The Full Experience...

It's been almost 3 weeks in Africa and I'm beginning to wish that I could stay longer. I'm a little torn because I miss my family and home, but I'm starting to get used to it here and there are so many more things I want to see! 


I got to go to another slum the other day and it was an amazing experience. 


Saturday morning: It started off pretty chill. I ate breakfast, read a book, prepared something for Sunday, and basically just took my time. At around 2:00 I began walking to meet up with the children's pastor. He called and told me that he was at the main gate... I didn't know which gate was the "main gate" so I walked to the gate that I was familiar with.. He wasn't there so I walked outside of the compound and began looking for the main gate.. We ended up passing eachother and it was about a 1/2 hour before we actually met up! It was fine though, I enjoyed my adventure of walking around Africa by myself haha. Though I did get a lot of strange looks from people as I walked by (I guess it was pretty obvious that I didn't know where I was going... Plus I was probably the only white person they had seen all day). 

Anyway, eventually we met up and we began walking to the slum nearby called Mathare. I got the full experience. Before I got there we stopped along the road to try a local treat. I forget what they called it but it basically tasted like popped corn.. but from fresh corn!  It was a huge slum, way bigger than Marurui (the first one I went to).The first part was like a huge outdoor mall. You could find almost anything you wanted there from dresses, socks and jewelry, to raw meat, peanuts and rocks people would eat, believe it or not, to get the iodine in their systems (yes, I was surprised by that too). Almost everywhere I went small children would yell out "how are you!" (which was probably the only English words they knew) or "Mazungo!" (which is their word for "white person"). Kids would gather around everywhere I went to shake my hand or try out their English. I had the time of my life and would go back any day :) 

It was amazing to see how many kids were there. And if I would stop anywhere there would be an instant crowd that would listen to anything I said.. What an amazing mission field! That's one reason I would love to stay longer. No where else have I found such a captive audience as in these children, ready to soak up anything I had to say. 
    

Oh! And I also had my first ride in a Matatu (the common transportation system in Nairobi) and also got to ride on the back of a motor bike to get the rest of the way home. It cost me 50 shillings (which is basically 50 cents!). Oh how I love Kenya :) I feel like I got the full experience that day, though I was so tired the next day from all the walking around and staying up late that I could barely get out of bed to go to church :P (I ended up having a 3 hour nap later in the day.. It was glorious).


Anyway, enough talk for now :) 
Next time I'll tell you all about the day to day life here and all the random things God is showing me :) 


Thanks for paying attention


- Katelynn 
Bada ba ba bah... ;)