Day 5 (part 1) -
“My heart feels a little hard today, though, I love being here. I really want to know what God wants me to get out of this trip. I’ve been telling myself over and over that if I am here, God wanted me to be here for a reason. Lord, why? What do you want me to figure out?”
By the 5th day in Ngong/Nairobi, I was beginning to break out of my “shy, quiet” shell and getting to know the personalities that surrounded me. I began to realize how blessed I was to have a diverse team full of Americans and Kenyans that were united in one cause: to further proclaim Jesus’ name. Sure, we had our goofy, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea” moments but everyone was serious about their relationship with Christ. Bwana asifiwe!
The reality that the end of the “honeymoon” period in our trip was upon us and becoming more apparent as the final days of orientation were approaching. [Honeymoon = the first week in the new culture where you are a bit sheltered, having others from the home culture around you.] The past week, when we were not in the slums or Nairobi, we were sitting in chairs listening to Brian (and others) talk about culture, missions, and various other topics we needed to have hold of before we were challenged on our own during our assignments. Due to jet-lag, we would be easily lulled to sleep by the sound of the speaker’s voice and Brian would make us get out of our chairs and sing songs to arouse us. Sometimes they were funny; others were…just ridiculously great. You can ask me more about that later. My brain felt stuffed and I needed time to think and pray through the questions that I was beginning to ask; “I love it here, I know God wants me here, so why am I here according to my Lord?” I was getting impatient.
After morning chai I did laundry by hand, Kenyan style. This wasn’t the first time I had done laundry by hand in my life, but this was a lot harder than I anticipated. I used detergent (good old Omo) and scrubbed away at my weeks’ worth of clothing until it was ready to hang on the line. Good thing I finished that day because it rained the day after. We had more free time on the “clock”, so I was able to grab my journal, guitar and music and sit outside by the volleyball court at the Senta. Overloaded and a bit confused, I poured out my heart through worship and writing – it is amazing how time alone to sing and pray nurtures my soul. There is something special when I am playing my guitar and singing out to my God; I can’t fully express what I feel when I am dwelling in those moments (especially with the sound of Kenya in my ears). Yes, I love being around people but I need my time alone. Clear headed and warm hearted, I was ready for the rest of the day.
We were able to have two men come and give us pointers/practice on speaking Kiswahili. Kenya’s official languages are Swahili and English, so the language barrier wasn’t as thick as it would be in other areas of the world for our group of Americans. Yet, for our benefit and to show respect to the culture we were highly encouraged to learn Swahili. My heart was always, slowly being captured by this new culture I was integrating into it and hearing Swahili gave it another push.
The reality that the end of the “honeymoon” period in our trip was upon us and becoming more apparent as the final days of orientation were approaching. [Honeymoon = the first week in the new culture where you are a bit sheltered, having others from the home culture around you.] The past week, when we were not in the slums or Nairobi, we were sitting in chairs listening to Brian (and others) talk about culture, missions, and various other topics we needed to have hold of before we were challenged on our own during our assignments. Due to jet-lag, we would be easily lulled to sleep by the sound of the speaker’s voice and Brian would make us get out of our chairs and sing songs to arouse us. Sometimes they were funny; others were…just ridiculously great. You can ask me more about that later. My brain felt stuffed and I needed time to think and pray through the questions that I was beginning to ask; “I love it here, I know God wants me here, so why am I here according to my Lord?” I was getting impatient.
After morning chai I did laundry by hand, Kenyan style. This wasn’t the first time I had done laundry by hand in my life, but this was a lot harder than I anticipated. I used detergent (good old Omo) and scrubbed away at my weeks’ worth of clothing until it was ready to hang on the line. Good thing I finished that day because it rained the day after. We had more free time on the “clock”, so I was able to grab my journal, guitar and music and sit outside by the volleyball court at the Senta. Overloaded and a bit confused, I poured out my heart through worship and writing – it is amazing how time alone to sing and pray nurtures my soul. There is something special when I am playing my guitar and singing out to my God; I can’t fully express what I feel when I am dwelling in those moments (especially with the sound of Kenya in my ears). Yes, I love being around people but I need my time alone. Clear headed and warm hearted, I was ready for the rest of the day.
We were able to have two men come and give us pointers/practice on speaking Kiswahili. Kenya’s official languages are Swahili and English, so the language barrier wasn’t as thick as it would be in other areas of the world for our group of Americans. Yet, for our benefit and to show respect to the culture we were highly encouraged to learn Swahili. My heart was always, slowly being captured by this new culture I was integrating into it and hearing Swahili gave it another push.
There are 42 tribes in Kenya each with a language; so many Kenyans know English, Swahili, and their mother tongue. Cool, right?! Our 4 Kenyan teammates each had their own tribe – Kikuyu, Luhya, Kamba, and Kisii. Anyway, during our lesson on Kiswahili, I was glad to discover that it is simpler than English, Spanish, and French (2 of those three I attempted, failed and gave up on). There are no feminine/masculine words, all of the letters have one sound, and each letter is pronounced in a word. “Hallelujah!” said my brain. I was still a little slow at translating phrases at the end of our instruction, but not as slow as I would have been if the grammar structure was more complex. Of course what is actually spoken isn’t pure Swahili – it is English, Swahili, and slang mixed (called shang) – so really, the best way to learn the language is to be around it all the time. This probably doesn’t come as a surprise to most of you.
The most exciting portion of our day was spent at a campus of the University of Nairobi where we met students who were a part of the Christian Union there....
I’ll stop here for now. See Day 5, part 2.
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