T.I.A.

Hey everybody!

My internet availability is going to be somewhat sporadic, so I've been writing on my computer and then when I have internet I'll post everything that I have. To read this in order, start at the older posts on the sidebar and then you can catch up. Love and miss you all!!!!

1/24/11

“You have the internet now… can we watch Thriller!?” –Wangari, my 9 year old host sister, referring to the Michael Jackson video she’s been dying to watch on my computer.

I had a few T.I.A. (THIS IS AFRICA) moments today… namely getting hit by a car and having oil/tar slapped on my arm by a drunk man outside of the slums. But for reals, I’m totally fine and it’s been a great day! We had our first rainy day in Nairobi—the weather has been consistently beautiful and usually in the high 70’s. Unfortunately the clouds chose the day of our city tour to pour, but it just added some excitement and probably prevented Equator Sunburn Round 2. (Round 1 occurred at Lake Nakuru and I’m the tannest I’ve ever been in my life! Holla.)

We spent the day meeting our teachers and then heading out to run errands like seeing where the post office is (I can get big packages now! Hint hint, Mom…) and buying our cell phones and internet modems. We took the ‘Citi Hoppa’ bus back from town to our school and then the group of us who live across Ngong Road walked home together. MSID places students in clusters so that we can get to and from school more safely, and I’m in the same area as my old roommate Lauren as well as Mustaf (who is the best at keeping his eyes peeled for any dangers, a great guy to have around!), Siri, Dan, Chelise, and Hannah. We got to our neighborhood and then Hannah, Dan, and I decided to check out the area. I live the furthest away (figures, give the gimpy girl the longest walk!) so we headed to my house and then kept going. Things got pretty hectic about 5 minutes past my place, with a flood of matatus and so many people hustling past that we made sure to keep an extra hand on our purses. I really wish I knew what happened so I could explain this better, but we were just walking and next thing I know I was hit by a matatu going in reverse and stumbled over. I wasn’t hurt at all and everyone around rushed to make sure I was ok. When my dad heard this story he told me that I have to remember I don’t need to experience the public health systems of every country I visit first hand, it would be fine just to visit a hospital or something instead of being admitted this time! We have an expression (learned from the movie Blood Diamond and a K’naan song), “TIA”, which means “this is Africa” and is used perfectly in situations like being hit by a matatu.

The real TIA moment of the day, however, was yet to come. As we were still recovering from the shock of the matatu incident we were weaving through a crowd of marginally sketchy characters and a general feel of chaos. A man with a wild eyed look (not sure if he was drunk, on something else, or just unstable in general) who was walking towards me slapped my arm and then kept on walking. My first instinct was just to think ‘how rude!’ and keep walking, but then Dan and Hannah looked at me and started to freak out. I looked down to see some sort of oily tar mixture smeared on my arm! In retrospect I should have been more afraid that something more dangerous had happened, but it didn’t itch or sting so I just figure he had some gunk on his hand and my arm was the perfect piece of white canvas for him to wipe it off on. After getting home and showing my host dad he explained that the area we were walking in borders on the Kibera slum and also is a matatu stop so it has lots of idlers around and that we should stay clear of it in the future. Quite an ‘adventure’ if I do say so myself.

Wangari, my host sister, checking out all the pictures on my laptop