i'm here!!!! my flights were all smooth, yay! i don't feel jetlagged yet, i don't know that i will. i landed at night & then slept until this morning. i woke up to the muslim prayer call outside. that was weird. then i fell asleep & woke up at 6:40 am to something squawking outside my window. then i did not fall back asleep. i tried, but i felt very rested, just like my Sleepy Time medicine said i would. =]
i'll be here in nairobi until next monday. lindsey is coming in town today, i'm so excited to finally meet her! a lot of SIMers are coming for thanskgiving, we're all gonna have a potluck. i'll have time to go shopping here & get some things i need. my orientation here in nairobi is spread out through the week so i don't get overloaded. isn't that nice? i think it's a good idea.
my flights here were cool...i watched mamma mia with the swiss guy next to me on the way to zurich. then on the way to nairobi, i was surrounded by some other young people from italy who are coming to live here for a year. they were so nice! guess what!?? i got to see some desert! we flew of the deserts of sudan, it was wild....nothing but sand for miles & miles & miles. i mean it was just sand. there were sand dunes, sand dune shadows, & more sand. every now & then was a little river or a dried up river bed. we did see a little town near a river! maybe of about 30 buildings, but there was nothing green. there were 3 little patches of agriculture we could tell, but it wasn't green. it was very strange. reminded me of the movie "far from home." we did see one road. it was suuuuper long, & just vanished into the distant sand. why on earth was there a super long road in the middle of the desert? those kinds of places make me wonder, "why would God make hundreds of miles of sand?" it also made me think of the people we read about in the bible, how they traveled through these lands! places like that for so long, i can't imagine. it was really cool. we flew over the mediterranean sea, the adriatic sea, sudan, it was so cool! on the "in-flight map" on the airplane, just to know that i was sort of near places like the "lybian desert" or the "darfur mountains" was crazy. can you tell i like geography?
the other SIMPact girls i'm staying with are so fun. 2 german girls, & 2 from the west coast. speaking of, "they have "california girls" by the beach boys on repeat right now while i'm writing this...haha! they're painting a room. they work in the Kabera slums, the largest slum in Nairobi. but, the kids are out of school for a month until after christmas. sarah, from oregon, came with daniel, a SIM driver, to pick me up last night. they were so sweet & smiley & said "welcome home!" i haven't said "what am i doing??" or "where am i??" since i got here. being here feels totally normal. praise the LORD. =) laura & i said that ALL the time in canada, probably because it was so different (when do i EVER drive through snow?)
sarah told me she is currently an "art teacher." she took on the role herself. here's why.....
one of the 4 year olds she was with came & sat in her lap while she was writing or drawing something. she gave the 4 year old her pen, & he didn't know what it was or what to do with it. so, now she's an art teacher. =) i learned in my educ. classes that art & creativity plays a HUGE part in children's cognitive development. it's so good for them to discover, create, build, paint whatever they want, etc. i bet sarah's making such a big difference for those kids!
stuart in charlotte told me in his deep carolina accent, "now, katie, i gotta warn ya....africa can git in yur blood." i'll let you know when it does............ =)
Blogger isn't real reliable here, not sure why...i'll update when i can! pictures later!
kt
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