James

Wednesday and Thursday were extremely busy. Wednesday morning at 9 we had out first final exam, which was for Culture and Communication. Let me tell you, “Kenyan time” does not apply to exams. At 8:15 I was walking to the cyber café to print my paper, which we also had due for that class, and I saw my friend Margaret. She seemed very concerned that I was walking away from campus at that time, but I assured her I would be there soon. Then in class at 8:40, everybody kept asking me where Whitney was because she hadn’t arrived yet. I have not been to a single event or gathering that met early or even on time, but these people take exams pretty seriously. The actual exam was straightforward and we had to choose 3 questions to answer out of 8. It took me 35 minutes out of two hours, to write 6 pages of answers. When I got up to leave, almost the entire class gasped audibly and were giggling as I walked out of the room. I had two or three of my classmates come up to me later in the day asking why I had left so early and to not do that anymore because it scared them. Even Olungah said I shouldn’t do that. Strange.
Tuesday afternoon we had Swahili class and then met up with Jen Russell and Olungah to meet with some official people from the University. Then Njeri (Njuhi’s sister) picked us up and Whitney, Jen, Njeri and I went to my house for tea, which was pretty fun. Monica had quite the display out with tea and bread and mandazis (Kenyan fried dough type things). So we all sat and talked for a few hours, which was nice. We even got onto the topic of the World Wrestling…whatever it’s called, and Monica was telling us she used to be so into wrestling and was naming all of the wrestlers and who was her favorite. It was hilarious! Afterwards, the 4 of us headed to Carnivore, a world famous restaurant in Karen where we met up with Njuhi and William. At this restaurant they give you a flag and as long as the flag is up, they keep bringing food, which is mostly various kinds of meat. I sampled crocodile and ostrich, among other meats which I had eaten before. I couldn’t stomach the crocodile, but the ostrich was very good.
On Thursday morning we met Olungah at the University, picked up Jen, and headed to Kibera so Jen could see where Whitney is going to volunteer at Carolina for Kibera. Afterwards we went to Nyumbani Children’s home which is a home for kids living with HIV/AIDS. The woman we talked to who helps run the place is actually from South Philly, which was pretty funny, especially hearing that accent after so long. The place is amazing and their goal is to make it seem like a home for these kids. There are about 100 kids living there between the ages of 2 and 24 and they get funding from all over the world. All of the kids were at school while we were there, except for the preschoolers who they teach on the site. We walked into a room of about 10 kids, ages 2-8 who were all doing various things.
One boy named James, who was 2 years old, immediately came up to me with this big smile on his face. We played together for the next 30 minutes, mostly with my camera, which he loved. He sat in my lap for most of the time and would look at the camera then look up at me with his big smile and laugh and then look down again. He ended up taking a lot of pictures of my arm. When it was time to go, I really didn’t want to leave, but I stood James up and told him I had to go. He just looked up at me and wrapped his arms as far as they could go around my legs and didn’t let go. I almost started crying. I really wanted to take him with me.
At 2pm we had another final exam, this time for Anthropology of Infectious Diseases, which took me a little longer than C&C. I felt good about it and caught a matatu home just in time to beat the downpour. My next exams are Thursday and Friday of next week so I have a little time to relax : )