The Streets of Nairobi

After a long day of classes the group decided to go out for dinner. We all wanted to get off the Methodist Guest House property and see Kenya. Since I arrived on Monday, with the exception of my short excursion into downtown, I have been stuck at the House. On the way back from the airport Monday morning someone noticed an Ethiopian restaurant close-by. We decided to walk there, it ended up taking twenty-five minutes along the side of the road. As I explained earlier in my first post, Kenyans utilize the periphery of the streets as sidewalks, for this walk we did the same. As i looked down at the sidewalk I felt as though i was back in Guarjila, El Salvador trekking to Chalate. The "sidewalks" are composed of dirt and browned garbage, browned in that the garbage (plastic bottles, bags, magazines) is almost completely camoflouged by the dirt around it. As i held my head up the faces passing me occassionally acknoledged my presence, but most people just walked by me with the same zoned-out gaze I often see in American cities. As i shut my eyes for a second the cars whizzing by me and the horns honking in the background brought me back to Ashby ave on a Sunday afternoon.
Before I knew it we had arrived at the restaurant. We ordered a few dishes per group of four and feasted on the food. As most of you know, Ethiopian food is eaten without silverware. One picks up their food from a communal plate with lots of dishes on it (dont worry dad i washed my hands with soap and water before i dug in). This Ethiopian food was of a completely different caliber than that of Telegraph Avenue. It was truly amazing, I left so full i could barely make the 25 minute walk home.

Everytime i post I am going to try and give you all (y'all for Kate) some information from one of my classes. For the first month most of this info will be from Swahili class (Susan I am very impressed with your mad Swahili skills).
Today we learned personal pronouns, mimi, wewe, yeye, sisi, nyinyi, and wao. Mimi ni mwanafunzi Kiswahili. I am a student of Kiswhahili. I also learned how to say I am not a tourist, I am a student. Mimi si mtalii, mimi ni mwanafunzi In addition to these useful statements I learned a lot of adjectives and verbs.
ninapenda nyumbani wangu. I love my family!