Jambo

March 5th, 2009 by Fleur Verhoeven

Jambo!

I’ve been in Kenya for about a week now and as you might have heard I’ve had my ups and downs. Reading about Kenya from my room in New Zealand is a lot different than actually being here. But let’s start from the beginning:

I arrived in Nairobi last Saturday after over 35 hours of traveling! David, who works for VICDA, picked me up and we drove to the volunteer house where I would be staying. On my way here I got a total culture shock. People of all ages were trying to sell stuff to us and the driving is absolutely crazy! I don’t think they have any road rules here in Kenya :) .

At the volunteer house there are another 5 girls from Canada. One of them started on the same day as me. We have a house mum, called Charity, who is the best cook ever! She is very nice and takes good care of us. At the house we even have electricity, TV, flush toilets and 2 showers. One of which is cold and the other hot (most of the time :) . So it’s definitely much more than I expected.

After my first night here we had day 1 of orientation. We got to talk to VICDA and meet the other volunteers. They are all very nice! We even went out for dinner, which was sooo good. The next day we went to the animal orphanage and I got to pet a cheetah, which was pretty cool!

On day 3 we went to Nairobi’s Children’s Home (NCH) for the first time. It was a very hard day. The orphanage is SO dirty! There’s poo and wee everywhere! I work with the toddlers, which I was really happy about. The children are very sweet (but cry a lot). On of the girls in my room (Gadambe, I think that’s how you write it) is the cutest girl you’ll ever meet. She has such an amazing smile! And then there’s Alex. He’s so little, but thinks he’s the man haha. It’s really good to have the older children outside as well, because most of them speak a little bit of English and can help translate. Tatu is such an amazing little boy. I think he’s about 7 and is definitely the ‘leader of the gang’. I always recognize him because of his green crocks :) .

So overall, my first week has been very hard. I found everything very emotional and am really homesick some times. But luckily everyone tells me it’s completely normal and they’ve all been through it. Some time I think…10 weeks are over in no time at all, and other times I’m counting the minutes. I guess it just takes time to get used to the whole culture shock.

Anyway I have to go, catch a matatu and go home.

I hope to write again very soon.
Take care and keep those emails coming, I really need them sometimes :)

xxx Fleur

Last 5 posts by Fleur Verhoeven

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Kenya.

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