We Made It (and we're on Kenyan time now)

We thought a good way to give everyone a report of all we're experiencing is for both of us to write our thoughts every day. I'm not sure how often we'll be able to post what we write, but we'll do it as often as we can.

Day One – Jan. 31

Andrea's perspective (1st time in Africa)

I have been looking forward to much and read Kaylie's blog and other information about where I would be traveling to, but after only one day, cannot say that I had a specific view of how things or people would be. One noticeable difference is how many people are out walking all of the time. People always out walking and often dressed up. Many of these people were dressed for work, and since there is so much unemployment, it is kind of baffling to think about how many more people are walking around the town and not working. Our host mom, Brenda, took off some time to be with us on the first day and would share tidbits about Kenyans throughout the day. There are 42 million people in Nairobi and about 1.9 million in Kibera (largest slum in Africa) alone. That is a lot of people and Kaylie and Brenda would wave every now and then. Kind of amazing. Katherine and I are going to try to go to the children's home/school tomorrow and figure out the matatu system ourselves to go back to meet Kaylie. I'm not as tired at the moment as I feel a bit scattered. My perception of time is very off. I stayed in bed for hours this morning thinking that it was so late and kept getting up to check on Kaylie and Katherine to see if they were awake. Finally, Kaylie woke up and it wasn't even 8 am (went to bed after midnight), and then, that is nearly what happened all day. I kept thinking it was a very different time. Must be something about the jet lag and the way Africans do things. So, I'm going to stop my rambling thoughts for now. More to come. PS It's mango season! Get one for about 10 cents!

Katherine:
We had quite a trip to get here – flew from Charlottesville to Atlanta (1 hour) to Amsterdam (8 hours) to Kenya (also 8 hours). We left at noon on Saturday and arrived in Kenya at 8:00 Sunday night (Kenyan time). We didn't get to sleep as much on the plane as we had thought we would, mainly because the airline was constantly bringing us food and drinks. We had at least three full meals, two snacks and drinks every hour. I'm surprised the plane wasn't over weight by the time we arrived. :) The plane was a double-decker, which I'd only heard of a few months ago and had never seen. We still haven't seen the upstairs (I think it's for first class), but it was cool to ride in this kind of plane anyway.

I'm glad to be back in Africa; everything feels so similar to Uganda, and yet Nairobi is a much bigger city than where I was in Uganda and is more developed. Everyone has cell phones with texting and often internet access, too. We rode matatus today – vans that act as buses. The driving is crazy here, just like it's been in Guatemala and Uganda. I think I can say I'm getting braver and no longer freak out every time it looks like we're going to hit another car or a pedestrian (which is about every five minutes). Like Andrea said, we're hopeful we can figure out the matatu system on our own tomorrow.

I do have to rub in the fact that we are enjoying temps in the upper 70s/low 80s, with lovely cool breezes; probably not what you were expecting when you heard Kenya is located on the equator. It's gotten late now and I'm still adjusting to the time difference, so I'm going to go to bed now. Kenya – day two: tomorrow!