Teacher for few days
I taught kids today and yesturday during the pastor's convention/conference. Alot of the Kenyan pastor's are not learned in the Bible. They teach and preach largely by emotion and simple biblical theology. Anyway, I even taught this teenager some jujitsu moves. I mostly adlibbed my way through that because I don't know jujitsu. OK, I totally make it all up - but the kid enjoyed it!
I noticed that I've either become braver in my taste in Kenyan cuisine or I'm just fully adjusted. I say this because almost everytime for the past two days flies and mosquitos accompanied everybody at the table (and everywhere else). Surprisingly, it didn't bother me at all. Quite frankly, alot of traditional Kenyan foods look and taste alot like what mom used to make. And that's a good thing. I've been stuffing myself to maximum capacity lately at every meal. I've noticed this - and nausea usually follows.
I have butterflies in my stomach now. Good butterflies that is. It is alreay friday night. I am sitting on a coach in this girl's highschool hallway while the pastor's conference is going on. In about 72 hours I will be on a flight to America. Ahhh.....America. She is a good country. Right now I'm being bitten by mosquitos. I hope T don't get malaria.
In hindsight, Kibera (the slums of Nairobi - the largest slums in Africa, second largest in the world) wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Pastor Steve Taylor warned me about covering my mouth. Marius warned me numerous times to basically watch my back and to keep an eye out for people who might want to stab me in the back with a knife and walk away. Fortunately, none of these were true at the time. True, the conditions in Kibera are bad (the pictures support this), but again, it is not quite as bad as I had imagined. In fact, I was fairly comfortable most of the time. There were a couple of times when a couple of men on different occasions approached our small group for shilings, food, or just to pester us. One man (who looked like Kevin Garnett) had a big black Uzi type of gun around his shoulder. The moment he saw us he stopped, unraveled his gun from his shoulder, and threatened to shoot us!! Amazingly, our group remained compIetely calm about this. A few seconds later, we realized the gun was made of wood painted black. I tried to ignore any and all threats. I tried to be cautious and aware of things around me. One of the worst things that you could do, in my opinion, is to react with your emotions. And the usual reaction to these situations is fear. And fear is kind of obvious. Most parts of Kibera were really bad - literally sewage in the dirt streets that they use to walk, tnd with their home not to far off. But there were definitely some tolerable and liveable places as well. It seems like there are different classes within the slum city of Kibera. Pastor John has his home there which he invited Derek and I. We ate food their - good food. A neighbor, a man I met somewhere before, invited me to his home, right across the street. I drank pineapple juice - good juice.
In my last remaining days as mentioned, I stayed with a pastor and his wife (a "mazungu" = white person), friends of bishop Kabachia. It was like a cottage in the middle of the country-side. I felt very safe with barbed wires, sturdy gates, keepers, and three big dogs. They had a hostel for missionaries. We stayed for about three days and three nights. The good was amazing. Fressh eggs, toast, french toast, and maple syrup from wisconsin!! We even had spaghetti the first night when we were starving. They treated us like good family. That was a wonderful change from all the Kenyan meals I was getting used to.
There is a great/amazing/beautiful/grand view. Amazing trees (the banana tree is one strange animal; a very weird organism if you observe it up and close).
The End
I noticed that I've either become braver in my taste in Kenyan cuisine or I'm just fully adjusted. I say this because almost everytime for the past two days flies and mosquitos accompanied everybody at the table (and everywhere else). Surprisingly, it didn't bother me at all. Quite frankly, alot of traditional Kenyan foods look and taste alot like what mom used to make. And that's a good thing. I've been stuffing myself to maximum capacity lately at every meal. I've noticed this - and nausea usually follows.
I have butterflies in my stomach now. Good butterflies that is. It is alreay friday night. I am sitting on a coach in this girl's highschool hallway while the pastor's conference is going on. In about 72 hours I will be on a flight to America. Ahhh.....America. She is a good country. Right now I'm being bitten by mosquitos. I hope T don't get malaria.
In hindsight, Kibera (the slums of Nairobi - the largest slums in Africa, second largest in the world) wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Pastor Steve Taylor warned me about covering my mouth. Marius warned me numerous times to basically watch my back and to keep an eye out for people who might want to stab me in the back with a knife and walk away. Fortunately, none of these were true at the time. True, the conditions in Kibera are bad (the pictures support this), but again, it is not quite as bad as I had imagined. In fact, I was fairly comfortable most of the time. There were a couple of times when a couple of men on different occasions approached our small group for shilings, food, or just to pester us. One man (who looked like Kevin Garnett) had a big black Uzi type of gun around his shoulder. The moment he saw us he stopped, unraveled his gun from his shoulder, and threatened to shoot us!! Amazingly, our group remained compIetely calm about this. A few seconds later, we realized the gun was made of wood painted black. I tried to ignore any and all threats. I tried to be cautious and aware of things around me. One of the worst things that you could do, in my opinion, is to react with your emotions. And the usual reaction to these situations is fear. And fear is kind of obvious. Most parts of Kibera were really bad - literally sewage in the dirt streets that they use to walk, tnd with their home not to far off. But there were definitely some tolerable and liveable places as well. It seems like there are different classes within the slum city of Kibera. Pastor John has his home there which he invited Derek and I. We ate food their - good food. A neighbor, a man I met somewhere before, invited me to his home, right across the street. I drank pineapple juice - good juice.
In my last remaining days as mentioned, I stayed with a pastor and his wife (a "mazungu" = white person), friends of bishop Kabachia. It was like a cottage in the middle of the country-side. I felt very safe with barbed wires, sturdy gates, keepers, and three big dogs. They had a hostel for missionaries. We stayed for about three days and three nights. The good was amazing. Fressh eggs, toast, french toast, and maple syrup from wisconsin!! We even had spaghetti the first night when we were starving. They treated us like good family. That was a wonderful change from all the Kenyan meals I was getting used to.
There is a great/amazing/beautiful/grand view. Amazing trees (the banana tree is one strange animal; a very weird organism if you observe it up and close).
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