The End of ISP and Last week of the Program in Malindi

Wow, so I have just finished typing my cover page and making last minute corrections on my 3rd, or was it 4th, final draft of my ISP. I am really really proud of it; I think that the last month doing research and interviews has been worth everything it took to come here. I have learned so much, not just about my specific topic (ethnic and political identity of the Swahili) but how to live on my own in a major city in Kenya, how to bargain for my daily food…the best place to go to get a dress tailored out of kikoi fabric…
I have also made a lot of friends!! I have been living in a hostel in Old Town, it is beautiful and breezy, right on the ocean where I swim and there is also a small chai stand where the owners know me very well. There is an old man who owns a jewelry kiosk on the “American corner” (called because of all the tourists…we live right near Fort Jesus) and he has given me many gifts of jewelry, mangos, somosas...generally everyone who knows us now is extremely nice to us, very generous and always helpful. The other friends have been the people who live in the hostel with me and two other girls in my program; they are 6 girls from the SIT Mombasa program. We have become very close the past month, and it is very sad that on Sunday we have to leave to go to our presentation sites and they will be going somewhere different, I feel like I have spent my entire research month working, celebrating and commiserating with these people and then we have to say goodbye!
I love this place, I love the neighborhood…I love the cheap and amazing food and I love the people and I love the smell of spices in the air and I love the turquoise sea and the dhows fishing on the horizon…I love how I haven’t watched TV in over a month, and I love that I don’t miss it either. I even love the sea urchin that stuck 20 needles into my foot and forced me to go to the hospital and have a chunk razor-bladed out of my foot with no anesthetic...lol. Everything here is amazing and I have never been so enamored with a place, nor have I ever felt so comfortable. Its going to be very hard to leave, I am very sad.

So I will be seeing many of you in just over a week, and if anyone wishes to read my ISP paper just shoot me an email and I can send you a copy.
Asalaam Aleikum!