In one piece, not too jet lagged, and yet to experience the inevitable explosive diarrhea everyone says you get in your first few days here (very excited about that one).
The trip here was incredibly long but fine. I was able to get my visa, track down my bag, and find Meredith (from TI) in 2 hours (1 hrour, 58 minutes spent in line for the visa).
Funny story: Meredith e.mailed Sunday before I left saying “see you tomorrow!” I was confused, considering I wasn’t taking off till Monday night, but my very intelligent sister chalked it up to gaining time crossing the date line. Fast forward 24 hours to plane ride#2, winding my watch to Nairobi time, and watching in horror as the date dial turned from the 23rd to 24th. Knowing I was leaving the 22nd and the trip was 2around 24 hours, I’d told Meredith I’d arrive the 23rd , not realizing you actually LOSE a bunch of time crossing that dumb date line. So, she waited an entire 24 hours for me. Imagine my parents surprise when Daniel (from TI) called only 2 hours after I’d taken off, asking where I was! They said they were pretty sure my plane wasn’t that fast. The moral of this story is, I am an idiot with time zones, and Meredith is a saint to wait for me.
From the airport, we took a taxi to downtown Nairobi and got a matatu (shuttle with 12+ passengers) to Elduret. 4 police stops and 6 hours of reckless driving later, we hauled my 50 pound bag through the dusty streets of Elduret and boarded a kangaroo (6+ person matatu) to Kitale. From Kitale, TI’s trusty taxi driver, Peter, picked us up and drove us to the compound, where I was greeted by my new family for the next 3 months:
Daniel, who runs TI; his younger brother Andrew and friend Nate, both 18 and from Nevada; Sean, Meredith’s fiancé from Ontario; “Big Lauren” and “Little Lauren”, both from Texas; and Ina, 25, from Finland. It is apparently a universal truth that wherever I go in the world, I meet a fantastic Finn, and Ina is no exception.
Yesterday the two of us ran a few miles on the lumpy red dirt roads around the base. At one point a group of little kids ran with us but got bored when they realized how slow we were. Later we passed an old woman sauntering down the road with a basket on her head. She looked at us oddly and said, “Why you running?” and started laughing.
Currently there is a team of 6 “elderly folks” (over 50) from Toronto here helping with projects. This week they are working on food distribution at a nearby slum. This means my first day here was spent taking 120 200-pound bags of corn out of the garage and dividing each one into two 100-pound bags. After lunch and a downpour, we did the same thing with 100 200lb bags of beans. Almost 50,000 pounds we were working with, and everything was done with plain old elbow grease in the hot sun. Everyone’s fingers are raw from grabbing so much burlap and twine, but Friday made everything worth it.
We spent the morning in a neighborhood where most of the women are widows due to AIDS or post-election violence, and there are a few children with both parents gone because of one or the other. When we got out of the matutu, all the women stood up and started dancing and shouting and clapping and singing, shaking our hands and kissing and hugging us, saying ‘sante, sante!’ (thank you). What I felt just then was inexplicable: I think all the interns were surprised at how emotional it made us.
The names of the neediest women were called (160 in all) and they lined up to get blankets, beans, and corn, and we prayed for each one before they left. Based on the extent of my sunburn, it must’ve been quite hot and sunny but we were so busy praying for and talking to these people, I didn’t notice anything else around us. I can only imagine the lives they have lived and the devastation they’ve experienced this last year.
The evidence of the post-election violence earlier this year is still very obvious in the Rift Valley. On the way to Kitale I saw four different IDP camps, countless brick house skeletons blackened by smoke, and rows of businesses closed, gutted, or burnt to the ground. The current crisis is that many of the country’s maize reserves were also destroyed, as well as this years’ crops. Combine that with the oncoming dry season, and there are actually people starving to death in Kenya, which is both sobering and something that has never been a problem here before. But I guess that’s why it’s so sweet to be passing out 50,000 pounds of food to people.
In cheerier news, I have a mobile number to text (calling is spendy): 0011254715222112
and an address to send mail to (takes 1 to 4 weeks):
Andrea Day
c/o Transformed Intl.
PO Box 815
Kitale, Kenya
This blog was meant to have pictures, but due to unbelievably slow internet, I am going to have to scheme up some alternative methods to get them on here. Soon, very soon!
I miss you all, but I can’t lie; it is fantastic to finally be here.
Hope everyone is well!
Lots of love,
*a
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