The Chinese Boy Has Landed

Note: due to terrible internet access in Africa, I am blogging this on my desktop, and posting it the next morning

After 24 hours of airplane traveling, we finally made it from Boston, Massachusetts to Nairobi, Kenya. As I walked out of the airport, and got all of my bags, we were greeted by someone who would take us to our apartment. I looked up into the sky as we were walking towards the van, and couldn’t believe I was actually in Africa. The moon was shining brightly, and I thought to myself, ‘wow, even though I’m thousands of miles away from my home, friends, and family, I still somehow feel connected.’ We all share the same moon, and I could feel like the moon was smiling down upon me, letting me know everything was going to be okay.

I was like the wide eyed Chinese kid looking all over the place as we were driving to our apartment. Although it was nearly pitch back, I could see trees and grassfields out into the distance. I wondered if giraffes were going to pop out from nowhere, but unfortunately, I didn’t see any wild animals anywhere.

We got to our apartment, and I gotta say it’s pretty nice. Big living room, kitchen, and our own bedrooms. Unfortunately, I got stuck with the hard, little bed in the corner, but hey, a bed’s a bed right? Hopefully we can alternate rooms after two weeks.

Oh, and Michael asked who was good at picking up foreign languages, and I heard myself saying, ‘I am, sort of.’ Everyone else said nothing, so now I have to pick up some Swahili if we want to traverse around the area. Nah, I’m sure there are English speaking people here.

Overall, I’m pretty excited for what lies ahead. I have a crap load of work and preparation to do before the program at the university officially starts. We have about a week before we start teaching, and I have to make sure, in addition to mastering java, I need to know J2ME, and some database stuff as well. Should be fun though. I will make sure this summer I become technically savy, and hey, the best way to learn something is to teach right?

The team here is pretty cool as well. I spoke with Cory about MIT and choosing majors as we were waiting at Logan airport. He’s a pretty chill guy, and look forward to working more and interacting with him. Zach I can tell is a pretty adventurous guy, and hopefully after this trip I’ll be more bold and adventurous myself. And Michael is just down to earth. I hope to chat more with him throughout the journey.

That’s about it for now. We’ll probably do some shopping tomorrow, start planning out some stuff, and hopefully do some exploration. Until then, good night, cause I’m tired, and I gotta sleep. Aloha!