Settling In

So I just want to give a brief, general update. I’m great. Really, that’s all I need to say.

For those who want a slightly longer version… I have been meeting a ton of the Family AIDS Care and Education Services (FACES) staff over the last three days and they are all wonderful people. Everyday I’m figuring out about how the system currently operates and am making plans for how I’m going to become integrated into that system and hopefully help the team take some steps forward in the coming months. I’m enjoying eating ugali, beans, and spinach with my hands at lunch and bantering with mamas at the market. When my room key got stuck in the lock today, I got a kick out of trying to take the entire handle off the door with my guard and roommate, using a bottle of WD40 and a foot-long kitchen knife (as the screwdriver). I then enjoyed a delicious Indian dinner overlooking Lake Victoria, the sunset fading into the lillypads and being replaced by a bright moon.

I am sure that the coming months will bring its ups and its downs, but I’m settling in. It’s strange, but I feel oddly at home here. I’m in a different country, different city, different work environment than the last time I was in East Africa, but there is so much that feels the same. I guess in a way East Africa is where I grew into being an adult. I came here right after undergrad. It was the first place I ever rented a house and set up an electric bill. It was the first place I ever went to work every morning and hung out with friends in the evenings. It was where I learned how to cook, how to hail a taxi, how to network, how to scrub my socks until they were (off-)white. It’s where I learned how to be an adult. So I suppose it makes sense that I feel comfortable, happy really – even when I’m batting flies away from my plate of ugali or searching for a bathroom with toilet paper. I’m really glad to be here.