Day four.

Habari ya asubuhi!

"good morning!"

Hi guys! So it is 640 here and it’s gorgeous out this morning! Clark and I just got done skyping with our parents which is nice because when we get up everyone is still up and getting ready for bed!

So, I love the Kenyans!! They are such wonderful people and want to be friend with everyone…well at least everyone seems to want to be friends with us-they love “light skinned” people we are told.  They are very hospitable and genuine. They are very big into greetings. I’m really getting good at that. “Jambo, Jambo, Jambo!” I am working on “Habara ya asubuhi”- good morning! And today I am going to work on “Jambo, Habari!” Which means “hi, How are you?” Even though I’m interested to see where the conversation goes from there…because I have no idea what good, bad, sad, or any other response they have to say would translate as-I guess the best thing I can do is smile and hope for the best haha. They speak Swahili, which comes from the Arabic word meaning “coast”, it is a mix of Arabic and the Africa language Bantu. Although they use this most commonly and as a form of communication-they also use English a lot. You can tell the richer people are more native with English and use it a lot more than the poor. I don’t know what the reasoning for that is exactly…probably just depends on how much schooling they have had and their age I suppose. It is very common for them to spend a great deal of time in groups and you don’t see them traveling alone of in sets of two hardly ever. When I went for a run yesterday down to the beach-I saw many groups of 5-15 people cooking and eating under shacks. To better describe it I guess you can imagine as we see people cooking and eating together when they go camping. It is a lot like when we go to Lake Shelbyville- we all pitch in to prepare food and then eat it together in a bigger group.

Another aspect of culture I didn’t realize over here is there are MANY different cultures. Obviously there is the African’s who wear the brightly colored skirts, wraps, and dresses (women) and the men typically wear shorts and flip flops. Shoes are not a typical necessity over here and many of them don’t wear them and if they do they are very worn. I bet they have some serious calluses ;). Other cultures that are very prominent over here are cultures from the Middle East, Muslim seen a lot! Since there are many different religions over here they have a general  worship where all different religions come to worship. I REALLY want to go to one and we are planning on it sometime. The worships are extremely musical based. Rice and Corn (maize) is the staple food of the Kenyans and they typically mix it with rices, beans potatoes, and other vegetables. Our house mother, Dollas, made us “spaghetti” last night- which was spaghetti noodles, meat, green beans, carrots, and purple onion-kind of different- but tasted wonderful.

Another interesting thing…instead of squirrels running around through trees and sidewalks- you see MONKEYS over here. And I don’t mean the monkeys from the zoo that are tamed. Wild monkeys, and they are extremely silly, and no…they aren’t evil like the video games I played as a child made them out to be!

To Kate’s class- when I was on my way to the hospital yesterday I saw a school that I will be going by every day. I will get pictures of it either today or tomorrow and post for you guys to see. Their school buses and school system in general is very different and similar, at the same time, to our system in the US.

Nursery school is what is considered Pre school and kindergarten. They then go on to “Primary Education” which begins at age 6-7 after they complete nursery school. Primary school has 8 sections which are called Standard 1, Standard 2, etc. through standard 8. After completion of standard 8 they take an exam to continue on to “Secondary Education”. They attended “secondary education” for four years and then sit for an exam at the end of those 4 years. After that they have the choice to go to a college or university, just as in the US. Different but kind of the same. Most rich children attend private schools and the poorer attend the public.

I’ll post more facts about the schooling after I learn more…but that is really all I have been able to understand so far!

I have to start getting ready for my FIRST DAY on the floor at the hospital. I’m nervous…more because of the communication barriers I am going to be facing rather more than anything else.

I can’t wait to tell you guys all about it!

Love,

Abigail.