I hit a wall today. I went to church with James (the guy who works the desk) in Kibera. It wasn’t being in Kibera that hit me. It is not that it is easy to go into the biggest slum in Africa, because it is not. But somewhere between listening to them sing relative gibberish and trying not to sleep through the sermon, I hit the wall. I felt like I was such a mzungu; so incredibly out of place.

I usually deal with culture shock fairly well. But it is pretty rough this time around. And to hit at church of all places. I am sure there are many reasons it is harder now, but one of the big ones is that I am not a part of a team. I have no support, no one going through the same thing as me. So it was a hard day. I know it will get better, and it will be a lot easier when I start working in the hangar. There are a lot more thoughts on the issue, but they are kind of floating through my head without form, so I will reserve them for a time when I am able to organize them. I just keep telling myself that it is only one day, and I will get through it.

Let me catch you up from the last time I posted…

I discovered shortly after posting that a Matatu is a form of public transportation in Nairobi. Well, I don’t know if it is limited to Nairobi, but it is very popular around the city. If you do not feel a world away staying at the guesthouse, the Matatus will quickly bring you to the realization that life is a little different in Nairobi. James, who gave me my matatu lesson, explained that they are constantly playing a cat and mouse game with the police, because they aren’t supposed to pick people up off the streets. But if there are no police around, they will quickly stop and pick people up. Stop is a relatively loose term, more like a rapid deceleration; if you are lucky they will come to a complete stop. The drivers like their music loud, and you have to make sure they know where you want to stop, or you could be riding around with your ears bleeding forever.

Jet lag has been killing me. In just over a week, I got a 2 hr time change, didn’t sleep much for 6 days, then a 9 hour time change. Coupled with the heat, it makes it really hard to sleep at night and even worse to stay awake during the day. I am sure it will get better though.

We do have wireless. That doesn’t mean it is wireless speed. It is about 14.4 kbps AT BEST, but half the time it just plain doesn’t work. I got homework done the first day, but haven’t touched it since. I have been waaaaay too tired to truly focus on it.

Lesa stopped by briefly on Saturday to give me the rundown. I am staying here at the guesthouse until Tuesday, when I will be moving into a missionary family’s house. They have been stateside for almost two years, so I will be there with the German shepherd and Grace, the house help. Although she is the house help, she probably will leave me to cook for myself. So maybe I will be losing weight on this trip after all… The missionaries will be back in about a month, at which point I will be moving somewhere else that will hopefully be ready for me. I will continue the routine of Swahili in the morning, and transportation in the afternoon on Monday, then have Swahili again on Tuesday, but move out after lunch. Wednesday I will start in the hangar. Wednesday hopefully things will be much better.

After Lesa left, Cindy and John, along with their two kids, stopped by to take us to the elephant orphanage. In addition to about 15 ADORABLE young elephants, they have two rhinos. One is three weeks old, and a bit shy. The other is blind, so we were able to walk up and pet him. I am sure he enjoyed having a hundred people touching his face and poking at his horns while he was trying to take an afternoon nap.

As I mentioned earlier, I went to church in Kibera this morning. The service started at 10:30, and went till a little after 1. It was interesting, but I am not able to really process it all. Maybe that will come soon. One of the other Mzungus with us said I did well for such a long service after just getting here. Afterwards, we were ushered into the pastor’s office, where they served us sodas. I can’t imagine what it cost them to serve the dozen of us a bottle of soda each.

We made arrangements with a driver here at the guesthouse to take us out to the giraffe sanctuary in the afternoon. That was LOTS of fun. I will not give any of the details, and let you see the pictures when they eventually make it up!

One more word on that: as I mentioned before, the internet is REALLY slow, and doesn’t work half the time. So pictures might not come till after I get back. But trust me, I am processing them as I get them off my camera, so as soon as I have a good internet connection, they WILL go up!

Well, this is already INCREDIBLY long, so congrats if you made it this far! I will write again soon!