Saturday, January 24- meeting my host family!

I met my family today! The day started early again as we left for Nairobi at 7am. The bus ride is about three hours without traffic, and we encountered some so the drive was about three and a half hours total. There are many sights on the drive from Nakuru to Nairobi. Coming out of Nakuru and continuing, people sell things along the road and neighborhoods are not far from the street. There are many stands on the side of the road to sell things, although some looked as though they haven’t been used in a while. In Nakuru, the neighborhood houses have large murals spanning an entire wall of the house that faces the street. This makes for a very colorful scene! The pictures are African scenes and wildlife, flamingos and other animals. Out of Nakuru, communities are more makeshift and sometimes are built out of what looks to be former trucks (although I really have no idea what they are made of- many display Coca Cola or Tusker beer logos) and other pieces of sheet metal and wood. Strip malls are also made out of this material.

The sidewalks parallel to the highway and cliffs display the burnt red soil that is well known in Eastern Africa- it is beautiful. There are small children in school uniforms, people looking like they are going to business offices, and others who are more traditionally dressed, probably farmers, on the sidewalks. We also passed the Rift Valley again on this trip. I think I am going to miss all of the rolling hills and the nature while living in Nairobi for 2 months, although I’m sure it will hold other treasures!

Pic: Not sure how well you can see it here, but the ground in Kenya is burnt red.

We came into a different part of Nairobi today- a more elevated part of the city, I think (many hills). I think we are staying in the more affluent part of the city as there are houses nearby that resemble houses from the US. We drove straight to our school (we are using the Nazarine University building) on Ngong Road, off of which many of us are living.

I met my host mom and eight year old brother (Christabel and Sean) after coming off the bus! They were very kind to help me with my luggage, which is very heavy, although my yellow suitcase keeps out the monkeys and the rain, so I am happy to have it! The rest of the family includes Dad (Ken- my host dad), Jeff (university student who is Ken’s nephew), and Metrine (house help). They are all very kind and were quite welcoming to me today. I am living in a place called Sun View Estate. It is a gated community within which everyone locks their own gate at the end of their driveway, although many cars are parked outside the gate. Each family has their own house.

Pic: This is the view across the street from my house. You can see that every residence is gated in: you can see a black iron gate with the white pattern on it and then another black gate next to it. The house that you see is actually two houses. The house splits down the middle between the two central windows you see. You can see more gates looking down the street.

Pic: This is my family's gate. I can always recognize it by the red flowers that are next to it!

I have my own room in the house as the family’s 13 year old daughter is at boarding school until November, when she will come home for the holidays. Otherwise, she will be at school. I talked to my host family briefly about how school works in Kenya: everyone goes to a local primary school until the end of 8th grade, afterwhich all students take a test that places them in one of three types of schools. The best schools are private; then there are government funded schools that are also good. Both of these schools are boarding schools away from the child’s home. Lastly, one can also attend secondary school locally and live at home. The quality of these schools positively correlated with cost, so the best schools are more expensive.

Pic: This is a shot of my room. My bed is a full bed, and you can see my things on the dresser as well as my towel hanging on a handy towel holder in my room! I also have a closet across the room from the windows. The blue hanging thing is my mosquito net, under which I sleep every night.

I also talked a little bit with my host mom and dad. Christabel is a Nurse Manager who works with children in a hospital. Dad teaches at a medical technician school, but is also a student as he will complete the equivalent of his MD when he is done with school. Dad and I talked briefly about the fact that medical professionals are lacking in rural areas of Kenya; I mentioned to him that the same situation existed in Wisconsin. I jokingly asked Dad (who has a family and is settled in Nairobi) if he was going to be a rural doctor- he said no, but that he was working on opening up a clinic in his home village, which is in a rural location. He plans to work in the city and travel to the village twice a week or so to see patients- he said that many doctors who live in the city do this sort of work.

Other than talking to my family, I unpacked my things, showered (felt good to be able to wash in a real shower!), watched an African movie (Nigerian), and played cards and learned a bit of Swahili with my host brothers. Sean, the 8 year old, loves to play cards!

As a side note, I have been reading the paper a bit since coming to Kenya and I have been learning about the rewriting of Kenya’s Constitution, which will be the first Constitution since the British co-wrote the first Kenyan Constitution at Kenyan independence in 1963. It is a good time to be reading the newspapers here! The Daily Nation, the paper I’ve been reading, said that the Kenyan government wanted to create a government ‘like that in the US,’ although some Kenyans are worried about this as the US system ‘took 200 years to “perfect”’ and Kenyans are just beginning to write their Constitution in this way now. Kenya has been a one party system since 1963 and followed individual leaders within that party until 1992 (citation from a convo with host Dad) until the Kenyan government became a multi-party system.
My day ended as Sean tried to teach me some Swahili from a book he had.