Here at last!

IS this photo black and white or is it ZEBRAS!!?
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"Shikamoo" i would say to greet an older person (meaning i respect you) and they would reply "Marahaba" (roughly translating to i acknowledge your presence/respect.) See a theme here? I am going to start as many passages on here with some Swahili phrases as i can allowing me to practice and share my limited knowledge with you all. So i'm finally here in Nairobi and i feel like i've entered a dream from which i'm sure i will not wake from for the next 6 months. After 18 hours of travel and terrible in flight films and little kids kicking my already uncomfortable and cramped seat from behind i arrived to Kenya. It is 8 hours difference between here and Montreal/Connecticut. Luckily every piece of baggage made it from our group except one poor girl's luggage... but i consider 1/40 a good ratio! We are currently residing at ICIPE, a compound guarded heavily by due to the presence of USAID. ICIPE is a research facility on the outskirts of the city which trains graduate students in the fields of sustainable development through agriculture, environment and public health, with all research focused on entomology -the impact on insects on all of these- thus they work with locust plagues, malaria mosquitoes...which are CERTAINLY not lacking here. We are staying here for the first few days in order to acclimate to the weather and time change. Today was spent doing a Safari in Nairobi national park, a game reserve that literally shares its borders with the city. Thus Zebras, Warthogs, Giraffes, Wildebeest and many other species of Ungulates and critters were captured on film (147 pics worth!!!) i am going to have to go through them to select the best ones. They are starting us off slowly but tomorrow i am bracing myself and looking forward to visiting one of the Nairobi slums. It will be an enormous but necessary culture shock as i feel as if we are still a world apart from the Kenyan people as we peer at them through the canvas cracks in the side of our trucks while being shuttled from one isolated compound to another. i feel that many of the other students are extremely apprehensive, if also unprepared to actually face the slums with an open mind. I think it is largely the result of the extensive security briefings that they give us each day in order to make us overly alert regarding our surroundings. I guess its better off to be paranoid than to be cocky, but i hope that it wont prevent them from approaching this academically, professionally, but most importantly with a sense of reverence and respect for the people who we will be visiting. I must go as there are only 2 computers here and i've hogged this one for the past half hour.

A rare species of animal: Studentius Fascinatus
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Amani my friends.

I guess its better off to be paranoid than to be cocky, but i hope that it wont prevent them from approaching this academically, professionally, but most importantly with a sense of reverence and respect for the people who we will be visiting.

Miss you all.