Hey everyone! Sorry it has taken so long, but internet has been not working well since I've arrived! But, I have been keeping a blog of sorts on a Word document so I will copy and paste:) Hope you enjoy and hopefully I can keep it updated pretty regularly. So this first one will be a VERY LONG one!
Love you all!!
Entry #1: First week—Travel & DOULOS Week (8/13/10)
Sema!! (Kiswahili for-Hey/how are you) So, it has already been about a week here in Kenya! I’m not usually very good at telling stories, but bare with me while I try and relate these last few days to you all!
Saturday I left for the airport around 7PM. My dad, mom, and Sammy, took me and after I was checked in I said my goodbyes and headed through security with Janna to meet Nick at our gate (Janna and Nick are the two other Bethel students on this exchange program trip. Once we boarded and started taking off it was probably 9:45 or 10PM U.S.A. time. Eight hours later we arrived at the London Heathrow airport (12PM London time). On our way to customs we meet someone else who was traveling to Nairobi, Kenya on a two week missions trip, Julie—who has a daughter who attends Bethel as a nursing student ;) As we waited in line to get clearance, she said that she was planning on trying to take the tube into central London and maybe find a tour bus to ride on before heading back to catch out 8PM (London time) flight and asked if we would like to join her. We said yes right away because we were going to do that anyways and loved the idea of adult company!
After getting through customs and grabbing a bottle of water from an airport store we made our way to the tube. We took the Piccadilly tube into Central London, which was about an hour ride. It was each of our first times in London and riding a tube so it was such a great experience! Once we arrived we looked for a tour bus place and with the help of some kind strangers we found one, but it was about 50 Eros so we decided to just walk around instead. It was a great decision! It was nice to stretch our legs after so much sitting and standing around and we saw almost all of the same sights the tour bus would have hit (we only missed three of them!). We saw the London eye (from a distance), Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and many more sights on the way….you’ll have to ask me later or look at my pictures!
After walking around London for a few hours and having some ice cream we headed back to Heathrow on the Piccadilly. Unfortunately we missed one stop on the Piccadilly (for those who have ridden it you probably know what I’m talking about)…once at the airport terminal stops we should have gotten off terminal four instead we passed that and went to terminal 1,2,3. So, after getting help from a very nice passenger we made our way to where we should have been. We stopped in at a airport restaurant for a quick bite to eat and then rushed to catch our 8PM flight into Nairobi. After all the traveling we had done we were not looking forward to another nine hour flight but we were thankfully to get off our feet for a little while after all of our walking! Nine hours later, and after about two or three hours of sleep since Saturday evening, we arrived in Nairobi at 6:30AM Kenya time ( 11:30PM MN).
Upon arriving we had to also go through customs at the Nairobi airport to get our passports and visas verified and such. After about an hour we finally made our way to find our luggage. Worried that not all of it would make it, all three of us were surprised when we found our luggage right away! Praise the Lord! Happy about knowing we all had everything, we made our way the glass doors where we could see a huge line of people waiting to pick up other travelers. After a minute or two we found a small handwritten sign for Daystar and made our way to our helpers. We had three Daystar (DOULOS) students pick us up—these are student leaders who help welcome the incoming freshman/international students.
It was about a 30/45min bus ride to the University. On the way we talked with the student leaders some and enjoyed the scenery. Kenya is a very dry land and there is a lot of bush and interesting looking trees (which I do not know the name of the trees here, I’m sure I will learn soon!). As I looked out the windows I saw a lot of brown and a touch of green here and there. For being such a dry country I also find it a very beautiful land! It is of course the opposite of where I live back in the states, but it is great! As we got closer to the University entrance we saw our first herd of Zebra! It was surreal seeing them just wandering around—I’m so used to seeing them caged up in a zoo—they are beautiful!
Pulling into the University there were feelings of excitement for this all to finally begin and apprehension in not knowing what to expect at all. But, very soon I could see the similarities between Daystar and Bethel, which I continue to see the longer I am here. We stepped off the bus to a group of DOULOS students yelling and welcoming us to Daystar while jumping up and down with excitement. Once all three of us were off the bus they stared encouraging us to dance! Haha, we were probably a funny sight…none of us being dancers really and being sooo tired from our almost two day journey! They proceeded to remove our luggage from the bus and take it to a patch of grass, where it stayed until that evening.
Nothing too exciting happened the rest of the day so I will just sum it up! Basically we were given some tea and doughnut things to hold us over till tea time (which took place around 11:30AM) and then we followed people around all day, which got very tiring! It was a day were all the freshmen and international students were arriving, so people were sorting out financial things and basic things like that and we were also put into groups, which have become our ‘families’ for the week. My family consists of me, Janna, Sarah (an international student from South Korea, whom I’m sure you will here lots about), Kay (an international student from Malawi), and the rest of the students are Kenya freshmen students…David, Francis, Debra, Betsy, & Olive to name a few. We played some get to know you games and stayed together until 4 or 5 that evening. Then we had dinner around 6 and we the rest of the night was getting settled into rooms. Which for this week Janna and I have been living in one room with our roommate Angel…a small space for three people, but there are two bunk beds and a table with three chairs, and some closet space.
Anyways the rest of the week has been similar—just getting to know other students and becoming familiar with the campus (which is very large!). All in all it has been a good week☺ The only thing I would really change if I could, would be the food. It is pretty much rice and stew and bread and tea, with some fruit every once in a while and sometimes chicken or fish—but everything is kind of bland tasting and it all tastes the same, which I kind of expected! Oh well!! I’ll just have to get creative with my food these next few months and I already know that I am very thankful and appreciative for the variety I am able to have back in the states!!:)
So, for now that is it…sorry this was sooo long, I know there are a LOT more things I could say, but I will probably add those things as I go!
I love you all and appreciate your prayers and support☺ I will send out an address as soon as I know it haha!! , but TIA (That Is Africa)!
MUCH LOVE! Blessings to you all~ har
Entry #2: Beginning of Week Two—Starting Classes… (8/16/10)
Hey ALL!!
DOULOS week is officially over, the last night was Saturday. On Sunday Janna, Nick, and I went with Lukas, a Daystar student who has visited Bethel, into Nairobi. We went to meet a friend of Nick’s, Luke (who is a recent Bethel grad) and Jan Korbel, who works at the Nairobi campus of Daystar and who has a mutual friend with my mom and who is now Facebook friends with my mom;). She ended up taking us to her church, Nairobi chapel and then we all went out to lunch at a nearby Ethiopian restaurant—which was VERY GOOD!! (It was nice to have food that tasted different from what we have been eating at school!) The church service was pretty good, the topic of church was The Insecure Leader (they are doing a series on personality types so the pastor and his wife taught on one of them, but I can’t remember what they called it).
After lunch Jan took us to one of the larger Sunday markets, Yaya, so we could look around and experience it. It was rather large and had a lot of scarves, blankets, purses, and many other tourist items. I did not buy anything because I want to wait until the last few weeks or the last month to do most of my souvenir shopping! I don’t want to have to worry about keeping it safe while I am here…
Then after the market we went to get a sweet at the Cake Plaza, which was really good☺ It was a nice restaurant-with actual green grass in their courtyard! (you don’t see much of that here). And it is in walking distance of where the bus drops us off in Nairobi, so we may be visiting there again… After our sweet treats we made our way back to the bus and back to the Athi-River campus where we are staying. Not much else happened that night, just hung out in my room and visited a friends room before heading to bed.
I’m writing this blog today (on a word document since I still do not have access to internet) and it is Monday at about 4:30pm. Today has been a hectic and tiring day! Janna and I had a few things to get done before the end of the day, and being that we are here it took from about 9am—1pm to actually get done. We had to print off an extra copy of our class list and get that photocopied. Then we needed to get the original print off stamped by the accounting/finance office, we needed two more passport size pictures of ourselves, and we needed to change rooms today. Luckily we had someone, Peter, helping us get these things done. I’ll spare you the details, it just was long in that we kept getting sent back and forth between one office to another, so there was a lot of walking to and from the same place and a lot of waiting…But, we are finally moved into our new rooms! We are now in the dorm/hostel across from the one we stayed in last week. Our new hostel is called Dupa and our room consists of three bedrooms, one shower, and a toilet and sink. There are two people to a room, so there will be six of us. So far Janna’s roommate is moved in (although she will be staying at home this whole week still) and the two of us are moved in…my roommate I am told is on her way and one of her friends told me that SHE is nervous to meet ME! Haha. That makes me feel a little better because then I know we are kind both in the same spot.
So classes start tomorrow and I am unsure of what to expect. I have been told that although students are only allowed to miss 4 classes (for each class I believe) before being expelled, a lot of students do not show up to classes the first two or three weeks! Which is just odd to me…so I am interested to see if that is true and if I’ll be one of the only ones in my classes for these first few weeks or if people will actually show up. I am also a little apprehensive for classes to begin because they will be very different from what I am used to. First of all they will be taught by lecturers who have Kiswahili accents (which I am starting to get the hang of for the most part), and second of all I am told it is straight lecture and note taking, third of all two of my classes are two hours long and three of them are three hours each! I’m used to 50-70 min classes, so that will take some getting used to…and I am not the best at taking notes so hopefully that will go well! Oh and in case any of you are interested these are the classes I will be taking: Christianity and Islam in Africa, Study of Theology in African Context, Synoptic Gospels, Introduction to Social Work, History Systems and School of Psychology, and Philosophical Foundations of Early Childhood Development. So, I don’t need a lot of them, but the theology ones sounded interesting!
Well this post is getting pretty long as well, so I’ll write more later!
Love you all!! And you can continue to pray for each of our health and safety while here as well as for relationships with new friends, our ability to adjust to this new culture, and for protection from homesickness for all three of us! Thank you <3!
~har
Entry #3: And so goes the week…(8/19/10)
Classes began on Tuesday and it has been interesting…very different from what I’m used to. For example Janna and I showed up to a class today at that was supposed to start at 1:30 and after waiting until 2:00, we left because no one had shown up…not even the prof (lecturer as they call them here). It has kind of been like that all week. The most that have been in a class this week for me was six students. Apparently no one really starts showing up until the second or third week, so hopefully next week students and lecturers will actually show up to classes.
I’m actually looking forward to classes starting because A) I’ll meet more people through the classes I’ll be in and B) it is kind of boring on campus when I’m not in class…there is not much to do on campus. I feel like whenever I ask anyone what they are doing they are either going to take a nap or going to watch a movie…which both of those are fine things to do, but they are not great ways to get to know people! I think the other students are bored too. So, overall right now not much exciting is happening. I would love to get off campus and do something, but the closest place to go is Nairobi, which is an hour/hour and a half away and as far as I know there are two buses that leave campus for Nairobi, one at 8AM and one at 5PM (which takes people home and doesn’t come back until the next morning). Also Janna and I would love to go and explore the campus but we have been told to not really go anywhere by ourselves because we never know what we could run into (i.e. snakes, people, other animals we are not used to!). I am hoping to make some friends that are adventures and actually go and do things or who will want to show us around and explore things with us. It is only the second week and a lot of students are still not moved in yet, so hopefully I’ll be able to meet someone like that! There is one girl that Janna and I meet at lunch today, Faith, who talked about the giraffe cages in Nairobi and how we should go visit it. She also said that she lives in Nairobi and mentioned that her dad loves having visitors, so maybe something will come out of that? We are hoping so! It would be fun to go see something and possibly stay at someone’s home at some point.
Well, in other news, I talked to Dad for the first time in about two weeks last night! It was great to hear his voice and to connect in that way with someone. It didn’t really make me miss home necessarily; it just was nice to talk about what has been going on here with me. I’ve emailed my parents twice, but email is just so different from an actual conversation. After that phone call I went with a group of people to watch a movie. We went to the classroom buildings and found an empty one and watched G.I. Joe on someone’s laptop. While we were picking a movie to watch one of the guards who was patrolling the classrooms we were by, came in and joined us. It must have been a nice break for him because he doesn’t really have much else to do (although I heard that just a night or two ago some guards had to kill a python that was on campus).
It is interesting to compare and contrast Daystar and Bethel. It is similar in the way that people here are just as friendly and they have some similar programs you can get involved in (like the DOULOS group that is similar to Welcome Week). But, instead of having security cameras everywhere and having swipe cards to get into buildings at night, they have guards almost everywhere you go. Half the time I don’t even realize they are there until I walk past them, because once it gets dark they blend right into the night. At times I think I feel safer knowing that there is someone within hearing distance of me, rather than knowing there is a camera watching me from a distance. Overall things here are for the most part are done more simply than back at home, but you can tell that even here technology and all that comes with that is making it’s way into their every day life. Everyone here has a cell phone, just like back at home, and they use then to call, text, and listen to the radio all the time! And although not everyone has them, a handful of people also have laptops. It is just interesting to see how our cultures are so different and yet they seem as though they are becoming more and more similar.
Hmm…well that’s all for tonight, I’ll write more later!
<3 har
