New Blog Post- In which I arrive at Zinduka and plan to like it very much

I think I’m gonna like it here. 
For starters, there’s a toilet. A real live I-get-to-sit-on-it toilet. :-P
Let me backtrack.
This morning we drove an hour through Nairobi…and were still within the city limits (thank you, traffic) and arrived at the church ICC (it is “International Christian Center”)(the West campus)They have 3 services on Sunday mornings, all in English, and in general the offices and attitudes are very modern. There is a second campus a 20 minute drive away (the Imara campus) All of the staff I saw in the office today except for 2 of the head pastors are in their 20s or early 30s. It looks like a very happy place with their nice clean white tile floor and everyone using Windows 7 on their laptops except for the guy with the 30-inch-screened mac and they’re all friendly and laughing.
Within the church grounds there’s offices, the sanctuary, some other buildings I don’t know the purpose of, and then Zinduka, which has a 40-ft converted container and some offices.
Side note: some people from another church in Nairobi wanted to see the sanctuary because they’re renovating theirs and they’re looking for ideas what other churches do. So we went into the sanctuary and Cathy showed them how they set up the chairs, and the balcony, etc and the stage was empty. The woman asked what kind of chairs they put on the podium. Cathy said there were none, the pastors sit on the ground level with the congregants. The woman was like “…ooooh. But you give them a table.” Cathy said “no…they just sit in the front row, with the rest of the people. We give them water bottles?” The woman was again like “…oh” Cathy explained they wanted to be as approachable as possible, and to show that they’re just another person and don’t want to seem like special holy men. This seemed like a new idea to the woman, which didn’t surprise me since I’ve seen pastors sitting on thrones on the stage in front of their church here. So I like this attitude of respect, but not elevation-to-the-level-of-king, for the pastor.
Zinduka is officially an NGO. (Zinduka-afrika.com)They work with HIV+ people to do counseling, there is a VCT center (“voluntary counseling and testing”- so called because there was such a stigma about the word “HIV” that people would refuse to be even tested because they didn’t want to be seen associating with the word. So VCT is like a “safe” way to call it, where people are willing to come and get tested and counseled without the cultural stigma. So they do that, and they have support groups for HIV+ people, mentoring and marketable skills training, and they make home visits.
Today we went into the church office and I met Cathy, who is maybe in her late 20s, and we had a meeting with her and one of the pastors to finish up all the details of my staying here as well as the clinic that’s coming up. We spent about 2 hours hashing out all the details of timing and meals and how many translators we would need , etc. Here’s the plan for the next 2 weeks, now that I actually have the information.
I am going to be commuting with Cathy to the church compound every morning, then working with Zinduka. I was told I’ll get a schedule tomorrow so I can see when I’ll be in the VCT place, when I’ll go on visits, etc. On June 13, a team of 36 people from Chicago arrives, and on the 14th, we start setting up for 4 days of free clinic at the Imara campus. So those days the bus bringing the Americans from their lodging to the Imara campus will pick me up, since Cathy lives quite close to the Imara campus. We’ll do the clinic from 9-5 Wednesday-Saturday, with sports ministry and crusades going on in the afternoons and evenings, respectively. Sunday the team will do stuff at the churches during the regular service and then Monday morning we go on safari.
So that’s the plan.
Cathy’s house, as I mentioned, has a toilet. And a shower.
It’s an actual free-standing house in a development. They call them “estates” here…this estate has an unlocked gate, and there’s a bunch of shops…general stores, butchery, fruit stands, …a field with a volleyball net, some random open grass, and then several “lanes” which is basically a side street with a gate with a guard at it. Each side street is lined with houses, each house has a small yard enclosed by a stone wall with a gate. So…there are a lot of gates. :-P
The house is one story, with a kitchen, living room, master and guest bedrooms, and bathroom…one of the most westernized houses in structure and décor I’ve seen. So like I said, I think I’m gonna like it here. 
We will usually pack a lunch of leftovers from dinner, but today Cathy and I went to eat at a little restaurant/café/whatever you want to call it that was a 5 minute walk from the church. I got to eat a chapati, so I was happy. :-p Then we stopped at a small supermarket to get breakfast foods because Cathy and her husband don’t eat breakfast. She asked, so I told her I’d been eating lots of Kenyan food, anything was okay, the only thing I’ve eaten here that I didn’t like was liver, and she said she ALSO doesn’t like it, it makes her want to gag. Awesome. I think we are going to get along quite well. 