Junction Disfunction

Dear Kenya,

First off, thank you for blessing us with wonderful weather since our rainy first week here. Everything has been wonderful since my last post. Granted it has been a while so I will attempt to sum up everything since Thursday, September 18th. I apologize for the extremely long post that follows.

Thursday September 18th:

After a wonderful class in Community Health that ended at around 1, we had some time to get out of the apartment and do a little exploring. So, Bailey, Megan, and I called a taxi, and headed over to Junction Mall. What we witnessed was something that none of us were expecting. We arrived excited that we took the time to leave out usual routine to try something new. The only way that I can describe this mall is --Long Island peeps, it's nicer than Roosevelt Field Mall, or simply think of the nicest mall you have been to and it looked relatively like that. There were stores like Mr. Price, which was a store that reminded us of H&M and Forever 21, a casino, and Nakomatt which can only be described as a mix of Whole Foods and a very nice Walmart. We walked into Mr. Price to see what was being sold. We were surprised to see the variety of clothing's that were being sold. We then went to Nakomatt. We saw a numerous amount of food brands that we would see back at home. Cereals, cheeses, etc. Immediately, I started to feel a bit confused as to where I was. Was I in Kenya or the USA? There were European families everywhere! People saying "Bless you" or "Hi" in English. Something I was not used to. The past two weeks were have been shopping at local markets, practicing our swahili and quote on quote, "living how the locals do". This new environment was something we were reminded is OUR culture. This fancy mall, with selections, and easy access to whatever we needed was familiar. I am calling this experience my taste of reverse culture shock. I felt confused, uncomfortable, guilty, and appreciative of how I lived in the US and how I am living in Kenya right now. In the eyes of Kenya, we saw how the other half lived. But in reality, this other half, is our half, what we are used to. It was incredibly interesting how I felt more comfortable when we returned to our apartments. It has taken me a couple days to try to articulate how I felt. I still cannot explain fully how I felt. But this is my closest attempt.