Sasa? Poa au fiti? I hope so J Sasa (saa-saa) is
slang for how is it going, or “Wazzzup?” As Jos, our awesome Kiswahili trainer
put it. Fiti (fee-tee) and poa (poe-ah) are the slang answers for good! Now
you, like me, can be cool in Kenya ;)
Speaking of cool, I think it’s possible that my fashion is
even looked at with suspicion across the globe. Hard to believe, I know. On
Monday evening, after being with my host family for more than 24 hours, I had
come home with them on Sunday afternoon and then saw them before I left for
sessions on Monday morning as well as all Monday evening. Nothing said about my
outfit. Then right before bed my Mama asked me if I knew that there was a
mirror in my wardrobe J Hahahaha yep, always looking good. This morning in
fact, she had to chase me down as I was leaving the gate because I had walked
out in my shower slippers and had forgotten to change and ohhh, that would have
been so so bad she said! (Slippers are plastic Old Navy-esque flip-flops that
you wear whenever you are in your house-during your bath/shower and then the
rest of the time too. I learned that the reason is so that you don’t track
dust/mud (depending on the season) into the house after work or school and you
wear them all morning because the floor is too cold otherwise.)
My host family, whom I will be with until I swear in come
late December, is wonderful!! Edith is my Mama and she lives with her mom who
is 80!! That alone is incredible considering they told us the average life
expectancy is 45-55. She mostly just sits in the dining room watching
everything happen and smiles basically the whole day. I have yet to see her not
smiling. She has some sort of dementia and gets confused often but only speaks
Kiswahili, which I have yet to master, and therefore I have only been able to
greet her and smile back at her. Edith also lives with her middle daughter and
her son who is only 4. He is soo cute but also only speaks Kiswahili so I’m
hoping he’ll help me learn more. Her daughter is in Uganda now until Friday so
I haven’t met her yet but I am excited to! She also has another grandchild who
sometimes lives with her and she is only 11 but soo nice! She speaks excellent
English and has helped correct all of my Kiswahili homework so far.
The food is great here because it reminds me of India and
home J
Ugali is Kenya’s staple food and is a thick, pretty tasteless porridge-y type
of thing. I have only had it once so far so I can’t describe it very well but I
know that I will probably eat a lot by the time I leave. So besides that, I
have eaten a lot of rice, chapatti and potatoes as well as beef, chicken and
cooked veggies. There are not any spices like India which is how it reminds me
of home with our meat, potatoes and veggies but the chapatti, masala chai and fruit
reminds me of India. I just found out Mango season is December/January! Yum!!
Classes are going well and we have them in this one hotel
where we stayed our first night and so that means that I will be able to get
Internet once a week when I venture out with my computer early before sessions
start so I can write to you wonderful people J Score!
Sessions here are good and even though we have only had a
few days thus far, they seem to be doing a good job: the security and medical
people are so nice but are doing a terrific job at scaring all of us pretty
well so that we take our malaria pills-stay alert-are cautious-and know that we
all will probably get diarrhea-yayyy, how does that sound? ;) Our language
facilitators are doing their best but we only get a crash course (one week) on
Kiswahili and then next week we start learning KSL (Kenyan Sign Language). The
rest of our trainers who are teaching us about teaching, development, volunteer
roles and more are also doing a good job and the sessions are more interesting
because you know that everything you learn is basically useful in some way.
It’s great not having to take gen. ed’s here!
Time for Kiswahili class J Here is one last
Kiswahili phrase to learn:
My Name is Elizabeth
“Jina langu ni Elizabeth”
Pronounced: “Gee-new laang-gu nee Elizabeth”
Lots of Kenyan Kisses,
Elizabeth
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