I can’t think of a better way of starting my work day than...

Fri, 11 May 2012 01:46:32 -0400

I can’t think of a better way of starting my work day than to get a piece of mail like this! FPC-Lincolnton has been an amazing support system and it always makes me smile to get a little piece of home in the mail box. And Zoe, if you’re reading this, I promise to bring back other treats besides people from Kenya!

Maybe we need to want to fix this. Maybe stop talking, maybe...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:13:00 -0400

Maybe we need to want to fix this. Maybe stop talking, maybe start listening. Maybe we need to look at this world, less like a square and more like a circle. Maybe just maybe, God’s not unfair. Maybe we’re all his kids and he’s up there.

So everything changes, nothing stays the same. And everything changes, and if you feel ashamed maybe you should change this, before it gets too late. Maybe you should change this, we’re standing at the gate.

This song has been extremely helpful on the days when it’s hard to get out of bed and face my new reality. It’s always a nice reminder of why God has called me to be in Kenya - because things can change and if I work hard enough, I can be a part of that change.

My number one Kenyan rafiki and co-worker - Fiona!

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 07:07:19 -0400

My number one Kenyan rafiki and co-worker - Fiona!

Chapatis - the most delicious (and one of the most popular)...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:12:26 -0400

Chapatis - the most delicious (and one of the most popular) foods in Kenya. You can eat them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, or just to cheer up if you’ve had a rough day. The only bad experience chapati and I have ever had together is when I accidentally got a little too excited and finished one off that had a slight taste of cow manure.

I’m not completely sure how I even know what cow manure tastes like, but I know in my heart that I consumed a little bit of cow pie that day.

Regardless of whether chapati might have been the culprit of my typhoid, I will continue to consume these flat, crispy, warm, and delish treats until my time comes to an end here. If it means consuming a slight amount of animal p00p in the process, BRING IT ON.

f00d

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:01:05 -0400

Since my return to Nairobi a few days ago, I have managed to have the most American dinners I could think of. Spam one night and grits the next. I guess it’s true when they say…

You can take the girl out of the South, but you can’t take the South out of the girl.

Now all I have to do is get my hands on some chapatis (unleavened flat bread made with lots of cooking grease…SO HEALTHY! lulz) and mandazis (East African doughnuts) and I’ll be sure to post about all of the wonderful Kenyan food I’ve been eating!

But I just couldn’t resist posting about Spam. Haters gonna hate.

Back On Track

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:36:42 -0400

One of my new year’s resolutions was to blog and journal every single day…even if I just jotted down a sentence or two. Looking back on that goal, I have to laugh at how ambitious La Trish was when making her resolutions (especially considering I’ve never really fulfilled a resolution, diet, or Lent without cheating or forgetting). Instead of beating myself up about it, I have determined it simply has to do with my short-and-long-term memory loss I diagnosed myself with.

So let’s start over.

The best party that can ever be thrown is a cha-party (chapati...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 04:21:00 -0500

The best party that can ever be thrown is a cha-party (chapati party) at Fiona’s.

Best day in Nairobi ever at the Rugby Sevens Tournament!

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 04:18:24 -0500

Best day in Nairobi ever at the Rugby Sevens Tournament!

Recent Events...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 04:17:15 -0500

have led me to neglect this blog once again - pole sana! But my life has been a bit hectic lately. In college, my friend Katherine (KATH) used to say that she sometimes thought I was just an imagined person because the things that happened to me didn’t seem real. And it seems that this blessing/curse has followed me to Kenya.

Long story short, in the past week my computer has flurped out on me and started smoking upon powering up, our electricity has been out off and on for what seems like forever, I saw more piles of cow p00p than I ever thought imaginable, and I have somehow picked up typhoid AND typhus (while both are equally foul illnesses to get, they actually aren’t related…who knew?!). So blogging has taken a back seat to my crazay dayz.

But despite all of this, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

"Stop being so greedy and so selfish. Realize that there is more to the world than your big houses..."

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 04:18:05 -0500

“Stop being so greedy and so selfish. Realize that there is more to the world than your big houses and your fancy stores. People are starving and you worry about oil for your cars. Babies are dying of thirst and you search the fashion magazines for the latest styles. Nations like ours are drowning in poverty, but your people don’t even hear our cries for help. You shut your ears to the voices of those who try to tell you these things. You label them radicals or Communists. You must open your hearts to the poor and downtrodden, instead of driving them further into poverty and servitude.”

- from John Perkins’ book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Even though I’ve never really attempted to understand global economics, I am currently obsessed with this book and with learning about how the poorest countries in the world are cheated out of billions of dollars and immeasurable amounts of resources to keep the big dogs in America rollin’ in the dough. I am able to see poverty first hand every single day I am in Nairobi and reading books like this help me to understand what has caused such disparity and inequality in countries around the world.

We’re on top of da world!

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 03:58:09 -0500

We’re on top of da world!

Matthew 6in’ It

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 06:04:02 -0400

**For timeline purposes, this post was actually written last week but I’m just now posting it

If you read any travel book about Nairobi, you’ll quickly find that it has gotten the nickname “Nairobbery” due to the sneaks that creep in people’s purses and backpacks. Even though I’ve read about all the typical scams and have attempted to be fairly careful with my belongings, haters are gon’ hate, players are gon’ play, ballas they gon’ ball, shot callers they gon’ call (3LW anyone?). So Saturday afternoon I finally got PWNed by sticky fingers and ended up without a phone or wallet.

I spent a lot of time in college losing things and by the end of my four years I had become an expert at re-locating them. “Oh, I can’t find my Droid? BOOM, I just GPS-ed its location.” “My wallet is missing? Let me just give La Rez a ring”. I mean, I had become so good that one time I even found my license in a McDonald’s happy meal box four days after realizing I had lost it. That’s talent folks, and I was proud of it.

But things are much different in da big city and Nairobbers aren’t as friendly as the frat house couches. So I have now experienced my first big Kenya pick-pocketing experience and I must say it didn’t feel good. It left me feeling like a n00b with nothing left to lose.

But after my freakout sesh, I was quickly comforted by a bible verse I had read the night before. **Side note: I’ve made it my goal this year to read the bible all the way through (something I’ve attempted to do a few times but have never managed to accomplish due to the massive, boring lists of family genealogy towards the beginning…are those seriously necessary?)**

**Another side note: I have a slight obsession with horoscopes and even though the Bible doesn’t really confirm that as an Aquarius I have very independent and creative qualities and my star match is a Leo, when passages like this jump out at the exact right time, it kind of feels like a crazy true horoscope. I shouldn’t be admitting this, but sorry not sorry?

Anyways, here’s the passage I’m referring to when I tell myself to just Mathew 6 the whole situation.

Matthew 6 :25-34

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? “

And you know what? I’ll be honest here, I’ve never really been much of a bible verse quoter and it feels a little weird and intense-like for me. So if reading this is uncomfortable for any of you, maybe just thinking about it as a horoscope or a fortune cookie paper will help. Either way, after reading this and borrowing matatu money from Amelia so I could get to work the rest of the week (ASANTE RAFIKI), I felt much better about the whole situation.

Live from Nairobi

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 08:34:00 -0400

To say that I’ve fallen behind on this blog is kind of an understatement. I’m going to blame my reduction of blogging on my incretion of Nairob-ian activities…that sounds legit, right? Actually, now that I have internet everyday at my work I should be blogging a lot more but we’ll see how that goes. The only problem is the more time I spend at work, the less time I have doing blog-worthy things like killin’ chickens and takin’ names.

So much has happened since I last blogged, so I’ll just try to wrap up the past few weeks in a couple paragraphs for y’all.

Like I mentioned before, the YAVs headed down to the coast of Kenya for a few days in September. If I had to explain Mombasa to someone from home, I would say it is the Myrtle Beach of Africa. It definitely has its nice, Cherry-Grove-like parts, but then BAM it’s like you’re smack down in the middle of Club Kryptonite and you know there’s a foam room lurking close. But instead of nights at dinosaur/pirate mini golf, for the YAVs in Mombasa it turned into nights at a “Go Kart” karaoke restaurant with a pet camel and a creepy owner with a flip cam. But aside from spending far too much time at “Go Kart”, Mombasa was extremely eventful. We went ‘norkeling and dolphin sightings in Shimoni, checked out the ancient ruins in Gede, visited Fort Jesus, fed giraffes in Haller Park, and were surrounded by crazy monkeys the whole time. We even learned how to extract demons from people by a pastor that was a little confused about our program (despite what my cousin has always told me, it apparently isn’t as easy as shoving someone in the forehead screaming “YOU ARE HEALED!”).

We spent quite a lot of time being wazungu tourist, but on the last day David, a co-worker of mine at OAIC (Organization of African Instituted Churches), took us to an OAIC Young Adult community called Bamburi Giving Hope that is based in an informal settlement (also known as a slum). Being a “youth” in Kenya means you’re anywhere between 18-30 years old (forever young?!) and this particular youth group was comprised of young adults who had experienced their parents dying and who had to become head of their families at extremely young ages. I shortened one of the ladies’ stories I met that day to give you a better idea of a) what many of these people have experienced at such a young age and b) an example of a program that my job works closely to fund.

“After her father died of AIDS in 2007 and her mother succumbed from the same disease three years later, 17-year-old Wendy found herself at the head of the family and responsible for her three younger siblings. After relatives came and took all of her late parents’ belongings, Wendy and her siblings were left with nothing and had no choice but to move from their home in Mombasa to one of the most deplorable informal settlements areas in Kisumu. Searching for ways to support her family, Wendy encountered men who would approach her in the guise of helping her out of their woes, but with intentions of using her to satisfy their needs.

However, Wendy was able to escape the harsh reality of prostitution that many young girls face in order to keep their family from starving. Through a programme initiated by the OAIC and headed by Reverend David Muganda known as “Giving Hope and Youth Empowerment”, Wendy was able to get back on her feet. With the help of funds from Church World Service and OAIC, Wendy started a business selling chickens and ground nuts and also went back to school to attend college. Inspired by the help she had received, Wendy went on to institute an organisation called “Bamburi Giving Hope” where orphans now meet to raise funds in order to help them start projects, grow their business, and support the other members of their family.”

After we got back from Mombasa, our Myrtle Beach days quickly went back to intense Swahili lessons in the mornings and hands-on learning around Nairobi in the afternoons. We visited several schools in the local informal settlements and got to witness first-hand the difference between informal schools (those that the government doesn’t fund, usually in the slums), an OAIC model school (a school that the OAIC funds and structures other informal schools after), and a government-funded school. In Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa, the school we visited had bunk beds upstairs that served as the orphaned school children’s home, no electricity or bathroom, and a lunchtime meal of maize/potato mixture that served as most of the kids’ only meal of the day.

It was at this school that all of the emotions I had been experiencing from seeing such extreme poverty caught up with me. The children started having a sort of ‘talent show’ for us, performing poems, songs, and a few rap songs, when one quiet little boy walked to the front of the room and recited a poem he had written called “The Friday I’ll Never Forget”. As he recited the poem very slowly and calmly, he told us his experience of walking into his kitchen to find his dad lying dead on the ground. He told us about going to bed hungry that night and about going to bed hungry most nights after that since his mother couldn’t afford to feed him. He told us about what a blessing going to school was, since he could learn and get a meal. This eight-year-old boy showed us the life that millions of people in Kibera live without a single tear. I don’t think any of us can ever find the words to thank him for his vulnerability and courage, and for opening our eyes in a very personal and realistic way to poverty in Africa.

Even though I’ve written a lot, I still have so much to say about my experience here. But for the sake of procrastinators who are reading this or short-attention-spanners, I’ll save the replay of the past two weeks for the next post.

Coming up:

Twerkin’ at OAIC
Celebrating Wangaari Mathaai
Bomas of Kenya video
Nairobbery Strikes

5-year old class from African Pride Center (a model school...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 08:11:00 -0400

5-year old class from African Pride Center (a model school funded by OAIC that we got to visit this week). They’re singing about what they want to be when they grow up. The nugget cuteness factor in Nairobi is OFF THE CHARTS!

Journal Excerpt from Sept 15th

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 08:09:00 -0400

I know I haven’t posted in a while and I’ve still got lots of things to share with yall about the trip to Mombasa and what we’ve been doing since, but out of everything we experienced at the coast, I think the most important was having some time to reflect. Usually the things I write in my journal are there so I can not only remember what I have done, but also how it felt to be doing it. So here’s a little excerpt from my journal that might be able to convey that to da bleople (blog people?).

We’re currently on our way to Mombasa and though the 7-hour van ride is going by very slowly, I’m surprisingly feeling extremely peaceful and calm in this overpacked YAV-mobile. The landscape we’re driving through all looks the same, but there are frequent spurts of small, rural villages with cows and goats and at one point even some zebras! Every time we pass one of the market areas, kids will look into our window, smile real big, and wave like crazy.

I don’t know whether it’s the view of flat land as far as the eye can see, the large amount of time I’ve had to sort through all of my thoughts on this past week in Kenya, or the immense feeling of happiness I get when I see these children who have close to nothing yet smiling at me as if they have everything, but during this road trip to the coast I am overwhelmed with feelings of comfort and confidence. It’s moments like this when I’m able to reflect on why I’m here and the purpose I’m here to serve. Looking out, seeing not a single familiar thing and yet feeling so at home reaffirms that God has called me to be here. Though I’m not 100 percent sure what exactly I’ll be able to accomplish during my time here, I know that it will become clearer with every day I spend in this foreign country.

For now, I am reveling in my new atmosphere and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else at this point in my life. It feels perfect.

Tricia v. Chicken 2011

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:03:30 -0400

Setting:

Kitchen of the host family’s house in the Mountain View area of Nairobi

Situation:

It was my first morning at my host family’s house and I awoke to conversations being had by the family’s house help in fluent Swahili down the hall. Being extremely intimidated by their Swahili swag, I decided to spend the day practicing Swahili in a corner alone so as not to embarrass myself. After 2 hours of feeling awkward, (all of the kids were at school, the dad was at work, and I had already been laughed at when I attempted to ask where the mother was earlier that morning) I finally admitted defeat due to loneliness and marched my little mzungu tail into the kitchen. After all, I knew how to say “yes”, “help”, “how are you”, “chicken”, and “good”. Piece o’ cake, right?!

WRONG.

The Showdown:

When I walked into the kitchen, there were two house helpers that had started to prepare that night’s dinner. To me, this seemed like a golden opportunity – it would be hard for them to refuse the plea of a newcomer to learn how to cook. So I eagerly offered my help and while they started me off chopping vegetables, I was soon “promoted” from cutting clean, fresh cucumber and peppers to CHOPPING HAIRY, BLOODY, RAW CHICKEN. Not one, BUT FOUR.

After sawing the skin, snapping the bones, being covered in chicken blood up to my elbows, being laughed at by the others, and forcing myself not to cromit (cry and vomit) all over the chickens, I thought for sure the worst was over.

WRONG AGAIN.

I was finally at the center of the chicken and was horrified. I have my father and the tradition of Thansgiving to blame for how surprised I was with what I had to touch next. Since I had seen my dad cook the Thanksgiving turkey multiple times before, I knew what came inside of a dead bird – the plastic bag full of guts, duh. I was lied to by American turkeys. No bag. All guts, chicken hearts, undeveloped chick eggs, and a lot of other sticky balls of stuff that went *THLURP* when cut into.

Needless to say, after cutting up the chickens and proving my worth in the kitchen (and running around with chicken parts screaming BLOOD! BLOOD!..just like the YouTube video) I made a deep connection with the house help that lasted the rest of the weekend. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Did I eat the chicken at dinner that night? Absolutely not.

"Looks like we’re gonna need a crash course in marketing…I love puns."

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:00:52 -0400

““Looks like we’re gonna need a crash course in marketing…I love puns.””

- - Amelia on our ability to haggle at the markets

Great Rift Valley

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:52:20 -0400

Great Rift Valley

Note: This post was started on Sunday Today is officially my one week anniversary in Kenya - SAY...

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:51:00 -0400

**Note: This post was started on Sunday**

Today is officially my one week anniversary in Kenya - SAY WHA?! It’s technically supposed to be my two week anniversary but Irene had different plans for our group and we ended up spending a week in Princeton, New Jersey. Unfortunately, I never made it down to the shore (my dream of meeting Snooki is sadly still just a dream) We did get to visit NYC one day and it was *slightly* bigger than the towns/cities that I’m used to. I could finally sing Jay Z’s “Empire State of Mind” without having to replace “New York” with “Charlotte”…it’s the little things.

I feel like I have so much to blog about and so little time, so I’m going to try to do a quick run through of all the important/interesting things. But bare with me - I constantly think in my head “I NEED TO BLOG ABOUT THIS” during the day but the lack of internet accessibility makes it a tad more difficult.

My first observation upon arriving to Nairobi: It is so obvious that I am white and therefore a minority; so obvious that I am foreign and therefore different. My overstuffed bright orange suitcase (lovingly referred to as “Jessica”) didn’t really help me to blend in as I stood in the airport desperately searching for Katherine (a former YAV) amidst a sea of people staring at me. Talk about a reality check. Though race is something we tend to avoid talking about openly in America, my “whiteness” is something that I can’t help thinking about every day in Nairobi. From the frequent “mzungu” (the swahili word for “white person”) to the children in church staring at me with their mouths wide open, my foreignness plays a role in almost everything I do and every relationship I make. Kind of harsh to start out the post with but it’s impossible to avoid.

My second observation: There are NO rules of the road in Nairobi. Drivers here remind me of the 18-wheeler game I used to obsessively play at Chuck.E.Cheese – ANYTHING GOES. If there’s traffic, the sidewalk becomes a new road or the drivers just decide to drive on the wrong side of the road. People don’t have the “right of way”, they have the “get out of the way”. The matatus (public transportation buses that hold about 15 very tightly packed people) go up to 80 kph and drive bumper to bumper, oftentimes with people hanging out of the side door. CRAZY.

So, with those laid out, I’ll go on to tell you about the rest of my first week here.

The first night in Nairobi was just Amelia and me since the others’ flight schedules were still busted even after the week-long delay. We ate samosas (chicken and veggies..I think?..that are fried into little snack sized deliciousness) and then we were taken to our apartment down the road. Yes! OUR apartment! I have a roommate! PHEWF. Not only do I have a hilarious roommate that quotes Mean Girls with me and sings patriotic songs/Katy Perry when we get bored, but we also have what I like to think of as the Taj Mahal of YAV apartments – we each have our own bedrooms with queen beds, a huge living room with a sketchy twin bed in the corner (for UNC readers – fratmat? lulz), and a dining room, kitchen, and outdoor nook area to hang our handwashed clothes to dry.

The next day Amy, David, and Jamie (the other Kenya YAVs) finally made it here and we were all treated to a MASSIVE breakfast at Phyllis’ house – oranges, beef sausage …apparently pork isn’t that popular here – RIP HOTDOGS ;(…toast, eggs, granola, coffee, and tea. Actually, we have been treated to this type of breakfast every day since we’ve gotten here, which is both a blessing and a curse since I have a limited wardrobe that I really can’t afford to get too large and in charge to wear. After b-fast Katherine took us to Westgate Mall to get our new cell phones and explore. All of the malls here are extremely similar to the ones in America and I think it helped us all to be able to gradually transition from one culture to another by taking baby steps like this. We did the exact same thing the next day (except this time to Sarit Centre, a different mall) – I’m telling you, **baby steps**.

The rest of the week we ate most of our meals at Phyllis’ (woof..and yum) and went to a few lectures at different places around Nairobi. We covered health and wellness** at the OAIC (my new workplace!), African spirituality at St Andrews Church, and the church history of Africa at Loresho church.

**The doctor’s presentation was a little less inspiring than the others. Imagine picture after picture of worms in feet, worms growing under skin, worms crawling out of noses and into mouths, and…not suitable for the weak…worms hanging out in rectums that had FALLEN OUT of people’s (for a lack of better word) butts. Yes, that was plural, as in this isn’t just a freak worm accident that occasionally happens. Click here if you want to see a sneak peak of these horrible creatures - not for the weak stomachs. Needless to say, malaria is child’s play compared to da worms. And fun fact: You can get them from grass, water, salad, fruit, rivers, lakes, other people, etc. Hide ya kids, hide ya wife.

Moving on, we also got to go to the Great Rift Valley that week which was absolutely majestic. You can’t see it in the picture but at the bottom of the valley there is a village and we could actually see a herd of cows moving around and feeding. Without the fog it would have been possible to see a few volcanoes in the distance, but hopefully our group can go back another day this year to get the full effect. Regardless, it gave the group a much needed moment of peace away from the bustling city.

Thursday we started our first Swahili lesson – it is hard, ‘nough said. I find myself saying “si fahamu” (I don’t understand) and “sijui” (I don’t know) more than anything else.

This post has turned out to be extremely long so for the sake of everyone, I’m going to reserve writing about my host family until the next post.

Also to come – the day that felt like Christmas in Pride Rock, Tricia vs. Chicken Heart, and Toilet Prayers.

This is a post to say that I’m posting soon. SORRY! I’m very much on Kenyan time (which...

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:10:11 -0400

This is a post to say that I’m posting soon. SORRY! I’m very much on Kenyan time (which means being early is weird, being on time is early, and being late means that you were hanging out with your bros or having tea).

you are here

I can’t think of a better way of starting my work day than...

Maybe we need to want to fix this. Maybe stop talking, maybe...

My number one Kenyan rafiki and co-worker - Fiona!

Chapatis - the most delicious (and one of the most popular)...

f00d

Back On Track

The best party that can ever be thrown is a cha-party (chapati...

Best day in Nairobi ever at the Rugby Sevens Tournament!

Recent Events...

"Stop being so greedy and so selfish. Realize that there is more to the world than your big houses..."

We’re on top of da world!

Matthew 6in’ It

Live from Nairobi

5-year old class from African Pride Center (a model school...

Journal Excerpt from Sept 15th

Tricia v. Chicken 2011

"Looks like we’re gonna need a crash course in marketing…I love puns."

Great Rift Valley

**Note: This post was started on Sunday** Today is officially my one week anniversary in Kenya - SAY...

This is a post to say that I’m posting soon. SORRY! I’m very much on Kenyan time (which...

Note: This post was started on Sunday Today is officially my one week anniversary in Kenya - SAY...