Today was my first full day in Nairobi. Last night we had a slumber party and all slept in the other room. The truth: I could hear the girls talking and I was lonely and jealous! So I grabbed my pillows and headed over and climbed in through the moquito nets surrounding the bed, and within minutes we were all asleep. We slept with the curtains wide open; since the room faced east, we hoped the sun would wake us up. Sure enough, by 730 this morning, we were all up and on the go.

We headed to the Yaya Center, a mall, but couldn't find anything we needed, so we ended up walking the few blocks to Nackumatt, the big shopping center. It's hard not to draw similarities between here and Mexico, and Nackumatt was the most obvious similarity; it had the exact same feel as the Soriana store, only bigger. We shopped for hours and got everthing we needed : tupperware, food, power outlet adaptors, cell phones...

We got back to the house in early afternoon and headed down for a few hours at the pool. The weather was gorgeous and sunny and the pool is surrounded by lush trees and bushes and flowers, its like a mini tropical paradise. We had just returned to our room and were still in our wet swim suits when we got a call from Marg, (Cherie's mom) who has lived for many years in Kenya working with the Penecostal Assembly of Canada. We had emailed here about the possiblity of a meeting, and she told us she would pick us up in 15 mintues!! It was a mad scramble to get ready, but when she pulled up we were all looking polished and ready to go.

At her office we met with Pastor Simon, who runs an orphanage/school. There are 78 children between the ages of 3 and 14 who attend the school, 20 of them who live on the compound as well. We will be heading out there Saturday to hopefully develop a work plan where we can spend Fridays and some Saturdays working at the orphanage. I am looking forward to this more than anything else on the trip; it seems like the kind of work I always hoped I'd be able to do in Africa some day, I can't believe I will actually be doing it in 2 days! It was interesting meeting with the Pastor. We were warned that Christianity is very prevalent here, and of course, a pastor is even more overty religious than most. When we said how excited we were to be working for him, he smiled and said "God is good!", which made me slightly uncomforable at first, but the more I think about it, meeting someone like this man, who lives to help others, it's almost hard NOT to believe in something amazing.

I got a phone call from my contact at the World Scout Bureau when I got home from coffee with Marg. I will be starting tomorrow. While they usually only work a half day on Fridays, apparently tomorrow is Global Environment Day, so everyone from the office will be involved in a tree planting event tomorrow, and I was invited to join, it will be a great first day! I do get picked up at 710 in the morning though, which seems horrendously early! Luckily, I'm exhausted now, so should still get a decent 8 hour sleep.

Other intersting tidbits and funny anecdotes:

-Kenya is home to 33 million people, the same amount as the entire country of Canada. At this time, 1/3 of them are facing starvation. Kibera is the main slum in Nairobi. As one of the biggest slums in the world, it is home to 300 000 people per square kilometer.

-Natalie has been renamed "Zoe", since its the brand name to the discount bargain shampoo and conditionner she bought today. If she still has hair tomorrow when she gets out of the shower, we'll all be amazed

-The food here is super interesting. Ugali, the main starchy sidedish is basically a huge pile of starch. Its like corn flour and water, that gets mixed and cooked and plunked on your plate. I wasn't expecting to like it, but its VERY bland, which I would take over spicy ANY DAY. It's so heavy though, you have one bite and feel like you've just gained 20lbs.

-Natalie ordered the complete opposite of bland food. She ordered and African rice with Chicken. She (correctly) described it as tasting like "a mix of taco beef, Christmas, and dirt"... I'm so glad I played it safe!

-Apparently transatlantic flights make my nose bleed. I haven't had a nose bleed forever, and the second we got in the sky, my sinuses got so dry. I couldn't stop sneezing in Amsterdam (allergic to the tulips, perhaps??) and the second I would blow my nose, it would gush with blood. Ew. Interestingly, Heather's nose bled our first night here in the hotel too. Hmm.

Anyway, I should try and get to sleep, I'm super nervous about my first day tomorrow, so if I'm asleep, I can't worry about it! Hopefully I can sleep through the ridiculously loud ghetto music blaring from a car in the big dirt patch out my window!

-Delaney xo