Jun 12, 2005 18:23
Y'all. I'm in Kenya.KENYA!! all on my own. well, not on my own exactly, but i travelled on my own AND i have a single room. so i'm sleeping alone. there are only two other girls near me. Everyone else is on the other side of the guest house. it's nice. gorgeous weather, much cooler than I expected. this morning, we went to church--FOR THREE HOURS. it was seriously the longest service i've ever been to. it just kept going. ont he upside, it was probably one of the best services i've been to. The music was amazing-lots of africanny sounding songs with great lyrics. It was so muc better than churches int he states because there isn't any of that snooty holier-than-thou-because-we're-christian stuff. It was jsut love. I family of a hundred people worshipping and loving each other. then, we went to this mall called Yaya. we jsut ate lunch there and bummed around a bit. i snooped in the market and got kk a terrific gift. at least, i think it is. I can't wait to get a pretty skirt. they're only about 300 shillings (so, at 72 shillings to the dollar, that's like five dollars). After the market/mall, we went to New Life Home for about two hours. it's an orphanage for babies who were abandoned, neglected, are diseased or are HIV +. WE basically were in there for two hours just holding them. we fed them too. and you knwo, it was a huge help even though it may seem really small. They have 45 babies there and only about 15 nurses though there are volunteers there pretty much all the time. It just melts you, seeing all the babies-it's my dream-holding babies. the whole maternal miriam jsut came right out. and let me jsut tell you that there is nothing better than seeing a really big guy get down and talk baby talk to a 3 month year old child who is crying. everyone in the group is really friendly. the girls are awesome. hanging with them for two weeks is going to be no problem. the guys jsut sort of clump together. they can't help it. too much estrogen. understandable. they can't take our feminine power...:).
The people who were supposed to pick me up from the airport yesterday though i was coming today. they were mighty surprised to get a phone call from little miriam at the airport sounding tired after 17 hours of travel but they came and got me anyway. i was standing there looking like an idiot with big teddy (though i'm so glad I have him now. he jsut amkes me feel good) by my side so some really nice english girls came over and said i could hang with them. safety in numbers. they were really pretty girls too,kk-cox would have been all over that, so would my friend mike and probably sam...well, i hope not but maybe...
Oh, big news. on thursday before i left, my mom gave me a present-a plane ticket to chattanooga so that I can visit camp for a day!!a i'm passing through atlanta for about 3 hours so i hope kk comes to the airport to chill with me for a bit... I love it here but i'm totally culture shocked. people here think we're so exotic. it's interesting how kenyan people relate to us. they're just so nice. so...i'm gonna take off. I miss y'all so much but it's going to be a great two weeks. the internet cafe is cheap too so i can come pretty often (3 shillings a minute)
i love y'all!!!
miriam