Kenya!

Welp Everyone.Jambo! I did it. After 30 something hours of travel I am up and wandering around a mall in Nairobi like it aint no thang. So much cool stuff happened so far and I've only been here for a few hours. Firstly, the flights were insane and really long and on both 8 hour flight someone passed out and needed to be revived by nurses on board. The Amsterdam airport is OFF THE CHAIN. For real. It is probably one of the coolest places I've ever been. First off the design there is totally money. There are a bunch of really cool lounges with brightly colored Dr. Seuss looking chairs and plexiscreens that look like fireplaces, there was a woman just killing it on the piano, did I mention there was a piano at the airport. There is also a fully loaded art museum, an airport library with a ton of really cool art and design books, a spa, a Whiskey museum, and tons of really really ridiculously good looking Europeans to stare at. I had four hours there and it was pretty incredible. There was also some really cool chairs all set up for napping in front of a huge screen that played images of the Holland countryside to relax you. Their medidation room is rad and when you go to put your shoes in the little cubbys, just look out for someone's rollerblades? That they have apparently been cruising around the airport in..... Hilarious.

So I arrive in Kenya. I left at 630 am in Reno on Saturday and arrive at 8:30 pm in Nairobi. There was an epic fire at the airport two weeks ago so the entire thing is now makeshift tents that they have sprung up to do visas, customs and baggage claim. And of course it's pouring rain. So we get shuttled down to the first tent, wait forever for a visa. Get the visa. Then wander into another tent where a bunch of people are just standing around and it keeps getting more and more crowded. Then finally they released us into the main tent where everyone's bags are laid out in long lines like dead bodies. The sturdy backpack made it, I scoop it up and wander out. There are a two people operating customs. You just walk up and hand them your declaration form which they barely glance at and put in an enormous pile. And you are in Kenya. I found the Whole Foods people right away as I exited, I didn't remember all the pictures of my fellow volunteers but they looked like and were my people so that was a lucky guess. We headed out into the night. The exit of the airport reminded me a lot of arriving in Mumbai, India. It's super dark out and there are like fifty people waving signs and none of them say CTC or Whole Foods. We hang out for a really long time and then realize that the sign for 'Gamewatchers WFP group #3' is our sign. Rubie Ruth from CTC meets us and she is an incredibly beautiful, bespectacled ray of sunshine. She scoops us up into the vans and we head to our hotel.

First off we drive through Nairobi and it's filled with roundabouts and crazy billboards that are enormous and hilarious. There are all these weird birds napping in trees. There are people walking around through the light rain, but it's so dark it's hard to really get a grasp on things. We get to our hotel which is SICK. It feels way too nice for how rundown I look and feel. There is a coy pond out back and tons of lush trees and plants everywhere. The wooden lobby is clean and colonial looking and a random cat is walking about. I'm in Africa. I'ts not even setting in yet. But I am. I sleep the greatest sleep I've had all month and wake up feeling amazing. I take a little walk around the hotel in the morning while guys are sweeping up leaves and patroling the grounds. The group meets up for breakfast and I eat some crazy fruit that is a mix between lychee and rambutan, some eggs and a butload of tea. Rubie from CTC gathers us and we head on the first leg of our voyage. We drove through Nairobi and it's incredible. It's very jungle-like and also like a town. There seems to be construction on everything and juxtaposes of giant fancy hotels shadowing tiny broken down hutches. There are people along side the road selling plants and making furniture out of wood. We are currently at a mall adjacent to the US Embassy to get some last minute incidentals, aka a bunch of postcards and then we're having lunch and heading out to Maai Maihu. I love it and I can't wait to see more. Love to all. Kwa Heri!