greetings...

first off, greetings from nairobi! i hope all is well with everyone back home, and i can assure you that things here are amazing...although i haven't even begun to really process what it means that i have graduated and am done with bc, this blog will focus primarily on my time in Kenya and the ways in which i am trying to be deeply present to this experience...

the plane trip over was long and lonely at times, especially when my mind wandered and i began to think about the reality of the past few days, but before i knew it i had eaten dinner in montreal, breakfast in zurich, and was sitting down to dinner watching the sunset over nairobi...i got in a few hours before the group (i linked up with a group of 10 students and three faculty members that fr. charles is leading from le moyne college in syracuse new york), so i used some really nice random guy's cell phone to call fr. charles. after great misunderstanding and confusion, and the general lack of disorganization that fr. charles operates under, i spent four hours in the hotel restaurant. however, during that time i ate some deelish spring chicken and chips (aka fries) and had a wonderful kenyan brewski known as tusker (*the brother of the guy who started the company/brewry was killed by an elephant and so the founder decided to name the company tusker after the tusks of an elephant). the people in the restaurant, like the random cell phone man, were very friendly and welcoming (something i have quickly found to be the standard among kenyan people). in fact, the most overwhlemingly constant part of the trip is the way in which i have continuely been welcomed. sure there have been a few times so far, where i haven't been so welcomed, and there have been situations where i believe our group has overstepped its welcome, on the whole kenyans have a lot to teach westerners about hospitality (*as you all know in some cultures people greet each other with a firm handshake, others a hug and kiss on the cheek, some two kisses...here the universal greeting is a very soft, very gentle handshake, sometimes with both hands. and if you're greeting a child the appropriate greeting is "saa sa," meaning hey or how's it going in kiswahili; if you're meeting an adult or an elder, it's more appropriate to say "habari," which means how are you, and the response to this is "mezuri," meaning fine...sorry if this aside is long and doesn't seem like there's really a point to it, but the point is that this greeting is a very gentle, very beautiful expression of hospitality)....

so, after i finshed my spring chicken i eventually met up with fr. charles and the group (ten students, fr. charles, beth- a campus minister, and fr. lou- the director of campus ministry) and we headed to the jesuit residence in karen (a district in nairobi named after the danish author karen blixen who lived in nairobi from 1917-1931; her most famous work is "out of africa"....today karen is probably the second or third wealthiest district in nairobi). although we are taking a few trips within this big trip, the base location of this group service-learning trip is at the jesuit residence, called the pedro arrupe house (named in honor of the former superior general of the jesuits)...

after we arrived to the pedro arrupe house on wednesday night, most people were exhausted and ready to sleep. so we got settled, moved into our rooms (which are really nice by the by...the jesuits have/are doing some amazing work throughout east africa, but are living pretty nice here in karen...i have a single room with my own bathroom, a luxuy most of the kenyan people do not have)...after all of the le moyne students and the campus ministers crashed, fr. charles and i were greeted by this wonderful woman named "deborah" (in kenyan English pronounced "dee- bor- ah," not "deb-rah"). and after much persuasion, deborah insisted that we sit down and she prepared us a delicious kenyan meal. not just a snack, an entire meal. and this was at midnight, after i had already eaten several times that day, including the most recent spring chicken...however, this is a big part of kenyan hospitality, and it would of been extremely rude for me not to eat. so i ate. and it was delarsh! we had some rice, beef, and green vegetables that i can't remember the name of, but they are pretty common in the diet here...after great food and great conversation i finally went to bed myself and got a wopping six hours of sleep, before waking up at 7:15 on thursday morning...