Saturday, January 10, 2009

Wrapping up Loitokitok – A few days in Nairobi

So much have happened over the past week and a half that I decided that it would be impossible to write all in one blog entry, so I am writing a few entries just to make it easier for me, probably make me less likely to go off on tangents (I hope!) and just so things make more sense (again, I hope!).

The last night in Loitokitok was a fun night – it reminded me of being at summer camp with all the bad songs, fire mishaps (no worries – nobody was hurt), and sleeping in the same cabin with ten other people. Some of the Deaf Eds practiced their signing skills by interpreting the songs, which was awesome for me, and provided us with much laughter as they sometimes made up signs for words we have not learned yet. That last day, we had a farewell ceremony with our homestay families and we all had mixed feelings about leaving our homestay families, while they did an incredible job of teaching us loads about Kenyan culture (and feeding us loads of ugali), we were excited about living on our own, starting our projects and doing what we came here for.

The next morning, we packed the bus and a truck with all of our bags … now that was quite an experience. The reason why we slept over at the Outward Bound center was so we could leave promptly at 8 in the morning. Needless to say, that did not happen. The bus arrived at 7:30a, and the packing started – I am not sure what happened - maybe Peace Corps underestimated the number of bags that we brought with us for two years, maybe the bus was a little too small, maybe the lorry (hey, I’m in Kenya, where pants are trousers) wasn’t big enough … or it’s probably a combination of all the factors. But you can guess what happened – the Peace Corps Trainee class of 2009 became the Peace Corps Sardines. After piling the lorry with quite more bags than any of us thought it could handle, roping everything down, putting the tarp over all that, we started packing the back seats with a few bags, and when we realized that there weren’t room, the aisle became a place to put our bags. Even with all that, one of us still had to sit in the aisle while everyone else was crammed in seats that were made for kids. All in all, a very typical Kenya transportation experience (at least all but one had a seat – our Kenyan trainers say that they’ve had to stand up for a 8 hour trip, so I guess we were not all that bad off).

We got to Nairobi after another stomach-curdling ride, and were transported into a completely different world. We gaped at everything like country bumpkins (which we were for the last two months), and after a couple of hours in traffic we reached our hostel, and some of us had the first hot shower we’ve had in a couple of months (I was stuck with a room with no hot water). We stayed for a few days in the same hostel as it has a relationship with Peace Corps – it was a nice place, and I look forward to the next time we go there for IST in April.

The next few days we spent our days in training sessions, finding out our sites, figuring out the logistics, and swearing in, we spent our nights out getting a cheese loaded meal of pizza, checking out Carnivore (which was listed as one of the world’s 50 top restaurants – we were not sure if it would rank up there, but it was good – I recommend the ostrich – the crocodile wasn’t too bad either … a bit fishy, tho), and staying in one night for a final hurrah.

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DISCLAIMER

This blog consists of my personal thoughts and opinions. It does not in any way reflect the position of the United States Government or the Peace Corps.