The Orange Hat

Soo.. I totally forgot my Camera for the first day of the rest of my life in Kenya, or at least the first 9 months of it. I was probably the most nervous I’ve ever been before the flight, so nervous that the only thing I could think to do was laugh… so I did. I was weighting in the Air port in Doha, after Ariane dropper me off, I love you girl stay strong with those Gulf Nationals, the can be inspire and your advice helped – I just slept, horrible sentence structure- multiple compound complex sentence which relies on dependant clauses and there are probably some comma splices in there... So I met a guy in Doha who said he had seen me in Atlanta, and he was really nice about it, he had a top over in Munich, and I was really skeptical because it’s weird to meet a person in Qatar who said they were just in Marietta- but he didn’t as for money so w/e ☺

BTW: Korean tourists are hysterical, and I think they were climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, because the amount of Mammut and gore-tex they had was unreal, it all looked very new and very expensive.

When I first got out of the boarding area of the airport onto the bus- which takes us to the plane, I almost felt like I was on a train of no return, I was petrified, it was scary, but as I sat there, looking at Kenyans, Indians, Europeans, people with families, people with jobs, and lives outside the media, they were personified and they just wanted to go home- or Mt. Kili, crazy Koreans, I’ll join them someday, and Tiff- I’m so going to one up you, hell I’ll even do the technical part of Kenya which I know you didn’t do because you lacked certain metal tools to do so! (I’m hyper/… so forgive me ☺ ) –

I got off the plane, went to customs, and relied I didn’t have a pen... there were no pen’s to be found, and my backpack is pretty deep. I had traveled almost 8,000 miles and the fact that I didn’t have a writing utensil was not going to stop me from my destination. So I asked some people for pens before finally realizing I had to open my backpack. After about two minuets I found a non-huge-ass-sharpie pen, and filled out my visa info. I feel like such a dumbi, they guy didn’t ask for a return flight, or my acceptance papers, he just say “ where is you internship?” To which I responded “ The University of Nairobi”, and he wished me well… I was so amazed and that cost me … $180 for freaking out about it and having to reschedule my flight– mom my loan check is on the way I’ll frwd you the email when I can- so I went down stairs found my bag in less than a minuet and found a sign in the pickup area titled “AIESEC NAIROBI”- to which I finally met my contacts in Nairobi after some long months of emails, text messages, and (what I perceived as) horribly communicated phone calls (probably my fault).

They took me to the office at the UoN, where I met more people who’s names I don’t’ remember- but there was a guy there, there’s at least one male in the Nairobi LC other than me.

Traffic in Nairobi is like Italy on … Alcohol (for those of you who know) – Though they do stop for people! I saw some lights, but they all had cops by them to enforce/help the light; otherwise it’s all round about just like Qatar, and most of London. In Nairobi they honk and flash their lights all the time, it seems to be a given. So everywhere we went I was a little stressed. I exchanged money… which is weird, because the older the bill the less you’ll get for it. So my $100 USD is only worth 55/1usd instead of the 65/usd my $20’s get because it’s a 1996 $100, same thing with $1’s but that’s just because they’re $1’s – either way, I exchanged $20’s for 65ksh/$1usd. Then I bough a cell phone after I let the wonderful ladies of Kenya bargain against the cell phones dealers – both the cell phones I have (mine and Preston’s) don’t seem to work

Oh before all that money stuff, we went to my new house place, where the people were out, but a person (the house keeper) was in, and she let me in a put my stuff down/ change my cloths… this is getting really long

In short, the Nairobi LC is awesome, I start work on Monday, we went out and ate American like food. Tusker Beer is good and cheep- Nairobi is so different yet nothing like I thought it would be, I can’t wait to work all this out, I had a real bed tonight even though I woun’t be posting this till after tonight –MS word for mac is nice too- ….. I love life, and don’t feel threatened

They speak more Swahili here than thought they would, and I need to learn this shit fast or there are going to be lots of awkward moments – and that doesn’t even count the times where people use there tribal languages.

-End time for bed.

The morning after
I wake up at some unknown time to birds chirping and a horn honking. I think I hear someone get out of bed then go the to bath room, Do w/e- then flush…. And it’s fine, but I leave and 10 minuets later it’s sill filling the head of the toilet, and it’s loud, and I haven’t met the other two people who live here so I don’t want to wake them… and I don’t know how expensive water is, and it’s still going and I can’t get it to stop- It’s not an American system, I can’t see the drain- I can only stop the incoming water by lifting the ball thingy, and there’s no water shut off I can find, so it’s still filling, to no end I think – because I don’t see it going down, this is so dumb, and I feel really bad + I had a bloody nose and gahh, this isn’t going well. [after note- everything was fine, it just takes forever, and that was probably about 4 am]

2/2/2008

Dumb move #1 – leaving the house w/e a key to the front door (thought I thought I had one)
Dumb move #2 – Staying out till 4 am…. In Nairobi

I just felt really bad, nothing happened, Pesika still got up, and looked at me like I was retarded, which I deserved, and then I went to bed and woke up at about 1 pm to mango juice being brought to me, and me feeling guilty.

Had my first experience with little children flowing me for more than five minuets and begging for money in Swahili- and avoiding everybody else I was with and going straight for me. Also played Basketball at the UoN, which is an amazing campus, it’s pretty and has lost of trees.

Met more people from the Nairobi LC and went to a party…

Made a balance sheet. Need to take a shower, and I’m watching Dubai TV… which is like American TV, but with neat little commercials.





2/3/2008
Today I went to a barbeque with Helima, which turned out to be a going away party for one of her cousins, who was accepted by a university in South Africa for her masters program in computer sciences. All of her relatives were there, some from the states, most from around Nairobi. Her father preached about success in life, how we have been given great opportunities and sometimes we let out parents down. This girl by 23 had found a way to pay for her lifestyle and was on her way to gaining independence from her family. Other family member preached of responsibility, of success, of not partying to much, of making goals. All this made me reassess what I’m doing here, and what I hope to accomplish.

more on this later



Sounds I heard from 1:02am to 7:21am- Elite Park, Nairobi:
1:02 am: barking dog(s)
3:35 am: car alarm, then driving away car
4:23 am: flock of birds fly away
4:45 am: barking dog(s)
5:02 am: man washes cars outside my window
5:15 am: man who is washing cars outside my window is greeted by another many with “Salaam,” and conversation continues
5:30 am: lulu begins to clean the house
5:40 am: birds generally begin to wake up
6:04 am: Pesika takes a shower
~6:30 am: cars in the complex leave
6:17 am-7:21 am: dog barks/squeaks
7:16 am: Car alarm goes off
7:21 am: car alarm goes off

Thing I’m going to eat while in Nairobi:
-dog

I'm sorry this isn't formated very well- I do not have the internet at home right now, and I thing it's generally slow here, so no pics for a while. I'll be on more often though now that I have a work space, so I'll keep this updated and more concise ( meaning I'll edit)