Feeling Normal

It's been a long time since my last post, about a week. That's most likely because at this point in my semester, I truly feel like living here is normal. I've become more accustomed to life here than I originally thought I would, and the things that stuck out for me before do not necessarily still strike me as odd.

An interaction I had last week exemplifies how situations have become more normal for me than they would have a few weeks ago. Leaving work in Kibera, I walked up to a tout of a bus and asked him how much I should pay to get to a stage I needed to get to. He said 30 bob (shillings) when I knew it was 10. I told him the stage name again and he kept the price at 30. So I clicked at him and started to walk away and he dropped the price down to 10. Ken, the guy who runs Filamujuani, just started laughing and asked if I bargained the tout down. He was amused that I just bargained down as a foreigner. That is one thing I'm proud of is my new ability to be a bargainer, but I guess there's some stubborn blood in my family so that might be why. I got a few compliments on my bargaining skills last weekend at a market.

Things like this are the norm for me, and I am not entirely how I feel about leaving yet. As I told my family, I do not feel like Nairobi is a place I would enjoy living in long term. I am, however, VERY happy that I did this program and feel like I've learned a lot in my time here.

So as I sit in my room and think that I leave in two and a half weeks before meeting up with my uncle Larry in Europe, the idea is not really clicking in my brain. At this point, this is where I am, and I don't feel like I will truly understand that I will leave 3 1/2 months of my life behind until I get on the plane home.

This seems to be a common theme for me. I often don't realize these things are truly happening until the moment they actually happen. I remember feeling fine leaving Frontier Ranch, a Young Life camp in Colorado where I worked the summer after my junior year of high school, and on my way to O'Hare to leave for here. Both times, I was ok. But as I got to the point where I suddenly was by myself in the airport and realized the drastic change that was about to happen in my life, suddenly everything seemed to click. I can to the realization that my life would not be the same, and in some ways that was good, scary, exciting, etc. But it was most definitely different. I imagine something similar to that will happen as I say goodbye to friends in the Nairobi airport May 1st.

But for now, I feel today is just another day in Nairobi. Also, I ask that you all pray for my dad as he's going into surgery tomorrow for his knee, that God can bless the surgery in his will.

I want to thank you all for following my blog the last almost three months. In some ways, leaving seems so far ago, and other times just like a few days. Regardless, I appreciate all the help and support I've received from home. I truly appreciate all of you, and hope you have a great rest of your week. God Bless!