Home Sweet Rural

This weekend 3 of my rural host sisters and I traveled back home to Nyeri to visit the parents. It was a short trip as we only had about 24 hours at home but we managed to get a lot done. We cooked chapatti and mandazi. We went to church. And most importantly we got to enjoy each other’s company. On Saturday, night after the sun went down all of us squeezed around the table outside listening to music while Leena and I cut string beans, Linet did mom's nails, Dad drank his chai and Evelyn held her eight-month-old son. It was a prefect night outside the fresh air of the country side and laughter of family. Also, my real parents FaceTime me when I was there and they got to meet my host mom and sisters which was really cool. Even if it was just for a few minutes I was able to bring my two families together.

Before I knew it, the time had come to say goodbye. This time it was harder leaving. The first time I left back in August I had only been in Kenya for 2 weeks, I still had so many adventures ahead of me and I knew I had the chance to go back there. On Sunday when I left I realized that not only I did I have just 27 days left in Kenya but also, I did not know when I would have the opportunity to return. Luckily it was not yet goodbye to my sisters as they live in Nairobi and we already have plans for next weekend, but it was goodbye to my host parents. As I waved goodbye to them from the window of the car I had to keep back tears. I am not sure they will ever know how much they have impacted my life. They watched me grow from the nervous homesick girl who was dropped off at their house to a confident girl who couldn't wait to get back to them. I consider myself so lucky that I was placed in that family. And I know that while these goodbyes might be goodbye for a long time but they not true goodbyes.

Finally, I went to end this post addressing a question one of my host sisters asked me which was "how has your perception of Kenya and Africa changed now that you have been here for 4 months?" So here is my attempt to unpack that question and answer it, in the hopes of showing you the REAL Kenya. If someone had told me that I would become so close to my rural host family I wouldn't have believed them. From the outside looking in they seem to have very little in common with my family. But from the inside their family morals and values align so much with my own. My sisters and I have very similar things in common. What a 20-year-old likes and cares about in America is the same as what one likes in Kenya. We care about our hair, our outfit, our nails, we spend hours taking pictures and making sure we get the right angel. Our parents laugh at the ridiculous things we come up with or what we find entertaining. We give our parents a hard time, but always come back because we know we need them. I think I expected the rural and Kenya for that matter to be completely backwards and not at all with the modern times. But this isn't true. First off technology is all over Kenya everyone has a phone and for the most part all payments are made through Mpesa which is like our venmo. For another thing Kenyans are some of the most educated people I have met. In school they take 11 subjects, they all speak at least 2 languages if not 3, every night you will find the news on in every house hold, and I honestly think they know more about what is going on in American politics then I do. Another thing you don't have to be scared going to Kenya. You can in fact eat the fruit and you should because you will never taste fruit this fresh or sweet in the U.S. You can walk alone on the streets, of course you have to be smart about it but that’s like any city in America. Yes, there is a little bit more of awareness you have to take because you are a foreigner but in D.C. there are certain neighborhoods I wouldn't walk alone in and that’s the same in Kenya. I walk 2 miles home from work sometimes and I am perfectly fine. I go to an outdoor track after dark to run and I am perfectly fine. I have taken more Ubers here than I ever had in the U.S. and guess what I am fine. People have asked me if given the chance would I come back to Kenya and work and the answer is yes. Kenya is not at all what I expected, its 10 times better.

One of my coworkers said something the other day which was "we need to stop seeing the world as individual countries and instead see it as one nation of human kind". Living in Kenya has taught me that no matter where you come from all people want the same thing at the end of the day. To be surrounded by people who love and care about them. Something Kenyans really have down. I have never been welcomed or engaged by so many strangers. Everyone has an open-door ready to take you under their wing and help you out. And I don't think that’s just become I look lost most of the time haha but I think that’s just the way Kenyans are. Happy welcoming people. I hope that through my post I have been able to give you a glimpse of the real Kenya. I also hope that one day all of you get to experience Kenya the way I have and see that with an open mind we are really all the same.

This is the seed I planted back in August at my rural home and look how much it has grown :)

all the Mandazi we made