Hello from Oyugis! (pronounced oy yoo gis)

First off, I had written a whole blog post in Nairobi, but uploading those pictures used up all my megabytes on my modem, so it cut me off.

I was in Nairobi for the end of training and swearing in before heading off to my site on Friday. Two weeks ago, when I was still in Loitokitok, my family and I ate chicken for dinner (which is not NEARLY as common as in the states). It was a “homegrown” chicken from our chicken coop, but I wasn’t home when it was killed. It was tasty and I didn’t feel as bad about it as I thought I would. My mama told me to pick out some pieces so I picked out a few pieces thinking they’d be good. I started trying to eat a piece and there wasn’t a lot of meat and it was very difficult to eat. My mama and baba started laughing: turns out I had grabbed the neck, which is usually one of the last pieces chosen because it isn’t very good. My mama offered to pick out some pieces for me so who knows which body parts I ate.

Then, the day before we left Loitokitok, my friend Mitch decided he wanted to slaughter a chicken. As much as I don’t like seeing animals dying, I went just to have the experience. I went with my friend Rachel and my 9 year-old sister, who had never seen a chicken slaughtered either. (Stop reading if you don’t want any graphic details). After chasing the chicken around the yard the maid caught the chicken and Mitch held it down and cut off its head. The maid helped pluck the feathers and everything. She popped out the eyes and my little sister grabbed the eyeball and crushed it with a rock and it exploded on Rachel and I. We had eyeball juice on our skirts; it was gross and funny at the same time.

On Wednesday my mama surprised me with a Maasai dress with gorgeous beadwork on it. She had wanted it to be a surprise so she hadn’t measured me. It was too small but she had the lady fix it, which I think required hours of extra work. It turned out great and I love it. Sunday we had a family appreciation lunch so I wore it then and a few other girls had dresses made too so we were all decked out. I'll try and put the picture of the dress at the bottom.

I was sad to say goodbye to my family, but was also excited to get to my site. Monday we took our 7 hour bus ride to Nairobi, which turned out being an “epic journey,” as we called it. First of all, on our way out of town one of the trainees’ mama passed her chapati through the bus window as we stopped at a corner. It was like something out of a movie, so cute. We were all pretty crowded on the bus with our luggage piled in the back rows. One of the trainees threw up on the bus so we stopped. A bunch of us got out and another person threw up while others took a bathroom break. A few miles down the road we stopped again and people were sick again. This process of yelling “stop!” and then people rushing for the door continued throughout our trip. It’s kinda funny to think about now but everybody was feeling pretty queasy due to the bumpy road and/or sympathy queasiness.

The day turned out much better because when we arrived in Nairobi the place we are staying at served us lunch with ice cream afterwards!!! I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal to all you people in summer in America, but it was amazing! Then we went exploring a mall, I bought a USB modem, thus I can use the internet off phone services instead of going to a super slow cyber. Rachel, Mitch and I went to get pizza! Oh cheese, how I’ve missed thee… Then a group of us went to a café and I got a coffee milkshake frappacino thingy and THEN we saw Harry Potter. I spent more in 2 hours than I had in the past couple weeks but it was sooooo worth it. One of the days we got Mexican and then went to a fun bar with pool tables. Mexican wasn’t very authentic but I at least got a margarita. So basically we were loving the food there, even if it is “expensive,” although it’s not expensive when you compare to dollars.

Wednesday I met my counterpart who I’ll be working with in my organization. He has a son who was born in November and he named him Barack Obama. Love it. There is a bead group, they make beads with magazines so I’ll definitely be hanging out with those ladies. Friday we made our journey to our sites, with our ridiculous amounts of luggage (it was even more than we came with because Peace Corps had given us mosquito nets and about 15 more pounds of handbooks and informational books). I went with two other volunteers who were traveling to the same area and our counterparts. We left the hotel at 5:30am and got to the bus station, which is in a sketchy part of central Nairobi. People were trying to “help” us with our bags, but we made our own assembly line to get our stuff on the bus. We had been told that our stuff probably wouldn’t be safe in the luggage bins under the bus so we each bought three seats and piled our luggage onto two seats and then sat in the 3^rd seat next to everything. Luckily, we had no problems and everyone’s stuff was safe.

I got to my house on Friday and I live near my office, which is convenient. I’m about a 20 minute walk from the town center. I always thought Kenyans were nice, but yesterday blew me away. I went to the hardware store to buy some nails and a hammer to hang some stuff on my walls. The owner asked me what I was building and I told him I just wanted to hang some stuff on my walls. He asked, “so you are going to buy a hammer just to use it once?” I told him, “pretty much,” so he let me borrow the hammer and I returned it today. He could have made money off me, but instead just let me borrow the hammer. And, I’ve been really lucky because all the furniture the last volunteer had (even though she’s been gone for a year and a half) was still here. So, I already had a bed, mattress, mosquito net, couch/second bed, gas stove, plates, cups, utensils, etc. Awesome! I plan on just buying a chair/stool and maybe a little table.

I haven’t had the opportunity to print pictures yet. To those of you asking for my mailing address, I’m planning on setting up a PO Box this week so I’ll send it to you as soon as I can. Ok, well that’s about it for now.