Habari!

Note: I wrote this on the day we arrived but haven’t had wifi yet, so if parts don’t make sense, it was from a bit ago and just now able to post. 🙂

My brain is in overload! Not only have I already forgotten half the Swahili my new friends have taught me, I just woke up from my first nap since arrival at 3:30AM today and oh my gosh naps are DANGEROUS. Rochie (friend Rochelle with our group) and I ended up being put in the same room for the first couple days (now we both have roomies from Uganda!) and we decided to take a nap. The following scenario took place:

Rochie: I’m gonna take a nap. What’s a good nap length?

B: Hmmm 20 or 40 minutes? Let’s make it 45, no 47 – it’s 2:13.

**5 minutes later after we had finally figured out how to set the alarms on our new phones**

R: zzzzzz

B: zzzzzz

**3:00pm MY phone goes off (don’t ask me what happened to Rochelle’s alarm…)

B: shuts alarm off

B: falls back asleep for a ‘quick snooze’

B: wake up………4:00PM.

Rochelle, by the way, has been asleep through all of this, including my typing this blog on the computer with Sara Bareilles playing in the background.

OH THE JET LAG!

You really can’t describe it until your body is going through it. I wasn’t feeling it until I just woke up and felt like I feel when I wake up in the morning….like death.
And it made sense I suppose because Denver time it would have been 6:00AM-ish. WAY before my rooster crows.

But Katie keeps telling me not to think about it. “Don’t think about US times. Just accept whatever time it is in Kenya.” I think I’m not doing too bad because most of the time my head feels like it’s about 2-4 hours later than real time. So we ate breakfast today and I felt like it was about 11AM but it was only 8:30.

Dang. This is already getting long. Unfortunately I haven’t taken many pictures for you all yet, but here’s my attempt at a top ten favorite moments so far list to round it off (in no particular order):

#1 Rochelle putting salt on her mini mandazi’s thinking it was sugar.

#2 Trying to order food at USIU’s cafeteria for the first time with Kenyan Shillings. Umm…let’s just say it was embarrassing. We did much better the second time around. 😉

#3 Flying internationally. I have absolutely no idea how anyone would learn the Turkish language. But the food was not bad for an airplane. The other cool part were the stars flying into Nairobi! So so beautiful. I’d take that everyday.

#4 My poop is still normal. PTL. (Praise The Lord)

#5 Swahili 101 with Lillian and Michelle, two of my new friends from Kenya. They are 17 & 18 and we met them after all the new freshman were buying snacks after orientation. IMPORTANT: do not say “Jambo” if you want to say “hi.” According to L&M this is cliche and we should say “Habari” (see post title) and I heard “mambo” from someone else as well. But no jambo please.

#6 Tyler is hilarious. We went to the toy market and Anna tries to barter for this necklace and the shop seller’s name was also Anna! And this being his second time back, Tyler helped us barter a bit and he is just a jester. He tells the shop owner Anna his name is Banna. Says, “Oh wow! you are Anna? I am Banna, this is Anna (points to our Anna), and you are Anna….Banna, Anna, Anna.” I was on the ground laughing at that point.

#7 A HOT SHOWER. This is something I’ve been dreading since leaving the last warm shower I took in IL. Mentally preparing for this arctic tundra when  you’re in Kenya is not easy, but the showers at USIU are still warm! Another 10 PTLs. I started singing the doxology when I stepped into a warm shower. Katie can attest.

#8 Calling my parents. So strange and refreshing to hear their voices when you’re thousands of miles away.

#9 Amazing new friends on the journey with me. I think someday soon I’ll do a feature on all of them.

#10 All of my luggage making it to Nairobi! Our group had 9 bags left in Istanbul and they didn’t come until the next morning. I’m so thankful all of mine made it and I could move in. Our friend Kirk also didn’t make it because he got stuck in Detroit! Poor chap had to fly out by himself the next two days and suffered major delays. PTL he’s here now. 🙂

Be sure to check out all of my other friends’ blogs, I’ve linked to them all in the About page of my blog.

Safari njema,

Brittany