My YAV group with some friends from Meru.It's about time for another post!
So a lot has happened since I was last in touch. My group of volunteers split up and moved out to our individual work sites around the country. It wasn't as dramatic for me because I only had to move right down the street, whereas a few of the other volunteers moved to towns several hours away from Nairobi.
This year I'll be working at the Organization of African Instituted Churches (OAIC), which is an ecumenical body with branches all around the African continent. African Instituted (or Independent) Churches began during the colonial period as a reaction against the Christian missionary efforts of European colonizers. These independent churches blend traditional values and practices with more mainstream forms of Christianity. The OAIC fosters a number of social programs in AIC communities such as HIV/Aids outreach, food security, and the empowerment of women and youth.
The organization's headquarters are located here in Nairobi, and I'm working for their international office in the communications department. My main job will be to collect stories from the field, and write articles about what is happening on the ground at the various sites connected with the OAIC. This means there is a lot of travel in store for me, around Kenya, East Africa, and the African continent. Actually, I just found out that in November I'll go to Nigeria and Botswana to visit the OAIC offices in those two countries. There is also a possibility that I'll go to Ghana later in the year, which would be excellent! I'm very excited about the opportunity to travel and see different parts of Africa, and maybe to visit Ghana again. The work really draws on my anthropology experience a lot, which is great and not something I fully anticipated. And I'm becoming more and more interested in communications as a field, so we'll see where that leads.
So a lot has happened since I was last in touch. My group of volunteers split up and moved out to our individual work sites around the country. It wasn't as dramatic for me because I only had to move right down the street, whereas a few of the other volunteers moved to towns several hours away from Nairobi.
This year I'll be working at the Organization of African Instituted Churches (OAIC), which is an ecumenical body with branches all around the African continent. African Instituted (or Independent) Churches began during the colonial period as a reaction against the Christian missionary efforts of European colonizers. These independent churches blend traditional values and practices with more mainstream forms of Christianity. The OAIC fosters a number of social programs in AIC communities such as HIV/Aids outreach, food security, and the empowerment of women and youth.
The organization's headquarters are located here in Nairobi, and I'm working for their international office in the communications department. My main job will be to collect stories from the field, and write articles about what is happening on the ground at the various sites connected with the OAIC. This means there is a lot of travel in store for me, around Kenya, East Africa, and the African continent. Actually, I just found out that in November I'll go to Nigeria and Botswana to visit the OAIC offices in those two countries. There is also a possibility that I'll go to Ghana later in the year, which would be excellent! I'm very excited about the opportunity to travel and see different parts of Africa, and maybe to visit Ghana again. The work really draws on my anthropology experience a lot, which is great and not something I fully anticipated. And I'm becoming more and more interested in communications as a field, so we'll see where that leads.
Cooking Kenyan food-- Ugali and stewI've been learning to take matatu's (minibuses) around the city... they are crazy. They drive up on sidewalks and across round-about medians, and I've almost been run down by several now. Not to worry! I'm fine. I've also been learning to cook Kenyan food. Chapatis is probably my favorite. It's like Indian flatbread and you eat it with this lentil stew called "ndengu". So delicious. It's been nice meeting some Kenyans through work, and through the guest house where I was staying before I moved into my apartment. I've made good friends already, and they've been taking me around the city and showing me the ropes.
I hope you are enjoying reading my posts, even though I know they are few and far in between... I promise to work on that!
I hope you are enjoying reading my posts, even though I know they are few and far in between... I promise to work on that!
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