Hamjambo!

Karibu Kenya!!!I finally reached a cyber cafe. There is so much to write and I ambeing chraged by the minute so I may be brief, but maybe not. Kenyais soooo amazing, but 15 hours on a plane is not. We arrived Sundayand left Monday for Naivasha (close to this gorgeous lake). Along thebusride there it was commonh to see zebra and gazelle just hangingaround. I even saw one giraffe in the distance on the way bacik.Naivasha was super interesting. It is a rural community and we stayedat a kind of ranch for our orientation time. We had to close thedoors to our rooms or else the monkeys would get into our stuff. Wealso saw some hippos who came out late at night from the lake tograze. I love my group, all 18 of them. So far we all get alongreally well. Saturday I move in nwith my host family, I can hardlywait! I am using my swahili all the time and classes don't start untilMonday.I have been bitten by every bug possible so thank god for for mymalaria drugs and vaccines. So far the stomach upset has beenminimal. The food is great, a lot of starches and roast meats. But Iam eating really well. I am also hardly spending any money which iswonderful!! And we get to create our own reading porfolio, norequired reading, only readingf that we WANT to read. Also, we have ahuge independent study project which will be crazy at the end of thesemester. I will probably go to a rural area to do my research.We leave for the coast on the 26th and stay one week with a family ina Muslim fishing village called Takaungu. And at the end of March andthe beginning of April, rightr after easter, we travel to Tanzania forabout ten days. This is the expereince of a lifetime, as wasexpected.Others things to note there is a good beer here called Tusker. Youcan get in the states if you care to be adventurous. Also, beer iscalled 'bia' and a bar is called 'baa' and it sounds like a Bostonaccent. The sunburn has been minimal and the weather has been great.It does get cool at night, around 50 and in the 80s during the day.On the coast it will be the hottest week of the entire year, and Iwill be wearing conservative clothing except for whenn we go to thebeach :) The sun will be directly over the equator starting at theend of the month. It is a very powerful sun here but I wear sunblockreligiously :) This semester is going to be wonderful. I will get acell phone soon I think and I will put what I think is my mailingaddress at the bottom of this. I would love to get some mail, butjust letters, they don't allow packages. Well lots of love to homeand everywhere else. I am thinking of all of you.

Sarah Gillespie
c/o SIT
P.O. Box 21752
Nairobi 00505
KENYA

Letters only PLEASE!