. for a presentation by the CEO of World Bank/IMF. It was supposed to start at 9 a.m., but didn’t start until almost 10:30 a.m. I really struggle with this. So we saw the Prime Minister of Kenya, the CEO of World Bank/IMF, and a couple other high up people. Like Bob Geldof (a really cool, outspoken guy!), and the vice minister of Kenya, or whatever they’re called. It was actually a pretty interesting debate, to see [...]

Life here in Nairobi has been pretty laid back for the past couple days. It was rather depressing going back to school on Tuesday because Uganda was so much fun and it was a real vacation. No one wanted to go back. We’ve only been having 2 classes a day recently instead of 3. We were told this was to give us time to write our papers that they’re loading on us. I just got another 5 page paper today, due on Tuesday. Ugh. Classes are going well. They’re pretty [...]

Thursday for classes we had our Development field trip. We went to the industrial sector of Nairobi. It was actually pretty interesting. We walked around the informal section—where they make kitchen supplies and various other household stuff with raw materials. My professor told me to sit down and hammer away at one of the pans someone was making, it was slightly difficult. We got back to Nazarene at 12:30pm and the program treated us to some lunch…we went to another Ethiopian place. Anyways, we had to leave so we could [...]