And the real part of this adventure has begun!  After a bus tour and lecture about Nairobi by one of our teachers, we went back to the SIT office with all of our baggage and had a quick pizza lunch, and then it was off to meet our homestay families!  I was the second one dropped off in the neighborhood of Jamhuri.  My mama, Jebichi, met me at the gate, and gave me a big hug.  She is very, very friendly and immediately showed me to my room.  I have a room to myself, and it is outside the main family house, but still within the gate.  Apparently the housegirl, who isn’t here at the moment, has the room that is right across from me.  Then, just a few steps outside my door is the main house, which is a beautiful two story home.  After Mama Jebichi showed me around, she said she was going to run up and shower, and then we would be going to a wedding.  Oh my!  She said I didn’t need to change, so I sat and read my book for about half an hour and when she was ready, we got in her probably 30 year old Mercedes and drove to the Nairobi arboretum, where the niece of a friend of Mama’s was getting married. 

Once we found a parking spot, we walked just a few yards and there were huge tents set up with enormous amounts of food and seating for all the guests.  We met Mama’s friend, Elizabeth, right away, and she told us to get some food, which although I had just eaten lunch, we did because it is rude to refuse food at a wedding.  As we were taking our plates to sit down, a hawk scared the living daylights out of me by swooping down and grabbing the chicken off my plate!! As Mama and I laughed hysterically, someone related to either the bride or the groom ran over and said “Please have more on behalf of Leah and Kevin (the bride and groom)!!” and when I said I still had plenty of food, he just kept repeating himself and all but dragged me back to the food line, while I was still laughing.  When we finally did find a seat, we ate, and Elizabeth came over and said hi.  Apparently the bride and groom are from the Luo tribe, so they had Luo traditional dancers performing, and when the bride and groom entered the courtyard area from their car, a huge dance processional ensued for at least half an hour, with people welcoming them to their reception and then following them around in a massive, dancing, train.  I realized, that it just so happens that the day they got married (Sept 8) is my parent’s anniversary (Happy 28^th anniversary mom and dad!!), and I got a good chuckle out of that.  After watching the dancing, listening to speeches by family members, and talking with Elizabeth for a while, Mama and I decided it was time to go, and we left. 

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home, and bought a few things, and it amazed me that my mama ran into no less than four people that she knew just at the grocery store… I feel like that just doesn’t happen in the states.  After she chatted with all of them for a while, we got in the check out line, and then loaded up the car and headed home. 

Once we got back, we made some chai and sat and visited for a while with the tv on in the background playing (you’ll never guess….) Keeping up with the Kardashians.  Oi.  Throughout the evening I met my two homestay siblings that still live at home.  Kimi has finished secondary school and is taking a gap year, but he plans to attend college in the states to study computer science- he wants to go to Princeton!  He is very, very friendly and we chatted for 15 minutes or so once he got back from studying for the SAT’s.  And Jero is 13 and is studying for her national exams in November- she is definitely spunky and full of energy!!  She immediately commented on all of my piercings, explained how she hates exercising and that even climbing the stairs at school is a struggle, and said that she loves science and animals.  There is also a medium sized dog, Rex, in the house, who is adorable and LOVES to be petted, even with my feet :)

All in all, it was a great first day with my homestay family.  Here are some other things I learned about my family though conversations throughout the day.  My host mama is one of 16 kids, although her family was polygamous, so her mother had 8 kids, and her stepmother also had 8 kids.  Wow!!  She was raised in a village in the Rift Valley and her family is a part of the Kalenjin tribe.  She came to Nairobi for her education and to work, and she was a dentist for many years before getting a Masters in Public Health and then an MBA (I was misinformed about the PhD, although she says she does want to pursue a PhD in Leadership at the University of Nairobi once Jero is in high school).  Mama works for the government in the Public Health arena- she helps with training and such.  About 10 years ago, my mama’s husband decided that he wanted to take a second wife (they are also polygamous), and my mama decided that she didn’t want to have two homes and be one of two wives, so her husband married another woman who he now has two little girls with.  He comes and visits Jero and Kimi more than once a week, and mama says she is still good friends with her husband (she still does call him her husband), they just aren’t really a couple anymore.  I think that is so fascinating!  Anyway, her husband is an architect, and he actually designed the house my family lives in, which is incredible.  Also, the oldest daughter in my family is studying at MIT, she is also a junior, but she is an Electrical Engineering major.  Yikes! Apparently my entire family is incredibly bright, too; the oldest daughter was the #1 student in all of Kenya in primary school and in the top 10 through high school.  And Kimi was in the top 100 students throughout Kenya in high school.  This family has some serious high achievers. 

On Sunday, it was a lazy morning around the house; I got up, showered, had breakfast, and visited with Jero for a while, and then mama and I went to church.  We walked just down the street and made it in time for the 12pm service at Nairobi Pentecostal.  The church was full of energy when we walked in- people were singing and dancing and it was actually a lot of fun.  And then the sermon started.  While the man delivering the sermon (he wasn’t the regular pastor) was certainly passionate and had most of the congregation supporting him, I definitely took issue with some of the things (ok, most of the things) he was saying.  He was quite emphatic that homosexuality was wrong and evil and must be stopped, he said that anyone who doesn’t go to church and isn’t Christian isn’t courageous and doesn’t have a backbone, and then said that it is up to good Christians to force Christianity on others.  Definitely not my cup of tea, but at least it held my attention!!

After the service was over, mama walked me down to the SIT office so I would know how to walk to class on Monday.  We came back and had chai, and then mama said she needed a rest.  She quietly asked me to go read or do something in my room because Jero really likes to talk and gets distracted easily, but she needed to go study for her exams.  So I excused myself and went and caught up on my journal entries and then after a while, Jero came knocking on my door.  She came in and immediately grabbed my iPhone, which was out, and started looking through all my apps and photos.   When she was finished with my iPhone, she grabbed my laptop and did the same thing.  We had a good time laughing as she took pictures of herself and recorded herself singing “Old MacDonald” in garage band. 

After a while, mama called us both into the house and I helped a little bit with preparing dinner.  I chopped up a few things and then mama taught me how to make ugali, which is the Kenyan staple food.  It is millet and maize which is all ground into a flour, and then added to boiling water.  It makes a very thick, dense and incredibly filling paste which can be eaten with other Kenyan foods.  Around 8:30 we sat down to a nice big Sunday dinner and then everybody went to bed soon after.  Luckily, I was able to skype with a few friends from Wooster, which was definitely a great way to end the weekend :)

This morning I got up, showered, had breakfast and then headed out of the house around 8am to walk to school.  Since none of the students know where anybody else is staying, it was tricky to find meeting places to walk together, so a few of us just decided to leave around the same time and hope we ran into each other.  I didn’t find the girls I was supposed to, but I ended up finding other students from my program that I walked with to the office, which was good. 

And then Swahili started.  I don’t know, its not that I dislike the class, its just not my favorite.  I’ve never picked up languages very easily, and this is definitely very different from Spanish, so it’s a little tricky- especially when it’s a 3 hour class.  But when we were done, we all gladly went out to lunch.  We get a per diem to buy lunch everyday, so it is up to us to budget, but we can get what we want, which is nice.  A few of us walked to Prestige Plaza which is a small mall, and we got sandwiches.  Another girl and I also went into the grocery story within the mall and bought a few things (peanut butter, crackers, and almonds) to keep in the office so we don’t have to go out every day for lunch- we can stay in, eat what we have, read, use the internet, or whatever else we want to do. 

When we got back from lunch, we had about an hour of Q & A time with our Swahili teachers and Mary about Kenyan culture, which turned out to be very helpful.  Now that we’ve spent a couple of days with our families, we all had some questions and were able to get it all cleared up, which was good.  Then we went on a walk around our neighborhood with our Swahili teachers, which was fine, but seemed kind of pointless, since they didn’t speak to us in Swahili or anything.  Oh well! But we ended up at another mall type place, so a bunch of us decided to go to Java, which is a very American coffee type place.  I had a long overdue diet coke and we all just talked and decompressed a bit- I think it was definitely good for all of us.  At about 5, we all walked home, and I agreed to meet another girl in the morning to walk to class.   Back at home tonight we just visited, watched tv, had dinner, and then I came out here to my room to practice my (very poor) Swahili.   And that’s that for now!  Hopefully there will be more exciting stories to share, soon  :)