Old Town Christmas Market

Walking down the cobblestone street, encountering a lightly-flowing stream of other winter revelers, bundled against the cold bite of a December night, we head towards a faint glow in the distance. Snow crunches under my feet like it has a million times before; it’s a comforting sound. Nature tells us something with her snow. She tells us that no matter what we build, no matter how we tear her up and cover her in asphalt, she can always beat us. This snow crunching, it’s a natural sound, and no matter where I walk in this wintry city, there is the telltale crunch. For me, it’s comforting to know that we are still humbled by nature and her snow.

Advertisement

24 Hours In: Some Comparisons

I have been in Prague for about 24 hours and I already have some quick comparisons of life here to life in Kenya:

• Cars drive on the left.
• Not only do cars stop for you when you are in a crosswalk, they anticipate your crossing before you even get into the crosswalk!
• There is food everywhere, and it’s all different.
• The mall decorations for the holidays just feel… right
• Everyone is walking around, even though it’s really cold…
• …but there aren’t many smiles on peoples’ faces as they walk.
• I have seen at least 8 different couples not just kissing, but effectively making out in public.
• There is not nearly as much color here. People are all in greys and blues, browns and blacks. No kangaas or purple pimp hats.

Ndege Kubwa

Ok folks, this is it, I am off on a flight in about three or four hours (do planes operate on, “Kenya Time?”), and may be silent for a bit while I figure out the Internet situation during my European adventures. I am still debating what the focus of my writing will be, whether purely whimsical, focused more on development-related activities, or descriptive of my adventures with my brother Chris as we tear up Prague, Zurich and Turino. Who knows?

Though I will be taking a bit of a holiday from regular blogging (for which you have been prepped for a few weeks now), I will most certainly continue in the New Year when I return home to Mtongwe and continue with my work as Peace Corps volunteer. Because I know you were all worried I would shut up. People, not even the gods can shut me up 😉

Until then, I wish all of my readers a Happy Holiday Season, whatever that may mean for you! I know for me it means time spent with family, enjoying hot chocolate by the fire with the dogs and enjoying the snow, and while I may not have all of these things this year, sometimes all it takes is a memory 🙂

P.S. Don’t worry about the title. It was a brief Kiswahili-related thought I had. Free association, ya know?

Never A Holiday Really, Except This Time

Most all education institutes in Kenya follow a three on, one off, schedule for their school year. This simply means we have three months of teaching, followed by one month of holiday. Of course, NYSTC is slightly different from every other institution in that though we follow the 3/1 pattern, our year starts in May, not January, but that’s just trivia, and not really a major impact on my life. For this past year in Kenya, there has always been some work to get done during my month, “off,” from teaching, which has prevented me from actually going on a single holiday. Believe it or not, despite all my adventures around Kenya, which I am lucky to have, none of them have been true vacations, they have always been, “work related.” That’s about to change 🙂

Pages: 1 2 3