My New Family

We got to know our way around the city of Nairobi a little better today. Matutus, which are essentially converted VW vans, provide the main public transportation around town and the countryside. We took one into the city and then one out of town in order to get across town. Our destination was Village Market, the chique-est outdoor mall in East Africa and conveniently located near the US Embassy, UN offices and housing for foreign nationals. See Sept. 3rd for more about that.

Later on that afternoon my host mother, Helen Muchogu, picked me up and took me to their house in Runda, as American-like suburb near Village Market. She is the head of the Women’s Guild in the PCEA (Presbyterian Church of East Africa), and conducts numerous conferences and workshops around the region promoting women’s rights and education. Her husband is a chemical engineer who owns his own gas and welding-tool distribution company. They have three children: Bethwel, or B.M., who is 15 and starts boarding his second year of public high school Tuesday; Purity is 19 and applying to US schools for computer technology after finishing 3rd in the nation in testing; and Charles, 22, who is also known as Muchogu (his last name) and Bobla (he really likes Bob Marley). Also living with them are: two cousins, James, who helps around the house, and Jackson, who has a bachelors in Architecture and is doing contracted work with the UN; a helper, Jen; and occasionally Joyce, Charles’s girlfriend or mazuri (literally something good), Wachichi and Bensen, two workers who drive the gas truck around making deliveries. All in all, it’s a full house, yet they still managed to provide me my own bed and bath.

Apparently, most people in Kenya have multiple names, in English, Swahili and their own native tongue. Foreigners are also given names. I have been knighted as “Wanbogo,” which roughly translates as “Macho Man.” Perhaps standing straight paid off after all, Mom.