Marianists are SWEET!

I've been in Nairobi for just about two days now. Our plane landed at 6AM Nairobi time and after a quick pass through Immigration, we grabbed all our luggage---thankfully none was stolen, tampered with, or lost---and walked out to the main lobby and found a Marianist priest, Fr. Gabriel, and our friend Nichole Davis, one of the former Karonga volunteers, waiting for us. What a relief it was to see them, and a comfort to see a familiar face in Nichole!

After having some porters grab some of our luggage to carry it for us, (luckily Nichole convinced them we had no money) we rode back to the Marianist District House in Nairobi. We had some breakfast and then joined Maria and Liz on their way to one of the Marianists missions in Nairobi: Our Lady of Nazareth, a primary school for about 1700 children who live in one of the slums of Nairobi. To get there, we rode a Matatu---a big bus/van that serves as public transportation here and is very exciting/somewhat scary at first---to get to the road that leads to the school. We then had to walk about a mile or two in through the slum where the school was located. Talk about diving right in. Luckily my experiences in southern Mexico had given me a taste of third-world poverty, but it's still pretty shocking to see, especially on such a large scale. The headmaster of the school told us there are 100,000 people in the slum that the school serves alone. And from what I could gather, there are a number of these types of slums in Nairobi; crazy.

Today was a more fun/relaxed day. We again rode a Matatu, this time into the center of Nairobi, which is much more developed, but just as crowded. I can already tell that being white here is going to be an interesting experience. We had lunch, went into several shops to try to find a cell phone for Kat and a charger for Molly. (I'm buying a cell phone from Ryan Dugan, and will get that number to people whenever we trade hands. He will be here for another month, so it may not be until then.)

Nichole, Adam, Peter, and Meagan were all staying here at the brother's as well. Adam was a Karonga volunteer with Nichole, and Peter is a friend of Adam's who has been in Africa for four weeks visiting Adam. The two of them, with Nichole, all left tonight to fly home to America. Meagan is a volunteer with the Maryknoll Sisters. She is a friend of Nichole's and was here visiting her. She is also from UD, and I had met her last year at an UDSAP visitors weekend. She's pretty awesome, and it was a great pleasure spending the past two days with her---not to mention the fact that she knows Swahili, and provided tremendous help to us getting around Nairobi! I wish I could have spent more time with her and Nichole. Luckily, Meagan will be in Africa for three year, so I definitely plan on meeting up with her again.

Now, I must get to bed. Our plan leaves Nairobi at 8:15 tomorrow morning, and we much get up at 5:30AM. It's just turning midnight here, so I should get some rest before our flight and long drive to Karonga tomorrow. But I should be home by tomorrow night! We are all very much looking forward to getting settled!

I posted a lot from this past couple of days. Hopefully, it isn't over-saturating for you all. But I really wanted to share and record some of my experiences from this journey so far. I imagine things will slow down once I get into a routine. But for now, there is so much new and different to experience, that I hope to share it and record it. Karonga tomorrow! And it's 08/08/08!