One Mountain to Another

A lot can change in a month… and even more can change in 10. When I first arrived in Kenya I was living at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro and I was still seriously homesick. I was barely even appreciative of the opportunity to live in a third world country, let alone to know what it is like to feel at home in one. Kenyans judge how well you know Kenya by the amount of time you have stayed here. If you have only stayed in Kenya a month or a few weeks, you are like a child in their eyes and they say, “Oh, you have not yet known Kenya.” Once you have lived in Kenya for more than 4 months, then they acknowledge that you might have begun to truly know Kenya.

I arrived June 6^th in Nairobi. Today is March 14. 253 days. Getting close to an entire year living in Kenya. When in the hell did that happen? We all have our days where we don’t want to leave our homes, we just want to stay inside and watch endless amounts of TV shows and movies and pretend like we’re not in a foreign place. And other days, it’s not foreign at all. Lately I’ve had more of the latter, where I appreciate the pure beauty of the fact that there AREN’T any other white people in my village. I am the only person doing this, living right here alone, helping these people. Today I woke up, had chai, went into Kitale and ran a few errands, came back into my village to greet some of my friends in the market, checked in at my dispensary to discuss continuing my work now that I’ve returned, met with the principal of my secondary school to continue teaching lessons, came home and did Insanity, then went to the edge of my family’s shamba to check on the trees my friend Racheal and I planted and sat in the sun with my calf, two kittens, and Simba and enjoyed the view of Mt. Elgon for the rest of the afternoon. Now I’m still procrastinating on unpacking/reorganizing all of my crap that we had to pack up for consolidation… but I’m back. I’m here… for another year and a half. And I’m inspired. I’m motivated. Thank GOD, because if my mental state in PST had continued until this point, I wouldn’t have made it. Like I said, every day can be a roller coaster… but ladies and gentlemen, it is almost avocado season and my family has like 7 avocado trees soooo LET’S DO THIS! As hard as it’s been, and as many obstacles as there will surely be in the future, if the past 10 months are any indicator, I’m very intrigued to see what the next 18 have in store.