dubstep.

is pretty much the only music i've been listening too, for those family members that have no idea what that is, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubstep

ah, wikipedia, the answer to everything. kind of.

or listen here (WARNING lots os electronic music and heavy bass): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRftXCiqfQ8

ah, so that's what kids are listening to these days. just kidding. i'm not a kid anymore.


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not much to update on, i have been working on the grant proposal for work, they want it finished by friday to review, so busy busy!

i got an awesome compliment yesterday at work though. the team asked when i would be with them in the field, and told me they do much better when i'm around. work. is. awesome.

hopefully tomorrow after work i can stay and hang out with the acrobats for a bit.

don't forget to smile today :)

yet another incredible day.

I finally got to go back to teaching my class this morning! I was at the Dome by 7:30am (an hour early) and warmed up some of the kids that were there, then while they did yoga I started going to a kenyan sign language class.

A lot of the dancers/ acrobats at Sarakasi are deaf, and Belle known american sign language so I feel like learning sign language is perfect to do while I'm here- and it's awesome

James teaches the class which was great and I learned so so so much, I'm much quicker at picking up sign language than I am Kiswahili, but hey i'm still working hard on both.

After that class I went to finish teaching the acrobats- it ended early because of an event happening at the Dome but that was ok- I was so happy to be back I missed my kids AND THEY MISSED ME which was way cooler than me missing them.

some of the kids were picked to go to this international event at the UN next weekend, which I'm so proud of- they work so hard.

After class James invited me to go with the deaf dancers to this deaf event/ fashion show where they were performing.

With James being busy this forced me to sign  AND I DID- i had to spell out a lot of things, but i was able to hold conversations with all of the deaf dancers, it was so incredible. their performance was awesome too.

After they performed I went outside to talk with James and he insisted that he show me how to "fly" aka do partner acrobatics (or acro-yoga?) with him. Which was crazy- i did things i didn't think was humanly possible. and i got to tumble with a few of the people from sarakasi. it was awesome. and i got one hell of a workout and stretch. and continued to sign with everyone. and i got a kenyan sign name!!!

after we got back to sarakasi i headed home just to have an awesome meal cooked by Nyos and Belle, and Aliya came over for dinner.

I'm currently waiting for the hot water to head up so I can take a shower.

But today has been another awesome day. just confirming how much i love it here. it was much needed too, i've been in a bit of a slump since rural week and slowly regaining my enthusiasm and strength, but today really pulled me up and out of it. i'm back to how i felt day 1.

don't forget to smile today! (i know i haven't stopped since i woke up)

Ok so, finally... Rural Week.

I am going to warn you, this is going to be a very long post.

A very, very long post.

Lets start from the Beginning-

Tuesday:

So as everyone knows there were two grenade attacks in Nairobi, both small incidents, but enough to make us all a little jittery. So we were pretty glad to be leaving Nairobi. After -not much sleep- we all had cabs waiting for us at 4:30am to take us to the bus station somewhere in Eastlands (where most of the African population lives in Nairobi), not exactly a group of wazungus wants to be in the middle of the night, but as we got out of the cab we noticed we had a few police escorts, awkward I know. We all filed onto the bus and began out trip as the sun was rising. We all passed out on the bus ride form exhaustion- or tried to at least. The roads are crazy torn apart so it was a pretty bumpy ride. It was about a 7 hour trip, we at one point ran into a truck stopping "traffic" because it had fallen off the "road" or rocky pathway on the side of a hill. Of course Victor got out and fixed it- because he can literally do anything. Seriously, anything: Jess, and Victor.

After that hiccup we finally arrived in Bunyore, in Western Kenya. The group split up into matatus and all met at Lynsey's friend's home. We all ate a delicious Kenyan lunch, complete with chapati (greasy flat bread), ndengu (tiny lentil type of things, except they're green), pilau, kachumbari (tomato, onion, cilantro, etc.), sukuma wiki (spinach dish), and kuku (chicken). We then were given the gifts to give to our family- rice, sugar, maize, and a LIVE chicken, and yes there is proof I held a live chicken, multiple times:

After that I met my Baba (father) for the week, Benson, and we walked to the compound where I would be living for the week:

the entrance to compound:

Our bathroom, well "toilet," ok hole in the ground:

I felt pretty awkward at first, I wasn't sure how much english my family knew. We walked into the room where I would be sleeping and it was infested with hundreds of termites, all the little kids ran in and started eating them, yummy! I was then in a different room just kind of left alone, so I read for a few hours, and as the sun set used my flashlight to read. It gets pretty freaking dark there at night, let me tell you. And trying to find your way to the bug infested "toilet" in the mud- hahaha, good luck. 

After just sitting and reading, and being brought lots of chai - chai means tea- and the Luyah's (the tribe or ethnic group's village we were living in) LOVE their chai, which is really just tea with ostly hot milk and a LOT of sugar. So they made my hot water separate with even more sugar, and they kept feeding me bread. By the time dinner was ready I was already so full- but I ate anyway Ugali (which is like this dough made of maize) is what they use to scoop up their food, I had a fried egg with tomatoes and herbs it was delicious, but still I was so full. They also kept feeding me telling me I was too small I needed to eat more and get bigger, which was funny because I eat more than any of my roommates they always comment how I'm always eating- but hey I do what I can. Benson and I ate dinner together in the "living room" while all the women and children sit in the "kitchen" or a room with a fire pit and they use rocks to hold up the big metal pots they cook in. I found out there were 17 kids living on the compound, the grandparents and 4 families in total I believe, so that is a TON of cooking to do over a fire everyday for all three meals. 

Benson and i continued to have a great conversation about Kenya, and he was very interested on how we do things in America. Around 10pm I went to bed- luckily all of the termites were gone so I slept inside my mosquito net- it was a bit tight since my legs were longer than the bed, but all was well.

Wednesday:

I woke up around 7:30 am, the rest of the family was at school, Benson at his Kiosk (he owns one right on the road by the house) and the women cooking and cleaning and taking care of the animals. Oh right, there were SO MANY animals, chickens running around everywhere, about 5 cows (i think, they kept changing places so i kind of lost count) and some goats, but just so many chickens. OH haha I forgot the night before when I went to bed it was dark so I was using my flashlight and I heard something moving so I freaked out but then realized there were chicken tied to the bike in the room I was sleeping in- I was told later they tie up the bigger chickens because they cause trouble- plus we ate them eventually. 

So to brush my teeth, they boiled water for me then I used a cup outside (PS if you didn't pick up on this there was no electricity or running water, the family, or the women/ younger girls go out fetch water in buckets from a local market, or somewhere nearby). Also the night before it POURED and it's all farm land and forest and mud, so much mud. literally caked your shoes with half an inch + of mud, and oh boy was it slippery, kind of a game not to fall flat on your face. Somehow all of the locals feet were perfectly clean, none of us could figure out how!

I hung around the compound in the morning, and went to Benson's kiosk for a bit where I met up with Belle and her dada or sister. She took us to the local primary school where we were introduced to all of the classes, the younger grands sang songs for us which was cute. Oh also i forgot to mention Western Kenya is much more conservative than Nairobi, so we were all in long skirts, and shoulders and chests covered- which was rough cause oh boy was it hot.

I then walked back home to have lunch- and of course more tea. Then met up with Belle at the house Lynsey was staying at, where we ran into Saitoti (the local in charge of us) he took us to the local markets and we walked for a LONGGG time. We got caught in the rain after we walked through a farm so we waited until it let up to walk back, again woohoo mud! I came home and my family looked at me and immediately gave me, yup you guessed it- tea! And heated up some water for my "shower" or bath? I guess you could call it--- no, no, bathing session. 

Ok so bathing- how this works. There is a wooden shack behind the stables where they give me one large container oh SCOLDING hot water, and one smaller one with cold water, and a plastic large bowl to mix it in. I also got this collection of string/ straw type of material to use to wash myself. Oh and a small stool to sit on. But no way was I going to sit on the stool I have never seen so many large spiders in one place in my life, and I don't mind bugs- I swear I don't but, seriously I'm getting naked in the dark, with only a candle for light and I'm surrounded by spiders. in the words of my mother, no way jose. I was buggin a little- pun intended. 

So after I quickly rinsed off my body- at this point I'm really not too concerned with my cleanliness (yeah, yeah I know not much has changed from home), but seriously, I'm going to get muddy again and smell like farm in a few minutes anyway, so what was the big deal? exactlyyy.

So there are these tiny sardine type of white fish that are dried, and cheap and we had those for dinner, errr, well I tried it but, not my cup of tea, in fact, tea, eh. But I had matoke, which is a boiled ndizi (banana) which is beyond delicious before dinner (because I was always well fed), so I was pretty full by the time the fish came around. plus you have to bite off their little heads, not my favorite. 

Benson and I again had dinner in a separate room, and talked a lot about cars- something I really know nothing about- but I pulled from what knowledge I had. So after some more tea, bed time! This tim Benson insisted that I am a guest I should sleep in and not get up as early as I did that day- but everyone else is up with the sunrise, so I felt weird sleeping in, even with him insisting. 

Thursday:

I did manage to sleep in a bit, until about 9am, and had tea and breakfast (yummy mandazi- this donut type of thing), and Lynsey and Saitoti came to visit for a quick stop, they had some trouble getting to me because of the mud, how silly. Belle and I again met up at our usual meeting place and Lynsey drove us and Satitoti to the a Special Needs school that Belle wanted to go see. That was very interesting, sad, but much better than I think we were expecting, especially in the area we were in. I don't want to go into too many details, however feel free to comment me with your email if you want more details!

Afterwards we went to the resort placed on this hill with HUGE stones, it was pretty cool:

We then walked for a long time, like a few miles, and eventually hopped into a matatu with about 17 other people (remember it only fits 14) and we went through Luanda, this huge market (more city like) a lot of people selling things n the streets, it's loud and busy- just the way i like it. seriously. I was loving the rural life, but I need people, and noise, and activity- as I've come to learn. Sitting around is not my style, in fact it made me pretty damn anxious. 

We went through the market and picked up Kate from a neighboring town, then back to the market, I grabbed my mama a kanga (skirt wrap around thing) and the women a flashlight to use instead of the candles. Then we caught a matatu to the market near our village- however it started to downpour and we were still a 45 minute walk from home. So we tried to wait out the rain in a shop, however, it was going to rain through until the morning- so we wanted to get home before dark. So with no jacket we walked, and oh boy was it raining. I came home and  "bathed," had some more tea, and actually fell asleep after being caught in the rain. Of course they woke me up to eat and have more tea before going to sleep. 

Friday:

Friday we went on a little excursion to Kakamega Forest and saw gold mining, honey making, and a few other cool environmental things, and had a picnic lunch.  That night at dinner Benson and I went over a lot of my Kiswahili notebook, and he was impressed with what we have been learning. I also got the hang out with the ladies of the compound, joking around and teaching me kidogo (a little) Kiswahili. I had a great time with the family that night, and they called me a part of their family, which was so sweet, I promised to write them a letter (once I print out some photos of the family) and I am definitely going to go stay with them for a weekend next semester!

Me with some of the family:

 

Saturday:

I said my goodbye's to my family, and we had a large going away party for the students and their families. There was lots of singing and dancing, and FOOD. so much food. it was delicious of course, as Kenyans do. And we had a little goodbye ceremony where I got this basket, a small bag and a lot of ndizi!

Then we got into matatus to go to Kisumu! Where we finally SHOWERED and then all went out for dinner, afterwards we were exhausted, but we got to sleep in nice beds- what a treat.

Sunday:

We woke up and had breakfast, then went to Lake Victoria for a boat ride, on these tiny wooden boats, although beautiful- not my favorite thing in the world. But we saw hippos, which was crazyyy:

We then had lunch, and in the afternoon got ready to go to the train station. We were going to take an overnight train through the western countryside at 6:30 and arrive in Nairobi around 9am.

haha what silly thinking, something running remotely on time in Kenya.

So turns out the engine broke and we were going to leave at 9pm.....then 12am.... then 2am... then 5am.... then 7:30am rolled around and we FINALLY left the train station.... 12 hours on the train and we hadn't even left yet. However, the ride was absolutely possibly one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen- the sunset I cannot even explain to you (the sunset Monday night), and the stars were gorgeous, they filled the sky at night. Everything was so green, and there were hills, it was awesome. 

Well it was about 9pm and we were 2 hours away from Nairobi- FINALLY- but oh no, it doesn't end there. A train broke down ahead of us in Kibera (Nairobi) so we had to go around the city to go into another station- at this point Victor was like oh no we are getting off this train, and we got off around 11pm and had cabs pick us up- but wait for it- we were still a 45 minute drive away.

So FINALLY arriving home around midnight- AU decided to give us Tuesday off. 

And that my friends.... was rural week.

Last week was just work and class. The usual. Except we have these new rules: 8pm curfew, no matatus into town, and no hanging out at malls unless you need to go to get groceries, or use the ATM, etc. Hopefully these rules will be expired and not renewed in December. But we will see, we will see. 

So for now I have to take a different matatu route to work, and cabs to the off site places- which is kind of uncomfortable, because they are usually in slums or poorer areas and I'm the obnoxious mzungu getting out of a cab. womp.

Oh well, I'm still loving my job, and rockin it. Of course. 

OH also I'm starting a kenyan sign language class on Saturday mornings before the class I'm teaching- because there are a ton of dancers/ acrobatics/ artists at Sarakasi who are deaf- and Belle speaks ASL, so I thought I'd give it a try too!

And I finally decided on my focus for my Independent Study next semester: Graffiti Art in Slums and (probably) it's use for positive change! 

So keeping busy as usual- and enjoying myself.

sending giant hugs to everyone back home! I cannot believe it's already a week into Novemba. 

and of course,

don't forget to smile today!