Internship Update

I haven’t had much time to keep up on blogging, or more accurately, I haven’t actively put much effort into blogging. I have written a few emails outlining parts of my stay here, and have posted them above, but this is my first official public blog. We have been in Nairobi for five weeks now and are ending the classroom phase of the program. The weekend of the 23rd, we will all depart for our internships, in various part of the country. Some of us will be off to the white coasts of Mombasa, others on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kisumu, and the rest of us will be headed north to the Mount Kenya area, with a few people staying right in Nairobi. We are all headed to new families, with new hopes, fears, and expectations,

For me, my biggest hope going into the internship phase is the internship itself. I hope that it is everything I have imagined it will be and more, I hope it challenges me to be vulnerable to a different culture with different practices, I hope it teaches me how to effectively implement community programs, I hope it allows me to work hands on with the community and most of all I hope to make connections here that have the potential to benefit me as I face graduation just a few precious months away.

My fear is that I will have a hard time adjusting to a new family, this time with a father in the house. I fear I will miss my Nairobi family. I fear I will not enjoy the luxury of privacy I have appreciated so greatly at my current homestay. I fear I won’t connect with my host family the way I would like to, and I fear most of all that I will miss the other people in the program I will be separated from.

I expect to appreciate a more rural setting, I expect the lush town of Embu to be an inviting sight every morning after the business of Nairobi, I expect to be extremely challenged with adjusting to a new way of life after just getting comfortable with Nairobi. I expect to love my internship and to spend way more than the required time there. But mostly, I expect to look at it as I have this whole trip, and welcome it, come what may, as new exciting step in this incredible experience in Kenya.

Now to give some details on the next phase. I am going to Embu, as mentioned, which is about a two hour bus ride northeast towards the base of Mount Kenya, the highest peak in Kenya and second biggest in Africa (one of which I plan on summiting before my departure).Embu is not highlighted in any of the travel books, to put it lightly, in fact it written about quite poorly, merely to say it’s nothing worth visiting, which may be true from a tourist’s point of view, but I am no longer a tourist, but a Kenyan resident (I even have the documentation to prove it) so I am very optimistic about it. I am told it is green and one of the most lush and beautiful parts of Kenya. I will be living with a host father and mother and possibly brother. My father is a police chief and my mother is an office worker of some kind. I hear I have running water and electricity, but I am open for having something more rural if that is what it turns out to be. I am working with a NGO, Hope Worldwide Kenya, which works with a consortium of organizations all working in the HIV/AIDS arena. The details are still fuzzy, and will be until I get there and meet the directors, but I believe I am doing community program outreach, meaning I will help bring the different programs into the community, programs such as HIV testing, counseling sessions for the HIV positive, maternal and child health services, etc. I am really hoping I am able to work very hands on with these programs, rumor has it I may even be able to help do some of the screenings (which means my fear for needles must be conquered soon). The great thing about this program and the internships it offers is that it allows students to participate in activities that they normally would need extra training for. (they have let students interested in medicine assist in surgeries!). I’m so excited about my internship and everything I will learn while I am there.

Until then, we are taking advantage of our short time left in Nairobi. I will miss my family dearly, but am excited for the next step. We are getting very comfortable here, and of course, once you get comfortable, it’s time for a change.