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Nkubu has been treating me well.I will be here for another week and a half before I leave to go back to Nairobi for final exams and term papers.It will be a fun week in Nairobi since I have three, 15 page papers due before the programs end date on May 3rd and definitely have not gotten very far with them here with limited computer access.I will be wrapping my time here with a trip to the coast during the first week of May and then most likely going to Hell's Gate, west of Nairobi, following that.Still plans in the making…I could not even tell you the exact date of my return to the U.S. since that is still kind of up in the air as well.
My host family has been great, but much more mellow than my previous host mom.We eat A LOT of fruit.Every kind you could imagine: watermelon, tons of bananas (since we're basically surrounded by a banana forest), mangoes, pears (they eat them before they're ripe so they are kinda like eating an apple), oranges, and passion fruit.The people in Nkubu are also very friendly.Everybody knows the mzungu in town, and it has been nice to recognize familiar faces on the street.I have a herd of kids that wait on my route home, and I have to individually shake each of their hands before I can continue.I still get a lot of "mzungu" shouts but some are even starting to know my name.My name has also been an issue here.Nobody can pronounce it, and I get a lot of "Brian's" so the people at the hospital have started calling me by my middle name because "Jane" is quite common here, so they thought that they would just call me that.Whatever works I guess.Last weekend when I was taking a matatu from Meru to Nkubu (the route crosses the equator, by the way) with 20 people in it instead of the intended 14, I had an interesting encounter with the woman sitting next to me.About 10 minutes down the road and she starts rubbing my arm, petting rather.When I started laughing and told her "yes, it's real skin" she just looked at me with amazement.I get that a lot from kids, but that was the first time a grown adult had done it.
Last weekend I visited my host mom's mother at her home about 20 minutes up the mountain from Nkubu.Many of their aunts, uncles, and cousins also live there.It was interesting to see an even MORE rural area than Nkubu.They were purely self-sustained.Their only purchases were the occasional bottle of cooking oil, sugar, or salt, which they purchased using the money from eggs and chickens they'd sold.They grew maize, tea, sugar cane, and even had an avocado tree.There were at least 10 chickens running around the yard, 3 cows, a cat, a dog, and 17 eggs being incubated.Speaking of chickens, we have 3 at our house in Nkubu and I am happy to say they are helping me overcome my bird-phobia.We got rid of the cow because it was costing more money than it was worth so my host sister goes to the neighbor's cow every night for our bottle of nice warm milk.Cows, goats, donkeys, and chickens roam the streets freely.The first week I was here a bull outside of the hospital chased me.I have since used more caution and where my running shoes daily.It still rains almost every night leaving the roads very muddy, but the coffee, tea, and banana farmers are glad.
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