Na wewe?

A good week, and a busy weekend.

Saturday, a few friends and I went to Kibera, or really the outskirts of Kibera, to volunteer at a feeding center for orphans. My friend's host mother runs the center, which feeds about 20 or 30 kids one day a week. How can that be a feeding center, really? I enjoyed my time and I learned some fun games, but I'm conflicted about it. Maybe it's the magnitude of the problem, or the fact that I'm not really committed to this organization, or maybe because I don't believe in its effectiveness. I didn't walk out of there feeling like I feel after a tutoring session at Arsenal. There are around 700 organizations working in Kibera, the biggest slum in Africa. Wouldn't they be more effective if consolidated? Better able to get money from donors, and make sure it goes to the right places?

One of the staff members here is Maasai. On Sunday, I woke up early and met with friends at Nakumatt Junction. We took a matatu to Ngong--one of the best matatus yet, by the way--and then another matatu to his family's land a few kilometers from Ngong. We hiked down the escarpment and sat on some rocks halfway down. It was beautiful, the Ngong hills to the left, some huts and brush, but mostly nothing until the horizon. We ate, saw the dam, played with some kids. I practiced my kiswahili, which is about good enough to communicate with a four year old.

I've tried for the past five minutes to construct a coherent thought about how beautiful it was there, how I'd like to put a house down, how I couldn't live as a third or fourth wife in a roach-crowded hut, but everything felt like something terrible, something I couldn't sign my name to. My feelings and thoughts have been paricularly difficult to organize.

On the language front, I just had my first lesson of Dholuo. I'm going to be working in a Luo community, so I figure I should know how to introduce myself and ask how things are going. Which I can do now.

Last week, every morning walk to school, I couldn't stop smiling.

But here's something I've been wondering about. In Cairo, every day I felt overwhelmed. Crossing streets, sitting and having tea. Here, I haven't felt that way, except maybe my first day in Nakuru town. I wonder if it is because I'm living here, because on my walk home, I can see what dresses the second-hand kiosks have sold, and which they haven't. Or because the askari who used to yell hakuna matata at me every time I walked by now responds when I ask habari za leo, or habari gani. But I've been worried that it could be some kind of tiredness that comes from traveling. That I'm worn out and nothing will surprise me, nothing will have the same wonder.

I've got to head to Yaya center to pick up some paint. My mum is having the house painted, maroon and orange. She's a very stylish lady--I'm sure it's going to be bangin.