So week 2 in Nyeri and I finally have a home! I'm living with 2 of the other interns in a nice 3 bedroom apartment that sometimes has hot water and still has no cooker but has 2 balconies and a great view :) My last week was some what uneventful as it involved staying at the Aga Kahn Hospital for 3 days in Nairobi with my friend and coworker Kettie (filling in the blanks: kettie was hit by a land rover while crossing the street though miraculously had no broken bones or lasting damage) So Thursday we came back to Nyeri (which is 2 hours north of the capital near Mount Kenya) and I was finally able to settle in to my apartment . It was nice to be able to unpack and feel like you aren't living out of a suitcase. Friday, we finally had a meeting with my boss Sarisar (who is Masai- and has invited us to come to his community at some point which will be incredible- the Masai are still very traditional and we might get to dress up traditionally... if you aren't excited for me, Google the Masai and check out the jewelry and stuff so you understand why i am so excited :) Our meeting was actually really productive, we brainstormed about what projects we want to work on and were able to establish some concrete topics that I want to work on while here. It includes stuff like gender equality working with micro finance groups, working to encourage non-traditional work roles, Women's health, as well as doing some work helping to develop sustainable tourism projects. This is on top of the projects already established by the previous interns like raising 25 000$ for a primary school called murangato (don't worry you will hear tons more from me about this project as I'm hoping many of you may want to help in some way :) .. please? ) So that was my friday, in addition to meeting so many new people at the Kimathi Institute Campus, where I am working out of. that night a couple of us went to the outspan (which is a really nice hotel, but has a cool outdoor bar with a dance floor where people go to drink at night) It was nice to hang out and have a couple drinks and just relax after the exhausting week.
Saturday was really cool because we were invited by my other boss Rosemary to come to her huge wedding (really it was a remarriage ceremony). It was really cool, a long process but interesting. Alot of the ceremony and such were similar to north American weddings, like she had the white dress (though some guests and her maid of honor were dressed traditionally), and the vows were the same, there was cake cutting and she walked down the aisle the same way. There was a huge sermon in the middle of the like 3 hour ceremony which was kindof odd to me as it talked about how the wife is weaker and negative and requires a man to keep her in check, so I had to bite my tongue a bit , but it was also interesting to see the cultural gender roles in place... it kind of makes me understand why I'm here as a gender equality officer and I know now what views I am going to be coming up against. But after the ceremony there was the food :) SO MUCH FOOD!! rice, chapatis, this potato veggie thing, beef stew, chicken... lots of stuff! Some of the food I'm not loving but this stuff was really good!
Sunday was the first day in a while that I had a chance to sleep in.. and I did.. till 10 am... So today was just a bunch or running errands and picking up stuff for the house and all that fun organizational stuff. I'm really excited for work and what I am going to be able to do here. its nice to finally get up off the ground and start going with projects :) for a while i was getting really bored doing nothing, so hopefully and likely things will pick up and I'll feel like I don't have enough time to complete it all :) please keep me updated as to what you guys are doing as it makes me feel less disconnected from the world !
PS... there is so much red mud here! its all mud... they are just finishing their winter season and it is raining pretty much every day a little. so good thing i brought my crocs and hiking boots.. although I am still covered in red mud from my calf down... I'm also washing all my own clothes by hand.... man i miss maytag :( and concrete sidewalks...
Cheers and
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