Orientation in Nairobi

My New Boss

The big excitement since I last posted has been meeting our employers. They arrived on Wednesday and we have spent the past 3 days together. My employer is Francis. He is an incredible community organizer who can mobilize his entire community with a few calls from his cell phone. He started the organization in 2003 after seeing a need in his community to provide support to people living with HIV/AIDS and orphans of HIV/AIDS. He has gradually added volunteers to the organization and it now has 18 members. He is also a sustenance farmer and has a wife and baby so he is a very busy man! He is always ready to laugh and tells me that we will die soon enough so there is no need to spend time with worry :) I like his attitude and look forward to working with him.

Francis also informed me that because many of the people I will be working with are rural and illiterate, not only will I need to know Swahili but I will need to learn Kikuyu as well! I felt a bit overwhelmed by this at first but then I found another volunteer will need to know these 2 plus sign language...

Nairobi

One afternoon we took the bus into town. Nairobi downtown has several parts to it and I don't quite have my bearings yet so I'll have to write in more detail when I visit for the weekend sometime. I can say that the traffic is absolutely insane. I wasn't able to discern any type of lanes, crosswalks, or traffic rules of any type. I saw a few stoplights but almost all of them were out of order and no one seemed to pay attention to the ones that were working. I'm sure there must be some sort of system but I'll definitely need a lot more time to figure it out.

Last night we received our standard issue water filters and mosquito nets from VSO along with a demonstration on how to use them. Some of us are based in Nairobi and some in extremely rural areas but everyone will need to boil AND filter their water. I guess all of us volunteers will be picking up a new hobby :)

My Next Adventure

Tomorrow I leave for my new home in Gatura. I am very excited to see where I'll be living for the next 6 months and will write again soon after I arrive to let you know what it's like. But for this post I will wrap up my time in Nairobi which I have very much enjoyed. Our training was useful but I think the most valuable aspect of this week has been meeting and getting to know the other volunteers as many of us will be working together to share skills and resources on our different projects.

Status Check

I am doing well and feeling great other than a nasty bee sting that is starting to take over my right bicep. Fortunately all the other volunteers remembered to bring Benadryl so I've just drugged myself up and should be ready to experience Gatura tomorrow morning.