Well arrived

So here I am in the Focus office in Nairobi. Yes we’re all fine, all healthy, all safe, the food is good (chapati owns!).
What to say? We’re living at the Focus center, a quite nice place a bit outside the Nairobi center. We have some quite simple double rooms, that is they contain two beds and two mosquito nets, and our suitcases. We have access to showers(although the it’s a science to get hot water, and you get a minor electric shock when you try to adjust the water pressure with wet hands), we have good toilets(although Vegard had to fix our, it was “a little” leaky). We have everything we need, and quite a bit more than that.

For a Norwegian this might sound like a quite low standard, and by Norwegian standards it is. But after what we saw yesterday it’s great. We visited the TULIP-center in the Korogocho-slum. We met people living under conditions that are surrealistic to us. We only see that in the humanitarian-work-commercials. But there they were, right in front of our eyes. And what did they do? They were smiling! I’ve never seen that many smiles in one day I think. Kids screaming “How are you?” from everywhere, and smiling from ear to ear when we answered “I am fine, how are you?”.
At the TULIP center, which is (pardon my misinformation earlier in the blog) a center for girls that drop out of school for various reasons. They give them some education, healthcare, and teach them some things they can do to survive(making things, sewing, etc). When I heard this in Norway, I thought a bit like “yeah, the normal blabla-humanitarian things to do), but now having been there and seen them, I see that this is great!

We also visited a school run by TULIP. Every complaining Norwegian schoolkid should go there. One classroom with 14 students(one desk each at least), one small(!!!) office for the head teacher, one teachers room (a quite small room with a couple of desks in), a kitchen (a room with a paraffin boiler). There they sat, in the dark, in school. And common for them all? Smiling and laughing away. While we complain that our chair is too tall or the desk is wiggling in Norway, these pupils didn’t have anything to complain about.

We also visited a hospital supported by TULIP. It was surprisingly nice. It was clean, they had good routines, they had equipment, they were even expanding! That hospital is also the only place outside the airport I’ve seen another white person. We didn’t talk much with him, but he sounded either British or Australian, and I’m guessing he’s a doctor. (This is a place for you to visit, Mom, Dad and Ingrid!).

Now the really exciting part: As of Thursday, we will start working with TULIP, and their projects. That could mean teaching at their school, helping out at the hospital, home-visits, etc.

And sorry for not adding any pictures, the internet here seems to be running with African time =o)