Apartment hunting, slacking, and various other adventures...

ahoy! i know i know, it's been forever since i've posted, sorry to keep you in such suspense!! 

So first order of business, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY WISHES!!! It made me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside and i love you all dearly!! On my birthday, i spent the morning making my way to the Canada High Commission to register that i'm there so they can let me know if it's time to boot it back home (a couple days later i got an e-mail warning me not to go to the Northern part of Kenya near Somalia because apparently terrorist attacks against foreigners happen there...so you best believe i'm staying south of the equator!!). i had a lovely dinner then spent the evening skype-ing various loved ones, so not that bad of a day! 

Also, as the title of this post suggests, i've gotten in the game of looking for apartments here in Nairobi. i saw a couple and ended up taking a cute little furnished studio apartment that's almost directly beside the hotel that i'm at right now. i'm stoked to move in as hotel living has been getting me a lil' frustrated (i've been feeling a bit like eloise, except this isn't NYC...or the Plaza....so really, nothing in common with eloise except that i live in a hotel...) It's a bit frustrating not having a kitchen and constantly having to eat at the hotel restaurant. But the place that i got is nice and homey and i think i'm gonna be happy living there (as will my wallet as its waaaay cheaper than the hotel). There's a bathroom, kitchen, tv, laundry services (!!!) and it'll be nice to have a little place of my own where i don't have to leave the keys at front desk...it seems to be very secure, with a giant, stone fence that has barbed wire on top, a thick, solid gate that's always closed and a 24/7 security guard (the security at the complex seems to be even better than at the hotel...) There's also a rooftop terrace on top of my little mini-house apartment, so i'll be able to hang out in the great outdoors if i feel like it! Yey! i promise to take photos once i move in (hopefully tuesday) so you can all catch a glimpse of how i'll be living.

The rest of my week was spent working and chilling. It gets dark here pretty early (it's almost completely dark by 6:45) so i spend my evenings indoors as it's not too safe for me to be wandering these streets all alone. It's not too bad though, by the time i finish dinner and catch up on my skype dates, i usually have some time to catch up on perez and off to bed i go. i've also finally been getting some much desired time to read (sadly, i have very little time back home when i'm working and such). i've kinda gone a little crazy on that front, as i've been here and already devoured three 400+ page novels, as well as various magazines cover to cover. Soooo i'm gonna need to either go book shopping or find a library sometime soon because at this rate, i'm gonna be without books come next weekend! 

Then this Saturday (ie. yesterday) i spent all day in a little town called Rongai about half an hour by bus outside of Nairobi. Wait, let me back up. So CCBI/NFCI (organization that i work at) is a member of the RAY Project (Responding to AIDS among the Youth), which has three youth centers where they have HIV/AIDS testing, counseling, HIV/AIDS training, peer education, various activities and forums on various topics, etc. One of these sites is Ongata Rongai, which is where i was yesterday. The three youth centers had organized a big soccer tournament with teams from towns where all three youth centers are located, to promote healthy living. The tournament took place in a field that was right in the Rongai slum, which was a bit eye-opening to see. We took part in a community outreach activity, where a biiiig procession of the youth sang and danced through the slum, stopping to put on little plays about why young people should abstain from sex and others should get tested for HIV, and then people were referred to the soccer field, where HIV testing areas were set up. It was way inspiring to watch these people that were all roughly in the same age group as me organize themselves and be so positive about such heavy topics while at the same time having a great time. Being the only white person, i was by far the main attraction, and everywhere we went, kids would run up to me, point and say "MZUNGU!" (this is the first word i learned in Swahili and it means white person...) and they would all try to touch my skin or touch my hair. It was a bit surreal and i felt like a total celebrity, but it was all in good fun. The tournament was a big success and lots of people and teams showed up, and afterward the field turned into a bit of a dance party, with everyone wanting to dance with the mzungu. Slightly embarrassing but also super fun! i'm not sure how many people actually got tested, but i definitely did (Negative! Yey!) and got a bunch of condoms as well as a very graphic lesson on how to put on said condom. Preeetty sure my face was tomato red the entire time, but kudos to the peer educators that talk about these things so directly and maturely. Me on the other hand, i still giggle when someone says the word "penis" so i'm not sure i would be cut out for such work...

Along these lines, i have to say it's a bit daunting how many signs you see here for VCT centers. VCT stands for Voluntary Counseling and Treatment, and they're centers where you can get tested, get information and counseling if you are HIV positive. Signs for these centers are literally EVERYWHERE (i pass two of them on the 8 minute walk to work), which i guess reflects the widespread problem of HIV/AIDS here. On the other hand, it's a good sign that these centers are everywhere, hopefully it means that people are taking advantage of them. The test was actually super straightforward, they prick your finger with a needle, get some blood then put it on a testing strip. Then, depending on how many lines show up on the strip, you either get a positive, negative or inconclusive result. 

And that was my Saturday! We were exhausted by the time we got back into Nairobi at night, and completely covered head to toe in dust (there wasn't a single paved road where we were, the entire field was sand/dust and it was super windy all day). To give you an idea of just how dusty we were, i was wearing running shoes, thick socks underneath, and when i took both off, my feet were BLACK from the dust. Luckily i had JUST bough a pumice, so today my feet are good as new; my shower and sink, however, are not so lucky...

So that's about all the news i got for you kids! i'll be (hopefully) walking the 30 meters or so to my new apartment on Tuesday. Today, i plan to get a lot of work done on my MRP (it's about time i finish this thing! i wanna graduate!) and i promise not to take this long to write again! 

LOVE YOU ALL AND THANKS AGAIN!!!