September 14, 2008; Nairobi, Kenya — Our first week as temporary residents of Riruta has gone by quickly and I am pleased to see our group adapting well to their new surroundings and to their home stay families. The adjustment to life in Riruta is a substantial one. Many of the homes do not have the material comforts and conveniences we take for granted in the US. Some the families do not have running water. The change in lifestyle coming so abruptly after our first few days in a comfortable guest house is a lot to demand, but the students have responded eagerly and enthusiastically. They are spending time with their families and getting to know the neighborhood. Riruta is a welcoming place with many of the charms of an African village, albeit one that is absorbed within a sprawling metropolis. Most people seem to know each other and this lends a reassuring measure of security in what is otherwise known to be a dangerous city. Outsiders get noticed right away and we certainly fall into that category. When we walk down the street, we are often greeted by children. “Hello Mzungu (white person)! How are you?” Most of us are not used to this type of attention and it is alternately startling and charming.
For my own part, I try to spend a part of each day walking around the area and getting to know people. I have become a regular at St. Jude’s Catholic parish, though my ability to follow the liturgy in Swahili comes mostly from observing when people sit, kneel, and stand. Masses at St. Jude’s are usually about two hours (the homilies are especially long) but this hardly compares to Sunday services at nearby Pentecostal churches which last all day. I know this because there is one near my house and I can hear music and preaching on their sound system for hours on end. It is remarkable how religious people in Kenya are. There are dozens of churches of every denomination in our neighborhood. Most schools are associated with a church and much of the programming on Kenyan TV is religious in some way or another. In my own church, the weekend masses are packed with people. The priests and deacons are very young and there are several nuns assigned to the parish—all of whom appear to be under thirty. It would be unusual to see so many young members of the clergy in a Catholic parish in the US. It is often remarked that Africa and Asia are the future of the Catholic Church and it is easy to believe this after attending mass in Nairobi. I’ve enjoyed being part of this congregation and the parishioners have been very welcoming.
Our classes are continuing, with Swahili instruction in the morning and David Sperling’s history course in the afternoon. The pace of our Swahili class has not let up and we are learning large amounts of new material each day. The language itself is not terribly difficult; it has logical grammar, uses the Roman script, and is phonetically the same as English. The difficulty is retaining whatever grammar we have learned while memorizing all the new vocabulary and still continuing to keep up with the new material. Learning a language intensively is like drinking water from a fire hose. I am pleased to see most of my classmates (I am also taking the course and doing all the homework) rising to the challenge and am amazed at how much we have all learned in such a short amount of time.
On Thursday and Friday we had our first class trips. We visited the National Museum of Kenya, the Railway Museum, and the home of Karen Blixen, the Danish baroness who came to Kenya to manage a coffee plantation and later wrote of the experience under the pen name Isak Dineson in Out of Africa and “Shadows in the Grass.” The popularity of the book and the movie it inspired have made the Blixen house one of the most visited tourist attractions in Kenya. Scenes from the movie were filmed outside the house so it is immediately familiar to many visitors. We had a group tour of the interior and then had coffee nearby. The house is in the posh and leafy suburb of Karen (named for Baroness Blixen) west of Nairobi at the foot of the Ngong Hills, and is a far cry from the bustle and squalor of Riruta and some of the poorer areas closer to the city center. Standing in stark contrast to the Karen Blixen house, which is beautifully landscaped and well maintained, is the Railway museum, which is rather decrepit and clearly underfunded. Nevertheless, it contains probably the best collection of colonial artifacts in Kenya. The railway was central to Kenya’s development, first as a colony and later as a nation-state, so it was good that the students were able to spend time in this museum. They even got to climb on the trains in the overgrown rail yard next to the museum.
Now that our days in Kenya are beginning to fall into a routine, I expect that they will go by very quickly. We will be in Nairobi for all of next week. The week after, we begin our excursion into the Eastern Highlands and will have the chance to see a bit more of the country.
That’s all for now. Kwaheri.
Karen Blixen House and Coffee Farm, Ngong Road, west of Nairobi
12 September 2008
For my own part, I try to spend a part of each day walking around the area and getting to know people. I have become a regular at St. Jude’s Catholic parish, though my ability to follow the liturgy in Swahili comes mostly from observing when people sit, kneel, and stand. Masses at St. Jude’s are usually about two hours (the homilies are especially long) but this hardly compares to Sunday services at nearby Pentecostal churches which last all day. I know this because there is one near my house and I can hear music and preaching on their sound system for hours on end. It is remarkable how religious people in Kenya are. There are dozens of churches of every denomination in our neighborhood. Most schools are associated with a church and much of the programming on Kenyan TV is religious in some way or another. In my own church, the weekend masses are packed with people. The priests and deacons are very young and there are several nuns assigned to the parish—all of whom appear to be under thirty. It would be unusual to see so many young members of the clergy in a Catholic parish in the US. It is often remarked that Africa and Asia are the future of the Catholic Church and it is easy to believe this after attending mass in Nairobi. I’ve enjoyed being part of this congregation and the parishioners have been very welcoming.
Our classes are continuing, with Swahili instruction in the morning and David Sperling’s history course in the afternoon. The pace of our Swahili class has not let up and we are learning large amounts of new material each day. The language itself is not terribly difficult; it has logical grammar, uses the Roman script, and is phonetically the same as English. The difficulty is retaining whatever grammar we have learned while memorizing all the new vocabulary and still continuing to keep up with the new material. Learning a language intensively is like drinking water from a fire hose. I am pleased to see most of my classmates (I am also taking the course and doing all the homework) rising to the challenge and am amazed at how much we have all learned in such a short amount of time.
On Thursday and Friday we had our first class trips. We visited the National Museum of Kenya, the Railway Museum, and the home of Karen Blixen, the Danish baroness who came to Kenya to manage a coffee plantation and later wrote of the experience under the pen name Isak Dineson in Out of Africa and “Shadows in the Grass.” The popularity of the book and the movie it inspired have made the Blixen house one of the most visited tourist attractions in Kenya. Scenes from the movie were filmed outside the house so it is immediately familiar to many visitors. We had a group tour of the interior and then had coffee nearby. The house is in the posh and leafy suburb of Karen (named for Baroness Blixen) west of Nairobi at the foot of the Ngong Hills, and is a far cry from the bustle and squalor of Riruta and some of the poorer areas closer to the city center. Standing in stark contrast to the Karen Blixen house, which is beautifully landscaped and well maintained, is the Railway museum, which is rather decrepit and clearly underfunded. Nevertheless, it contains probably the best collection of colonial artifacts in Kenya. The railway was central to Kenya’s development, first as a colony and later as a nation-state, so it was good that the students were able to spend time in this museum. They even got to climb on the trains in the overgrown rail yard next to the museum.
Now that our days in Kenya are beginning to fall into a routine, I expect that they will go by very quickly. We will be in Nairobi for all of next week. The week after, we begin our excursion into the Eastern Highlands and will have the chance to see a bit more of the country.
That’s all for now. Kwaheri.
Karen Blixen House and Coffee Farm, Ngong Road, west of Nairobi12 September 2008