"We pour out our miseries, God just hears a melody. Beautiful the mess we are, the honest cries, the breaking hearts, are better than a hallelujah." ~Amy Grant (Better than a Hallelujah)
The last two weeks, since my last post, have been filled with highs and lows of emotions. Happiness, excitement, sadness, empathy, fear, stress, joy, and love are just a few of the many feelings have experienced through setting up an apartment, setting up a classroom, beginning my first teaching job, and trying to build relationships with the people I have met along the way. I have learned something new every single day since arriving in Kenya, and I am not taking for granted any opportunity I am given to experience something about the culture.
Each morning I wake to the most interesting combination of sounds I have ever heard. I would have never guessed that I could find a place that sounds like I am living in both the city and country simultaneously! Each morning I hear car alarms going off, construction sites being worked on, people talking and trucks driving past our complex. However, I also get to wake to the sound of birds chirping right outside my window and get out of bed to look at a beautiful combination of huge green trees and brightly colored flowers in and amongst apartment complexes and homes. It really is extraordinary! Although I am taking in all of these wonderful moments, there are things about living here that can become very frustrating very quickly. One of the other new staff members described the hardest things about living here as having to think twice about everything you do. Has this food been properly washed so that I don't get sick? Has the water been purified enough to drink it? Do I need to turn the hot water heater on now so that the water will be warm enough to shower in an hour and a half? How will the other cars on the road react to the traffic and weather? If this item costs 3000 Shillings, how much is it in US Dollars, and could I find it for cheaper? Will I lose power or internet when I need it most? Will the food items I want be at the store or will they be rationed? It takes twice as much mental energy to do everything here. By the end of each day I am ready to sleep the second my head hits the pillow. Amongst the stress we have been able to help each other through the frustrations and have had some good laughs along the way.
Since my last post I have done so many different things that it is going to be hard to summarize it all! We visited the Giraffe Park a little over a week ago and had a great time! We got to feed and pet the giraffes and some of the girls had the giraffes eat out of their mouths! The giraffes tongue felt like a cow's tongue. It was rough and very wet! Later that day we got to move into our apartments. They are huge compared to what I was expecting! It is very cold here at night. One night it got down into the 50's, and we have no heat in our apartments. Sleeping with sweats and many blankets has become the norm. On Sunday the 31st we went to church as a group at Emmanuel Baptist Church. The pastor who spoke did a wonderful job on his sermon on Philippians. His passion reminded me a lot of Pastor Bryce at Worship Center :) After church we got to eat at an Ethiopian restaurant. The food was very interesting, but tasted good. The rest of that day and the following couple of days we spent time getting our apartments set up and some people bought furniture. My roommate and I decided not to buy living room furniture right away, but were blessed to receive some temporary furniture this week that is owned by the school. We also ended up purchasing some desks and stools so that we would have somewhere to do work at home. On Thursday and Friday we had orientation at school, and I finally got to see my classroom and get to work on setting it up. It took me most of the day for both days to just get the room cleaned and set up. I didn't even get to do any decorating until Monday! On Saturday we spent some of the day at school doing work, and then went home for what was probably the most exciting afternoon and evening we have had so far. We got the furniture we had ordered delivered, got internet installed, got petrol for the first time, met our landlord (who happens to have a brother that lives in Lebanon, PA!), I got stuck in an elevator for 15 minutes, then we got frozen yogurt at the mall, and then bought over $100 worth of Betty Crocker products at the grocery store for all of the teachers because it is so hard to find here :) I think my favorite part of the day was getting stuck in the elevator with Jessica and having our maintenance man, Erastus, tell us "Don't go anywhere, I am going to turn off the elevator and get you out." to which Jessica responded, "Erastus, I am going to try to run away!" It was quite the eventful day! Sunday brought about more adventures. My roommate, Jenn, and I went with a bunch of Kenyans, and our friend MeLeesa, to an IDP (Internally Displaced People) Camp in the Rift Valley to deliver food and have a "church service". These tent camps are all over the Rift Valley, and they are made up of Kenyans who were displaced from their homes during the election violence in 2007. Their homes and farm land were taken away from them during the violence and many of them are still living as refugees in their own country. It was a very humbling experience to see these families living on nothing and depending on God to get them through the last couple years. One woman invited us to see her "home" where she lived with 6 children. Her husband left during the violence and she and here 6 children (including a 2 week old baby) fled the area never to see her husband again. It was amazing to see the strength, hope and faith in God that these people had. They were so grateful to have us there to share about God with them and bring them some food. The situation in these camps has become increasingly worse due to lack of government cooperation and help here in Kenya. Many of the camps are not receiving any support from the government when there seems to be some very simple solutions. The food that we brought to the camp was from a village only about 20-30 minutes away, by car, that has such a surplus of food that most of it spoils before it can be eaten. If only the government would take the initiative to organize deliveries between the two villages, maybe there wouldn't be so many hungry families in the IDP camps. It was sad and difficult to see the struggles these people are going through. It is very difficult to balance feeling helpless and feeling numb to the situation. The Kenyan who had organized the group that we went with is a teacher at our school, and he told the people in the camp about why he was there. He had been hiking nearby with some friends and at the top of the hiking trail they could see all of the IDP camps. At that moment they decided that they would never hike that trail again until the people in the IDP camps were taken care of and were able to find permanent housing and jobs. I thought this was an awesome sacrifice that these men made. They decided to forgo something that brought them joy to bring joy to someone else. These people really are showing the love of Christ in their actions! After leaving the camp, the Kenyans that we were with took us to a Kenyan barbecue where we had goat meat and chicken with chips (French Fries) and a mashed potato-like dish. It was delicious! We got home late that night, but the trip was so worth it! On Monday we had more orientation at school and spent some more time in our classrooms setting up for our first day on Tuesday. Although Tuesday was only a half day of school, it was tiring to get to know all of the students and get some of the logistics of the classroom out of the way! I have 20 students in my class. Many of them are Kenyan, 2 are Korean, one is British, one is Australian, and a few are American. About 3/4 of my students are boys! The rest of the week was similar to the first day. We did a lot of getting-to-know-you activities and practiced some of the classroom procedures and worked on behavior management. Some of my favorite things that happened this week in the classroom included being asked if Pennsylvania is where they make pencils, being looked at like I was crazy when I mentioned the words rainbow sherbet, and being told that I should run to the grocery store during the student's lunch time so that they could have candy as an end of the week treat. It was an exhausting first week, but I love my class and can't wait to see where the rest of the year takes us! After school yesterday we found out that the KFC opened at the shopping center by our house. We didn't dare try it because we knew every ex-pat in Nairobi would be there to try it out. It is the only American restaurant in Kenya! We might see what it's like in a few weeks when it calms down a bit. Instead, the 8 new girls went to an Italian restaurant to celebrate Jessica's birthday and then got frozen yogurt before watching a movie back at home. Today we got to go to a store that is a sewing and training program for marginalized women based in East Africa. It is called Amani ya Juu which means higher peace in Swahili. It was a really neat store filled with all kinds of handmade items in African fabrics like quilts, clothes, bags, and children's toys. It was hard to chose only one thing to buy, but I will definitely be going back for more stuff soon! After that we went to get lunch and just hung out for a bit. It was a nice, relaxing day.
Thank you all for your continued prayers. Although the last few weeks have been emotional, it helps to know that there are so many people supporting me!
Prayer Requests:
-For finances to become more stable. The Kenyan Shilling is losing value very quickly and because we are paid by the school in Shillings, finances are continuing to become tighter and tighter. It is a little scary to see the value dropping so quickly!
-Continued prayer for my classroom and students. We also have some new children on our campus from a local orphanage. Please pray that the other students would welcome them and form great friendships with them.
-That we would see all of the blessings God is giving us, even during the tough times.
Verse of Encouragement:
"Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you." ~ Philippians 4:6-9
