My Daily Life Part 1

I realize that I haven’t written a lot about what I do on a day to day basis in Nairobi.  My day starts with a windy, narrow road filled with potholes, crazy drivers, and people walking that seem to have the mistaken impression that even if they are walking in the middle of the street they have the right of way.  I take this road to Westlands where I park, find an attendant to get a parking pass for my car, and, if entering through the back door, convince the guard (if he’s new) that I do indeed work here even though I look like an 18-year-old mzungu (literally it means "person of foreign descent", but basically in Kenya is means "white person").  Well at least half of that impression is hard to convince otherwise.  I enter the office to a collective greeting, followed by a round of shaking hands with everyone and individual greetings.  These greetings are sometimes followed by comments on how quickly I’m picking up Swahili or laughter at the fact that I don’t understand what is being said, discounting the previous comments on my Swahili improvement.  I ask for words repeated a lot so I can remember them, and the hard words I write down.  I really enjoy trying to learn and the staff seems to find it amusing to teach me.  I spend most weekdays in the office.  I love the staff.  The office is full of fun and laughter.  (Sometimes so much fun and laughter that I have to suppress my normal, talkative self to put my earphones in and concentrate really hard to block everything out.  Faith (the administrative assistant) and I named these two different modes so that she knows which one I am currently in.  I feel that the talkative one usually wins out at the end of the day...haha.)  My days in the office consist of writing programming proposals, developing and packaging new programs, interviewing/hiring new staff, training current facilitators, leading a whole lot of meetings, planning for groups, and overseeing general office activities.  I really enjoy my time with the facilitators.  (If you don’t know facilitators are the staff that lead groups through the experiential learning process and challenge course activities.)  Many of the facilitators call me “sanko”, meaning “boss”.  I tell them not to, but I think this just prompts them to do so more often.  I asked what the word for “teammate” is in Swahili.  Apparently there isn’t one.  I wonder if this sheds any light on Kenyan culture.  I value the friendships that have already formed between us, and I look forward to those friendships growing with my time here.  It is these relationships that make my time here feel valued.  It is these people that make me want to stay longer.  Weekends often consist of leading groups on the challenge course or training.  Lukenya (our challenge course site) is about an hour and a half away from where I live.  Flowers, newspapers, hologram pictures, sugar cane anyone?  That’s right, you can get it all at this one-stop-shop on the drive to Lukenya.  Vendors weave through cars moving at a stagnant pace carrying everything from bananas to bunny rabbits.  Some parts of the road are paved, some parts are gravel, and the rest...well the construction is on African time.  The drive seems long sometimes, but the scenery almost always makes it feel worth it.  Lukenya is past the chaos of the city and looks a little more like your National Geographic version of Africa.  Along the road I have seen herds of giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, and baboons. 

There is more to write, but I will have to leave you at the animals for now.  I am leaving for Mount Kenya tomorrow :) and need to bed at a decent time.  Since I’ll be gone through Thursday, I wanted to post something before I left.  My Daily Life Part 2 will follow upon my return :)