Reflections on a full day in Kenya

Finally, a blogpost from Kenya! The title of this blog is no longer mildly misrepresentative!

So, ahem, yes. I have arrived in Nairobi. I landed about 23 hours ago but already it feels like Dublin airport and Navan and all of the things that have come before this are long ago. I arrived in late last night with a fellow VSO volunteer Simon from the UK, and another volunteer from the US Catherine. We were picked up at the airport by a VSO driver and whisked off to the, rather lovely, guesthouse that VSO training is based in for the first week. I have an ensuite and hot water and wireless. So we're being eased rather gently into life as a VSO volunteer in Kenya.

This morning we had the first of 7 days of training. There are 6 others on the course, as well as the 2 guys mentioned above there are 3 volunteers from VSO in the Philippines and another American woman. The day itself was very informal and mainly led by current VSO volunteers and some VSO Jitolee staff who spent the morning telling us about some of their experiences of arriving and settling in Kenya and then we spent the afternoon exploring Nairobi's Central Business District (or CBD as the cool kids call it) where all of the main shops, restaurants etc are. I managed to pick up a SIM card too (my number is 00254 707 880210 for those of you who'd like to send me a text!) so I'm feeling fairly connected with the world overall. Sadly it only seems to be able to send texts to Ireland thus far, and not make calls. But sure it's a start. Our tour finished with a trip to 2 of the volunteers' (a couple) apartment for us to get a sense of what our accommodation might be like. So all in all quite a busy first day. We've been given lots of information, so hopefully I've soaked up lots of it, or at least some of it.

That's all for now, I think my leaba calls but make sure you all (any of you who are reading this, there is someone reading this right, right??) keep me updated with news from home!