Orientation Day 2

Greetings from Kakamega!

I have just finished Day 2 of the Orientation. And by orientation, I mean one hour of a meeting and five hours of free time. The orientation has been on “African time” – people here are VERY relaxed with time. They apparently say that “they have watches, but they don’t have time” and that we should always “pole pole” (slow down). So people often come to meetings three hours late or don’t show up at all. The FSD Site Team keeps advising us that we need to be extremely patient with people. I find it very interesting that Kenyans have such a relaxed view of time since it is so different from the US in which it would be unheard of to arrive to a meeting three hours late and not be looked down upon. It shows how the US is too focused on work being the capitalist society it is. Work, work, work, work.

Anyways… On day 1 of the orientation, we had a “Professional Standards” session for an hour then were given a tour of the town. We walked around for about two hours and grabbed lunch in the city. While walking around the city, all the locals call us “mazungu,” meaning white person. I would think that it would be a derogatory term, but surprisingly it is not. They literally are using that term only as a means to address us. All of the locals are so nice and love to say “hi mazungu” and want to shake our hands. I’m so glad that they have this attitude and are not upset that we are here. Some have never seen a white person before so several times people have taken pictures of us by secretly holding up their camera phones when we walk by. During lunch it started pouring – apparently it rains almost every day in the afternoon despite the fact that it is about 80 degrees out. And then after lunch, we had a couple hours free (African time) then had another hour session about Culture Shock. That was about it of day 1 orientation.

Today, I woke up early this morning to go on a run with two other interns. Of course, we somehow got lost during our run and kept trying to ask people how to get back to our hotel but apparently the street name that we were using for our hotel was not the correct name of the street. So it took a bit of time to realize where we finally were... It was so fun. It turns out our run went only about five blocks away from the hotel, but that we kept going in a loop. We then had a “Safety and Security” session for an hour then went back out on the town. We learned how to ride on the “boda bodas” (bicycle taxis) today. They are exciting! There is a seat on the back of the bicycle that I had to sit on. I kept feeling like we were going to fall, but they are supposed to be very safe. They are extremely common for getting around the city and very cheap. We then had another session on “Kenyan Culture.” The things I found most interesting were that Kenyans don’t look people in the eye very often during conversation, so don’t think it is rude when they are looking away while you are talking to them. Also, there are a ton of gender norms. There is the most obvious one: the women cook and the men do the handiwork. But the Site Team warned us that we must only get close to the people of the same sex in our host families and that we must not hug the opposite sex. Gender inequality is very much set within their culture. I find it hard to believe that it will be changed any time soon, despite the fact that there are tons of NGOs here that are trying to empower women. Especially in the rural areas, the gender norms are concrete. After the culture session, we were given a few hours on our own, so for the first time, the interns went out on the town by themselves. I bought my first pair of Kenyan shoes today, and was told to cut the price by 1/3 when bargaining with the vendors. I got them for 400 shillings (Kenya has HUGE inflation), so they were about $4. We then went to the American hotel, which not-surprisingly, is the only place that has free wifi. I’m going to enjoy the American hotel. On the way walking back from the American hotel, a 14-year-old boy walked up to me and asked me for food. I talked to him for a few minutes but have been told not to give anyone food or money. It was very sad. The boy was actually starved and living on the street. I asked if he goes to school and he replied that he is a “street boy.” Many of the children on the street apparently run away from their homes voluntarily and then live by eating trash, although some of the others on the street are orphans. It is very common for people to ask us for money because being white means to them that we are rich, so I have been asked a few times for money today. But this boy looked especially sad and had no shoes. I am going to have to get used to seeing that.

On a lighter note, hakuna matata! It means no worries (for the rest of your days….) But actually. It means “no worries” in Swahili. Learn something new everyday.

I just got my address here in case you want to send me something . It is:

Peter Ingosi (Alexis LeVee)
PO Box 1124
50100 Kakamega, Kenya

The electricity just went out on us right now, so I no longer have any lights to read. I guess this is bedtime. Kwaheri (Goodbye)!