Dear Kenya,
It has been a while since I have blogged. Due to
the inconsistent wifi the apartment provides, and the limited wifi we find
outside the apartment has not allowed me to write and update everyone on what
is going on! So I will do my best to write what I remember.
So nothing too exciting happens during the week
other than classes which are still going well. The weekend was a bit eventful.
Friday Allie and I visited the Brosis School, where we will be teaching 50
children from ages 7-14 about “life skills” and health. We have the flexibility
to create our own lesson plans and teach about our own topics. So, Friday we
visited arrived at this fork on a dirt road, behind several shops that face the
main road. We then walked into a lot where I saw someone doing laundry,
children chasing each other. We then walked into this tin shack where we met
with two teachers. One of the teachers talked to us about our teaching schedule
and asked us what we were going to teach. The experience at Brosis was very
interesting. We did not get to meet the children but got to say hello from
afar. They seemed to be very young, I want to assume they were 5 or 6 years
old. When we began to leave we heard them say “How are you” “How are you”. This
made me excited to return to get to know them individually.
We then visited the room where the Young Mothers
tailor, bead, and make soap. It was the room behind another room on a block
with stores that are connected to each other. We then walked through the community
to go to the main road. We got to see what the residential living spaces looked
like in this community. We then returned back to the office and began
developing our lesson plan. Seeing the community, the school, and the people
living in the community allowed me to reflect on my life and what I have. I am
aware as I spend more time in this environment I will understand more about
their life and how different yet similar they are to mine. I am looking forward
to see more and learn more about the children and this school and about myself.
Friday night, the majority of the program went out
to a pub called Molly’s. We took arrived and realized that the majority of the
people were locals. Something we had not yet experienced since we had gone to
Gypsies before. After a beer and realizing that the music had changed from
Swahili music to Call me Maybe once the rest of us arrived at the pub, we began
to leave. Some of us went home and the others went to Gypsies. I joined the
group going to Gypsies. This club/bar experience was a lot more positive than
the last experience. Last time there were a lot of older, creepy men watching
us as we had a good time. This time around, the crowd that surrounded us were very
close to our age. I managed to make a couple acquaintances throughout the
night. I first met these two girls, one from Virginia who studied at Columbia,
and the other from the UK. Both recently arrived in Nairobi and were beginning
to work. The woman from the US was leaving to go to Somalia to begin her two year
contract with a company that works with refugees (I cannot remember the name).
The other one was stationed here in Nairobi. The one from the US gave me her
card and told me to email her if I was interested in working or interning with
a company that deals with sexual violence at an international scale. The second
group that I met were white Kenyans. Born and raised in Nairobi. They were very
friendly and funny.
Saturday, most of us went to Village Market. This
was approximately 20-30 mins away from our apartment. It was very big and very
fancy-like. After walking around and having lunch we walked to the US Embassy
which was only two blocks away. We could not take any pictures. We were told by
the guards that if we did we would be arrested. So we called the taxis and
waited by the Embassy. Some of us sat down on the grass and just relaxed. One
of the guards came up to us and asked us if we were US citizens. We replied yes.
He asked us what we were doing here. We told him we were studying. He said he
was told that on the security camera they saw people in distress. He asked us
if we were in an distress and if we were ok. Surprised by how polite he was, we
said no we were fine, we were just waiting for our taxi. He said “oh, ok,
Welcome to Kenya”. We were all shocked about how polite they were. If we were
in the US we would have been treated completely different that that.
Interesting huh?
The rest of the weekend there is nothing to report
other than the struggles of finding wifi. This coming weekend we will be going
on our overnight excursion. We will receive more information later in the week.
Hoping I can squeeze one more post before I go away this weekend.
That’s all for now folks!
Love,
Angie
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