Weather, internships, and family.

Hello friends and family!

I am currently sitting on a sunny patio at a fairly American coffee shop with my laptop. I spend way too much money here, but I love to email my mom and my friends (and eat ice cream) , so it's worth the free wireless. The calendar tells me it's October, but it feels more like July or August... Kenya is perpetually tropical, with an extra kick of heat at the same time as Wisconsin's coldest winter months. It's a little baffling for my internal seasonal clock. I feel as though time has stopped and I'm on some never-ending, very challenging summer vacation. I can only imagine how it will feel to spend Christmas on the beach this year with my mom.

It has been a rough few days here. Lillian and Gloria, my mama's sister and her 3 y/o daughter, unexpectedly (and with a lot of drama) moved out. I have learned to love Gloria and to see Lillian as a friend and peer (she's not even two years older than I), so to see them go has been sad and unfortunate. In addition, there have been small skirmishes and tension between MSID students as we get on each others nerves: we spend about six hours a day together in class, so it's no wonder, in addition to the normal stresses of ex-pat life. And I have to admit, I've been irritable towards people myself. But shortly, we'll be heading out to our internships!

I have received a number of questions surrounding internships, so I will finally address them. I will leave for my internship on October 24th. I will be in Kisumu, as I think I've mentioned, working with widows and orphans with a Kenyan NGO. Students from this program have interned here before, which bodes well for me. I am very excited! I'm also nervous though. I'll be living with a new host family (who have also hosted before) in a much more rural setting: no running water, no electricity. I've been quite lucky with my first host family, so I'm really hoping that I get along well with this family as well.

It took a long time to get comfortable with my current host family. My mama has always been very good to me, and told me to just help myself and to feel at home. It took a long time to know HOW to help myself though. For instance, we have running water about half the time. It often just stops for no good reason. When we do have running water, I'm able to take a decent shower. But at first, the water was always cold. I just dealt with it, because hot water is certainly a luxury here. However, I also knew that hot water was possible, because I'd see the steam seeping out from under the door whenever my siblings showered. One day I finally said, off hand, "why can't I ever get hot water?" And they gave me a funny look and explained to me that there was a switch you had to flip in order to turn it on. Well duh. My host-mama giggled every time I showered for a week.

My siblings also took a while to be comfortable around me. At first they were constantly calm and well-behaved, as Kenyan children usually are when I'm around. I wondered if they ever got silly, or what they talked about when it was just them. With time, they've grown crazier and more talkative. Now they will tell me a little bit about their day, play games with me, and let me go with them on errands.

I really feel like part of the family. I help with dishes now, and I have even served the male guests like a true Kenyan woman (even though it pained me to do so). They worry about me when I get a cold, and they know what I like to eat and what I don't. For instance, last night we had intestines for dinner. Mama knows I don't eat any meat other than "regular" meat, so she made me eggs, without me even asking. That she went to that extra length (which also cost them extra money that I don't think they have) meant a lot.

We are SO culturally different but we have made inroads that are globally important. The lesson is that it takes a long time to even begin to truly know someone, especially from a different culture. Sometimes I say, "oh my gosh, it's like we're from different planets." Sometimes I say, "oh my gosh, we're all just human beings."