Here I go again....

I've heard that once the travel bug has bit, there is no known cure :). How short sighted I was, to have named my blog [sheenainafrica.blogspot.com], not anticipating that there were more long-term adventures on the horizon for me, hence the name change to a more general: sheenastraveling.blogspot.com So what's happened between the last time I posted and today?

Welllllllll.... A lot. Here is a ten second rundown. The summer after East Africa, I worked as the Partnerships Intern at Arts & Communications (a boutique PR company in Toronto) before heading into my FINAL YEAR at McGill! The last year of my undergrad was all that I could have asked for - I was surrounded by so many people near and dear to me but every happy moment was a bitter sweet one, knowing that things would never be the same after we all moved back home and didn't live approximately 5 steps from each other. My friends will tell you that I did a lot of smiling, crying and wondering... How was I going to move back home? What was I going to do with all my stuff/how did I accumulate so much crap in 4 years (did I seriously keep every single one of my notes from every single one of my classes in 4 years at McGill? Yes. Yes I did). Why did my roommates and I take in a stray cat named Toby? What was I going to do with my LIFE?....... That was a big one, "SERIOUSLY....WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO WITH MY LIFE"???

Then I became another intern during the school year for McGill's Institute for Health and Social Policy where I coordinated a conference for international policy makers on the topic of Disability and the Workplace. That was fun and I learned a lot about how there's great people doing great things to make a difference in this world but that there's a LOT of bureaucracy to deal with as well. I was hoping to find my life calling but at this point, it was the end of the school year (where my ONLY AND LAST final exam of university was cancelled and rescheduled due to a fire alarm which almost caused me to have a legit mental breakdown) and I still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and I most definitely did NOT want to leave Montreal....

So I got a job as a research assistant with the Evolution and Education Research Center and WoW Lab with Dr. Anila Asghar who is the most wonderful woman. I had THE best summer I could have asked for - traveling to nearby cities on the weekends for cottage timez, Canada day, Williamstown etc. and taking in Montreal during the week with the Jazz Festival, the Comedy Festival, Afro Fest, Tam Tams, street fairs (sooo much street food!!!!), St. Jean Baptiste Day, Montreal Festival of Fire and so so so much more. I had initially told my Mum I'd come back home after Graduation in early June.... and I came back at the end of August :).

During the summer, I realized that it didn't matter what I was working on. What mattered was where I was living, who I was surrounded by and what I was learning. So I decided that what I wanted to do when I eventually had to go back home was something that had all of these qualities. And so, I applied for a job at a company in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia called Mindvalley (This was no easy application. I had to make a video). What attracted me to this place was it seemed draw in a number of innovative, interesting, adventurous people AND it had a great educational culture AND asia could be my new place to explore! Here's da VID:
 And here's an awesome video of KL:

Kuala Lumpur DAY-NIGHT from Rob Whitworth on Vimeo.

AND. I got the job. So here I am now, getting ready to go off to Asia for my cousin's wedding and then - fingers crossed  - start this job in January. Anyway this blog will hopefully keep you abreast of my travels and the things I do... sooooo stay in touch. AND COMMENT YOUR HEART OUT.
love,
Sheenz

There goes gravity...back to reality.

Hello Toronto! I'm home... safe and sound... for actually almost a week! The word I am looking for to describe my trip home is "rushed". Rushed? you ask. YES. Rushed! I got to the Nairobi Airport late and I waited in a massive line to put my luggage through the x-rays. When I was finally out and had some glimmer of hope of catching my flight, I approached a woman for help who then told me that "my flight had left yesterday".

So naturally, I started freaking out. In between the time of running to the counter to get a second opinion on my ticket, where they told me my flight was perfectly on-time, I had managed to wake my mother up in Canada on the telephone to tell her that my flight left.... and then proceed to run out of credit, leaving her to believe that I possibly was stuck in Kenya for another day. All was well when I made it out of the lobby, to my gate where I purchased more safaricom credit and remedied the situation.

THEN. My flight was delayed getting into Amsterdam and I narrowly made my connecting flight thanks to my leopard-fast agility. Unfortunately, my bag didn't make it...Not that I expected it to. After all the rushing was finally over, I was HOME :)!

Time to go home...

Tech savy Sheena realized that "blogspot" had this handy-dandy trick where you can make your blogs post at specific set times. Right now, although this post has just posted, I am actually sitting in the airport, waiting to catch my flight home, anticipating my 18 hour journey ahead of me.
Can anyone REALLY believe that I've been in East Africa for 4 months? I have to say, I'm really sad to leave. 4 months man. That's a long time. I've become comfortable here. Aside from the odd moment, I've adjusted to a "Kenyan" way of life... I've compiled a list of all things that make me Kenyan/things I now known about Kenya and East Africa to prove just how integrated, to finish this long blogging journey off!

1. I eat like a Kenyan and I grocery shop like a Kenyan, complete with road side purchases of bananas and  the Nakumatt as my one stop shop where I feel comfortable purchasing sketchy looking Kenyan snacks (but trust me they are yummy).  

2. I can speak kidogo kiswahili - even though I may have forgotten a lot of what I learned from my classes last semester, the stuff I can say is a careful distillation of the most useful everyday phrases for everyday encounters.  

3. I automatically brush my teeth with bottled water. 

4. I can name you at least 5 stores/restaurants located in every mall in Nairobi, from memory (just to prove it to myself they are: "Kazuri Beads", "textbooks", "Nakumatt", "Kikoy", "Artcafe" and "Nairobi Java House". 

5. I adore my mosquito net and I am so appreciative of it. It makes me feel like a princess and its ability to keep a mosquito out of my ear is something I will never forget.    

6. I've lived out of one backpack for 4 months (jaws should be dropping) and I have become very, VERY good at packing it, swinging the huge thing onto my back and carrying it up and down staircases. 

7. I've worn the same few pieces of clothing for four months which have grown a few sizes due to my handwashing abilities and clothes line drying. (I will be opening a laundry service soon). TIP: Make sure to calculate how taught your clothes line needs to be with WET laundry hanging on it. Expect re-enforcements to be necessary. 

In these past four months, I drank the equivalent of all the chai I have ever drank in my life pre-East Africa. I've camped for a month on end and I am totally not fazed by squat toilets, toilets with pee all over them, or having to use no toilet at all.

The day I left home (Jan. 15th, 2011)

I’ve learned a lot these past 4 months in terms of my academics, my living abilities, my ability to take risks/do things that I may not be comfortable with at first.  My trip to east Africa has been an experience I will never forget and one that has taught me a lot about myself.

I'm going to miss my Kenyan friends. My Maasai mama - Suzanne, our Bunduz Chef - Dan, my kids and friends at First love, my friends from Kibera that showed myself and my parents around and a random splattering of Indian friends :)

I barely stayed in one place longer than 1 week.  Waking up at 8 am was a sleep-in, and when I don’t have ATLEAST 3 field trips a day, I feel like I’m wasting my time. Home life will sure be different.

I’m sad to leave but happy to know that I have a home in East Africa. Wish me a safe flight! Kwaheri kuonana, East Africa (Good bye until we meet again, East Africa)

Love,

Sheena

2.65 Billion Kenyan Shillings

It is pretty cool to experience a world event through the eyes of another country. Throughout my trip with the CFSIA program, I was pretty much deprived from all news, aside from the random newspaper floating around. When the revolution was occurring the Arab Spring, I was riding a truck around Kenya, living in a boma, with no access to media. Now that I am in Nairobi again. I have access to the news!

With yesterday's royal wedding taking place, I was so excited to watch it on a Kenyan television station (Good ol' KTN).
First of all, I completely forgot it was on until I saw some advertisements for the BBC wedding week at my friends' apartment in Hurlingham where they had Satellite TV. I didn't image I would be able to watch the wedding at the orphanage since they do not have Satellite TV but I guess I underestimated the magnitude of this event because I later learned that I missed it while everyone at the orphanage watched it love on the local news.I wasn't too sad. I was pretty satisfied to watch the Kenyan News Station do a recap of the highlights and it was really interesting to hear the facts from the wedding from a Kenyan perspective. For example, the cost of the wedding in total was 2.65 BILLION Kenyan shillings. Can you even image what a figure like that sounds to a kid where I'm working? Where, for them, paying 190 kshs (just over $2 Canadian dollars) is considered expensive for dried mangos....

Even more ironic was the news feature juxtaposed to the wedding story. The main issue in Kenya right now are the rising petrol prices. This has caused an increase in food prices and therefore, an increase in the overall cost of living in Kenya which MANY people are affected by and upset about. I personally know 45 children affected in a huge way who also just learned that they would no longer be getting bread every morning due to the rising costs of food and that it would be reduced to 3 times a week. Furthermore, chai (a cultural STAPLE) would only be given out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, due to the rising cost of milk. Needless to say, everyone was extremely, EXTREMELY upset.
After hearing about these food cutbacks, I see a story about a wedding that involves a dress that costs almost half a million dollars. Although I enjoy watching the wedding moments as much as the next person, seeing it from over here in Kenya really puts things into perspective for me....

PRESENTING: The First Love Kids

The kids at this orphanage have a three week holiday. When I get a three week holiday at home, I usually go somewhere or I sit around watching TV at home.  
These kids are pretty much going to be located on their property in Karen, Nairobi Kenya, unless they go to the church or the doctor (the latter has been happening way to often)....


So I thought to myself - What can I do for these kids so that they are slightly entertained? So I thought - WHY NOT HOST A TALENT SHOW? On Tuesday, I announced there would be a talent show on Friday and that I wanted them to start practicing because I would give the participants something special (spoiler: I made chocolate chip cupcakes).... I thought a talent show would be a good idea because I learned REALLY QUICKLY that these kids are such incredible dancers. When I try to dance with these kids, they laugh at me (which is not unexpected. I laugh at my own dancing). I figured they would be excited to perform some of their dances and play their drums in front of each other since they did that all day every day anyways.  


Unfortunately, I was having a lot of trouble trying to encourage the kids to perform...especially the older ones (I guess teenagers everywhere are just tooooo cool for school). So for the next 3 days I went around BEGGING these kids to perform. I mostly received 'NO's, or really weird looks followed by laughter.... except for Francisca who kept telling me she was going to perform to a song called "Ganja Man" which I was also obviously surprised to hear she was listening to...


The day of the talent show came and on my list, I had a massive SEVEN (*sarcasm*) acts lined up which did not include one boy or girl over the age of 12. So. I made a banner (obviously b/c my special talent is banner making) that said "First Love Talent Show" and tried my best to set the stage. 


I was expecting incredible dancers and.................................... Incredible dancers is what i got! These tiny girls got up there and SHOOK IT. Everyone was having a really good time and so as the acts proceeded, many kids came up to me, telling me they had an act to perform as well! In the end, I had to cut them off because we got to 20 acts!!

Some singing

some acting

some poetry reciting

some dancing and drumming

By the time the talent show was over, the boys had performed TWICE, almost every single older girl danced or sang and it was all really great success. I was also really surprised by creativity of these kids. At one point in the show, the song “one step at a time” started playing from nowhere and one of the older girls walked in in high heels and started strutting her stuff like she was in a fashion show. 

Overall, it was a really fun night and I really hope that it made these kids more confident in their abilities to get up in front of a crowd and show people all the talents they've got!

"Kukumanga" Mystery Solved!

Kukumanga = Pomegranate.

I spent 10 minutes trying to teach 2 children how to say POM-AH-GRAN-NIT after we hit them down from the tree using an iron rod, to eat them.

My religion major comes into use...

Before coming to work at First Love Kenya, I asked about their religious affiliation and just how "religious" a day in the life of one of these children was. I was told that they have prayer/devotional time after dinner, and that they go to church on Sundays. That was about it. 

On my second day here, a church group came from Atlanta, Georgia and their plan was to spend the next two days teaching about God and the Bible..... that pretty much upped the anti in terms of the "religiousness" of a typical day in the life of a First Love child. So - First Love is a non-denominational Christian-run orphanage. Now, I don't really want to use this blog to talk about the ethics of the values that these Christian organizations impart on children in a vulnerable position.... I know it all and I know both sides of the argument and we can have that discussion when I get home... What I do know is that right now, this organization provides these children with loving caregivers, that their bellies are full and that they are going to school.

The religious affiliation thing is interesting to me (I am a religion major after all) and it fascinates me what these Kids are taught on the concept of "God" and how they integrate their beliefs into their every day lives. I wonder what this religious addition does for them in their life and how their lives would be different without a religious component. I wonder if it gives them more hope for a better life.

What I did learn today with by watching the Atlanta group interact with the kids is that it must be really hard, in general,  for the kids and for the volunteers that come in to teach the kids… I doubt the majority kids understand what the volunteers were teaching, especially the young ones and especially due to their southern accents, and I bet that the volunteers feel a barrier as well (which they tried very hard to overcome with visual aids and dances etc), just as I had when I started. Soo… I wonder what they are trying to achieve and I’m really interested to see where these two days go. 

Richard and Emmaculate

Kelly and Daniel being silly

Vero, Lucy and Cynthia mass producing chipati (I tried to make chipo and failed cuz i was too afraid of the OPEN FIRE they were making it on!!)