Cold Milk

So last night, Paul and I moved to Andrew's house. It's a decent sized house but it's a step down from how we were living at Rose's. It's about an hours drive each morning to work which is a pain, they don't quite serve the same westernized food we were eating at Rose's, and the shower gives you a little electric shock if you touch the handle wrong (I'm still learning). But despite all this, I was extremley happy this morning to find that they had cold milk. I'm not talking about luke-warm or cool milk, I'm talking the real deal; ice cold, delicious milk. This is the kind of milk that dreams are made of. Other than drinking water out of a tap, eating fruit without having to worry about dieing, seeing more white women, and driving on the right side of the road; cold milk was the one thing I was craving here in Kenya.
I was also suprised to learn from Andrew that during the "cold" season here (which is July), children have to avoid eating or drinking cold items because it can sometimes cause a cold or even tonsillitis. I thought Peter was joking around when he was telling us he couldn't drink cold beer because it gave him the flu but I guess there's some truth behind it.

I've been working on some things that Paula has asked me to do lately. Along with taking more and more pictures, I'm making short one minute or less clips of children answering three questions:

What do you like best about Ngong Road Children Association?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What message would you like to give to your sponsors?

I worked with five children today (three of which said they wanted to be a pilot when they grew up) and will be getting the other ten later this week. Then I'll just have to edit the clips together for each child to make a watchable clip.

Hannington Odhiambo

Hannington Odhiambo is a 15 year old boy who has run into some rough times. Peter was ready to kick him out of the program because he kept running away from home, skipping school, and had a terrible attitude so I was told. I spoke with him two weeks ago about how he was behaving and acting and I think I got through to him. I asked the case workers not to speak while I was talking with him other than to translate at times. I told him that for the next two weeks he had to go to school early, do all his school work, and help his step mother out when she asked for help. I'm not sure what exactly I said to get through to him but he went to school for the past two weeks every day, did all his school work, participated in class, did his chores, etc. Murathi (the principal at his school, Nelson Mandela Academy) told me that he is a changed boy. I think one thing that may have helped him was that I told him he needed to stop acting like a child and making childish decisions and start being an adult. I will be checking up on him every once in a while while I'm here and I am planning on writing some letters to him once I'm back in America, just to keep track of him and make sure he's continuing this new path. No child should have their education taken away from them, especially one that I believe is just misunderstood.

The Matatu Coalition

After riding in the car with Peter a couple times, I decided to videotape a ride and what it was like in Kenya. The clip you're seeing is a Matatu attempting to pass another one but in the process, almost hitting us. The reason Peter didn't move over until the last minute is because there was a cyclist on the left that he didn't want to hit. I was laughing because that was frankly pretty exciting and I wanted to catch something like this on film. Matatu drivers are very competitive here but they're all part of a Matatu coalition-like thing. You can't just buy a Matatu and start working, you have to pay the leaders a certain amount of money to be able to do this. If you don't people have been killed and their Matatus have been burned.

Anyway, this weekend is going to be fairly exciting for Paul and I. We've each had a fairly busy week so this Saturday, we'll being going to a movie and having some somasas and beer. And then Sunday, we'll be going to the club for some 12 dollar massages and a swim. And a quick update on the sushi here, Paul and I were perfectly fine. It was very delicious and filling for only being nine bucks.

This is also going to be our last weekend at Boniface and Rose's house. Paul and I had a lot of fun there and Boniface is a very interesting person who has a lot to say about everything, he's great to talk to. Our next homestay is going to be with a man named Andrew I think, I heard that he also has a nice home with a working shower so that should be nice before the holiday camp in a couple weeks.

Mzungu - A Person of European Decent

So today I was going to go to Meru but I ultimatley decided not to. It's about a three hour drive away and I had some work at the office to do. I recieved some emails from Paula and Keith about my videos and they gave me a lot of good suggestions. Keith talked to me about Gervas singing a religious song in his video and I how I should stray away from that because we want to keep Friends of Ngong Road a non-denominational organization. I completley agree with this; after Gervas told me he could sing, I asked him to sing me a song that he'd be comfortable doing and that's the first thing that came out. I wasn't really thinking about Friends of Ngong Road and keeping it non-denominational at the time because the majority of the music you hear here is religious. You also see this at the Saturday program, the only songs they sing are Christian. I do agree however in keeping Friends of Ngong Road disconnected from any specific relgion, that's one of the reasons I like it and one of the reasons I chose to intern for them.

Something else I'd like to talk about is how strange a feeling it is to be called a name based solely on the color of my skin. I don't mind being called "Mzungu" by children or Peter or workers in the office (I just call them "Mafrika") but when strangers on the street try to get my attention by screaming "Mzungu" at me, it's almost hurtful. If a Kenyan was to walk by that same stranger, they would politley say "bwana" (which is Mr. in swahili) or say hello to try to get their attention. I've felt like a minority before when I traveled to Tibet, Japan, or Morocco but never to the extent as in Kenya. I know "Mzungu" isn't a racist term, in fact, Paul and I say it all the time if we see one walking down the street or driving by but after a while, you realize that that word comes with a lot of preconcieved notions about a white person. I am not insulted by the term and I will continue using it but I just wanted to say how strange a feeling it is to have the color of your skin be the only thing people think about when they first see you. I'm glad I've felt this though, it puts me in another man's shoes, ones that I've never truly tried on before.

Jagiet and Meru

This week, I've been visiting the two Jagiet Academies where the majority of our children go. I took photos of any children I haven't gotten a headshot of yet and I almost have every single headshot I need, now I'm just going over the list and finding kids I still need. I've also been working with Noah Ngugi on his Day in the Life video. He's a cute little, 11 year old kid who loves school and skipping rope. When I asked him if he had a talent, I gave him examples like singing or football. He said he likes singing and football but prefers dancing and skipping rope. So in the video, I'm trying to make skipping rope as interesting as possible, it looks good so far.

Tomorrow, Peter, some of the case workers, and I will be visiting Meru where a few of our children go to school. I've been taking my Malaria medication the past couple days because Meru is a Malaria infested zone. Peter says I'll be fine because we're only visiting during the day but I have a hard time believing that every Malaria-infested mosquito is nocturnal. Also, tonight, Rose is taking Paul and I to a Japanese restaurant because we've been craving sushi. We're not sure if sushi is OK to eat here but we haven't seen anything on the internet warning us against it so we're going to give it a try. I'll let you know how it goes.

Church

So yesterday was a pretty good time, we went to a club and swam, ate burgers, chilled in the sun, etc. But before all of that, we went to the Salvaition Army Church; it was quite an experience. Paul and I were the only two Mzungus in the entire church of 200 or so people and the entire service was in swahili except for words like "praise" and "worship." So Paul and I stood when everybody else did and sat when they did, and we even waved our arms around a little bit but stopped cause we didn't want our pasty arms being seen by everybody behind us (we were in the second row so that was a lot of people). The singing was interesting and they even had a little dance in the middle of the service, not very intense moves but they were in sync and that's what counts. I even sang How Great Thou Art in swahili which was fun, although Rose's kids were staring at me the whole time but I think I showed them what's what.

The whole service was a little more than two hours long and it was all interesting except for one thing that kind of annoyed me, the sermon or the "message." It wasn't like most services I've been to where the pastor or priest attempts to teach a message by speaking to the congregation. It was more a man, yelling at the congregation, running around the entire church shouting into his mic. He sat in a chair, ran up on stage, walked in defined circles, hid behind a wall, and the whole time screamed swahili into a mic for half an hour. He got pretty close to Paul and I a couple times and we could see he was drenched in sweat. Throughout the entire sermon, people would yell "Amen" or "Alleluia" from different parts of the church and everybody seemed to enjoy it. It was a very different experience for me; I've never enjoyed having God screamed at me but it was interesting to see the different responses from the people in the congregation. I'm glad I went because it taught me a lot about the religion in this culture but it would be tough for me to sit through two more hours of that.

Day in the Life 2

This is a video of Alice Lavender. She is sponsored by my aunt and uncle and goes to General Service Unit (GSU). She is a very sweet young woman and really wants to help those who need it. I admire all these children's ambitions, it's shocking sometimes to see their persistance when faced with the hardships they have to go through.

Other than that, today is yet another Saturday program so I'll be going out there when I'm done here to take some more pics and to hang out with the kids. Peter is also planning on taking Paul and I to a place called Carnivore; it's a restaurant of some sort where you eat all kinds of strange African delights such as hippo, gnu, giraffe, ostirich, zebra, etc. cooked on traditional Maasai swords. I've been doing some research on it and some people say it's great and others say it's terrible. Peter said it would cost about $20 to $30 but some websites say it's about $45. I also saw a review from last month that said they stopped serving game meat which worries me. I would love to go if they served what Peter said they do so I think Paul and I are going to call them to see what the deal is.