More on Meru

Greetings! I hope all of you are doing well!

I’ve just returned from my rural homestay in Meru which is an agrarian community near Mt. Kenya. I stayed there for about a week.

I really enjoyed my stay in Meru even though most of the time they spoke Kimeru (which I can’t understand) and the fact that I was full 24/7. They follow the food pyramid… and by that I mean they mound their food into mini-mountains on their plates and eat it ALL. They made fun of how little I eat in comparison and told them I would eat like they do if they allowed me to work on their farm! I did get to weed for a couple of hours on their farm one day (with a big ol’ panga which is this knife thing which they use for everything) and spread fertilizer on their coffee plants on another, but other than that, I didn’t get to do too much manual labor because I was a guest and they thought I was more fragile than I am. It was a week of trying to break down stereotypes. Who knows how successful I was!

So to give you some idea as to what it was like, my family had a two-acre shamba (farm) which grew foods like bananas, papayas, pineapples, mangoes (my favorite!), maize, beans, kale, tomatoes, tomato fruits (a different thing), macadamia nuts, cassava, and coffee as their cash crop. (Adam, I was thinking of you when I got to visit their coffee factory!). They also had 4 sheep, 2 goats, a dog, and a loveable cow that was going to have a calf sometime this month.

These people were really into religion (4 hour church service! and prayers even before tea sometimes), politics (right now they’re all riled up about the Ocampo 6), farming, and family. I met so many family members and friends and they would quiz you on their names in front of everyone.  Yikes! Needless to say, I paid very good attention during introductions! Everyone was very pleasant and very excited to meet me. I made it through the week with only two marriage proposals which is small in comparison to other girls from the semester,  so I feel good about that (Don’t worry Mom, I did not accept them!).

For those of you who are excited about the animals, the only animals I saw were livestock, birds (one was a really bright purple!) and we saw some baboons as we were riding in the bus back to Nairobi. 

my rural homestay

A look at some of the trees in at my rural homestay: 

banana on the left, mango on the right (see the fruits?) yumm

You can't really tell but I had just walked through some intense mud (hence the rolled up pants)!

in front of the coffee shelling machine

First week!

Jambo!

Hope all is well with you! I am finally on Kenya time (yay! No more waking up at 3 am!) and am having a great time! We’re doing a lot of orientation stuff this week like going to the hospital, taking buses into Nairobi  to our soon-to-be education center, and going into downtown Karen (suburb of Nairobi) to check out our local shops.

It’s been really beautiful weather here but I guess it’s always beautiful. I’m sure I’ll get tired of the sunshine eventually. I heard New York has seen some snow; I’m jealous! I wanted to play in it before I left, so y’all throw a snowball at your neighbor or something for me if you have snow. Or maybe make a little snowman.Anyways, our compound is really comfortable and has a lot of great staff members living here. I’ve been enjoying getting to know them. (by the way the FOOD IS GREAT. )

There are all sorts of exciting biology stuff that I have found in Kenya. We’ve seen a couple triceratops-like chameleons, three camels crossing the road, huge birds, small birds with long feathered tails, weird trees, an artichoke looking plant with shadows of pastel splashed on it …. I can’t wait to start my biodiversity class, though I don’t think we’ll be concentrating so much on learning biodiversity as studying the broad, conservation issues associated with the area.

We have Swahili classes every day and my teacher is named Esther. She’s very nice but moves pretty quickly. We’ll be going on our rural homestay tomorrow for the week so we’ve been practicing practical things to say such as greetings, introductions, how to talk about our family, where we’re from etc etc….

Well, I had better get going since it’s almost dinner time! As I mentioned, this upcoming week I’ll be staying with a Meru family near Mt. Kenya. I’m looking forward to it!

getting ready

Habari za asubuhi!


only one day until I leave for Kenya! 


unfortunately,the crazy malaria medication dreams have already started. I woke up this morning having just come out of a dream where I was transformed into a warthog or something because a little house emerged out of my forehead.  It was weird and slightly disturbing. It doesn't help that I'm also already sick with a cold so when I was shouting in my dream, I was blubbering and such.


anyways. 


I'm excited to be leaving soon but can't really believe it yet. I don't think it will hit me until I actually reach Kenya. 


I'll update again soon, I hope...