Arrived!

I felt overhwelmed with joy at the Nairobi airport. I was back, I was actually thrilled to stand in line to talk to the visa man, secretly pleased to recognize words that some people were discussing the meaning of in the other bathroom stall and the whole ride into to the city I could not stop smiling; I just couldn’t help it. I am most struck by smells I know are exactly Kenya, but I have not smelled them in a long time. It is like seeing an old friend you would recognize anywhere. It is not that I know what makes the smells, I just know them. I know I smell it on the air, next to the latrine :) , in the dust, on my hands after I have washed with the “Imperial Leather” soap they use everywhere. Mostly it is in a hug. You may say, duh…that’s called body odor, but I suppose it is still something that catches my attention as distinct and welcoming.

I can hardly believe I’m here. I don’t think I actually believed myself when I would tell the little boys I would come back to visit them soon, or someday. I never imagined it would be now. Hallelujah it is. I stayed in a room across from the Easy Coach bus station in Nairobi. My room overlooked the street. I was told it would be very loud, so I was surprised to arrive in an empty street at 10:30 at night. However, I took an “afternoon nap” from 1-4am and awoke to a rumbling, honking, bustling, bursting city street which entertained me for the next couple hours. I really like cities in the morning—any city. Everyone’s off to work, I always wonder where they are off to.

It was a grey and misty morning with orange mud puddles. My bus left and I was settled into my usually silent trance of looking out the window. This time I noticed details, I was taken back into memories, and funny stories and conversations. I noticed the blue and grey striped socks of the school children, I could name some of the food growing inches from the road (How it tastes good with all the truck exhaust, I have no idea). There was a massively intense handball game going on. I saw dirty roadside markets with heaps of mangos and tomatoes, potatoes, a little pick up piled with pineapple. Typical clusters of shops with rusted tin ripple roofs and brightly painted, but washed out and worn walls sunk into the dirt everywhere. The names on the signs are always the best. “Eunice’s look pretty hair saloon” or “Nameless Inn” and even “Coffin shop” It is a little taste. It is so pretty and lush right now. Railroad tracks and power lines slice through the growing ground. The road travels up and overlooks a huge valley with a little plateau coming up out of nowhere in the middle.

I am loving being around Kenyan English. The phrasing and intonation is so different than American English. “ You want what?” “Eh! I’m COMing.” Everything is pronounced with all the t’s and dropped all the er’s and turn them into a’s.

Now I have arrived back on the farm outside of Kisumu and have spent my first whole day. I’m having so much fun. It was a beautiful day. In the morning everyone meets at the church for prayer. Then the kids go off to school and everyone else goes about their work. I helped clean out the calf stalls with Lynette. There are currently 8 calves and around 61 cows total now! So many! It is so fun to bump into my friends one by one at various points in the day and join whatever they are doing. I went with Milkah, and weeded in the maize field, washed milk pails in the milking parlor with Evalynn, and went to Karunga for the weekly mama health discussion group, which I will have to tell you all about later.