The End of the Beginning

There's a ghost living in my new homestay. You cannot make these things up. She knocks on my door without fail every night at 12:58am then walks through the house and disappears up through the attic. I'm 100% certain about this, but hey, it's Africa...things could be worse.

I have arrived in Nyeri Town after 5 days of complete electronic isolation while on Safari. I watched the sunrise in the Maasai Mara National Park at 6am, just before witnessing a lion, lioness and cubs eating the carcass of a water buffalo they killed 3 days prior. Rhinos, hippos, buffalos, giraffes, and elephants at every turn. On the border of Tanzania and Kenya, there is an unassuming cement monument that marks the line. Slightly anticlimatic but one step closer to Kilamanjaro. When you're traveling amidst a span of land this vast, it tends to take on its own personality and becomes so overwhelming and humbling.

My lips are caked in dirt and it looks like lipstick. It is brown dirt and a result of wind and dust racing through the mutatu windows. I am on my way to Lake Nakuru feeling drowsy in a way that can only be drug induced. I've taken a sleeping pill, foolishly thinking I could sleep while instead I am flying up out of my seat every few minutes due to the quality of infrastructure that will continue for the next 5 1/2 hours. Earlier today I choked down soy nut butter that's 70% salt on stale "brown" bread. Not really sure if it's even wheat, and the spread tastes like I'm preparing for a shot of Patron. I'm not sure why I continue to eat this, but I wash it down with a bottle of boiled water that tastes like a dirty bath but is, at least, safe to drink. I've observed that instead of barbed wire to keep intruders from climbing over the tops of compound walls, they place shards of glass into the blocks of cement and let them dry in place. Does this work? Who's to say...

Nyeri is much more alive than Karatina, a better fit for me, but it was still bittersweet to say goodbye my first host family, placement, and roommate in Kenya. It was the end of my beginning. My last day at the Orphanage I was able to buy shoes, bookbags, notebooks and pens for a few of the older kids I'd been helping with homework. The sad part is that most of the children who are funded through secondary school(high school) will end up back on the streets after they are finished because they still don't have family, money, or the opportunity for a job. We need to be teaching these children and women trade skills that will allow them to create income instead of just giving them food and money and then leaving. Otherwise, what will they do the next day after eating and using their resources? They will just continue to view us as dollar signs and only expect this type of treatment. Mzungus have created a reputation of just giving handouts and then returning to their comfortable lives. As for me, I will be working at Nyamachaki Primary School as a Math, English, and Science teacher for grades 6 and 7. I will have my own classes and am finally feeling needed because they desperately lack teachers here. I am preparing by observing classes and making lesson plans and am so excited to take on a bigger committment and responsibility.

Mama Morena is my new host mother. She lives by herself and is a complete feminist and eccentric to say the least, so obviously our personalities fit well. The phrase, "Isn't it?" oddly follows every one of her sentences, and yesterday she took me and my new sisters(other volunteer roommates) to see President Kibaki speak at her daughter's boarding school. Incredible. My room is the blue light special because apparently blue light bulbs are a hot deal, and I share it with a green lizard that comes out right as I am falling asleep.

I have been officially given Swahili and Kikuyu names. "Ma Kena," which means "the one who is happy" and "Wa Njido," which means the smallest one on the block...."Shiro" for short. It only took 3 weeks....