The Kenyan Way

Well it's been over half a month since I've left home now. Since Blogspot was blocked while we were in Istanbul, and it seems like too much work to talk about it all at the moment, I'll say this for now - Istanbul was amazing. We met some fantastic people and we had an unbelievable time. I would go back there in a heartbeat.

Now for Kenya!

We landed Sunday night/Monday morning, and the time has gone by so quickly! Aly, Margaret, Jessie and I were the first to arrive in Nairobi. Unfortunately because of the Hurricane, only ten of the sixteen people have made it here so far. But regardless of our small numbers we still set off for orientation in Naivasha, which a beautiful area surrounding Naivasha lake. It's also one of the biggest flower exporters in the worlds (30 Rock reference anyone?)

By last night, I came up with three things I've learned during my time here.

1. Kenyans don't believe in towels (of any kind)

Most of the bathrooms have no paper towels or toilet paper, which is super convenient. If that wasn't enough though, I woke up on the first morning of orientation extremely excited for a warm shower (it takes a while to get hot water in our apartment). I hop in the shower (which is actually a corner in the bathroom) and once I was done, I looked around for my towel - none. No towel anywhere. So there I am in a bathroom, sopping wet with nothing to do. After about ten minutes of hopping about and twirling around, I was dry enough to not get my clothes soaked. Wandering out to breakfast, it turns out nobody had towels in their bathrooms. The next day I asked the front desk and they brought one up for me, but I will always remember to check for a towel before I take a shower from now on.

2. Never play Monopoly with a Kenyan

Lynsey (our program director) brought along the Nairobi version of Monopoly to orientation. Victor and Amin (our assistant program director and one of our orientation leaders) had never heard of it, so we decided to teach them. Turns out, that's not a good idea. I don't think Victor ever actually payed for landing on a spot, and lord knows how much money both of them stole from the bank. They both avoided the subject at all costs when it came to them owing us money. Foreshadowing for the rest of the semester? We played for about four hours until we finally gave up. Amin will tell you that he was the winner, but it was very suspicious how little money I had when we were finished.

3. We're not as removed as you might think

When I tell people I'm studying abroad in Kenya, I usually get some version of the questions "Will you have electricity?" "Will you have running water?" and "Will there be elephants in your front yard?". Things are definitely different here - there's no question, but not as different as you may think. Sure I get woken up by roosters each morning, and I saw zebras along the road for the past two days, but last night I fell asleep listening to people outside singing "Barbie Girl".