We are bad bloggers...

Sorry about the long silence. Charlotte and I have both had a busy week. This is probably a good thing. The short of it is we moved on Monday, I sat in on some PhD lectures, Charlotte started working for the school, I had to read for my real classes (we are paying for them), Charlotte played home maker, I went to class, Charlotte continued to work for the school and here we are. And now for some details.

Last Sunday we attended Nairobi Chapel, an evangelical church that has a healthy (in my never humble opinion) amount of charisma (energy). The back story of Nairobi Chapel is worth telling, I will do my best to summarize. A dying (losing numbers, aging) congregation asked for help from a healthy local church. Local church sends a young NEGST (where I am studying) graduate to lead as a pastor. He has a strong emphasis in discipleship and leadership development. The church grows, and is good about making clear to attendees the beliefs of the church, and the expectation the church has of its members to be involved. The church grows to the capacity of its building (5,000ish with multiple services). The church simultaneously develops 5 ministry staffs ie senior pastors, worship leaders, Christian Ed, etc. Each team takes turns leading, and on the same Sunday the church splits into 4 new sites as well as the original site. 1 church into 5 like that. Rather than permanent buildings, each new campus is a collection of very large tents, with between 3,000 and 5,000 attendees per site. So that is a brief history of Nairobi Chapel. Anywhy, we worshipped at the Nairobi Chapel on Ngong Road. This was an excellent 2 hours of lively worship, (by lively I mean we were instructed to dance, which we did, it was hard not to), and sound teaching. One interesting aspect of the tent (think the Peninsula Greek Festival x4) is that it feels accessible to any regardless of their background or status.

Looking out the window in the office, the local school and playground

On Monday we moved into our new apartment. I'll leave Charlotte to do a write up, but it is nice to be getting settled in. We are living in student housing, which is full of children. From the time school lets out at 3 until its dark around 7:30, the courtyard is full of laughter, shouting, and some crying. There were several evenings in a row where groups of girls would get the courageous and introduce themselves to their new(read white) neighbors. It is a fun atmosphere. I am glad to be living in student housing, as it is giving us more opportunities to interact with fellow students, and to live in community.

So I mentioned sitting in on PhD lectures. Africa International University has brought on Andrew Walls as Research Professor for Global Christianity. For every reader of this blog except for Charlotte's dad, this means very little. Professor Walls is the foremost living expert in the field of Global Christianity. It took some effort, but I was able to blackmail my way into his lectures (amazing what photoshop and google images will do for you). Prof. Walls teaches by telling stories from history. He emphasizes the story, crafting it in such a way that his point rarely has to be stated or clarified. I learned a great deal, and am still chewing on much of what he had to say.

I have said a lot but there is still much more to say. I would like for us to write more frequently, but in shorter bursts. We'll see if we can manage this. Also Tennessee plays football against Florida today. 3:30 pm Eastern 10:30 Kenyan. Pending the outcome I will write about the difficulties of trying to stream sports here and methods of staying awake in church after staying up until 2am, or I will write about how sports can be an idol in my life and that I am thankful that I have fewer opportunities to be distracted by said idols while here.

Elephant Orphanage and Giraffe Park

Well John and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on Saturday in a way that we may never celebrate again - by going to see baby elephants and giraffes!  

Running in for their feeding - they run faster than you might think!

We started the day at an elephant orphanage.  Elephants are extremely social creatures and if orphaned they will often die due to depression.  They only come out once a day so they do not get too attached to tourists.  Their trainers stay with them day AND night (we saw the trainers bunk in each elephant stall!) and they are fed every 2 to 3 hours.  They are allergic to cows milk and you can't milk elephants so they drink LARGE portions of Similac formula.  All the elephants we saw were ages 2 and under - they were extremely playful and VERY excited about their bottles.  The red Kenya dirt helps act as sunblock for their skin and keeps insects away.

The orphanage does release the elephants back into the wild near other elephants, but it is often a 5 to 10 year process.  It takes a long time for them to leave their trainers and bond with other elephants - which is a must for these social animals!

Getting a little love from one of the trainers

Happily drinking Similac formula

The baby of the bunch - just 11 months old!

Covered in red dirt

Drinking water

playtime

After the elephants we headed over to the giraffe park.  Seeing the giraffes in person was a little surreal - they are so big and majestic.  The giraffes are completely free in this park - they are able to roam at will and the property is connected to the Nairobi game park.  However, they certainly have some incentive to come visit - they are fed well by excited visitors.  In fact if you don't feed them they are likely to head but you...John learned this firsthand.  Daisy thought he was a little slow in feeding her and she got impatient.  The larger giraffe is Daisy who is expecting.  The smaller giraffe is Helen who is only 2 years old.    There is no other animal quite like a giraffe and it was amazing to see them in person.  We might be making another trip before our time here ends...

A few of the giraffes stayed in the field

Daisy on the other hand was more than happy to stand by the platform and eat!

Pictures fail to show their impressive height justice!

Me and Daisy

How often do you get the chance to kiss a giraffe?  

We'll be back with a few more photos tomorrow - blogger is taking forever to upload pictures!  We will also post a couple of albums to facebook in case you want to see more pictures.
It was truly amazing to see and touch (and even kiss) these incredible animals!

Week 1 Highlights

Sorry for the silence, I think you should take it personally. Our days have been a little full, but that is no excuse. We promise to do better. Eventually.

So to play catch up Charlotte had a great idea that we'd share some week 1 highlights. So while we're thinking about our week 1 highlights, I'm going to upload this picture. It should buy us 15 minutes....

These are called birds of paradise and they are delicious. Fry up nicely.

John highlight- being flooded by reading assignments and realizing my only job is to be a student

Charlotte - Tuesday's chapel service.   The energy and joy expressed was very moving and there is just something about African music sung with gusto in worship that gives you energy and makes you feel alive.  Many students shared stories of thanksgiving and the story that made an indelible mark in my mind was from a young man from south Sudan.  He had been a child solider and was freed from that life of captivity and is now attending a university.  I believe he must understand what it means to be thankful in a way that I do not.  

John- ok so Charlotte continues to overachieve. I have enjoyed meeting many new people, especially students from other parts of Africa. I enjoy hearing their stories, and their passions in ministry.

Charlotte - taking a mutatu (public transport of sorts - really worthy of its very own blogpost) into Karen Town and having pizza at Que Pasa - sometimes something familiar just hits the spot. 

John- they are called Mondazi and they are delicious. sweet dough fried. kinda like a donut, but with no filling or glaze so they don't come with any guilt

Charlotte - well they are fried, so they come with some guilt!  Learning how to shop at Nakumat - a target/walmartish type store where I will do a lot of grocery shopping.   I'm sure I'll get the hang of it, but there will be a little education time required to determine what is cheap and what is expensive, what kind of substitutes will I need to find, etc.

Another highlight was having tea and bites (appetizers) at the beautiful Karen Country Lodge

Charlotte - being pleasantly surprised that in just a week's time certain African sounds, names and phrases roll off the tongue much easier than they did 7 days ago!  We still have a long way to go, but progress is progress and that is enough for me right now!

John- posting this and going to bed. Giraffes and Baby Elephants tomorrow. Try to get you highlights soon.

The $80 Droid Phone

In the midst of preparing to leave for Kenya I stumbled upon this article talking about a new Droid phone that was doing well in Kenya. This intrigued me as there are so many benefits for Kenyans to have access to affordable smart phones. Since my (dying) Palm Pre is allergic to non US phone systems, and I am seriously considering a switch to a pay-as-you-go service upon returning to the US, I thought it'd be worth picking up the little robot phone. Lucky for you, I am excited to pretend to be a technology review person and blogger. So follow me after the jump so I can get page views up and pay bills (I don't know how to make a jump or pay bills with the inter webs).

Yes I took this picture. Yes I like it. No I can't do it again.

The Ideos is a Chinese manufactured android phone with version 2.2 software. It cost 7999 kenyan shillings and came with a 250 k/sh calling card. Thats a little over $80 if you count the card as a discount. Talk requires "Top Up" cards that are pre purchased phone and data credits. Basically $.03 a minute for talk and $.01 per text. Data is a-la-carte, with this phone I purchased a data bundle of 250MB download/upload for about $3. This lasts for 30 days or until I use up the data whichever comes first. 3G speeds that are indeed comparable to 3G with Verizon. This is through Safaricom.

The phone itself is pretty slick. The Mobile WiFi hotspot works well, and has come in handy. The phone can also provide internet through USB tethering and Bluetooth. I have not tried either of these. A great feature with many new smart phones is the ability to sync contacts from the web. Contacts saved in gmail and Facebook came right over for both Charlotte and me. This phone does what a smart phone should do, and has yet to seem overwhelmed when processing. To cut costs a microSD card is required for additional memory and many apps. I don't have one yet, so we've basically been using it as is out of the box.

This phone at this price is indeed a game changer. Through one service Kenyans have affordable computing and communication in one package. I see great opportunity for locally produced and oriented apps to make a difference.

Whirlwind Nairobi Tour

Well our last blog post was certainly the result of some serious jet lag!  I took a 30 minute turned 4 hour nap and left the husband blogging unattended.  Shame on me.  But let's face it, the entertaining entries (albeit embellished) will be from John and the informative posts will be from me!

We are continuing to settle in - the jet lag is fading, our stomachs are slowly adjusting and we are beginning to adjust to Kenyan accents and phrases.

Downtown Nairobi

Saturday was quite a day!  We took a trip with other new students to tour Nairobi and learn important things like where to change money, how to take the bus from downtown back to Karen (suburb where AIU is located) and where to find local markets.  There were 9 students on the tour - 5 Kenyans, 1 Ethiopian, 1 from Malawi, me and John.   We started with a stop at Uchumi - a Walmart/Target type store where I was reminded that carrying tissues is a must as public restrooms do not supply their own toilet paper!  I left Uchumi with several packs and now have a stocked purse.  Next we drove into downtown Nairobi which is a mix of old and new buildings, plenty of traffic and the smell of diesel exhaust.


We took a quick tour of the chaotic rail yard where you can pick up bus 111 to get from town to Karen.

Rail yard - although I only saw buses, no trains!

We then drove about 15 minutes outside of downtown Nairobi and stopped at a market for lunch.  Here's where things started to get interesting!  We moved past the tables of produce, shoes, and clothing to a series of buildings and alleyways.  All the buildings were painted red and had a coke bottle and the coke logo displayed on the side.

The alley was full of men in white coats cooking meat over open fire and thick smoke hung in the air.  Our tour guide Daniel was surrounded as each vendor vied for our business.  He disappeared through the crowd to try to get a group deal while the rest of us waited on the outskirts of the alley.  While we waited we were constantly approached by the cooks.  I kept hearing "sister, sister come and eat."  Finally we made our way through the alley to the shop Daniel had chosen.  We were about to eat a real Kenyan meal - nyama choma with ugali.  Nyama choma literally means meat roasted and ugali is kind of like grits the day after cooking them (that's how Lois describes them!).  Big sides of raw beef were hanging in the windows of the shop and they cut off a piece, salt it liberally and throw it on the fire - and then use the same knife to cut off a hunk of ugali for your bowl!  Once cooked they chop the meat and place it on a wooden platter.  Everyone has their own bowl of ugali and you are supposed to take a small bit, roll it in your hand and use it to pick up the meat.  I was a bit nervous about the meal as thoughts of food poisoning ran through my mind, but when in Rome....and beside we are here to learn and experience Kenyan culture and it is my understanding that this meal is common and ugali is definitely a staple.

Ugali

nyama choma

We proceed on our tour and were slowed considerably by some serious traffic, but finally made it to a second market.  We saw produce, cows, goats and chickens and caused some heads to turn since we don't exactly blend in.  I bought a pineapple for about 80 cents - but only after one of the Kenyan students asked about the price.  It is quite obvious that we don't exactly know what we are doing!

Produce at one of the markets we visited

It's now about 3 pm and we are beginning to fade as afternoon jet lag sets in.  We return to the van and proceed to a third market about 10 minutes from AIU called Dagoretti.  This market was definitely a little intimidating.  The people in the market were a bit more aggressive - we were constantly asked to buy things, to hire a matatu (vans that give rides) to interact in some way with the locals.  Small shacks lined either side of the road and water and sewage ran down ditches.  Someone tried to pick pocket both of us but John was completely prepared and had his wallet attached to his belt and I was carrying no money.  Thankfully the man quietly slipped away when he realized he couldn't get anything from us.  We were later told that if we had pointed out the man, the community would have rebuked and beaten him.  This points out that the community wants to be able to do business, and not scare off potential customers. We are thankful that such a scene was unnecessary.

Dagoretti was a difficult place - and not just because we were weary from a long day, or that someone tried to take some money from us.  It was a realistic view of poverty and although forward, these people were simply trying to make a wage.  The majority of our experiences so far with Kenyans has been lovely - they have been welcoming and friendly and we are grateful to be received with such warmth.

The day and our experiences pushed us out of our comfort zone, but we believe that is a good thing and part of the reason we are here for the next few months.  It was good to see lots of different sides of Nairobi - from the quiet and tranquil Karen Blixen Coffee Garden to the harsh and dirty streets of Dagoretti.  I have a feeling we will be spending the next few months exploring what it means to live among these extremes.

Charlotte

Jet Lagged and Confused

So I was about five minutes into a boring synopsis of traveling and arriving before deciding to can it. I will fight my darndest to prevent you form catching the borings. So here's what really happened, and why I am just now posting.
Our flight from Turkey to Nairobi turned out to be a 6 hour party. It seems several stars from daytime Turkish television and the German National Basketball team were on our flight. They purchased drinks for all the passengers, and Dirk Nowitzki convinced the pilot to play Dirk's playlist, a tasteful balance of House and R&B, over the PA. Upon arrival several of us went with the Turks to a Nairobi house party, followed by an after party  until dawn. Then things got out of hand. Thanks to Mark Shaw for bailing us out.
Needless to say Charlotte and I have spent the last 36 hours recovering.
Or maybe its just jet lag its difficult to say.

We did arrive safely at AIU, and spent some time around the school and Karen (the community that will be our home for the next few months). The wonderful Lois Shaw played hostess and treated us to tea at the lovely Karen Blixen Tea Shop or House or something like that.

Lois taking us there was foretold by Hannah Grimes prior to our departure. This means that Hannah is a prophetess, a soothsayer or a witch. We will have a swimming party and cookout upon our return to determine if she is the latter. #ArthurMiller'd