Getting More Adjusted

Still fighting the jetlag. It is incredibly painful to get up in the morning. All I want to do is keep sleeping but I know that I'm missing out on learning, discovering and seeing so much around me. Today, we spent the morning trying to explore perspective safaris and other trips we might take. We also contacted some other people to help plan our next few weeks. When landing in a foreign place, I'm learning it takes much longer than I ever imagined to get things going, plan things, and connect with people.

But good news- we're heading to this orphanage for HIV positive children called Nyumbani first thing Monday morning. I'm super excited because their organization sounds incredible and I'm thrilled to be able to spend some time with them. I'll fill you all in more on Monday.

Today, we went to the memorial garden for the former U.S. Embassy. It was bombed in 1998 and killed over 200 people. There was a small musuem that had lots of information about the bombing and the memorial garden serves as a private park for anyone to use. We were there during the lunch hour and saw many people eating lunch with friends and taking a nap under the sun. From there, we traveled on to the Kenya Conference Center which is the tallest building in Nairobi. We had some pretty incredible views from the rooftop- Mt. Kenya, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the city itself.

We spent an hour walking around downtown familiarizing ourselves with the area. Immediately, I noticed how many newspapers are printed and sold in this city. It's crazy. Seriously for any of you journalism folks out there reading my blog, if you are ever looking for a job in the newspaper busy, come to Kenya! I picked up a copy of The Daily Nation- which is the largest newspaper in Kenya and a place I hope I get to visit during my stay here.

I'm realizing that it (meaning Nairobi and Africa in general) is not as scary as I made it out to be. I realize I've only been here for 3 days and we definitely have to be safe, but the scariest part of it all is the mass amount of unknown that you have to face.

After walking around, we had the experience of tasting the major beer served here- Tusker. We met our friend Muthoga (the friendly Kenyan who welcomed us at the airport) at a local restaurant/bar joint in downtown Nairobi. It's so cool to be able to not just be a tourist here but actually get out and see what the city is truly like. Michael and I had a very engaging coversation with Muthoga about Kenya politics, the upcoming election and free education. Muthoga explained the different political parties to us as well as the controversy surrounding the free primary education problem which 4 years into the program still has almost 1 million children not enrolled in school.

Then as 6PM rolled around, we called our friendly cab driver Kaylo who brought us back to our cozy but small apartment where Michael cooked me dinner! That's all for today.

P.S. I just got skype so if anyone has it or wants to get it, we can talk for free!