Time To Go

Well, here it is everyone, my last blog post in Kenya. This is such a bittersweet moment for me, and over the last few days there are many things that happened that reminded me on why I will miss this place.

Tuesday night, Ken, the guy who runs my internship program invited some friends over and he made me this huge dinner with chapati, ndengu, beef stew, cabbage, sukuma wiki and then my friend Maggie made guacamole. We got to sit around and talk about my experience here, and he was also really appreciative of my work with his program. It was great to sit and laugh with friends about all my ridiculous stories from this trip.

Yesterday, after hanging with some friends at Java, I went back to the school where I worked with the kids from Kibera. They wanted to say thank you, so they sang me a goodbye song in Swahili to send me off.

Today, after turning in some papers, almost everyone from my program went out to lunch to this amazing Indian restaurant and had a great time. Not only did I find a new love in Indian food, but it was great for us to just sit around and laugh together about the time we've spent and what we'll do in the future.

This afternoon, I met up with a couple of my good friends, Khou and Peaches. We just sat and had some coffee and talked about life for a little while. O, how I will miss these people. It's getting harder and harder for me to say bye to people.

As much as I've wanted to go home over the past couple weeks, there is this part of my life I've experienced over the past almost four months that will have a lifelong impact on me, and I will truly miss this place. In terms of things I've learned from this program:

-How to relax: I am mildly obsessive about the things that happen in my life, whether it's the food I eat or what happens to me on a daily basis. While stuff has happened to me here, I learned to do things like not ask what I was eating, and turned out ok. I remember my first meal at my homestay, my host sister made pasta and then poured tap water over the noodles to stop them from cooking. I just sat there and prayed that I wouldn't get sick, and I ended up being ok.

-How to get stuff: In all honesty, I will truly miss bargaining. I think I've found a little self confidence, but I've also learned to not let people walk over me because it's the easy response.

-How to communicate: While I've found people in Nairobi to actually speak English quite well, there's still a bit of a language barrier. You have to learn how to work with other people, understand where they're coming from and what they understand, and go from there as to how to best portray and discuss information with one another. And I had to pick up and use some Swahili, Kenyan accent and Kenyanisms.

-How to roll with bad situations: It seemed like a lot of things did not go to plan on this trip. I remember after a weekend of ridiculous things happening, just laughing at everything that had happened. At some point, I just started to look at all the things that happened to me as potential stories to share with my friends and family about my epic journey in Kenya and Tanzania.

-How to be patient: Eiiisscchh (this is my Kenyanness), how many times did I wait over an hour for someone to show up? I've learned to be patient and when someone showed up within 15 minutes of when they said they would, being excited about it.

-Rely on God: This is by far the most important thing I've learned. While this is still a growing process for me, and something I continuously struggle with, I've had to rely on him for safety, security and understanding. This is new to me, and something I'm glad I got to experience.


In addition to these things I've learned, there are also some things I will really miss about Kenya:

-Amazingly nice people
-My friends
-Children running up to you, and while I hated when they called me mzungu, I loved it when they would say: How are YOU?
-Going to Java and getting to know the waitstaff there
-The randomly satisfying thought of seeing your feet and pants covered in mud and dirt after a day of working in Kibera
-When people stared at me when I would respond to their question in Swahili.
-BARGAINING!!! And talking down touts on buses and matatus
-Randomly having things happen to me. Trust me, I've got enough stories for a while after this trip
-My Kenyanisms and Kenyan accent
-Talking with people about how life in America isn't as glamorous as it looks in all the movies
-Hearing hip-hop music everywhere
-Laughing at the ridiculous things I see: animals walking around, people peeing in random places (including a lady one time!), the stuff people would wear (including a guy wearing a flag promoting the Confederate flag?!?), the things people would try to sell me (a tiny piece of sugar cane out of a guy's pocket for 10 shillings)
-Again, the people I've met and made amazing relationships with


So, here I sit, almost done, and about to embark on another journey to take me halfway around the world again. I thank you all for your love and support over the course of the last 3.5 months and I hope you all know how much I appreciate all of you. I hope you have a great weekend, and God Bless! Kwaheri yote! Napenda nyinyi na nitaona nyinyi katika Amerika!