Habari Yako! Greetings from kenya

Habari Yako? Greetings from Kenya! Internet here is patchy, so I am glad this is finally working. I arrived in Nairobi Friday evening after 24 hours of traveling. However, all our connections were smooth, and I still get excited to be flying over oceans and deserts and thousands and thousands of miles... Even so, it was really nice to finally get off the plane.

Getting our visas went smoothly and MCC's country reps picked us up and brought us to the Mennonite Guest House where we are staying until we head to our assignments. We being the other Kenya SALT participant and myself. We will be working in quite different parts of Kenya, but for now it is intensive Swahili in Nairobi... I am learning a lot, but don't feel like displaying my extensive knowledge right now, maybe my next posting. Blogging was going to be my excuse to not study... so yeah... I head to Hope September 4.

The guest house where we are staying is really very nice, and includes full board and has an amazing library that I am allowed to borrow books from throughout the year... Between those and the books at the MCC office, I will have plenty to ready in my down time. If I have very much down time. Once I get to Hope it sounds like I will be pretty busy, but I didn't come to Kenya to read too much, but rather to work with the children at Hope. The guest house also has a pretty steady stream of people passing by from mission and service workers who have made their lives in Kenya to a group last night who were from Eldoret, a town in Northwest Kenya, and were going to Holland to do some music ministry. Again, it is always nice to see the exchange go both ways. Talking with the other guests is also an excellent way to learn Kenyan geography as I like to find where they are coming from on a map afterwards...

Sunday after church the country reps oriented us. Truly I am so impressed by MCC's model of partnership, and they have a lot of partners throughout Kenya working in education(like Hope) or food security with sand dams, or health and there are other areas that I'm not remembering currently. Then Monday we started Swahili. It really is intensive, with us spending 3-4 hours in the morning on content and then in the afternoon doing different things around Nairobi with our teacher, who is a university student and fun to spend time and a great resource on Kenyan society, politics, life, etc..., The first afternoon we spent the afternoon in the office learning about Kenya, and then yesterday we took mtatus(the classic mini-bus transport) downtown, walked around, got sim cards for our cell phones and had Ethiopian food(which was quite good except it made our teacher feel quite poorly, so today she ended up going home early and loading us with homework...) I tried and learn swahili some before I came, which is helpful now, but it is so much easier to learn from a teacher and a native speaker.

The next week and a half with be more of the same. September 3 before I head to Hope MCC has an all country meeting, where the 15 or so different service workers will all come into Nairobi and check-in or something. I'm still learning the ropes. I'm not even so sure what all I will be doing at Hope, but I appreciate a more open ended job description so I really don't mind. I will take things as they come, and try and learn as much as I can while I am here in Nairobi.

For anybody who followed the August 4 Kenya referendum, or didn't, the new constitution was passed, peacefully no less, and so Friday is going to be a holiday to celebrate Constitution Day( a new holiday for a new constitution). I am not sure what all it will entail, but the paper says it will be a show to rival Independence back in 1963. They closed off most of downtown today and tomorrow so they can practice, and even last Sunday we went to the Anglican cathedral downtown and during the service they were cleaning out their guns and everybody looked a little alarmed. It is not everyday that guns are going off during church. The constitution, if it lives up to expectation, will be a big deal, and will hopefully bring some needed reforms. President Kibaki campaigned on a new constitution, and while it took more than the initial 100 days he promised, it really is a big deal.

Anyways, I think others want to use the guest house computer because they keep coming around the corner to see if it is busy, but I did want to write a quick update, and will definitely write more soon. So that's all for now, but everything is just beginning, and I feel like this is where I am supposed to be right now which is exciting.