Nairobi, Kenya

Why I chose to go to Kenya:I felt I needed “something different” out of my study abroad experience than what I was doing regularly in Kalamazoo. Six months in Africa seemed like the right kind of “something different.” but until I started reading about Kenya, I was considering it for fairly shallow reasons: the weather sounded great and the scenery breathtaking. As I continued to read, though, it was what I learned about the people that finally decided me. Kenyan culture is so diverse that I’m really not sure where I’ll fit in. That may be my biggest apprehension, but this uncertainty is also the appeal; I want a serious challenge to engage and awaken me, as I’ve fallen into somewhat of a “funk." This experience will no doubt do it. I want to live in a family that is not my own and truly come to be a part of that family. I want to eat foods that first startle and then delight me. I want stumble over foreign words in an effort to communicate the simplest of requests or questions…and laugh at those stumblings. I want to see animals in the natural habitats that zoos can only approximate. I want to be a different color from nearly everyone around me and truly grasp what that means. I want to attempt to understand true poverty and do what I can to relieve some of the pain that afflicts a culture weighted down with social problems I've never experienced. Above all else I want to be uncomfortable. College and the life I’ve been handed have made me too comfortable and caused me to feel dead inside. I want to experience LIFE and I believe that Kenya and its beauty have the power to awaken me.

Another intercultural experience I had: Because my trip to Germany was a language immersion experience, I was constantly forced to think “auf Deutsch” so I could speak “auf Deutsch” and hear “auf Deutsch." No amount of classroom work could have prepared me for that challenge. I was confident in my language skills, but at first I was afraid to use what I knew, for fear of making mistakes. So I thought hard about what I wanted to say and said it painstakingly slowly and correctly. After a few days, my brain hurt because of the strain of trying to produce absolutely correct German and to understand what swirled around me. When I first met my host family, I naturally wanted to make a good impression so I tried to speak perfectly and understand everything. I realized after a few days that my fatigue would never go away if I kept trying to be perfect. Just to get a break from thinking, I’d nap or sleep, and this was taking away from my time with the family who wanted so badly to be with me, and who didn't really care about my mistakes. After about two or three days, I gave up on trying to speak grammatically correct German and just focused on saying what I had to say. Most of the time, we understood one another and I felt like after I let go of my attempts at perfection, I could actually speak and understand far more than when I was exhausted all the time from thinking so hard. This experience taught me a lot about communicating in another language and helped me understand the importance of making mistakes as a part of the learning process. Because I don't know any Swahili, it will be exhausting, but I hope I remember what I learned from my experience with German — not to be afraid to make mistakes.

How this class has helped me prepare for study abroad: Most importantly, I now realize how much I want to communicate with Kenyans in their own language. Learning Swahili strikes me as the way to gain the most from my time in Kenya. Before taking the class, I assumed that I would do fine because “everyone speaks English.” But even though I would survive speaking English, I now realize that effective communication also means speaking Kenya’s native language to the best of my ability. I am also aware of the parts of my own “American-ness” that will make me the most uncomfortable; these include appreciation for punctuality and alone time, orientation towards individualistic values, power issues including gender and age, and my need to be in control of a situation. Although these will be put to the test, my intercultural awareness will help me process the conflicts more productively. I think I'll be able to appreciate my own individuality and still figure out how to fit into another culture. No doubt I am in for the challenge of my life, but equipped with language, awareness, and sensitivity I hope to succeed.

What I identified as the greatest challenges facing me as I began my study abroad program: Being abroad and living in a host family for six months presents a major challenge for me. I am concerned about being away from my family for this length of time. As a sophomore in college, I still jump at every opportunity to be with my family. I thought that my homesickness would go away after freshman year but this has not been the case. After being home for any period of time, I still find the readjustment to college life difficult. Adapting to the lifestyle of a family from a different culture is an even greater challenge than adapting to college and dorm life, but I actually see my close familial ties as an advantage for this upcoming homestay experience. Because I know how important my family is to me, I think that I will be able to relate well to the Kenyan collective and family focused culture. Already I am looking forward to introducing my parents to my Kenyan host family in December. I hope to achieve a state of mutual respect and acceptance with my new family. I know this will be a demanding yet eye-opening experience.

Describing my study abroad as if I were someone else: Gazing down onto the crowded, dirty Nairobi street from her second-floor window, Sarah realized that her time in the noisy city was drawing to a close. She felt mixed emotions. Six months had flown by. Before leaving K's campus, she had often been warned that this would happen, but it still shocked her to realize how quickly the time had passed. Sarah knew that she didn’t look any different than she had when she first arrived in her host family’s home — she was the same white woman — and yet she felt different. The whiteness she had taken for granted for so many years glared back at her not only from the eyes of the Africans who stared at her, but also from her mirror. This new self-awareness was definitely the greatest and most painful lesson from her time in Kenya. The implications of being white in a black African society left her with a scar, but in the months and years that followed her experience, she could only hope that it would be a battle wound, a mark of her knowledge and understanding that she proudly displayed. Sarah shook her head slowly at the sight below and acknowledged that — for better or for worse — the noisy street below, the city, and the beautiful country that contained them were a part of her that she must accept — like the color of her skin.

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Read excerpts from my letters home.