The richest country.....

The natural resources here in Kenya are seemingly unending. I absolutely love he fresh fruits and vegetables we buy from roadside vendors almost everyday. The sweet bananas, pineapples, mangoes, passion fruit, big tasty carrots, soukomawikki (a green leafy vegetable cooked to eat with staple; ugali), arrow root, fresh beans and lentils, and more. The food here is amazing for the most part. I'm adjusting to the tilipia fish we eat frequently with ugali but at the end of a hot, busy day, these flavourful, carb-filled meals awesome. I am a poser here:
We have been out on the bumpiest roads in the universe to visit MICH project sites. This is allowing me to become much more familiar with the inner and outer workings of MICH. Yesterday we travelled though the Kakamega forest areas which are beautiful, to the Maseno office and farm lands and to the Ugandan border to take care of passport buiness.

I have gone through culture shock more than I expected. I feel myself pulling out of it though and starting to love living this way. I have been most overwhelmed by the never-ending crowds of Africans along the roadsides, in market areas and packed in vehicles. I don't know why this overwhelms me most maybe it's the way they all seem to notice ME. Being the only "mzungo" in millions of black Africans is enough to give you a complex! The children scream "Mzungo!" when they see me pass by in the vehicle. Some children look very afraid. Some of the adults seem to look me over and say, "what are you doing here?". I offer a smile which is usually well recieved, but I think Kenya, being one of the most travelled to African countries and a centre for NGO's has seen good and bad Mzungo's come in and out of their country. Kenya is a fighting country. These people have a lot of national pride and some, specifically the ones I'm working with, are determined to develop Africa by their initiatives and not outside ones. This is very good. When they learn that I am not here to make any changes, merely LEARN and help with the documentation of MICH, they welcome me whole-heartedly. I have to say though, Kenyans are more intimidating than I had anticipated. They are friendly (and generally have beautiful smiles) but they are very forward, blunt and to the point people. mostly awesome. I have been enjoying their English and terminology such as; "we don't need to decorate up the language now."

In my observing, I am constantly hung up on social interaction between the people. I'm so curious about how they value one another and how they seem so satisfied by not being so individualistic and independent as we are in the west. While I was stunned by culture shock I was finding that there really is not a lot of familiarity, however, now that I have relaxed and found myself here, I am falling in love with everyone I meet. Especially when I go into the city, everyone is so friendly and I find myself stopping to chat with everyone. I just wish I knew swahilli because they tend to blend english and swahilly and luo and it's so hard to keep up with everything. working on it.

I will be learning and working a lot with issues of farming here and farm management as MICH is focused on developing western Kenya's natural resources. I have a lot to learn here and a great deal of observation to do. Before I say way more than necessary, I will post a few more pictures. Kenyan sights, some of the work sites of MICH and pictures from our field trips.







Much more pictures to come.
For now I am in a classy hotel in Nairobi (Fidelis' choice, not mine), waiting for her to return from the US embassy. We are going to go guitar shopping today! At 5 pm yesterday she ran into the appartment where I was relaxing with a book and screamed for me to get up and go, our flight was leaving at 5:45. I quickly threw my things in a backpack (luckily brought everything) and ran out to the MICH truck. Fidelis was frantic as I guess our flight was arranged by MICH staff and they forgot to inform us of it. It was adrenaline to get there and once we did we found that check out was at 5:45.... sheesh. So now we are here, Fidelis has hardly any of her things and we've had other complications, but ... it always works out.

love and peace.
kwahere (gooodbye)