The past two weeks have been filled with midterms, studying, papers, presentations, and finals. Fun right? As of right now, I am stress free from any academic assignments. However, to get to this glorious feeling, I had the toughest week. After a week filled with midterms, we had a week with 4 finals.
The weekend before finals week I had been working on a paper on the health effects of lead poisoning and the responses in developed and developing countries. Reading and researching this topic was extremely interesting. Usually when I write papers I struggle through the research paper, mainly because I am not genuinely interested in the topic. Because I picked this topic, I found myself excited to start reading the case studies I had found. The reading portion was fun, the write, not so much. It took me several days to write the paper. Once it was submitted, I was confident. This paper had a presentation attached to it. The presentation was not at all difficult to do. That same day that the paper and presentation was due, I had an Epidemiology final. Once that final was done, I came home and studied for my Environmental and Swahili final that was the following day (which also happened to be my birthday). With running on 4-5 hours of sleep, both nights, I finished my Swahili final and then powered through my Environmental final. I had told myself and some classmates that it was not my birthday until I had handed in my final exam of the semester so I can relax and enjoy my birthday. Sure enough, that relief that everything was handed in came when I got up from my desk and handed my exam to my professor. Once I did, the entire class started to sing happy birthday. They jokingly mentioned this earlier but I was 100% positive they wouldn't go through with it. My professor was first confused then understood it was my birthday. It was extremely sweet. That is the moment I felt it was really my birthday.
After my exam I came home and knew what I wanted to do....NAP! After making some lunch, and using wifi, I went to sleep for an hour and a half. I was so exhausted from the week. Before I went to sleep one of my roommates texted me to be ready to leave our apartment at 5pm. I asked why, she would not tell me. I did as was told. I woke up from my nap in time to get myself dressed and dolled up. As 5pm rolled around, our friends began to arrive at our apartment, one by one. Unfortunetly due to classes not everyone could be there. We called the taxis and hung out a bit. When the taxis arrived, one of my friends said ok, time to blind fold. I thought he was joking. But surely, he took my roommates scarf and blind folded me. So I walked from my apartment to the taxi and rode all the way to the restaurant, blindfolded. Once we arrived, after being stuck in traffic, I was excited to be at this restaurant that I have wanted to try and my roommates really wanted to try. We were just in time for happy hour. So we ordered our drinks and had a wonderful meal! I had a large soft pretzel and half of a yummy burger! We drank German beer (I would try to spell the name of it...but I can't), and eventually had a dessert cocktail. Towards the end of the night, the sun went down and a jazz band began to play. Anyone who knows me, knows I love me some jazz bands. As the night winded down, the jazz bands saxophone player talked in the microphone and said that this one was for "Angy" haha. I didn't realise it was for me until my friend who was sitting across from me pointed at me and said "You!" They brought out a cake and the saxophone man played happy birthday for me. It was so great! Chocolate and jazz and friends. Perfect. So I thanked everyone and passed the dessert around. We all got up and headed back for our apartments. We got back to the apartment and took the elevator. As we got in my friend asked to see the bling fold I had on earlier. So I took it out to show him and he quickly snatched it and blindfolded me to my room. I thought he was just being funny, his usual self. As I walk through my door of my apartment I hear screams of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" I took the blind fold off and EVERYONE was there with cake and decorations. They sang happy birthday. Of course, me being emotional and completely surprised cried a little (I never cry though ;)) I took a picture with the cake and thanked everyone. After some mingling and laughs, everyone began to go home. When everyone left, my roommate gave me another gift. A bag full of chocolate.....THE PERFECT GIFT! Again, anyone who really knows me, knows my obsession with chocolate! It was so many different types of chocolate! It was so nice! This was by far the best birthday. I had not truly celebrated my birthday in quite some time. This made up for all the times I didn't really celebrate my birthday. It is amazing how people who have known you for just a little bit of time, could do so much for a person. I am so grateful I am on this trip with these amazing individuals. I am fortunate that I have the opportunity to meet them, get to know them, and experience the wonders of being abroad with them.
I thanked them then and I will thank them again. I special appreciation towards the Kenya Fall 2014 group that spent the night celebrating the night I was born. It means more than you will ever truly know.
After that eventful night, we had our internship the next morning. My roommates woke up and make me a birthday breakfast....chocolate and peanut butter pancakes...SO DELICIOUS AND SO SWEET! This was incredibly nice and thoughtful of them. after breakfast we went to our internships. Today Allie and I did not go teach. Instead we worked on a website that we have been planning since the second week. We are creating a donation website for BROSIS and SLT-Young Mothers. We hope that the young mothers who sow and make soap and bead, will help BROSIS with supplying soap and uniforms for the children. The income for that material and more necessities for both group, hopefully will come from the generous public. This is still a work in progress but it seems to be moving alone wonderfully!
This week I will not be in Nairobi. I am looking forward to the adventure that lays ahead. I will not have wifi, so many who contact me frequently, you will not get responses for a bit. I will let you know when I return and will definitely inform you on my experience. Heads up, it may be a long blog post.
That's all for now!
Love,
Angie
