Shujaa - Week 3, Nairobi, Kenya

               Today is the Saturday after my third week in Nairobi, and I’m currently sitting in a coffee shop called Java at a mall called YaYa. I love the name of this place and I’m so glad there’s a coffee shop about a ten minute walk away from Fridah’s apartment. It’s kind of nice being in here though because it’s known for being a place a lot of foreigners come to since the food is very similar to back home, and in Munich. I just ordered a banana chocolate milkshake :). That will make writing this blog so much more enjoyable (than it already is.)

                This week the program I worked with is called ‘Shujaa’ or ‘Hero’ in Swahili. They work to create a higher awareness of HIV throughout Kenya in different regions and DISCs (Drop-In Service Centers), or places they’ve set up their services. They mainly work with sex workers, who are generally women between the ages of 18-20 and some being as young as 16, truckers who overnight on the roads where sex workers work, and the general population. They have VCT centers (HIV, Counseling, and Testing) where people can come to get tested to find out if they’re positive, and then be told what their best options are if they are living a ‘positive’ life. Outside of Counseling they can also participate in Health Education classes, which teaches them about the overall and side effects of HIV, what condoms are and how to use them properly (condoms are a really weird concept to Kenyans because it’s ‘not natural’), and really just how to live their lives as safely as possible.  

Monday and Tuesday were days spent in the office, and Wednesday was the day we took our six hour trip to Eldoret, which is north of Nairobi and about two to four hours away from the Uganda border. Every quarter, the people in charge of Shujaa in the Nairobi office take certain trips to different DISCs in different cities to check up on them, see how everything is going, see how their target numbers are and whether they’re meeting them, etc. Basically that they’re providing something for the community that has been efficient and beneficial. The one in Eldoret is really young, and we also traveled two hours north of Eldoret to Kapenguria, which had just started in January of this year.

  When they told me the trip was going to be six hours my mouth dropped open—I’d had no idea it would take so long. But it may have been one of the fastest six hour car rides I’ve ever had. The scenery on the way to Eldoret is absolutely gorgeous, and I found myself taking more pictures of the scenery on the way there and back than I did throughout the whole trip at Eldoret. Every time you look out the window, there’s the gorgeous Rift Valley, gigantic saltwater lakes and ponds, animals of every kind (there were even zebras on the side of the road!!), small shacks that people live in, huts, and even mud houses the closer you got to Eldoret, which is a lot smaller than Nairobi and more rural. However, it is growing a lot, and I actually find it better than Nairobi. It’s quieter and calmer, with a lot of beautiful scenery. A lot in Nairobi is go-go-go, with different building projects, the roads always under construction, and I always feel like I’m on my toes. 

 

When driving into Eldoret, there’s a huge white wall saying ‘Welcome to Eldoret, the City of Champions’ and then it has the painted pictures and dates of all of the Olympic Champions from their town. I had completely forgotten about when Zeller always used to talk about how fast Kenyans were in high school! He’d always told us to run like gazelles or run like Kenyans, and the old memory made me smile. I asked whether the most champions came out of Eldoret because it appeared that most years were from this specific town. Catherine, who is the director of Shujaa, told me that there were two particular tribes who are actually known for dominating in track. She said in the 800m and faster Kenyans generally dominate the world, and have for years, and I think one girl from Kenya recently won a big race, but it wasn’t Olympic. The news on TV in Nairobi was showing it as ‘another win’ for Kenyans. I think it’s extremely interesting how these tribes, for whatever reason, just have a very specific gene for running so fast. They train every day their entire youth and young adult lives, win a gold medal, and can retire before they’re thirty. To me that’s amazing considering the amount of poverty you see in Kenya. One talent with one sport can completely change your life in a country that really struggles at times to support themselves.

The first place we drove to was one of the Shujaa Discs in the city, and they made us tea and had a general meeting to see how the Eldoret region is doing with the community so far for this quarter. PS Kenyans are obsessed with tea. Germans are obsessed with coffee. And now I’m being made into an addict of both worlds. Also when Kenyans drink tea, they don’t just put a tea bad in hot water, which is what I’m used to. They make really hot whole milk, put it in a large thermos, and then put tea bags in mugs and pour the milk from the thermos. My body is not used to the thickness and creaminess of the milk at all, and it has made me unbelievably sick on many occasions, so I have to stick to regular hot water. But they’re always incredibly surprised when I tell them I can’t drink the milk. 

Anyway, the meeting lasted for a couple of hours, and then after Catherine showed me around their facilities, which were so interesting. I’m always so curious to see how various places in general are set up, whether it be an office like Shujaa, a restaurant, a hotel, mall etc. Sometimes it looks like regular places like home and other times it looks like old, torn down-ish buildings on the outside, but fixed up nicely on the inside. I kinda like it. It’s really all you need. 

After the time at the Disc, we went to church at the Eldoret Church of Christ, which is also a sister church of Nairobi, Munich, and Clemson. I had no idea one existed in such a small town, but it was really encouraging because instead of being overwhelmed by many people, there was maybe around sixty and you could see they were all really close with one another. It reminded me a lot of Clemson. Their church gathering was in an old school building near a large field overlooking a few tall buildings from the city center. The sun was setting and streaming through the trees, while some of the school kids played soccer out in the large field. I tried taking a picture, but I feel like a picture just never gives such beautiful sites the justice they deserve.

After church we went downtown to find food to eat, and specifically that my body wouldn’t reject, which took a little bit since it was getting dark and the night life was picking up. As soon as I got out of the truck, a child came up to me asking how I was, telling me their name, and that they wanted to go to school. Then a couple more kids ran up to me and starting saying the same things, and Catherine, Rosaline, and Boogwa pulled me away from them and said to keep walking. 

Apparently there are a lot of street kids in Eldoret due to the elections from 2007. I didn’t know this beforehand, but apparently around that time they had a new election and after their current president was elected, riots broke out everywhere and people kind of lost their minds. There were killings, bombings, fires, and all kinds of devastation. Many kids lost their parents and homes, making street children a lot bigger problem than they’d ever previously been. That was really scary, and sad, because these kids out of desperation and hunger are turning into people that they shouldn’t be forced to be.

After we ate, we went to our hotel called Pacifica, which was just recently built and on the outside of town, and quieter. This hotel was SO NICE. I was absolutely shocked due to the fact that the room they gave me was bigger than Fridah’s room and my StuSta room combined times three. And they gave me two beds, there was a balcony, and I had a gigantic bathroom and wireless. I haven’t had wireless at night outside of the office since I’ve been to Nairobi, so I was extremely excited. (Unfortunately, however, it did cause me to lose more sleep than necessary.) The first night I was also having issues with the plug. I have an American plug, a European converter, and nothing to fit in the wall. So the staff downstairs took almost twenty minutes looking for an adaptor for me while I watched ‘Charlie St. Cloud’ in the lobby with Zac Efron. An American movie in English in a foreign country on TV was a beautiful thing. Although I think hearing Zac Efron in German or Swahili would have been highly entertaining as well.

My hotel room!

Thursday was another traveling day further north from Eldoret. We had breakfast at the hotel breakfast buffet (and they had normal food!!!) and then drove to the building they’re thinking of utilizing as a Disc for Eldoret. It’s a truck stop road a little ways out from the city center, and a really excellent location. You can always tell when a highway generally has a lot of large trucks because the trucks are usually so weighed down with what they’re hauling, that it leaves deep gauges in the road from the tires. The weight from the trucks literally changes the shape of the roads, making it miserable to drive on at times. The building they want to use is located directly in front of a lodge for truckers, which actually works really well for the program because one of the lodge rooms is going to be permanently turned into an HIV testing room, allowing truckers to privately come in and test at will.

After seeing the office (and stopping a market with houses made out of mud!), we drove two hours north to Kitengela, which is where they’ve just started the January Shujaa program. We met the Kitengela Shujaa coordinator at a restaurant and then they showed us their ‘possible VCT/Discs buildings’ and any implementation ideas. Katherine and Rosaline had a meeting to attend, so Boogwa and I went to the Kapenguria Museum. I had no idea what to expect at first since it was such a small town, but I very quickly learned about Kenya’s famous ‘Kapenguria Six’ that were imprisoned in this small town. The cells they were locked in were behind a sign labeled ‘The Heroes Cells’, and each cell had the name of where each person stayed. Biographies were placed in the cells of each person, along with their portrait. One cell was ‘dressed up’ to look like it had when they’d stayed there, which consisted of a weaved carpet and big tin bucket for waste.

The story of the “Kapenguria Six” is really long, but really interesting, so here’s a link to them on Wikipedia. Kenyans adore these men, and they’re famous in Africa. Seriously, educate yourselves!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapenguria_Six

 

There was a lady who gave us a tour and she was very sweet. We went in and through each part of the museums they had, which basically displayed various tribes from their region and how they used to look like, dress, the tools they used, and houses they lived in. She took us to an area behind the buildings that had four mud houses! I got so excited because I’ve always wanted to see what they look like on the inside. There was a house for the ‘first wife’, the ‘second wife’, the ‘first boy’, the ‘livestock’ for nighttime and a large pen area for during the day. We took lots of pictures and at one point the lady asked me if my head was burning (because I’m white), and got really excited when we took a picture together inside a mud house. She liked me because I’m a Musungu haha. 

After the museum we picked Katherine and Rosaline up and went to get lunch before heading back to Eldoret. Boogwa wanted to stop and get fish for dinner, so we waited in the car and devoured mangos. Mangos are so popular here and Kenyans eat them like champs. I eat them like a child, with it all over my face and clothes, and they serious have no such problems. Then Catherine went to meet a friend in the city while Rosaline and I got tea and food, and talked for a while. 

Thursday night I also had an epiphany about my life and freaked out looking up ten million things on the internet as far as jobs, internships, and volunteer stuff with CDC, DSW (a German company has a partnership with HOPE in Kenya, and they even have an office here!), and then graduate programs involving public health (HIV) and the Master’s International programs. Master’s Internationals are graduate programs partnered with Peace Corps, where the first two years of graduate are done at the university, and the last two are done at the country you’re assigned to or have chosen. The problem for me is that they don’t have partnerships with medical schools, so I’m looking at having to choose between graduate school and medical school. CDC offers a specific fellowship for medical students in their third year (clinical year) where they’re allowed to practice in a foreign country, but only if their interested in doing international work. And it looks very competitive.

I think part of me is really trying to push away the idea of medical school just because of the stigma that comes with American medical schools. I’m just really not interested in going back into the dog-eat-dog approach to school like being pre-med produces. I know a lot of other programs are hardcore too, but there’s something about medicine that’s just unbelievably cut-throat and aggressive, and I don't like the idea of being pushed into that personality type just to succeed in medical school. I just want to be like Patch Adams and build my own hospital and play with kids all day. Is that really too much to ask? I still have time though, so thank goodness I don’t have to choose between MCATs and GREs just yet. I find standardized testing unbelievably irritating by the way. I felt like that opinion was important to include in this blog.

Friday I woke up early to meet for breakfast and head to another meeting at a clinic called AMPATH. They wanted to meet with Shujaa basically because both programs are fighting to help the community in the same ways, and they’re afraid of reporting the same numbers and making it seem as if more people are being helped than actually are. I actually found the meeting very entertaining because the two groups were forced into agreeing to a partnership, but you could see from both sides that neither was budging, and neither was going to pack up and leave Eldoret. So it turned into this very polite form of ‘we refuse to leave’ game. It took three hours for them to decide to partner and find specific actions to move forward. However, It was an overall encouraging meeting for both sides because now they can work to make a lot of progress in the community together.

This coming week I will start working with Fridah and her Blood Safety department, and then continue with them next week since, on Wednesday, I’M GOING ON A THREE DAY SAFARI TRIP to Masai Mara!!!! I’m so excited. I’m going as a single in a group of seven other people I don’t know, but I’m okay with that because it’s a safari and I’ll be taking tons of pictures anyway. And they’ll probably be tourists like me from other countries, which is always something interesting to look forward to.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week and I can’t wait to write about working with Fridah and the safari trip!

Until next week, Jessica

PS: Here's a link from the HOPE Worldwide website about the 'Sleeping Children around the World' day in Mukuru. Enjoy! 

http://hopewwkenya.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=330:sleeping-children-around-the-world-scaw-visits-mukuru&catid=45:care-a-support-information&Itemid=263

Orphans and Vulnerable Children - Week 2, Nairobi, Kenya

                  I am now sitting at my desk at HOPE’s office finishing up my second week in Nairobi. I can’t believe two weeks have passed already! The time here is going way too fast. This week has actually been a very eventful, emotional week. I’ve had a mixture of culture shock, homesickness (for US and Germany), extreme problems adjusting to the food here (I literally recognize nothing I eat), and learning how the people and children of Mukuru really live, which I will explain a little later. Not to mention, adjusting to the city of Nairobi has actually been pretty hard for me due to the fact that the driving here is terrifying, the Matatu’s make me really uncomfortable (which is what we take at least three times a day), everyone gawks at me when I walk by, dust is everywhere which has been taking a toll on my eyes, and Swahili is everywhere, which can make me feel a little isolated at times. Hopefully that doesn’t sound like I’m complaining, but if anyone ever plans to travel to Nairobi, those are definite things to look out and prepare for. I’ve loved my time here though, and I’m so glad I’ve actually gotten to see a place that isn’t ‘perfectly put together’. You really have to know this city to make it without help.

                This week I worked with a program called “Orphans and Vulnerable Children” (OVC). This is the program that I originally said I wanted to work with while here, but I’ve changed my schedule since then to have a broader understanding of the programs here. For example, instead of working with OVC again next week, I’ll be working with Shuuja and traveling with them to the western part of Kenya. At least this way I can try to get a feel for what I might enjoy/connect with the most.

OVC is the smallest program at HOPE, but they’re working on trying to expand it. They currently have one director, George, and one employed staff, Makena. Everyone else contributing to OVC is volunteers, which consist mostly of people who actually live in Mukuru. Some live in the actual slums, and others live right near it. The program has found that residents of the slum are willing to be more cooperative and comfortable when they have “neighbors” working with them. They also have “caregivers”, who are people from the slum community that work with OVC staff to help the overall effectiveness and efficiency of each program carried out in the community.

For example, on Thursday Makena and I sat with a group of women (caregivers) and discussed the bathrooms (which are basically home-made port-o-potties) that are being installed throughout the community. OVC is going to pay for 20-30 percent of the costs to install, and the community has to work together to pay the remaining percentage. This method gives the community the chance to take pride in what they have, and work together to become more responsible and appreciative of their surroundings.

The overall goal of OVC is to improve the well-being and protection of orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya by building the capacity of families and communities to cope and respond to the needs within their households and communities. The also work to increase comprehensive and integrated care and support for OVC, increase the capacity of affected families to care for and support OVC, and increase the capacity of key community stakeholders like schools, faith-based organizations, and civic and youth groups to identify and support OVC. Qualifications for the children to be accepted in the program are that they must have at least one deceased parent, an HIV+ parent, a chronically ill parent, or no parents.

Monday Makena and I stayed in the HOPE office, and Tuesday was our first day out in the field. Their method of keeping records of the children is very far behind, and every now and then they have to go through the hundreds of hard-copies and do random house checks to make sure each child is still in Mukuru, that they are doing well, and that their parents are still with them. If a child cannot be found, the parents are sought after. If the parents can’t be found, the child is assumed to have moved and is dropped from the program in order to allow new kids in.

Tuesday was literally spent going through every single record, and trying to get them organized. It took them over three days to finish it all. Toward the end of the day, a volunteer from Mukuru named Purity showed me all of the different programs HOPE has just in their fenced-off area. They have a VTC building (HIV Testing and Counseling), a hair-dressing studio, sowing and knitting studio, and two computer rooms for the kids to learn all of the functions of computers and even play video games. However, all of the video games are created to encourage learning and positive decision-making.

There was one part of the day though, that really got to me emotionally. As I mentioned, bathrooms are being installed in certain locations where the homes are. George, Jacinta, Makena, and I traveled to those areas to check out how big they were and how realistic it would be to install stalls there. For whatever reason, up until that point, I hadn’t realized that I hadn’t seen the actual homes of the people there. I spent time with the children the first day in the HOPE area, and we always drive past the market stands they set up….but I never saw the actual homes until Tuesday. On the way there, so many kids got excited about a “Musungu” being in their community and they would run up to me, smile, stick out the hand to shake mine, and run away giggling. It feels weird when that happens, but I also love it because it helps me in meeting more of the children.

I didn’t take any pictures of the homes, and I don’t plan to because there is no picture or video or words that can justify the actual experience of being right there. And me taking pictures of their conditions seems intrusive and insensitive. I have never seen the conditions that they live in, and I honestly didn’t know how to respond, and still don’t. There is a small stream running through the area that should have been used for fresh drinking water, but over the years it’s been turned into a sewer and bathroom for the residents. Those who don’t use the stream, generally use a small trash bag, and throw it in a self-made dump they have off to the side of their houses. It’s literally mounds and mounds of trash in that area. There is trash everywhere, and the smell is hard to take at times. Children walk everywhere in dirty clothes, no shoes, and if they’re not playing, they’re sitting on the dirty ground watching their parents or people passing by. The houses are made of cardboard, metal, and wood scraps. Some places do have electricity and lighting, but that’s only in the newer section of the homes.

We went to two locations that are planned to have bathrooms installed, and at the second one, there was two girls who looked my age and a small girl around 1 or 2 sitting outside on the ground. The group I was with was discussing the bathroom plans in Swahili, so I stood off to the side so I wouldn’t be in the way. The little girl was holding on to one of the girl’s legs and staring at me, with a completely confused and curious look on her face. She literally had one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen. I squatted down to her level so I wouldn’t look so intimidating, and she slowly sat up and walked to me. She stood a few feet back and stared, so I smiled and held out my hand to her. She slowly walked forward, looking timid, and eventually placed her hand in mine. I asked her what her name was, even though I sadly knew it was no use since she was too young to have started learning English. One of the girls said her name was Dianna. Still holding her hand, I asked her if that was her name. As soon as she heard her name her face lit up with a radiant smile, and she nodded and pointed to herself. And before I knew it I had started crying. I still have no idea why exactly, but for whatever reason, this small girl, in a green, ripped sweater, and a faded, dirty pink dress, was the breaking point for everything I was seeing around me in Mukuru. She pulled her hand from mine, and went to grab a green comb from one of the girl’s hair and brought it to me, looking so proud. I told her how much I liked it, and smiled a lot to let her know I thought it was just as special as she did. She grabbed my hand again, and kept smiling. Not long after, the group I was with was ready to go, and so I had to say goodbye to Dianna. I quietly cried the whole walk back, still having no idea how to process everything I’d just seen.

Wednesday was a shorter day, and I spent a lot of time in the HOPE office at Mukuru organizing the computer data on the children. A lot of it was out of order and I spent about four hours in Excel trying to get everything organized for the home-checks we’d be doing on Thursday. We had to leave early that day because Makena had a test in the city and it takes a really long time to travel there.

That night we also had Midweek at the YMCA building. Last week we started doing a really interesting study on what the Bible says about the difference between a person’s soul, spirit, heart, mind, body, how they are different levels, and what influences outside the body affects/alters each level. I think one of the most incredible points was that we all were given five senses to fully engage with the world around us. Our influences from different experiences in life make us who we are. And it’s almost as if without those five senses, we wouldn’t be able to change, grow, learn, and find the steps necessary in becoming who we are or who we can be.

Thursday was a very exhausting day. We did home visits on these days, along with more hard-copy filing before heading out to the homes. We visited three different homes, which is only 1/7^th of all the homes that still need to be checked. Each home check serves the purpose of examining each child and their conditions, and basically seeing whether OVC is making a positive difference in their home-life. The first home consisted of a young boy, his younger sister, a father who’d recently lost his wife, and the grandmother. They were very sweet and very hospitable, even offering to make us tea and stay longer. They seemed to be in good spirits, considering.

The second home was the sad one for all of us. The mother was sitting on a stool when we walked in, just gazing out the window while her neighbor’s child slept on the bed behind her. She has two young boys, and just recently lost her husband. She’s been refusing HIV testing, but it’s written all over her body, face, and eyes that she’s infected. She won’t take the HIV medicine and had to be classified as ‘in denial’, and in dire need of receiving counseling. Otherwise she will die within the next year, leaving her two young boys without any parents.

Her youngest boy came in from school halfway through our talk with her, and stared wildly at me for a minute or so. George, who speaks English wonderfully, smiled and asked him if he could tell us about himself and school day in English. The little boy smiled shyly in response and sat down beside his mother on a small, plastic chair. He proceeded to tell us his name, age, what grade he was in, what he wanted to be when he grew up, and read a small piece of paper for us, which unfortunately stated that in order for him to continue with his schooling, his family needs to pay 1,040 Kenyan schillings, or thirteen dollars. For them, that’s a lot more money than they actually have. Many kids have to stop schooling once they get to his age because they don’t have the money to move on high school. Primary school here is free though.

The third home was actually very nice on the inside. She even had electricity, a small TV, DVD player, and nice decorations on the wall.  Her littlest girl was also fast asleep on the floor face down, and half under the bed the mother was sitting on. They talked in Swahili for a long time, and then she turned to me, with everything in perfect English, saything that she lost her husband last year and she now has to sell fish outside of their house to support her three children. I was caught completely off-guard and had no idea how to respond. All I could say was that I was sorry, and felt my face turning red. It’s one thing for them to translate the Swahili conversation to English for me, but when it actually comes from the person who’s living through it, your heart literally breaks for them.

That day I had also learned that my cubicle buddy at the HOPE office, Gibson, actually comes from the slums, which completely shocked me. While we were waiting to do the home-visits, he asked if I wanted to go for a small walk around the HOPE area. He then proceeded to share his story with me of how his dad left his family when he and his siblings were young, forcing his mother to move them to the Mukuru slums. He is the oldest of his siblings, making him ‘head of the household’. He earned very good marks in primary school, but when it came time for his to move to high school, his family didn’t have the money. He said he decided to contact his father, who has a lot of money apparently, and ask him to support his schooling. However, his father refused and Gibson was left having no idea how to move forward academically. By the way, he was only around twelve years old at this time.

Eventually he was told that he would be sponsored to move on to high school (which is not common at all), and he continued his education, still earning high marks. He started a club at his high school, which allowed them to travel to the US and do an exchange with a few schools, which eventually led to a family that he’d met in the States sponsoring his education for college (also doesn’t happen often). He earned his degree and got a job offer from HOPEww Kenya, where he’s been now working for the last five years. I also learned that he only moved out of Mukuru two years ago, and that he has supported his two younger sisters in getting out of Mukuru and continuing their educations and starting businesses. He said half of his friends he grew up with died when they were younger due to just basically losing hope that they could have something better. But he actually made it out. And he’s one of the few who have.

 Thursday night I actually got really sick from all of this Kenyan food, and decided to go to the office on Friday instead of taking the 2.5 hour complicated ride out to Mukuru. I was able to help Makena prepare for a presentation she has for OVC, and relax from everything I’d experienced this week. I also got to talk to my parents on Skype, which always makes me feel better. Friday night Malinda (American) and her husband from Ethiopia hosted a Bible talk night, and we all made dinner together. While the adults talked after, I watched Spongebog Squarepants with the kids! I seriously haven’t watched an American kid show since I left the States and it felt soo nice. We also watched Kung Fu Panda J. Little pieces of home are the best, no matter how ridiculous it seems.

Today is Saturday and Fridah and I are relaxing this morning in her apartment and then going into the city to grocery shop and get her hair done. We promised each other we would relax today, since the latest we’ve gotten up since I’ve been here is 7 am. We slept in until 8:15 am today. It was glorious. Tomorrow we have church at the big church with all the Nairobi members, consisting of over 1,600 people. And then after service there’s going to be another wedding! I’m so serious, literally everyone is getting married, engaged, or pregnant right now. It’s crazy.

Well, this is going to be the end of Week 2 in Kenya. I look forward to writing about new experiences next week with the Shuuja program. Until then, I wish you all a great week and many thanks for taking the time to keep up with my adventures! It really helps me in not having to repeat my life 20+ times.

Alles Liebe, Jessica

Kenyan Wedding: Kiki and Amos, March 3, 2012

               On Saturday the 3^rd of March, I had the amazing privilege of attending the wedding of a young couple in the Nairobi Christian Church, a sister church of my church in Munich, Clemson, and Greenville. The couple’s names are Kiki and Amos, both in their mid-twenties. They worked together for a while, and Amos eventually asked her out to church. She started coming and eventually they started dating, and got engaged. The wedding was held at the church’s very large building (they have over 1,500 members), along with the reception. I was so excited to be able to attend my first wedding in the church, and an African wedding. When some of the people that I work with learned I would be attending the wedding, they all commented on what an incredible experience that would be for me. And let me tell you, African weddings are the best weddings.

                Fridah, my ‘African Mom’ and roommate, did the make-up for Kiki, so we had to wake up especially early and meet Kiki, her family, and bridesmaids at the pastor (John) of the church’s house because his wife was feeding everyone and Kiki lives right next door to them. There were so many people in such a small space! It was a little overwhelming, especially with all of the Swahili around me, not to mention, I’m still having a really hard time understanding their English because of how strong their accents are. Kenyans have amazingly good English, however they have phrases that are so different from American English, so that when I do understand what they’re saying…I still don’t understand what they’re saying. I did learn that when a little boy or man looks handsome, they say they look ‘smart’ instead. And instead of ‘my friend gave me a ride’, they say ‘my friend dropped me’. And the most confusing one for me at first was instead of ‘I’m eating this’, they say ‘I’m taking this’. I always want to be a smart-aleck and ask where they’re taking it, but I refrain. I love it though. I love that they’ve made English into their own thing. 

                The wedding ceremony was supposed to start at 11 am, and the bride was two hours late. But apparently ‘it’s Africa’ and ‘it always happens’, according to Fridah. But when the bride and bridesmaids arrived, they were absolutely gorgeous. The bridesmaids came down one by one, and each of the groomsmen stuck their arms out halfway, and walked them the rest of the way. They each had nine attendants. The bride’s parents both walked her down the aisle and gave her away. I really liked that idea, instead of it just being the father. That makes more sense to me to have both parents walk their daughter down the aisle.  I took so many videos because it was so beautiful, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to add them to Facebook until I get back to Munich, because so far no videos have been working. 

                The service started with a prayer, worship songs including “How Great is Our God” and two African songs in Swahili that sounded amazing with so many people. After that John gave a message on Amos 3:3 (“Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?”), Jeremiah 29:11, and Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”). I was honestly so grateful to not have heard “Love is patient, love is kind…”.  That is an excellent scripture, but it’s overused for weddings. I just thought it was really encouraging that they took the time to explain marriage from a biblical perspective of love rather than the cheesy emotional part that sometimes doesn’t have the depth needed to make a marriage last. I hope that doesn’t sound rude or judgmental because I honestly don't understand what that kind of commitment really is or means yet, but as I grow older I certainly want to keep learning.

                They then said their vows, and “I Do’s”, and went on stage to sign their marriage certificate. After they came back down, a group of their guy friends performed for them, and then a young girl sang a song from Luther Vandross, all of which sounded amazing. They finished the ceremony by playing fun African music really loud and the bride and groom dancing together back up the aisle, followed by their bridesmaids and groomsmen. Even the kids were dancing behind them. I took a video of it because it made me smile so much.

                The bride and groom went to take picture while the rest of us ate lunch, and enjoyed the entertainment. The food was beef, rice, and vegetables, which is generally what they eat. It tasted good, but it’s always in such large proportions that I can’t ever finish all of it, which I think feels rude. And to drink they had cases and cases of many flavored Fantas. I don’t think I’ve ever even drank a Fanta before, and that’s seriously seems to be one of the most popular drinks they serve here. They even had a pineapple flavor. 

                After eating, the entertainers, who were four tall, nice guys dressed in black sweaters with green, red, and yellow-shaped diamonds going down the front called all of the ladies forward to begin dancing. He said that the ladies were to keep dancing until the wedding couple arrived. Apparently when they have an early wedding here instead of a night wedding, the bride and groom’s “first dance” is being welcomed in by the guests rather than them dancing alone to ‘their song’ in the middle. Fridah told me to get up so that she could teach me how to dance. I smiled at her, got up, and jumped right in with all of the ladies dancing, and she was like “Hoo ahh yoh?” in her strong African accent. It was so awkward because I was the only white person out of seriously over five hundred people. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. And I’ve also never heard the word “Musungu” (white person) more in my life. It’s so funny because if we said anything like that about another race in the states, we’d be in so much trouble. 

                We probably danced for a couple of hours out in the hot sun, but despite the heat I thoroughly enjoyed it. After all of the dancing, we sat down while the bridesmaids, groomsmen, and other friends and family shared about the newlyweds. Then people lined up in front of them to give them their gifts. An envelope was also passed around to donate money to the couple. So different! Then they cut the cake and handed out really small square pieces to everyone. Some of the small pieces were even wrapped up in plastic and tied with string that matched the color scheme of the wedding. And then after that, we all said our goodbyes and the couple left for their honeymoon.

         

       This event literally lasted the whole day, but I’m extremely glad I was able to participate in such a monumental event, and especially to see it from a different culture’s perspective!

I will post Week 2 Blog soon, even though I haven’t started it…

I hope everyone has had a great week. Love from Nairobi.

Jess

Karibu Nairobi, Kenya! Week 1

               Right now I am sitting on my bed that’s in the room I will be living in for the next five weeks. I am officially in Nairobi, Kenya, Africa. I still cannot believe that I am here, and waking up at 5:30 this morning made me so groggy and completely confused. It took me a minute or two to realize I wasn’t in Munich, which in hindsight is improvement from waking up in Germany and thinking I was in America. After not sleeping the day/night before (I can’t sleep on airplanes), the five hours of sleep I got just did not feel like enough. But that’s okay because I’m sure I’ll be getting a lot of sleep tonight.

                I left from Munich on the 27^th at 7:10 am, had a connection in London, and then arrived in Nairobi at 10 pm. One of the ladies, Sarah Josiah, who works with HOPE Worldwide, the organization I’m working with, picked me up from the airport with her 9-year-old daughter Aisha. It was so weird because I had to withdraw Kenyan money due to the fact that all I had were Euros and American money. By the way, the currency here is Kenyan Shillings, and so different from Euros and Dollars. When the options were given to me on the ATM screen asking how much to withdraw, it ranged from 1,000 KS to 10,000 KS. My mouth literally dropped open because my mind immediately thinks in Dollars or Euros now. However, one US dollar is equal to 80 Kenyan Shillings. So once you do the math, it’s not really that big of a deal. It’s even kind of fun spending 100 KS and it only equals $1.20.

                Sarah, Aisha, and I drove to where I’m living for the next five weeks, which is with a lady who is a part of the church and works with HOPE. Her name is Fridah (it reminds me of zufrieden in German, and that makes me happy), she’s twice my age and extremely sweet and hospitable. Her room is just a little bigger than mine in Studentenstadt and she’s sharing it with me for over a month. If any of you know how small my room is in Stusta, than you absolutely understand that it’s not made for more than one person, and how much she is sacrificing by letting me stay there.   

By the way, the weather here is INCREDIBLE. I was and have so much been looking forward to the warmth after having been frozen to death for the last three months or so. I haven’t worn a jacket at all since I’ve been here J. And on my first day on our trip out to one of the slums HOPE works with, Mukuru, the weather still did not disappoint. I was sweating only after an hour of being there. And I think for maybe the first time in my life, I was not complaining about hot weather. Before going there, Fridah and I walked to a hotel where a volunteer group from Canada was staying at, and they were going to Mukuru with us to distribute everything their program collected for the kids. They work with program called “Sleeping Children around the World”, and I’m pretty sure it’s not in the United States. Here’s the link though, if you are interested in checking it out: http://www.scaw.org/about/index.html.

They were the nicest group of people, two older married couples, and a younger engaged couple in their late twenties. They were cracking up together the entire time and made everything extremely light-hearted and fun. Plus they are all very well-traveled and had some amazing stories to tell about their adventures. We drove from the hotel to the slums, and OH MY GOSH, the driving here is insane. First off, they drive on the opposite side of the road (when there is a road), and second off, there are no lines dividing the two sides of the road. And no one really follows the driving rules here, everyone drives all over the place (Mom, don’t freak out). And then by the time we got to Mukuru, the road started to get extremely bumpy and eroded, which reminded me a lot of the roads we drove through in Panama three years ago. On the way to the HOPE section in Mukuru, many shacks were set up with people selling the most random things. Things ranged from shoes, to food, to hair dressers, to furniture shops, to auto-mechanic repair, to even a mini store selling Apple products. It was so odd to see these places that are so normal in everyday life, minimalized into a shack, with no windows, and broken doors. It looked so out of place, and confusing because I couldn’t understand how these people could sell these products when they couldn’t afford a home, or a safe building to sell them in. 

                The slums of Mukuru are home to over 600,000 people. Most of these people have left their rural homes because of poverty and came to the city in the hope of finding work. Some are successful but the majority, being unskilled and uneducated, remain jobless. They live in very poor shacks made from cardboard or plastic material while those who are a little better off have houses made from corrugated iron sheets. The one-roomed houses are approximately ten by ten feet and have no sanitation or running water. There is no waste collection and most of the waste, household and other, goes directly into a nearby river. About 60% of Nairobi’s population lives in slum conditions. Slum dwellers pay rent for their shacks to landlords who ‘own’ the land. The amount varies from US $12-25 per month depending on the location of the house. There is no space for children to play. There are no recreation facilities for adults or children with the exception of bars, video shops, pool tables. Many turn to local brew, drugs and crime.

We spent the majority of the day giving over 700 kids living  in Mukuru pajamas and bed sets from the program in Canada. However, it took a very long time for a job that shouldn’t have taken the whole day. The problem is that some kids were not eligible to receive the pjs and bed sets because they were not as ‘needy’ as other kids in Mukuru. So those kids and their parents sat outside of the barred wires all day, looking in and watching, with some of the kids even crying. The sad part is that children had to be given their beds one by one, and marked with a black marker on their thumbs after getting them in order to make sure the kids who weren’t eligible for beds didn’t sneak in and steal a kid’s who was eligible, or the same kid trying to take a second bed that wasn’t theirs. Apparently things like that happen a lot there, and it’s usually because the parents of the kids are encouraging their kids to do it. I think that’s the saddest part of all.

My job for the day was to take pictures of the children, which I was extremely happy to do. I ended taking 345 pictures only having been there for a day. Almost every single picture is of the kids. I was told constantly to just go up to the kids and take pictures of them, but I felt like I was invading their personal spaces. But then I quickly found out why they said that—the kids LOVE taking pictures, cameras, and seeing themselves in the pictures. They were absolutely adorable, posing, laughing, showing peace signs, ‘modeling’ for me, and some were even trying to teach me some Swahili. There were two younger girls who at one point asked me to come sit with them under the white tent in some chairs. I was really confused and followed to be polite. They looked really shy at first, and then they started singing to me! It was so precious; they sang “Stand By Me” and sounded so good! And while they sang, other girls played with my hair (my favoriteeee) and asked how I got my hair so soft haha. The kids of Mukuru are really delightful, and I’m so excited to continue working with them for the next five weeks.

After Mukuru, Fridah and I went to the grocery store, and I was incredibly impressed by their selection. I guess my only previous view of Africa was like slums, tribes, safaris…very stereotypical stuff, and it’s weird to me that there’s a semblance of normalcy here, like in Germany or America. They do have little weird things though—the city bus is really sketchy, looks broken down, and has no indication that it is the city bus, but it only costs about 20 Ksh per ride. They also have these super sketchy vans called 'Matatu’s, which are vans that people literally just buy and ride all over the city, charging people however much they want and driving like crazies. My first experience with a Matatu was the door man (they have door mans because of how fast they go, you literally have to run into the van before they start back up again and shut the door in your face) sticking up his middle finger up at me, and the second time a lady fell out from the side and almost landed on her head on the ground. Needless to say, they’re not my most favorite contraption in the world.

                Wednesday was my first day at the HOPE Worldwide office and I finally was able to access the internet since I’ve been here! It was so nice because it always helps me in feeling some connection with both of my homes. I received some emails from Clemson, some in German, and a few from Africa as well. I’m literally at the point where I’m living three lives and spreading myself across three countries. I find it very exhausting at times. Even at Midweek (they’re called the Nairobi Christian Church) I was introduced as Jessica Kirkus from Munich, Germany, and then at the end of the message I was Jessica from South Carolina. Everyone was extremely confused, and had no idea whether I was German or American. Ha, welcome to my life. It was cute though because they kept asking me how to say things in German at first because they thought I was a real German. That made me really happy. Not because I’m trying to prove myself as a German, but just because it helps me feel a stronger connection with Germany as my current home. I won’t be able to call it home much longer and any chance to meet new people while I’m living there is just really exciting. Not to mention, I was really glad to not just be another American showing up that only knows the English language.

                I was supposed to have my orientation at the HOPE office on Wednesday, but I got an email from my research professor saying I needed to get my research paper in as soon as possible so that Clemson will release my scholarship money for second semester. So I literally spent most of the day writing my research paper and getting situated with little things like paperwork, meeting the staff, finishing my Paris blog, and uploading the photos I took from the first day in Mukuru. I even got to skype my mom twice, and David and Patrick once. And then I went with one of the lady’s there (about half of the employees at HOPE are a part of the church) to Midweek.

                I had no idea what to expect for church here. I didn’t know what language anything would be in, how everyone would respond to me being there, if they had anyone my age, how big they were, and I felt myself getting extremely shy like I first did when I got to Munich. The Nairobi church has around 1,500 people, which is the biggest I’ve ever been a part of. They were really sweet and welcoming, with half of the songs in English and the other ones in Swahili. Although I had no idea what the Swahili ones were saying, they were my favorites out of the songs played. When they switched to those songs, they didn’t just sing and sway back and forth, instead they shouted, they laughed, they danced, they played these huge bongo drums, and they just had soul. It sounded incredibly amazing and I caught myself smiling the entire time. The message was in English (thank God) as well. And at the end one couples announced their engagement, and another couple I had just met is getting married on Saturday and invited me to their wedding. Apparently in Africa, everyone is invited to the wedding, and I think that’s really cool, and encouraging. It will be the first wedding in the church that I’ve been to since being baptized J. I’m so, so excited.

Thursday and Friday consisted of much information concerning Orientation. There are many different sectors, jobs, and roles in HOPE, all of which are very interesting. The more I learn about what they do, the more I feel like I could want to be a part of something like this one day. They work together as a team to really build their community. They have this passion that I really haven’t seen in a work area before. True, my experiences are limited, but if there’s ever a chance in the future where I could be a part of something like this, I don’t know if I could say no to it. I found out today that I will be working with three different programs while I’m here. For my first week, starting on Monday, I will be working with ‘Orphans and Vulnerable Children’ (OVC), the second week I’m working with Shuuja, which is Swahili for ‘hero’, and then with the Blood department, which I’m not entirely sure entails, I just know there’s a huge blood shortage in Nairobi and Kenya. I will be sure to write out in detail what each program is about in my next blogs, but for now I’m going to end this one.

My first week has been really exciting, tiring, nerve-wracking, but super beneficial in helping me figure out what my passion is so that I can follow that passion down whatever road I want to take in life. I don’t ever want to pursue something I don’t truly have a passion for because I know myself well enough to be sure that I will never  be able to force myself to have enough patience for it. But so far, this feels like the right direction. I’m not sure whether I’ll have internet next week, but if I do, I’ll do my best to post a Week 2 blog then. The internet here is really slow, so I’m going to wait until I get back to Munich to post pictures. Until then I hope you all enjoy my ridiculously longs blogs!

Love, Jessica 

Links to photos on Facebook:

Sleeping Children Around the World:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151381371380235.829331.654390234&type=1

Random:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151381350015235.829321.654390234&type=3
 

C'est beau! La belle Vie: Paris, France

          The beginning of February has started off to be a stressful preparation for the two month break ahead. The first few days began with our finals, all of which went very well and were over incredibly quickly. I will miss my classes that I took, and my professors, but I have to say that I am very excited to be signing up for classes at the actual German university next semester. So far I know that I want to take an introductory course to Spanish. I’ve contemplated whether wanting to take Spanish or French as a third language, but after having spent time around both languages, I feel like Spanish is going to be much more beneficial with living in America and wanting to pursue a profession in medicine. And I have also realized that, when it comes down to it, no language sounds as beautiful as my first.

Other classes I know I want to take are continuing my undergraduate research project at JYM along with an internship with a children’s clinic about an hour outside of Munich. I’ve also recently realized that I already have all the credits I need for my German minor, and my Biology major will be taken care of with my schedule that’s already set up for my senior year. So basically outside of the classes I’ve already written for second semester, I can take whatever I want. I’m kind of really excited about this opportunity. Hello classes that allow me to go outside and do nothing, while relaxing in the Englischer Garten...

Other news for the month of February is that one of my good friends from my program, Heather, went home with the end of the first semester. Sami and I went with her to the airport to help her with her luggage and see her off. However, it didn’t work out quite as well as we’d hoped and we ended up having lunch with her at the airport and helping her work out a flight home for the next day. At least we got to spend more time with her though. I will miss her during second semester. She was the only person in my program to leave from first semester. Her school allowed her to come for first semester, even though that’s really hard to do. Most students who study abroad for only one semester come for the second semester, which is shown to be apparent by the 30-40 new JYMers we have coming in throughout the months of February, March, and April. Our JYM group of 28-30 is going to more than double. That’s going to be a crazy difference considering the fact that we have about 25 girls and 5 guys. 

The other news I have is that I will be RAing at Clemson for my senior year! They placed me as working with international students and living in Calhoun Courts or Thornhill Village. It’s kind of hard because a lot of my friends my age have already moved off-campus and want to stay there, so I have no idea who I will be living with. However, I have a lot of confidence that it will work out for the best. Everything has fallen into place too well for me to have decided to not be an RA. I’m really excited for the opportunities it will bring and hope so much that there will be a few Germans that live near me. I have no idea how to keep my German up once I go home, and I think I will also really miss German society and culture.

From the 15^th to the 21^st Sami and I traveled to Paris to visit two of our really good friends. I stayed with my friend, Tyler, and she stayed with her French friend, Marine. The city and French culture remind me a lot of the Germans. They’re very particular and strict about certain customs and forms of order. They also have that standoffish personality until you get to know them well. However, from having met Marine and her French friends, they are really sweet and very patient with the language barrier and us growing accustomed to their culture.

Tyler lives in an apartment right near Notre Dame. The stop is actually called Saint Michel-Notre Dame.  As soon as you come up out of the Metro or walk over a couple of streets from the apartment, you can see the beautiful architecture of the church and the large amount of tourists standing around snapping pictures or waiting to go inside. He can literally walk anywhere from his apartment, including the store, Starbucks, McDonald’s (sometimes this place is essential to have nearby when you’ve been out of American culture for a while), Crêpes, international food places, and really anything else you can think of. It was extremely helpful to not have to buy so many metro passes.
 

Sami and I had a 4:30 PM flight from Munich, but we decided to get to the airport early and work for a little while. After the fiasco with Heather, we decided it was absolutely not worth the risk and took our time waiting for our flight. We got in quickly and Tyler met us at a stop in front of Notre Dame. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him, and it’s been such a long time since we’ve got to spend quality time together that part of me had no idea how to approach it. We’ve grown up together, but we haven’t had a lot of one-on-one time because we’re always in a group of people or involved with some activity. Not to mention we go to different colleges in different cities, which makes things harder to coordinate. However, it’s kind of ironic then that the quality time we finally get to have together is randomly spent in Paris, France.

That night we also met with Sami’s friend and went to eat Tappas at a cute hole-in-the-wall place by Marine’s apartment. We ordered Sangria, ham and cheese quesadillas, a baked potato with cheese thing, mushrooms, and pork, all to split. Compared to mine and Sami’s experience with Tappas in Amsterdam, this one was much better and much cheaper. It was also extremely weird to be hearing so much French and not having the slightest clue how to respond. Many times I would forget even what ‘Hello’ or ‘thank you’ was in French, and I would catch myself automatically answering in German. One time later during the week I almost ran into a biker and yelled out ‘Entschuldigung’ before I could stop myself. Tyler and his friend, Paul, just looked at me and laughed. My poor brain can’t handle so many languages. Let’s be honest, I can barely handle English.

Tyler lives in the city center and has a roommate, named Jesse, who was really nice to meet and be around. The inside of their apartment was absolutely gorgeous, complete with a loft for their beds, spacious living room space and kitchen, with an oven, microwave, and washer-dryer. It’s so much nicer than my place at StuSta! Not that I need all the fancy extras, but wow wouldn’t it be nice sometimes. They even had adorable murals painted on the wall, giving the place a much homier, French, sophisticated feel. The couch turned into a pull-out bed and that’s where I slept for the five nights I was there.

Thursday morning Tyler and I decided to go grocery shopping so that I could have some food at his apartment and not have to eat out everywhere. On the way we ran into Danielle, the other girl we went to high school with, that was coming to visit Tyler for the weekend. We got ingredients to make soup, bread, goat cheese, jam, and wine, along with the food for Danielle and I for the week. Tyler and I also bought my first Crêpe on the way—sugar and cinnamon, so good!

After eating lunch we met with Tyler’s friend, Paul, and walked to an American bakery called ‘Sugarplum’ that Tyler will be interning with for the rest of this semester. It was so nice to be able to go into a place that spoke English without it feeling awkward. The place was adorable, and we ordered a variety of teas and coffee with carrot cakes, apple-ginger cakes, and a blonde brownie. We stayed in there for the afternoon talking (not to mentioned, I’d ordered unlimited coffee for only 4 Euro!), and Tyler explained the role of his internship a little more. He will have to do the intern stuff as far as washing dishes and cleaning up, but he’ll get to learn a lot from the design making and baking in general, which I’m really excited for him to experience. He gets to work in an American bakery in Paris, France…how perfect is that?!

That night we went to an American restaurant called ‘Breakfast in America’ (are you seeing a trend here with American food?). Sami invited Marine and Danielle invited her French friend that stayed with her as an exchange student for a few weeks during our junior year of high school. I ordered the first real cheeseburger for the first time since I left America—AND IT WAS SO GOOD. Oh! And they had Heinz ketchup, which is very hard to come by these days which sounds German, so why is it lacking here?? Sami ordered blueberry pancakes, which came with powdered sugar and syrup, which also is extremely hard to come by. I secretly wanted to eat her food as well.

Friday was tourist day for Danielle and I since Tyler had class all afternoon. The three of us started the morning by going to a pleasant bakery near Tyler’s school where we ordered croissants, coffees, and baguettes of bread with raisons. I thought French croissants would have some different taste, better somehow, in comparison with Germany’s…but they kind of taste the same to me…beautiful, but still the same. However, their chocolate croissants are different because Munich uses Nutella in theirs, and Paris used actual pieces of chocolate, which I found to be extremely more enjoyable than Nutella. Nutella’s texture is a little too grainy for my taste. OH however I did try to order in French and I totally pulled it off! It’s only because I said “Croissant please” and “thank you” and they didn’t ask me any complicated questions after. I was super excited.

Danielle and I walked around a lot, and took as many pictures as possible. I think I ended up with 365 pictures from my entire stay at Paris, many of which came from Musee du Louvre, which is a huge museum of Paris that I would compare to the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. We spent over three hours walking in and out of each area, seeing the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci (which I still don’t understand the importance of) and the famous Greek statue that I currently can’t remember the name of. I was a little disappointed because everything was written in French with no English translation, so I didn’t know what a lot of the explanations were. But I still really enjoyed looking through each section and seeing what Paris considers worthy as portraying in their famous Louvre.

                After the Louvre (where I also got to try French hot chocolate—very similar to German hot chocolate and super delicious), we went to Notre Dame to look inside. Notre Dame may have been my most favorite place that I visited in Paris as far as the ‘famous’ tourist attractions. There’s something extremely unique about cathedral that really sets it apart. It was also kind of hard to not compare everything I was seeing inside to the Disney movie “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, because I’m not sure I would even be aware of the church’s existence without the movie. Here is some information on Notre Dame:

              Located at the center of Paris and that of France (distances from Paris to all parts of France are calculated from the center of the plaza), Notre Dame had witnessed some of the greatest moments in the city's history. Its setting on the banks of the Seine is beautiful and inspiring. This spot had seen people praying for over 2000 years; a Roman temple, a Christian basilica and Romanesque church preceded the Gothic masterpiece that is the cathedral. Construction on Notre Dame was started in 1163 under the auspices of Bishop de Sully and completed around 1345, roughly 180 years later.   Despite various changes during the following centuries, the cathedral remained largely unaltered until the French Revolution when it was damaged by the revolutionaries. Napoleon restored some of the cathedral's prestige by crowning himself emperor here in 1804, but even after this event the building was left in decline until 1840's when much needed restoration started (largely due to a petition written by Victor Hugo, who brought the public's attention to the poor state of the cathedral). The task of restoration was entrusted to Viollet-le-Duc, who carried out extensive works remaking much of the statuary on the facade and adding the gargoyles, which you can see up close if you brave the ascent of the towers.

Later that night, Danielle went to meet some of her friends while Tyler, Sami, and I went with Marine to her friend’s apartment, ate appetizers, drank wine, and talked for a while. Marine and her friends spoke in French the whole time so Tyler, Sami, and I had our own English conversation because we had absolutely no idea what they were saying haha. Tyler did a little because he’s learning French, but he finds spoken, conversational French to be very different from what’s taught at school.

I was really glad he had the opportunity to listen and speak some with them though. It really is one of the most encouraging things when a native speaker has the patience to (slowly and sometimes painfully) teach you their language, especially when they already know you’re embarrassed, timid, and unsure of yourself or what you’re saying. Speaking a foreign language is just extremely scary. It can be exhilarating and hilarious at times, but also (from my experience) make you want to go find a corner and hide (which I've done--don't tell). I think the scariest thing about endeavoring toward such a feat is the fact that you lose all sense of expressing yourself. You don’t know if what you’re saying is coming across correctly, and you have no gauge or barriers for what you’re saying because everything is brand new, shaky, or you’re not sure which phrase, verb, or even which word fits more appropriately in what situation.

Anyway, Saturday was spent with Tyler and Danielle again, grabbing breakfast, thrift shopping, filafals, and the Eiffel Tower. Tyler and Danielle had plans to go to a concert that night, so I met up with Sami at Notre Dame and we took the Metro to Champs-Elysees…or the really famous shopping street with the Arc de Triomphe at the end. The Arc de Triomphe is biggest triumphal arch in the world, about 164 meters high. It was commisioned by Napoleon in 1806 to commemorate his victory but wasn't ready for his bride entrance into Paris, 4 years later. It wasn't actually completed until 1836, under the reign of Louis-Philippe. In 1944, it was used for the liberation of Paris parade, and, since then, it has been used for state funerals and other various parades.

Sami and I went in and out of the shops until her friend Marine called us to meet her and her boyfriend for a French dinner. We ordered champagne, and I ordered duck and potatoes. For dessert I ordered the chocolate mousse. It was extremely good!

Sunday Danielle left and Tyler and I were supposed to meet Sami and Marine for the Paris Carnival. However, Sami got really sick and Marine had to take her to the hospital. The later found out she has a kidney stone, which she’s still trying to work through. I felt so bad for her because she would have the most random spouts of pain, and there was just nothing I could do to help her other than wait for it to pass with her.

While Sami and Marine were at the hospital, Tyler and I met his friend Paul and we went to the Luxembourg  Gardens, bought beautifully colored macaroons, and then went to the Jewish part of town (because it was Sunday and they were the only stores open) to buy ingredients for dinner. Paul and I were very quick to point out that we have no cooking knowledge, and Tyler smiled, and said he had it under control. By the way, Tyler is a fantastic cook. Before he went to Paris, he was a Pescatarian for a couple of years (no meat except fish), which forced him to get a little creative with what he cooked and ate. So I picked out the beer (the one skill Munich gave me), Paul got the vegetables and baguette, and Tyler took care of everything else. He made us a vegetable soup with lintel und es hat sehr, sehr gut geschmeckt.

Monday was mine and Sami’s last day. Marine had to work during the day so Sami met Tyler and I and we walked around a lot because it was an absolutely gorgeous day outside. We also went to Galaria Lafeyette, which is a gigantic shopping center with very fancy brand names like Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Chanel, etc. At the top of the shopping center they had a gelato place, and I ordered some. They even shaped the gelato into a flower. On the roof of Lafeyette there’s a look out for people to see the city. We went to the roof just as the sun was setting, which made some of the most beautiful pictures of the city that we took throughout the entire trip. I was really glad to be able to see Paris in such a beautiful way on our last day. The pictures we got were incredible, and captured the city well.

That night Sami stayed with Tyler, Jesse, and I because we had an extremely early flight and Tyler lives the closest to the airport. I thoroughly enjoyed the time that I got to spend there, especially with Tyler and Sami, and I really do hope to go back one day.

While finishing this blog of Paris, I am currently sitting at my desk in Nairobi, Kenya, Africa, where I will be volunteering for the next five weeks. I plan to do a blog per week while I'm here because there's just SO MUCH to tell. I can't wait to start writing about everything! I'll update soon!

Also because the internet connection here is very frustrating, here's a link to my Paris pictures on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151347490135235.824525.654390234&type=3&l=775d6813d9

"I AMsterdam" January 27th-30th, 2012

I am happy to say as I am writing this blog that I have finished taking all of my finals (Klausuren). It’s quite the relief to be able to say that I don’t have any left. Unfortunately I’ve been having a really hard time working on my research. I have a lot of information that I can use, so thank goodness that that’s not the problem at all. However, I think the biggest problem is getting myself to find the work ethic to finish just this last bit of work. As long as I get my paper turned in before I go to Africa then that should be fine. I kind of like the way American schools generally set very strict deadlines. Here in Germany all I want to do is bask in the glory of not having the same school system, having finished all of my finals, travels that are coming up within the next couple of weeks and anything that doesn’t involve doing more work. However, in reality, that doesn’t work just yet. But it will get done. I’m excited to see how I can continue my research on into German society next semester too.

One of my friends that I travelled to Amsterdam with, Sami, and I are travelling to Paris, France on Wednesday, the 15^th, to visit our friends. One of her really good friends is French and lives in Paris, and one of my really good friends from childhood is studying abroad there for the semester. I’m so excited to be able to meet Sami’s friend and see Tyler in his French glory. I also love the fact that Tyler’s last name is French. Tyler French is living in France and learning French. I get a kick out of that, what can I say. We will be staying there for six days, and then coming back to Munich. Sami will be leaving for Malta right away and I will have six days until I leave for Nairobi, Kenya. I still have to get my shots for Typhus, Malaria, and Yellow Fever, and I’m hoping to be able to do that tomorrow sometime. The problem is that Yellow Fever is apparently a very dangerous shot to carry, so they may not have it right away. 

 This is a picture of Tyler and I when we were around 1 or so in daycare. 1992.

I never got the chance to write about our trip to Amsterdam, Netherlands until now, and I hope to be able to give the city the justice it deserves. We had a direct flight from Munich to Amsterdam with Lufthansa very early in the morning. We took a taxi from Studentenstadt around 3 am, which was actually quite pleasant (I hate taxis), and had the opportunity to speak German with the cute older man driving the taxi. It’s always so exciting to be able to have small talk in situations like these. It even helps us a lot in being able to think on our feet in German and just have opportunity to speak. We have a great program, but unless you are able to make friends with Germans, it’s really, really hard to find beneficial opportunities to speak outside of getting a Sprachpartner.

Anyway, we got to the airport really early and checked in. We had to wait a while for our flight, which was perfectly fine because it’s better to be obnoxiously early than running behind. Heather passed out on the seats in the airport, which is what I eventually decided to do, while Sami and Caroline paced around the terminal taking advantage of the free coffee, hot chocolate, and cappuccinos. I’m pretty sure the term ‘double fisting it’ was used once or twice.

We arrived in Amsterdam honestly not having the slightest clue of what we were doing. We had gotten our flight stuff together, but hadn’t had a lot of time to plan our actual trip due to the fact that it was the weekend before our finals started. So we were basically at the airport not really knowing what steps to take next. We’d already found and paid for our hotel thanks to Groupon (I have built a deep love relationship with Groupon), but had forgotten to print out directions to the hotel, or even write down the name and address. Sami was able to find internet on her ipod and we eventually got it worked out. We also decided to buy the ‘I Amsterdam’ Card. If you’re interested in looking at what it has to offer, here is the link: http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/visiting/iamsterdamcard

The card basically is created for travelers who are going to Amsterdam for a limited amount of time 

and want to get the most out of their experience as possible. You can buy the card for different prices for 24 hours, 48 hours, or 72 hours. Basically, the first time you use the card, it becomes activated and you then have however many hours you bought it for to use it. This is a really good system in my opinion; however it can be a little stressful for the buyer when trying to make sure they get their moneys-worth. The card comes with a large booklet of suggestions for the buyer to experience, along with a transportation card within the inner city, and vouchers to get free things like a cup of coffee, discounts on food, or discounts on items you’d like to buy. It also comes with a map and very nice introduction to the city of Amsterdam. 

We finally got directions on how to get from the airport to the hotel and made a few wrong turns in the process. It was so strange because we had to board a bus that we had already taken because we’d gone too far down the busline, and the man driving the bus was the same one from before. Instead of him being rude or discouraging, he smiled and asked where we needed to go so that he could try to help us. Then he just had a conversation with Caroline and me! It was so strange because in Germany that generally doesn’t happen. I mean it can, they’re not mean people, but it is rare. And it was so refreshing to be able to pick up a conversation with a stranger and for him to have been so helpful. When we got to the bus stop that we needed to get off at he even pointed us in the direction of our hotel and gave specific instructions. It was very helpful and we found it quickly and efficiently.

Heather and I roomed together and Caroline and Sami were together. The Groupon deal also offered free breakfast for each morning that we were there, which turned out to be a beautiful all-you-can-eat buffet with breakfast foods of every kind. My favorite thing they had was a very large coffee machine that made whatever kind of coffee you wanted! All you had to do was push a button. Technology is mighty lovely at times.

That Friday, January 27^th, our Amsterdam journey began. We were all starving and starting looking through our Amsterdam booklets to see how to best map out our day. We ate first at a place called ‘The Pancake Bakery’. THIS WAS THE BEST PLACE EVER. EVER EVER. It was like the Willy Wonka World version of chocolate and sweets. They had pancakes of every flavor, size, and shape. They had international pancakes, Amsterdam specialty pancakes, dessert pancakes, meat pancakes, create-your-own pancakes…seriously, does it get much better? I ordered banana and nutella pancakes and split with Sami, who ordered one of the international pancakes (those got discounts with the Amsterdam card) that hat ham, bacon, onions, and cheese. It sounds really weird but it honestly just tasted like pizza. Beautiful.

After we ate, we moseyed around in the city in awe of the beautiful designs, layout, and architecture of the buildings in Amsterdam. The canals are absolutely incredible and unbelievably gorgeous. 

Here are some of my favorite pictures of them:

After a lot of exploring, picture-taking, and getting lost, we eventually found our way to maybe the most well-known part of Amsteram—Dam. It’s a large shopping area with incredibly structured buildings, which appear like city hall buildings in Munich (or look like castles to anyone who’s not used to such beautiful architecture). We were searching for a place called “The Amsterdam Dungeon”, which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Amsterdam, as far as things to do. It’s a very interesting approach to explaining the history behind Amsterdam because every part of the story is being acted out by real people who are acting as if they are still in that time period. It’s literally like taking a time machine back to each point in time and living it out yourself. The thing is is that they’ve put somewhat of a spooky twist with it. Each area is meant to add some level of scare to each person’s experience. For example, at one point Sami was made to go into the next pitch-black room by herself, while the rest of us stayed behind. This actually resulted in Sami almost fighting someone, which was actually one of my favorite parts of the entire Dungeon experience. 

At the end of the tour there was even a baby roller coaster ride. The tour was done in English and Dutch, which was incredibly awesome to hear. I never knew how similar Dutch and German were. Dutch is almost even a mix of English of German, and I would even dare say easy to read if one has a good understanding of both languages. I was in awe of each of the actors who could switch back and forth so easily between the English and Dutch. By the way, people from Amsterdam speak perfect English. Everyone there speaks perfect English because..let’s be honest…no one knows Dutch. I have a lot of respect for that though. On the roller coaster ride two children from Norway got separated from their parents and started freaking out. We were trying to make them feel better but had absolutely no way of communicating that to them. How’s that for two languages and neither one of them is useful…

After the Amsterdam Dungeon we decided to do our free boat tour through the canals at night. By this point I was unbelievably exhausted and could barely stay awake due to the fact that I’d only slept for 2 hours the night before travelling. I can’t fall asleep anywhere to save my life, unless it’s in my own bed, but I am about 95% sure I fell asleep sitting up during the entire canal tour. One minute we were starting, the next we were finished. Oops. During the tour though I do remember them repeating everything they said in English, Dutch, French, Spanish, and German. Can you imagine trying to translate so many languages at one time? It was pre-recorded tour, which played over the speakers, but literally everywhere we went, things were written out in at least four languages. I loved seeing the German, however, because it was my first time outside of Germany that I could get a real feel of where my German is without having the constant pressure of speaking it around Germans. Being in a relaxed environment like Amsterdam was very encouraging for my language skills and through the relaxation I was able to understand a lot of the German used in many occurrences. 

After the boat ride we went to a cute restaurant called Restaurant Manzano. Sami and I accidentally ordered wayyy too much food (due to the Dutch menu, oops) and spent way more money than we had intended. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much food in my life. I wasn’t even hungry until dinner time the next day.

Saturday entailed a very different experience from Amsterdam. Caroline wanted very badly to see where the clogs were made, and so we made our trek with the train out to Zaanse Schans. This area was further from the city and included various windmills, clog-making stores, cute houses floating on the water, a family-run bakery, a diamond store, ferry rides over the river, special Dutch cheeses, pottery, and a family-run restaurant. It was kind of like the outskirts of a small southern town, from my perspective. I absolutely adored it. We took many pictures, and I bought a pair of baby clogs. I would have loved to buy my own personal clogs, but they ranged in price from 45 Euro to over 100 Euro. Desirable, but unfortunately not sensible. However, Sami did buy a pair (because she has small children feet) and I am now super jealous that I don’t have my own personal clogs to sport around in Munich. We didn’t get to spend as much time there as we’d hoped because the day was going away too quickly and there was still much we wanted to see and do. 

After Zaanse Schans, we traveled back to the city toward the Red Light District for a night tour. Let me tell you, I was extremely weary and freaked out by this. I was very interested in how they approached prostitution in this area because it’s completely legal, which is something not many places in the world condone. As we were walking toward the Red Light District the distinct smell of marijuana kept getting stronger and part of me wanted to turn around and run away. And as we got closer to the clear windows with the red lights shining above them, it didn’t make me feel much better. It was a very scary thing walking into it, but now I would say I’m extremely glad that I did go there. 

The tour was led by a Dutch lady who worked at the “Prostitution Information Center”. This center was created by a lady who was actually a prostitute herself for many years, working at Red Light. During her work there, she realized how ill-informed many people were about the business of prostitution as far as how it worked, how prostitutes are viewed, how much it can cost if purchasing, and what is expected from people should they choose to purchase, etc. From this she decided that it was important for her to start an information center in order to encourage safety for all parties involved that choose to spend time in the Red Light District. They literally encourage anyone who has any kind of question (even the most embarrassing ones you can think of) to come to their center so that they can give you the best and most informative answer possible. As much as I don’t agree with the trade, I do have respect for that. 

The tour that we went on was very informative and handled very professionally. The lady who gave the tour herself had not been a prostitute; however, she had studied prostitution at the university for many years and got her degree in it. She constantly made the joke that her parents were very proud haha. Prostitution is just viewed extremely differently in Amsterdam. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it is respected, but I would say it is viewed just as common a profession as a banker or working in a restaurant. The oldest prostitute actually still working there was in her 60s!!! And she had been working there since her 20s. Unimaginable. She said also, however, that one of the downsides is that a lot of people who work there do live double lives. A lot of them are married and have spouses and children who have no idea of what their real profession is. That made me really sad to hear that.

There’s a lot more I could write about what I learned there, but I won’t because I would encourage you to go for yourself, learn the culture and atmosphere, and create your own opinion. Mine is that I think it’s excellent they have a smart way of informing outsiders of the “Unsaid Rules” of the Red Light District, and also to be sure that if one does venture there then one (hopefully) won’t act like a complete idiot. I still don’t agree with the profession, despite how much money it brings in, but I think they handle it as best as it could be handled, considering the complications that may come with such a profession. 

Here are the few pictures I took from Red Light. They really don't like people taking pictures, so I did my best to not disrespect that wish.

 These buildings on the water in the Red Light District are the most expensive places to live in Amsterdam. Millions and millions of Euros.

The red lights above the doors indicate where the prostitutes work.

After Red Light we went to a small pizza place and ordered Heinekens (my first one!) and personal pizzas. After dinner Caroline and I ventured to the ‘Torture Museum’ while Sami and Heather went to a different one. It was a really cool place, outside of the fact that people were tortured with these tools, and another good opportunity to practice our German since each section was written out in German, along with many other languages. After that we then went home and passed out from exhaustion. Two days down. One more day for Heather and Caroline, and two more for Sami and I.

The next day we had to check out of our hotel after breakfast. We stored our luggage there, planning to come back later that night. Caroline and Heather were flying home since they had class Monday, but Sami and I didn’t have class so we decided to stay for an extra day. I have a sister church in Amsterdam, and one of the sisters, Carolyn, invited Sami and I to stay with her, which was such a blessing because Sami and I literally had no idea where we were staying for the longest time. 

This day was literally filled with running around and trying to figure out which places to go to use our vouchers before our 48 hours expired. We went to Anne Frank’s house, which was incredible!!! I loved hearing the story and seeing where she and her family actually hid out for so many years. It was incredibly sad though going through everything and knowing the actual ending that took place. I never knew actually that their family was found out because someone had betrayed them. That just makes the entire story even sadder than originally. In the book store I bought Anne Frank’s diary in German to read and the man working at the cash register just starting speaking German with me! It was so much fun because I think he thought I was German. It put the biggest smile on my face, not because the German was hard (simple shopping lingo), but because I’m just so glad to have an understanding of a language outside of English. And not to mention that man was switching between about ten different languages. Crazy.

After Anne Frank’s house we went to the Van Gogh Museum, which was also incredible. I bought a coffee mug with “Starry Night” on the side J. After Van Gogh we went to a “Houseboat Museum”, ate lunch at a Restaurant called “Restaurant Blue”, which had a 360 degree view overlooking Amsterdam, and then went shopping at Dam. The day went by quickly and before we knew it was time for Heather and Caroline to head home. 

Pictures from the Dam Area:

Sami and I spent the rest of our night shopping at Dam and relaxing and enjoying the time away from Munich. It just felt so refreshing to be somewhere different, and even being surrounded by a different language that I wasn’t expected to speak. Sometimes the pressure of German overwhelms me. I’m thrilled to have the chance to learn, practice, and directly speak it, but sometimes I wish I didn’t have the constant pressure of….’Jessica, you really should be speaking German right now…’ which is generally a very strong pressure I’m always putting on myself.

Anyway, the time that we spent with Carolyn was so much fun, and I’m also very encouraged that Sami enjoyed it as well. She gave us dinner and we got to meet her hall mates, which all spoke English very well (the majority we met were actually American). I felt so bad because I literally felt my body trying to collapse from the exhaustion of the day and I could barely keep myself awake and upright the entire time we all talked and hung out. I could sense Sami starting to fade as well and Carolyn noticed how tired we were. She left us to have her room and bed to ourselves, and we immediately climbed into her warm bed and once again passed out, with the unanimous unquestionable decision of needing to sleep in. Carolyn, if you read this, thank you again so much. Being able to spend time with you really made my Amsterdam experience the best it could have been.

Our last day in Amsterdam was absolutely freezing cold, colder weather than I had ever felt in my life. It was so cold that it made it hard to even enjoy being outside. Sami and I went to McDonald’s for lunch because we were completely broke, and because McDonald’s had these McFlurry’s with this beautiful waffle-caramel cookie inside that I am officially in love with. If only I could remember the name of it. However, Sami found it for me here in Munich at the Starbucks, so I will have a constant supply until my time in Munich is gone. We decided to leave the city early and head back to the airport and check in early for our flight. I absolutely love big airports because they’re like a huge mall, and I feel as if I could be entertained there for hours. 

We spent a lot of time at Starbucks putting our pictures on our computer, and I finished my last blog from the week before. Then we had a pleasant, quick flight home filled with homework and sorrow for our finals in the week ahead. And as we entered in to plane, once again being surrounded by the German language, newspapers, food, and the German flight instructions coming out of the speakers on the overhead system, we knew at once our Amsterdam journey had finished and we were once again headed home to Munich.

I know this blog was long, but I hope you enjoyed it! I’ll be sure to write about Paris before leaving for Africa! I wish you all a great week and can’t wait to post my pictures from Paris soon.

Love, Jessica