Washing

There is a tradition here is Kenya that I have learned. It is customary to pour water on a person on there Birthday. This symbolizes the washing away of the old year and starting off this one new and clean. It's also really fun to plan and catch the person off guard. It's kind of like a one sided water fight. It was one of my friends here, Goodness, birthday on Saturday and then in was Hillary's yesterday. Don't worry. We got them both pretty well. It involved garbage cans full of water. I think I may bring this tradition back with me to America...

This week has finally started to feel like school. I had 3 tests, they call them CATs here (continuous assessment test), and a paper due. It's been busy.

Last Sunday I went to church with the Korean exchange students to a Korean church in Nairobi. It just happened to be the day that they were celebrating what is like the Korean version of Thanksgiving, so we had lots of really good Korean food. I know I'm in Africa, but I figure I should get all the culture I can while I'm here, even if it's Korean and I'm not in Korea. I also learned how to informally say "Hi" in Korean. The formal way was too long...

That's all for now! 

ps. I was told the color was hard to read before. Is this better?

African Safari!!

Last weekend the exchange students all went on an African Safari. We left early Friday morning and then drove for about 6 hours to Masai Mara, which is a really big game reserve. The ride was by no means smooth. First we were on paved roads that were ok with a few bumps here and there. Then they turned into paved roads with massive pot holes all over the place. We spent most of the time driving with one side of the wheels on the road and the other in the ditch trying to avoid the pot holes. I think that was an impossible task though. We still hit many of them. Then we had to start not only dodging pot holes, but cattle in the road. I was amazed we never hit one. The driver did not slow down as quickly as I would have, so we came close a few time! Then the roads were no longer paved and really bumpy all the time, basically it felt like we weren't even on a road anymore.
We stayed at a really nice resort with tent cabins and a VERY delicious buffet.
We saw every kind of African animal that I can think of except a hyena. We saw lions, cheetah, zebra, giraffe, buffalo (the African kind not like in the US), hippos, elephants, some birds of some kind, gazelle, antelope of various sizes, a baboon, wilder-beast, and monkeys. The van that we drove to the place in was what we saw the animals from. The roof pops up and we just stood up and looked out. We got pretty close to most of the animals. It was great! Here are some photos.

  We saw the big males too, but these were cuter

Wilder-beast in the waning evening light.

The wilder-beast were migrating so there were a lot of them. We were helping them move along a little faster.

It was a very good weekend, as long as you don't get motion sick...thankfully none of us did.

Forgot to mention this.

If you send me something in the mail let me know. There is a place where they post who has mail and I won't check it unless I know something is coming. There's no pressure for you to send anything. I just don't want to miss anything.

These are some of the girls that I'v met here. The one on my left cooked us some food from her country of Cameroon.

This was last weekend. We made pancakes. SO good! no syrup, but peanut butter was just as good.

We went to this place called the Bomas of Kenya that has traditional dancing and "villages" (a few huts) from each of the tribes. It was cool to see, but I would rather visit a real village rather than a tourist attraction.

Kenyan Soccer and other such things.

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but I think I did. I joined the woman's soccer team here at Daystar. Actually, I helped start the team. This is the first year that it has existed. The first couple of days we had very few girls show up, but now we have about 14-16! Enough for a whole team! Hooray! I secretly hope we don't have too many games though because they are not very good. I think we would lose big time, but they assure me that girls teams here just aren't that good...I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
That is one thing that has surprised me here. I came expecting that everyone played soccer and had been for their whole life and they were all really good. Well maybe not that extreme, but you know what I mean. In reality, not that many people play, especially girls. I went to watch the guys Daystar team this weekend. They won, but they weren't that good. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the fact they these guys may have been playing for much of their lives, but they didn't  have access to the couches and equipment and camps, ect that we have in the states. I can't forget  how blesses I am. The guys field has almost no grass on it and it. It is like a huge dust bowl when they run, but they still manage to have fun and play hard. The fans have so much fun too. It is not at all unacceptable to run onto the field with the players after your team has scored a goal and made a really exciting play. There are no bleachers, so everyone just lines up right on the sideline and has to run out of the way when the ball or players come near. I'm not sure I'm at the point yet where I can being myself to run onto the field, but it was pretty fun watching!

In other news: my new favorite day of the week is Sunday, particularly the supper part of the day. We get spaghetti. Yes I am excited about spaghetti. The rest of the week we have a lot of rice and beans and stew and cabbage, but on Sunday we get spaghetti! It's the little things in life that matter.

One more random thing. Kenyans really like holidays. Whenever there is an excuse for a holiday they take it. The first week we were here, they were signing the new constitution that they passed, therefore, they had a holiday with no work or school. The next week Daystar had a prayer day. No school. This week is the end of Ramadan for the Muslims and rumor has it that Friday or Monday will be another holiday even though 83% of the population is Christian. I'm not complaining :)