As our plans have narrowed down to NEGST in Nairobi and IBTS in Prague, the number of contacts in these two areas keeps expanding. We have crossed paths with a number of folks on campus at Fuller who are from Nairobi and have been pointed in the direction of a number of others who either study, work or live in Nairobi and Prague. It is such a blessing to converse with those who have lived in these areas!
On Saturday we had a good conversation with a couple from Africa, who are now here at Fuller. They had spent some time in Nairobi, and now offered us some perspective on what we will experience in Kenya. They told us, for instance, that we should look forward to drinking a great deal of chai tea—they said that Kenyans drink more chai than water. We gained some insights about how to get fair prices at the shops in Nairobi: take an African with us, lest we get charged mazungu (white person) prices!
Our time together was good, not just because of the information we received, but because we could hear folks from Africa talking about their homeland. It boosts the morale to hear people talk about their homeland and tell you that, even as a foreigner in a strange land, ‘You will love it there.’ The more folks we talk to who have been to or lived in Africa, the less anxious we are about traveling there for the first time.
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