MATT: Settling in

I'll start this post by issuing a formal apology for the political nuances in my first two posts. For those of you who read the original versions, please note that any and all mentions of my political philosophy have now been removed and know that it was not my intent to offend anyone's sensitivities. I wrote those entries before the blog was a joint blog that was being used to discuss the details of our NGO and, therefore, did not censor my strong political convictions while writing my posts. Please forgive me.

Now onto the good stuff. Today we went shopping at a place that I wouldn't have dreamed could possibly exist in Nairobi after having spent a couple of weeks here. The Nakumatt is an extremely western-style mall not too far from our house where Courtney and I were able to find all sorts of outrageous American luxuries. We spent way too much time and money, but we came home with exactly what we needed: gelato, oatmeal, a pound and a half cut of filet mignon, nivea aftershave and Apple Os cereal. I'll never take Central Market (or how about clean water) for granted again.

My favorite development is that the three of us (including Rachel, our ridiculously cool third roommate) have hired a Swahili teacher. Her name is Kemmy and she comes twice a week for two hours to teach us the ins and outs of this fascinating language (heavily semetic with strong Bantu influences). Almost better than learning the language itself is the constant laughter that results from our somewhat unorthodox "learning requests". Allow me to explain. We live in a wonderful, guarded condominium complex with a shared, exterior atrium space. The facade of the building, as well as the ground, are almost entirely stone and concrete, so sounds echo loudly and reverberate throughout the entire complex. You can understand, then, why it is that the three of us are so fed up with the 5-6 children that repeateldy shreak at the top of their lungs and and insist on dribbling a basketball at all hours of the night. Now back to the language lessons. As we started learning the basic verbs, we happened upon the word "to beat" (ku-piga in Swahili). It is a useful word in Swahili as it is used idiomatically in a number of ways (for instance, "to iron" is "piga-pasi" ... and there are many other verbs which use "piga" as an auxillary of some sort). However, Courtney, Rachel and I looked at each other immediately upon coming to this word and burst out in raucus laughter. Our poor teacher was so confused ... but we calmed down and were able to move on. However, when we came to the word, "to hurt" only a few more words down the list, we couldn't help ourselves. It was 10 minutes of outright hysteria. I am sure you can see where I am going with this. We can now all say in perfect Swahili, "Excuse me ma'am, I am going to beat (or hurt, whichever seems more appropriate at the moment) your chilren". Our teacher's response was priceless: "In Kenya, it is considered very bad to hurt someone else's children." Well, in America, it is totally unacceptable, as well.

Our work here continues to go well. We'll post again Wednesday with more details about how our NGO is developing. Please, please, please continue sending your comments, prayers and contacts. We are so blessed to receive all three.

Warm regards from Kenya. PV,

Matt

PS Today we learned from Robert, our trusty driver, that "piga" in the way we are using it actually means something more like "to cain". Courtney and I laughed until we cried again in the whole way to the office. Can you imagine some poor mother's horrified face as some foreigner yells down from the balcony, "I am going to cain your children!"? Anyway, for absolute clarity's sake, please know that we would never dream of actually hurting a child :)