On Monday, June 4th I flew into Philadelphia for staging. There, I met the 30 other men and women headed down to Kenya for Peace Corps service. 29 of them are embarking on their first service, while one other volunteer, Dave, joins me in transferring from service in Mali.
After a day of orientation, we took a bus up to New York City and flew out of JFK Airport Tuesday evening. After transferring in Zurich, we arrived at the Nairobi airport the evening of Wednesday, June 6th.
Right from the start, I could tell that this would be a completely different experience. For one, Nairobi is very developed. Skyscrapers line the streets downtown, and amongst many large office and retail buildings are several full-scale malls! The roads are just as crowded and cumbersome as those in Bamako. But instead of cheap motorcycles and ragged bush-taxis, cars and newer, relatively spacious mini-buses fill the streets.
We stayed at a hostel just outside of Nairobi until Saturday morning. There, we attended several general classes and began our Kiswahili language training. The training facility was fully equipped with electricity and plumbing, and we each even had our own rooms with full bathrooms!
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It didn’t take long for our first African wildlife sighting! Pictured above are a couple of giraffes seen feeding on the side of the road from our bus as we traveled from Nairobi to Loitokitok.
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