I got off the plane the evening of September 4 with my 8 colleagues, all of us excited and nervous to find out who would pick us up and take us to their houses. After going through customs and finding my bags I walked out into the greeting area of the airport to find lots of people waiting and holding signs with our names on them. I saw the name “Alexandra Leonard” and felt a momentary relief that someone was planning on my arrival and had a place to stay and then came the excitement to meet the people holding the sign. I was handed a bunch of roses and greeted by 3 kisses on the cheek from my host sisters. “I’m Alexandra,” I said and another woman appeared and put her arm around me and said, “I’m your mom.” We waited for a few minutes for the driver of the taxi to pick us up and got in the car to go home. I waved a brief goodbye to the rest of the K kids who were going off with their families.
We arrived at our house which is in the YWCA hostel complex in downtown Nairobi because my mom is one of the directors or something of the Nairobi branch of the YWCA. I am the closest of all the homestays to the university which is a nice 15 min. walk from my house. Everyone else has to take a bus or train or matatu (a van that operates like a bus) to the university. There is a park right near my house which is nice, I just shouldn’t walk by it at night my sister warned me—it’s a prime mugging spot and I’m especially a target, being seen as a rich Mgunzu (white person).
In the house is my mom, Alice and 2, sometimes 3 of my 5 host sisters. There are 6 kids. The two oldest, Susan and Jack are around 30 and 28 and live in the US. Michelle lives at the house and is 22. She’s done with college and is moving to Germany in February for a year for a job with the YWCA. For now she’s kind of hanging out and I think goes to some classes (she goes somewhere during the day). She’s learning German right now, so once my Kiswahili gets a little better I’ll speak Kiswahili to her and she can respond in German. She’s really fun to talk to because she’s been all over the place, went to college in Uganda and lived in the US for 2 years. My next sister is Rhoda who is 21 and goes to the University of Nairobi like me, but her classes are in the evening. Cheryl is 20 or so and left for school a few days ago so I haven’t seen her except for the first few days. Joanne, or Dolly is her nickname is my cousin who lives at the house and is also househelp-she helps with the cooking and washing. But a few days ago she moved out because she also goes to school and has a job, so we have some new househelp coming on Monday. Then the last sister, Monique is 15 and away at boarding school so I haven’t met her. My host dad is a professor somewhere but apparently doesn’t really live there. I haven’t seen him yet. They’ve hosted students from K for 7 years or so, so they know what they’re doing.
Life in this house is becoming more and more normal for me. It’s rare for middle-class Kenyan families not to have househelp, so it’s strange that we don’t have it for a few days. My mom told me to “make the best of a bad situation” (not having househelp for 5 days or so), which I didn’t think would be so hard. Basically I’ll have to make food myself for the next few days rather than have it prepared for me. The reason we didn’t have a smooth transition in househelp was because Joanne found a new place and moved out without letting my mom know in advance so she didn’t have time to find someone else. I was sad she wouldn’t be around as much because she was pretty cool. Sometimes when she was cooking something she’d have me come in the kitchen and show me how she was doing it. She showed me how to make ugali which is the Kenyan staple food that goes with anything. It’s hard to describe- tastes sort of like rice but it’s made with cornmeal and water and sticks together in a big ball when it’s done. Making it is sort of like making cream of wheat and you just pull it apart with your fingers and eat it with chicken or fish stew or kale. My family is from the Lyoyo tribe which is from the Western lake region of Kenya near the city of Kisumu and Lake Victoria. Thus, they are fisherpeople so we have fish more often than some other Kenyan families.
I have my own room at the house. The house is part of a big complex so my room isn’t actually in the house. I just have to walk out of my room and around the corner to get into the regular house. I have my own key to get in-kind of like an old fashioned skeleton key and a house key. There’s a bathroom in my room with a shower which is really nice. No hot water in my room, I have to go into the main house to take a hot shower, but I can wash my hair in there. The inside of the house is a lot like a typical American house. Kitchen, dining room combined with a family room, 2 or 3 bedrooms, I’m not actually sure how many. Most Kenyans don’t have a washing machine so the househelp washes the clothes for us.
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