Kwanza Wiki

ORIENTATION WEEK

A lot has happened since I last blogged. The rest of orientation week was not as exciting as our first few days, although I have learned many fun facts about Kenya. To name a few:

- Abortion is illegal in Kenya, with exceptions made for rape, incest, or if the mother's life is at risk (in which case the abortion must be approved by three different doctors). Current, the parliament in Kenya is reforming the Constitution, and there is a big push to include a definition of life beginning at conception as part of the Constitution. This is strongly opposed my many Kenyan women, but is heavily supported by the religious groups. Because abortion is illegal, many girls and women can achieve a miscarriage by popping 8-10 anti-malarial pills, which causes your body to abort the pregnancies.

- There is a new law in Nairobi that prohibits smoking anywhere in the streets except for the designated smoking 'cages'. You also can be arrested on the spot for crossing the street while talking on a cell phone.

- There is a 'slang' version of Swahili called Sheng that is spoken by most of the youth in Nairobi. Sheng is a mix of Swahili, the local languages, English, French, and other 'tourist languages'. But depending on what district you are in Nairobi, people use different sheng words, and the language evolves weekly. So most of the adults don't understand anything their kids say to one another. In Sheng "utado" means "what are you going to do" and "poa" means chilld or cool.

-Other fun phrases in Swahili: "chizi kama ndizi" = "crazy like a banana" and "lala fofofo" = "sleep like a dead person"

We have begun our classes. We have met one of our professors and 3 of our Kiswahili teachers. Donna Pido, is the wife of Odoch (one of the academic directors) and a native New Yorker. She is an anthropologist and has been living in Kenya for over 40 years. Most of her work has been with the Maasai, where she wrote her PHD thesis on Maasai beadwork and has been invited to witness their clitorectomy ceremonies (she said that she is going to draw 'diagrams' when we discuss female circumcision in our Society class….). She is hilarious and a wonderful lecturer. She is also one of the most crude and blunt people I have ever met.

On Thursday we moved from our convent in Karen to a hostel in Nairobi closer to our school. On Friday there was an epic thunderstorm! One moment the weather was warm and sunny, and the next rain was falling from the sky in sheets and the wind was blowing REALLY hard. When it rains, Nairobi's red soil turns to a heavy mud which is almost clay-like and super sticky.

HOMESTAY

My homestay family lives in Fort Jesus, a section of Kibera, and we are just several minutes from the slums. I have a homestay mother, Mama Vestina, and a father who is usually at work. I also have two sisters who are around my age and both attend the university of Nairobi. Lorraine is 23 and is finishing a degree in Environmental Studies and Ivy is turning 21 in just a couple weeks, and is studying Coastal Management. I also have a younger brother, who turned 12 yesterday. He loves to play chess and cards and likes to quiz me (and make fun of my) Swahili. My family also has a gray kitten, which they named Naughty. Both of my sisters are obsessed with anything Vampire themed, including the Twilight series and True Blood. Lorraine and I have started watching "Vampire Diaries" together.

They are of the Kamba tribe, and originally are from the coast of Tanzania. They have a lot of extended family that lives nearby. Yesterday their aunt visited with her 7 month old baby, Baraka (SO CUTE!!) and her daughter Myra, who is 5 years old. I also met their great grandmother, who is 80 years old, but loves to joke and tease all of her grandchildren and great grandchildren. I greeted her in Swahili and was able to speak with her a little, which she took as a sign of fluency… So she proceeded to tell me many stories that I really didn't understand. I really love walking around the neighborhood. There are goats, chickens, and street dogs wandering around everywhere and all of boys in the neighborhood noisily play soccer in the alleys.


KILA SIKU MAISHI KATIKA KENYA
(everyday life in Kenya)

The first call to prayer wakes me up every morning around 5:30 am, broadcasted from the local Mosque. After the prayer song and chanting ends, I fall back asleep until I need to wake up at 7:00 am to get ready for school. My host mother, Mama Vestina prepares a simple yet delicious breakfast of fruit, toast and chai. Around 7:30 I walk to school with several of my classmates through the Toi Market. There are kids everywhere wearing school uniforms walking to school in groups or with their mother or an older sibling. Everywhere I go I hear kids yelling "Mazungu! Mazungu!" and pointing and smiling at me (Mazungu means white person or foreigner in Swahili). Other kids will ask me "how are you? How are you?" and then run away giggling. Around 7:30 in morning, people are still setting up their shops in Toi: Men wheel bags of fruits and grains on wooden carts through narrow, dirty alleyways and women carry baskets of vegetables and cloth on top of their heads. My path through Toi Market drops me right outside of Adams Arcade, another second-hand market right off of Ngong Road (one of the main roads leading into the city center of Nairobi). My walk to school takes 20-30 minutes. Morning classes (usually Kiswahili) go from 8:30-10:00. At 10, we get a Chai and toast break. Then we have class again until noon. At noon I usually walk back to Adam's Market to buy my lunch. Today I bought a Mango and 15 plums from a roadside stand for 80 Kenyan Shillings (which is about US$ 1). Then I usually have time to check my email, blog, or take a cat nap before classes again at 2 pm. We have lectures until 4 pm, when we get out of school and walk home. I usually help my Mama and my sisters cook dinner. Sometimes I play chess or cards with my host brother, Junior. I usually fall asleep by 10, since the combination of the 5:30 am call to prayer and my busy day makes me very tired by the evening. On other days, they take us on field trips to visit different NGO and CBO (community based organizations).