Back again for the first time

Well, its the end of 2 weeks of living in Kenya, and it has been eventful...

First, I must say that this time is completely different from my previous trip to Kenya, because it is not as structured and my living conditions are much different. I will get to that later.

First, everything starts from June 2nd, Saturday. The completion of my 28 hour trip from JFK, New York to Nairobi, Kenya. I love how God works, because I heard shortly after I arrived in Kenya that JFK airport was closed because of terrorist threats, but that did not stop my flight plans. Also, a week after we left Nairobi, there was a bomb that went off not too far from the hotel we stayed in, once again being spared of tragedy. I don't glorify any of the awful things that have happened around the world lately, but I know that my God has been keeping me safely.

For an entire week since we arrived in Nairobi, we had our orientation session. One of the most powerful things we did was walk through the slums of Kibera (most easily seen on the movie, The Constant Gardener. We even walked along the same railroad tracks) and saw all of the people living in poverty, yet living, not dying. There is a picture painted that everyone is just dying in these slums, but I saw many people, though they somewhat put themselves in their situation, are making the most of it. It was a lesson on what type of sustainable development we came to Kenya to do... Many people come and toss money around, but problems still remain. We emphasis that we did not come to give out money but to make sustainable changes that can truly benefit these people. We soon traveled from Nairobi to Kakamega (Western portion of Kenya) to continue our orientation and get to work with our host organizations. Before I continue, I think it really is an experience that my fellow interns see more than myself, the effects of being different. I wouldn't call it discrimination, but whenever we all walk together in a group along the road (11 of us, 9 whites and 2 blacks including myself) everyone stares and calls out "How are you?" in an nasal attempt of the English accent. It is quite bothersome and I know my fellow interns really could do without the extra attention but maybe they can share that lesson when other minorities in America face some sort of discrimination. It really is terrible in every part of the world.

Onwards to my experiences. I moved into my host family's home last Saturday. I have a dad, mom, a younger brother, Conrad, and cousin, Felix. Also, my home does not have electricity or running water. So, we take baths with a bucket of hot and cold water and pour water down the toilet to flush it. Not to bad for some character building... Also, at first, it was frustrating, but now I think it is somewhat hilarious, but no one in Kenya can pronounce my name! They always stop on Mayo... Fama..., it is such a challenge to them. So, now I go by Abraham, my middle name. Also, I found out that there is somewhat of a negative view of Nigerians here in Kenya. This is due to number of Nigerian scams that have affected people in Kenya and the negative images of witchcraft and corruption they see on Nigerian movies. So, I just simply introduce myself as Abraham from America. It kind of simplifies things. Anyways, I started work on last Monday. Primarily, what my co-workers do is spend the morning visiting various loan groups, asking how much they have saved and/or paid towards their loan for the month or 2 weeks. If they aren't saving or paying enough, we scold them, if they are doing good, we praise them and move on. So far, there has been quite a bit of scolding. Then we return to the office and work on the records. Well, that's what they do, I think I will try to find a different way to pre-occupy my time starting on Monday, since I do not have the same obligations as they do. I will try to visit some of the clients at their businesses and see what I can do to help them.

Oh, I must also say that the same week I started work was the same week that they had their yearly training sessions for Western Province. So, the last two days of the training, Thursday and Friday, I went along with the trainer (the business manager from Nairobi) and one of my fellow co-workers. While I was there observing, they asked me to help with the trainings! Woah, you have to understand that all of the lessons are taught in Kiswahili and I still a novice to the language. Well, I put my nervousness aside and taught two lessons, "How to select a business to start" and "pricing and costing" in Kiswahili. Well, not in all Kiswahili, as the lessons got more technical, I started using more English, so the fellow trainers had to re-iterate what I said in Kiswahili. It was interesting, and I realized as long as I don't mind people laughing or looking at me crazy, I can be successful. It went well and people commented on the skills they were able to go back to their businesses with. I was pretty pleased. I know this is a short summary of the past two weeks, but I have very little time to use the computer since, and even less to organize my thoughts. Also, my usb plug to upload my pictures is missing, so I can not show you anything yet. Check back later and I hope to finally have some pictures too. Until then... tutaonana baadaye (see ya later)