Hey guys!

We went on a walk today around the Kajulu community. It was sooo nice and the weather is gorgeous. This is their cold season and it is pretty hot. I can’t even imagine what the hot season is like. We visited a few schools and walked through some of the villages and were introduced to some members of the community.
Things have been going well here, though we have come across some very difficult challenges. The culture here is so different as well as their style of communication. However, I am confident we will accomplish what we have come here to do.

Porsha and I have started teaching english, a computer course and an HIV/AIDS awareness class to levels 6 and 7 at Saint Anne Academy not far the center. We have arranged for the kids to come to the center once a week to use the computer. Out of a 57 kids only one had used a computer before so this will be something very new for them. The interesting thing is that they are very knowledgeable about a computers and can tell you some very sophisticated information about them, they have just never used one.

Porsha and I are also working on getting a kids club up and running. There are so many young kids that live nearby and come to the center, but there is no space that is specifically for their use and a comfortable placeto read and play. So Porsha and I are in charge of getting that together. We had some benches installed and we begin painting today.

The kids here are great, beyond adorable even though they insist on calling us “Mazungus” meaning white person. It is so ironic that I come to Africa and I am considered White. Some people do not know what I am or where I come from until I start to speak. It is also interesting the number of people here who did not know black people lived in America. I was talking to a friend earlier in the week and he said that he had never met an African American before and always wondered what we would be like. All of his exposure to African Americans has been through the media and has never really had the opportunity to really talk to one before.
Kenya is definitely and interesting place and the experience is still amazing. I learn something new and experience something different everyday. My group and I work well together and I am so happy to have them here. We have gotten really close throughout this process and have been through a lot already but we will keep on pushin’.
Until next time!

-Stacey

Jambo!!!

Jambo!! It is meee Stacey!

It is sooo hard to put these last couple of days into words that give this experience any justice, but I will try. I will start off my saying that I am having to the most amazing time and it has been quite an experience already. Kenya is what I thought Africa would be like, but nothing like I expected it to be. First off, it is sooooo beautiful. It is so green and has views of valleys and mountains that are just amazing. Even just walking along the roads, the surroundings are just peaceful and calm. The 7 hour drive from Nairobi to Kisumu was definitely an adventure, but it gave us a chance to see more of Kenya and a lot of villages in between. We even saw some baboons and zebras just hangin out by the road. When you get to the city there are people, animals and children and choas everywhere. Many of the houses and stores are made out of mud bricks or sheet metal. The nicer ones are made out of concrete. It is hard to imagine these has homes, but they are. There are some houses that look like they just came out of an L.A. suburb though. It is pretty random. It is as if the family just buys the land and builds whatever they can afford. The people here are kind. We have gotten a chance to meet some very entertaining Kenyans. Many of them just watch us and are just very curious. The kids here are sooo cute. A few of them dropped by the center today and visited the library. Joe is living at a school so we went up there today and the kids were so excited to see us. they all came to the window of their classrooms and waved to us. A few came out to introduce themselves. Many of the younger kids are just starting to learn English so the little ones were really excited to talk to us. A few of the kids that live around the center run up to us when we come down the road and they just like to touch you and ask you questions. I can not wait to start working with them. When you get to the middle of the city, there are a lot of orphans wandering the streets and begging for money. It is really heart breaking. We had orientation today and are going to continue making community observations and talking with the people of Kisumu for the rest of the week. Collectively we have come up with some cool project to do including work with their youth club, the local schools and working with the women in community. I am beyond excited about this. The people that run the center are beyond awesome. Victor, Allan and Steve are the main ones that work here. They have been great about escorting us around the city. They have even "baptized" me with a new "local" name. Achieng' pronounced a-chee-ang. It is Lou, the main tribe and local language for most of the people that live in Kisumu. It means born in with the Sunshine. Most of the names are based on what time of the day you are born or what kind of day it was.

Well, I could go on forever and have about a million stories, but they have just put on the music and we are going to show our new found friends some recent dances from the states lol!! In short, this is going to be such a crazy, exciting, emotional and amazing 7 weeks if they are any thing like these past few days... I will post pictures soon!

At Home at Abila....Finally!

Tuesday morning Yasu, Moira, Stacey, Chandni, and Porsha met at Heathrow airport to take a flight together to Nairobi. We made it out just in time before they cancelled over 5o flights at 11am because of a security breach. That incident on top of the Doctors and cars driving into Glasgow and whatever else was going on made us so happy we got out when we did!
The flight was fine for me, except for one point when the plane dropped and the woman from Spain next to me almost started crying. She spoke zero words of English and I was so tired that I couldn't think of any Spanish words until it was time to exit the plane, but I helped her wipe up the coffee she spilled, which I think may have helped.

We arrived in Nairobi and made the slow exit out of the terminal where I bought a SIM card that advertised a network all over East Africa, which I thought I would need and that it would work on my cell phone from home. I unlocked the phone, but it still didn't work.
Sara and Joe met us at the airport with Sara's friend, Geoffrey, Nelson who manages the hotel, and the driver, Nathaniel. We checked in to the hotel, which had no elevator and our bags clunked the whole way up the many flights. The elevator was inexpensive, but clean and safe. After we put our stuff down, we piled back into the van and drove off. We made a stop at one place to meet up with friends of Geoffrey's. They were extremely friendly women from Kisumu who told us they would meet us at the next place. We had to go on to celebrate Brad from the Kenyan Education Fund's birthday. AS we were driving Joe saw a tent reading "It is Tusker time" He asked out loud "How did they know?" We quickly figured out it is an extremely popular Kenyan beer.
So, We arrived at Simmers where "the answer is on your plate." Brad and Jaime (his wife?) were there. Their program sounds great. They match sponsors with children in need of fees for secondary education. They had delicious Tilapia and Tusker beer. Lillian, one of the women from Kisumu, told me it is pronounced Tuskah.



Here is Yasu to describe the 9 hour drive from Nairobi to Kisumu: that was amazing drive, like a roller corster. furthermore, We come across zebras and baboons. It was a enough exciting adventure for our first page of diary.

What is this?

CUPID is not some dating group.
CUPID stands for Columbia University Partnership for International Development. It is a student-led effort across graduate schools at Columbia University to facilitate multidisciplinary dialogue, awareness, and action on international development. Recognizing the University’s excellence in this field, CUPID serves as a channel for individuals interested in international development to take advantage of the University’s wide-ranging human and institutional resources in their academic, extracurricular, and professional endeavors. Encouraging a collaborative spirit among students, professors, and alumni with diverse specialties, CUPID aims to explore and demonstrate how a multidisciplinary approach to international development can produce innovative, holistic solutions for disadvantaged populations.

So, why are we going to Kenya?

One of the initiatives of CUPID is designed to be educational and experiential. We take action to work on a project to combine student and local knowledge in a holistic development framework, creating long-term positive impact for students and communities alike.

The project this year is to work at The Abila Creative Center in Kisumu, Kenya.
The Abila Creative Center was formed in 2003 with the aim of bringing artists in Kisumu together and acting as a formal link between art and the rest of the society - corporate, academic and business. It was also an open space where young people could come together and learn from each other and use the resources and forums to inform their creative work. Indeed the term 'Abila' is a Luo word that means a hut in which older men passed wisdom and knowledge on the ways of the community to the young men... where the young men learnt at the feet of the elders. Through theatre performances and visual art exhibitions, the Abila community engaged the rest of the community in critical social commentaries on the society.

The Columbia students taking part and writing in this blog come from the Columbia College, CU School of Social Work, CU School of International and Public Affairs, and Teachers College. We are Chandi, Joe, Moira, Porsha, Stacey, and Yasu.