Yo from Nairobi...

One of the 5 dirtiest and most dangerous cities in the world! Yeeeah! Great to be here.

Apart from our hotel bathroom overflowing and the power going out about 5 times a day here, things are fine. We are here till tomorrow night, visiting one of Nairobi's major slums (it has 47, including one that is the largest in all of Africa), seeing off the old Canadian team, and visiting the markets.

After one week living in Kenya, I feel very qualified to note some significant cultural differences between this country and my own.

The main oddity is walking through the streets and having black people stop, turn, stare at you, and say “mzungu!” (white person). All the kids do it and a good percentage of adults. It is so bizarre. After they’ve gotten over the initial shock of your skin colour, many of them will say “how are you!” as though it’s a greeting instead of a question. If you ask them how they are, they will respond in perfect English, “I am fine thank you.” You can tell it’s the one thing they recited endlessly in school.

Speaking of school, when we visit schools here, we are infallibly ushered to some meeting room with a stage with seats on it, where everyone else sits on benches below us. We watch the kids perform some sort of song or dance, are given a choice of Fanta sodas, and fed a 5 course typical African meal. This happens everywhere. It gets frustrating after a few times when you just want to sit with the kids and not drink all 5 sodas they serve you (it is considered rude not to finish something you've been served here). But as we are constantly reminded, it is a cultural thing and they would consider themselves extremely rude NOT to treat us this way. Adjustments...

Another difference that is exceptionally difficult for my more feministic side to accept is that men reign supreme here, and it dictates most things about women’s lives. As Meredith so tactfully explained, “thighs and butt in Kenya are the equivalent of boobs in the North America”. So we generally wear long skirts when we go out to the projects, or capri pants. Exposed shoulders are also pretty risqué so let’s just say all us girls are getting killer farmer tans. (When we have free time on the compound, we put on shorts and tanks and try to counteract the bad tan lines we have from the week. The compound is pretty private so we can wear whatever, thank goodness.) However, even if you’re walking through town wearing the most modest clothing, men will gawk shamelessly at you. Saying ‘jambo’ or ‘how are you’ is considered leading them on, so you’re encouraged to just walk by in silence. (Words cannot describe how difficult this is for me.)

On that note, the last few days in town we’ve run into circumcision ceremonies, generally involving a mob of men running down the street with branches and the lucky fellow (usually in his 20’s) in the middle, naked and covered in white dust. No envy for the men here at that point. Today there was a ceremony for a guy in his sixties! Yowch.

Lastweek we went with our team of old Canadian folks to visit St. Anthony’s School for the Deaf and St. Theresa’s Special School for the Mentally Disabled. It was an interesting contrast since both had equal need but only one of them spent most of the time asking for funding. The kids at both were amazing; so well behaved and disciplined. Not surprisingly, the deaf school was pretty quiet and organized, but at least 120 mentally disabled kids sat for perfectly still for over an hour while we listened to speeches from the chairmen of the school. And no Ritalin in any of them! It was incredible. There is a very well-instilled respect here among kids… zero whining, assumed responsibility for any younger siblings, lots of manners.

We also went out to Kolongola, a community with a major AIDS problem, and did another food distribution. It was amazing to me how many of these young, quiet widowed women came up to accept their food and when we asked them what we could pray for, they just said “to be a good parent to my children”. The fact that that is such a priority for them in a time of so much chaos in their own lives and country is baffling to me. We were also able to tell Victor and Mary, the couple who run the aid program in Kolongola, that there was enough money from supporters to buy a nearby piece of land to build a community shelter on. Mary started yelling and crying and clapping and Victor explained that she has been fasting and praying for this land for months. It was such a great moment for everyone.

Hope everyone is well..

More when we're back home in Kitale!

*a

P.S. Edit… I am hoping the reason I’m not getting texts from anyone is because I typed one too many zeros on the original number I posted.. the revised is 011254715222112.