This morning Tyler, Landen, Caroline, and I woke up a bit before 7 to go running before breakfast was served promptly at 7:30. We didn't realize that at this time, everyone and I mean everyone is walking to work. As I mentioned before Karen is pretty isolated from the slums of Kenya- the whole neighborhood is an oasis of affluent white people, and so we don't see too many natives walking around our neighborhood. However this morning, and I suppose like most mornings, the natives walk into Karen in search of work, or walk through Karen as a short cut to other destinations or to catch the bus. Because Karen is quite wealthy and is a place for the super-rich, many come literally knocking on the gates in search of any kind of odd jobs or construction. The inhabitants of Karen quite often are adding on to their already huge houses, building pools, or need landscaping so the natives take advantage of these opportunities. As we were running we saw mobs of people flocking to houses desperately begging for work. Because of this fact, many houses who don't want the constant flooding of distraught workers, put up signs that say NO WORK HERE in red letters. There are also many signs posted up around the neighborhood that say "Need marriage counseling or love advice? call this number" or "Have asthma or diabetes? We have medicine for you!" You can see that many people on the outskirts of Karen will do anything to get money from this rich neighborhood. Right when you exit Karen and go beyond the bus stop you see how some people really live. They "hang out" or take naps underneath the shade of tall weeds or even in the dirt. If they cannot find work, they nap and that is their day. Anyway while we were running we had to weave in and out of these people who were staring us down. Surprisingly enough, although East Africa is know for its runners, these people do not run for leisure they run to get to work first! It was like the walking dead- herds of people were walking in the opposite direction of us staring. I was glad I had Landen and Tyler by my side. HOWEVER I am confident to say that IF I was running with just Caroline, I know they would do me no harm. Just looking at the Kenyans they look unhappy and they stare at the white people but if you give them a simple "Jambo!" their faces light up and they will immediately start up a conversation with you. But just like in any country, one must be weary of strangers. The Kenyans are genuinely interested in us, where we come from, and what we think of Obama.
For the majority of the day we were at Swahili class. Njau, our bus chauffeur drove us 15 minutes to a small local university where we met three Swahili professors. We broke into groups and began our day practicing Swahili. Elias, my teacher, only spoke in Swahili. He knew English but he acted things out and only spoke in Swahili which made things confusing at first but it was a very good way to learn. I learned alot today and I even used some of the greetings and vocab at the market. After about 1 hour of Swahili we took a "chai break"- these happen alot here! Kenyans want to make sure we are rested and well-fed, no sense learning on an empty stomach and chai does just the trick.
After eating lunch outside, we encountered another chameleon but this one was really cool! It had three horns on its head! Chameleons in general seem very weary, when they walk across your hand they feel around first before planting it. I anticipate seeing alot of these chameleons around the compound. Later Njau dropped us off in the town of Karen which has a few bars, a "Walmart" called Nakumart, some outdoor markets a shopping mall. We exchanged some money and went browsing for a while. I didn't want to buy anything because I knew they would rip us off. I am here for 4 months and I want to wait until I know how to bargain in Swahili before I buy anything! I wanted to buy everything- the jewelry, bags, belts, and kangas were all homemade authentic African pieces and they were all beautiful. It took alot of self control not to buy anything! Some of the women who were selling their pieces looked like traditional tribal Africans wearing many heavy earings and colorful clothes. Some women didn't know English and kept saying "karibu dada" meaning welcome sister. They kept wanting us to come over to their area of items, come here! welcome! student price! come look! I felt bad turning them all down but these people will literally do anything to have us come look at what they have to sell. I tried to strike up a conversation with one of the vendors but he talked so fast I couldn't catch a word he was saying! They really appreciate when we try and talk Swahili, and said I was really smart for just knowing the word hello- Jambo.
Later today another one of our liaisons, Sinari, came to talk to us about a general history of Kenya. He is very enthusiastic, and let us have class outside of our compound since it was such a nice day. Kenyan teachers in general are very funny, hospitable, and are very smiley- at least the 5 that I have met. He would even answer his cell phone in the middle of a lecture. This guy is great, he says the reason why he doesn't want to go to the united states is because we are too mechanic and don't drink and sleep as much as we should! haha
I am constantly woken up by the Kenya rooster, it makes really weird noises and is somewhere on the compound. I WILL find it, and chuck it over the fence. I will probably run again tomorrow, but I am not looking forward to it because today was brutal. The altitude makes running extremely hard. We ran about 4k so a little less than 3 miles and I was in a hurt locker. My lungs felt like they were going to explode and it took me a while to catch my breathe. At least when I come back I will be in very good shape!
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