Week 4

hey mom

kenya is awesome! i am loving it! i flew and it was about 5 hours! i cant believe im actually here its crazy. the cityis nice but im in a place called athi river. its about 45 mins awayfrom nairobi. im actually in shock here. its a real eye opener. thepeople here are really poor they dont have anything (besides cellphones and tvs everyone has them and like nice ones too) but for themost part they seem happy but just want more. it stinks here too. mostpeople dont have basic plumbing so their ... stuff.. just goes outsidesomewhere and their garbage they throw outside and when you walk pastthose it stinks like sewer a lot of places dont stink just the peoplethat live in shacks. anyways my apartment is....nice. it feels like ilive in the ghetto but we have a pretty big place we have 3 rooms abig front room and a tiny kitchen area. athi river is a really dustyplace and theres always dust in our apartment. the town has only like3 main roads and the rest are dirt roads. we walk a lot and my comp(who is elder hays and is a white guy that is 6 7 and is pretty kool)walks really fast... and you know me, i hate walking fast like a lot ha. driving here is insane too. since they have really bad roads the taxidrivers drive all over the road, on the sides where people walk andeverything i cant even watch . the taxis here are called mutatu's.they are vans and they fill them up. they are probably smaller thanmost vans and they fit like 18 people in there its ridiculous. theyalso have piki piki's they are motorcyle taxi. and you just jump onthe back and hold on for dear life hah. both me and my companion goton one to get somewhere and we are both big so you can imagine threeguys on a bike haha it would have been a little bit more funny if iwasnt on it ha. this week has been crazy me and my companion have given a bunch oflessons like 20 of them. but he does most of the talking right now butim still working on it. ive done a ton of things this week. on fridaywe gave a lesson to a couple david and ruth. at the end of the lessoni invited them to be baptized!! and they said yes! i was freakin out! i was so nervous that i was shaking. but it was kool. and onsunday i gave a guy a blessing of comfort ! that was the one that was more nerveracking than anything! i was so nervous and i thought that i had likeno idea what i was doing. but my comp keeps telling me that it was areally good blessing but i still dont know if it was that good ha. the food here is pretty good its mostlyrice and vegetables which is good but you know me i like meat! and ive eaten at members houses like every nightbesides two.ha but they have this thing called ugali its like mashed potatoes butits like sticky rice and you squish it and use it like aspoon and pick up meat and vegetables and stuff its kool.
everyone one here speaks like 7 different languages so i hardly everknow what people are saying all i know is habarri = hello / how areyou, mizuri ( sounds like missouri hah) = im fine, sante or santesana= thank you/ thank you very much. and thats pretty much it hah.but when i talk to people they use english swahili and a lot othersmixed in so lucky my comp speaks a little swahili so ill probablyknow a lot more soon. im sure that jay will start getting more time. just tell him tomake sure that he works harder than everyone else and im sureeverything will work out. it sucks that dixie isnt doing too good. imsure they will start doing better soon. i think moneywould be a lot better than a package anyways hah and it would becheaper. anyways i will be able to email every monday and i geta full p day so i can write big emails ha. but i love you guys and imiss you a lot
loveReese