Jambo

Somali food last night. And the best milkshake I have had so far! I took the waiter's recommendation. Something I have learned from my best friend, Abs!

I have been trying to figure out post-program travel plans but it is a bit tricky with such slow internet! Booking just one plane ticket can take forever, let alone loading websites for different hostels/lodging. So far I have managed to purchase all but one plane ticket! So close! I will be flying to Mombasa on my birthday (birthday drinks on the beach!) and staying at Diani Beach just south of the city for about 5 days. Then I will be going to Lamu, on an isolated island to the north. Finally, I will spend about 2 1/2 weeks in Zanzibar down in Tanzania. I will probably take a ferry to Dar es Salaam for a day or two as well. And don't worry! I will have traveling partners. We will be a group of three for the first part and then join up with other friends to be a group of 6 in Zanzibar. We are looking for a cottage/bungalow on the beach in Zanzibar!

Seattle Congressman, Jim McDermott, will be visiting Nairobi soon. According to my US embassy connections, my UW group is becoming slightly famous because the congressman wants to meet with us all. It looks like we will all meet the Congressman next Monday at one internship site, Hamomi, which is a school/feeding program for kids in a nearby slum. We have two interns there this summer and the rest of us will join them to meet the Congressman (and play with the kids hopefully!). A lot of cookie making went down last night. Apparently none of the staff or kids at Hamomi have ever had a chocolate chip cookie. So some girls in the group made over a hundred cookies yesterday to share with everyone today!

M and I went to visit the Ngecha Artist Association again earlier this week to discuss a potential partnership and project. As part of the UW program, we students are required to engage in a human rights project. Yes, it is that ambiguous--as long as we can prove a human rights issue, we can do whatever project we want about it. Lots more to come on that, but in the near future, some of us will be meeting them again for a few days in order to do a collaborative painting. My homework is to come up with a "theme" which apparently means a catchy slogan. Yikes, we'll see what we can come up with!