I thought this might be of interest to any of you particularly interested in my trip to Kenya. The current countdown is nine days. That scares me a bit just to think about as I'm not ready to go. Blessedly, there is no school for students next week so I won't be subbing and will have to time to work on all this instead.
Samson has decidedly told me that not only will he take me to visit the school in Kibera, but he will also personally take care of me for the day, a generous gesture I am deeply grateful for.
In my research for the itinerary I will be posting here, I found this blog posting written by another Quaker who met with some of the same people I will be spending time with. At one point, he wrote about the difference he noted in Africa:
Differences in Africa
During the month I was in Kenya, I noticed a few little differences between here and there, which follow.
The estimates of numbers of Kenyan Friends vary widely, from 130,000 to 300,000. Many of these Friends live in Western Province, which is roughly the size of Rhode Island. Most people you meet there are Quaker.
There is only one unprogrammed meeting in all of Kenya. It is in Nairobi, and only 10 or 15 attend it each week.
Corruption, especially financial corruption, is apparently common in Quaker churches in Kenya. I even heard stories of church officials embezzling funds.
The sun rises at 6:30 sharp each day. It sets at 6:30 sharp each day. This is true throughout the year. From twilight to total darkness is very quick--about half an hour.
Internet connections are excruciatingly slow, much slower than a modem connection in the US. Also, it is very likely that any particular packet will fail, which makes some activities impossible rather than slow--for instance, buying things on-line.
AIDS is extremely common. I heard it estimated that roughly 1/3 of the people in Kenya are infected. That would mean that 22 of the attendees of the WGYF in Africa have AIDS.
The police have very few cars and are almost never seen driving around. If you need the police, you must go to them or transport them to you. It seems their function is not to protect people, but rather to file reports of laws being broken.
Except in Nairobi or Turkana, it is frowned upon for men to wear shorts, or for women to wear shorts or pants.
Children trust strangers. Adults seem to as well. It seems like everyone is willing to invite you into their house for tea.
Tea is made with heated milk, not with heated water.
Information is considered a burden, and being a good host means keeping as much information as possible from your guests.
There are very few manufacturing plants in Kenya. Almost all of the objects you see are either hand-made or imported from another country. Signs and billboards are almost universally hand-painted.
Lawns and open, grassy places are extremely rare. It seems almost all land is used for farming. Mostly the land is divided up into small subsistence plots.
Body odor is not of concern in Kenya. People just smell like they smell and sweat when they sweat. I stopped wearing deodorant, too.
Plumbing never freezes. This means that plumbers run pipes up and down and every which way. Which means that it is the water pressure pushes the water through the pipes. Which means that if you drain your pipes of water, it is very hard to get them going again.
Meals were mostly meat and a grains. The most popular grain was a cornmeal mush called ugali. Tortilla-like pancakes called chapati were also common, as was rice. The meat was often tough and very savory.
Interesting huh?
365-09 #330Labels: 365-09 Challenge, Africa