"It happens sometimes. Friends come in and out of our lives, like busboys in a restaurant."

When I moved to Nairobi, I was very nervous about what kind of room mates I was going to have. Having lived with one person for the past 5,5 years, it was weird to think that during my time in Kenya, I might share a house with several strangers, or at best, new friends.

Since I arrived on Jan 31st, every one of the people living here at the time have moved out. Except for me.

The Ugandan and I only stayed here together for my first month and a few weeks later the American moved in.
The Indian flew back home a couple of weeks ago and that's when the Swiss moved in.
The German moved out not long after that, which left room for another American to move in.

And there you have it. Suddenly I'm the one with seniority at the flat - in regards to time spent in Kenya, but also actual age. Now all of the tenants are interns (one for the Swiss Embassy, one for UN Women and one for WFP) and trying to make the most of Nairobi on a budget. They are ready to crack open a bottle of wine in case there's a blackout and they're always up for another episode of Top Chef.

No further changes in tenants are expected as I should be the next to leave.......... which will be in 54 days - as my newly installed countdown calendar on my web browser tells me.

Going the distance

You know that feature on Facebook that shows you the posts you've made on that exact day during the previous years? 

Here's my memories from this day:

It was my second day at my old-new job and there was going to be a party. Elina introduced me to someone: "Auri, this is Lauri - Lauri, this is Auri". Thank goodness she did!

A week later: "I'm ready to change my relationship status if you are". :)

I don't think I could have done it if it wasn't for L jumping first!

One of the most beautiful quotes I know.

I was so excited about dating a guitarist and kept bugging him to play me something. Being that his thing was mostly melodic death metal, he said he didn't know that many pop songs. Then he played this to me. It's been our song ever since.

Ha, I think this was when I had gotten in a fight with L, who didn't want to do anything special for our anniversary. Being upset, I arranged a really nice day for myself with Siri and Katarina! 

L told me afterwards that he almost didn't go to the party, because he was very tired. Fate?

The roses withered and the bonsai didn't survive the Finnish winter... But you can always buy more roses and another bonsai!

I had gotten a gift certificate from Babo, Marcus & Johan and we celebrated the anniversary by having Ethiopian for the first time.

This year, on our 7th anniversary, I am in Kenya preparing for a birthday party I'm organizing, and L is at work back home in Helsinki, and maybe going to see a movie later today.

Every day since I came here, I've missed him and almost weekly I have had the urge to go back home. However, this internship is an excellent opportunity for me and L has been nothing but supportive. I've met people here who've had to choose between a relationship and pursuing their dreams. I know also some people who would never dream of going, because the long-distance is too scary. Sure, I've been worried at times, but L has been like a rock. "You go, you do what you need to do for six months. Internet works, phones work, planes fly. And then you come back." His calmness makes this journey so much smoother. It is exactly like Sheryl Sandberg says: A successful woman needs someone like that beside her - someone who is an equal life partner and supports them in their careers. Thank you L for being that to me.

But... the distance can be difficult. Luckily I found an amazing idea on Pinterest. It was posted by a woman, who was going to go abroad for 6 months. She wrote letters for her boyfriend to open while she was away. I started preparing the letters for L in November and by the time I gave him the box of envelopes at the end of January, there were 24 of them! Making them was a lot of fun and I think it helped me process the thought of going far away.

You can come up with almost anything for these "Open when"/"Avaa kun"-letters. I made one for events like Valentine's day, his birthday, our anniversary but also public holidays like Labor day (which was filled with snacks I know he wants the "day after" :P)

For many of the letters the envelope only had a clue in it, to direct L to find something in our home. The Valentine's Day present was stashed in the footstool in our living room. When I've told about this idea to my friends, many have commented: "What if he searches the whole house after that to find all the things you hid there" Ah, but they don't know my L. His self-control is off the charts. He hasn't even opened half of the letters yet, and there's only 8 weeks left! 

All kinds of presents and gifts can be put in the envelopes, not only poems and love letters (which might not be in the receiver's cup of tea). I think it's important to try to think: What would your partner appreciate? as opposed to: What would I want?
 This was "Open when you don't know what to do in the weekend" and contained a couple of movie tickets.

This was so far the hardest clue. It was "Open when you can't think of anything proper to cook" and in the end he found the two cookbooks we have in our kitchen and bookshelf. I had chosen a few recipes and labeled them with post-its. This was induced by my worry of him only eating noodles and sandwiches while I'm away - a worry since then deemed unnecessary.

There are still plenty of fun envelopes to open and these are examples on what L has opened already. If you're reading this and you know some of the letters I've made, please, don't spoil! :)

I'll Skype with L after he gets off work and then he'll open the one labeled: Open when it's our anniversary. I stashed it in our house just in case he wasn't able to come to Kenya for this day. I'm happy I did. :) 

Hyvää vuosipäivää, L. Kohta mä tuun kotiin.

Party, party, party

My friend Katarina said that it seems that I'm always on the go, attending awesome parties and meeting cool people. In a place like Nairobi you will easily find fun stuff to do during the weekends, but the internship budget restricts those options somewhat... Some days are actually highly ordinary, but lately I've had quite a few fun days!

I turned 29 a week ago (and no, no age crisis here!). L was supposed to come visit me on my birthday and our 7th anniversary  (June 6th) but couldn't due to work schedules, and so I was struggling with birthday blues a bit.

A couple of weeks ago I got a lovely package from home. My clever pappa had walked into the HQ of our company in Helsinki and asked them to send over something in the internal mail. It was such a surprise! Kiitos pappa!

My homesickness hasn't unfortunately eased and initially I was so bummed out about not being able to spend my birthday with the one person I wanted to, that I didn't want to celebrate it at all. But a couple of days before I thought: should I cry myself to sleep or actually organize something fun? I opted for the latter and decided to make the most of it.

My birthday (May 29th) was on a long weekend due to the public holiday Madaraka Day (June 1st), and many were travelling then, so I decided to have a mellow hangout at home on Friday and a bigger birthday party next week.

On my birthday morning I Skyped with L and got to hear him sing 'Happy birthday' to me, like he has done every birthday morning for the past six years - how great is it to be able to keep a tradition like that going even if you're not in the same country? Kiitos L.

Thank you also to all for the congratulations from around the world!!

Later that day I came home from work and found out that the American had gotten some birthday decorations for me! I've never had a sign that says 'Happy birthday' before! Kiitos Sarah!

I had the pleasure of spending the evening with my roommates the American, the German and our newest addition Oona the Swiss, who's South-African darling was visiting, as well as two awesome ladies, Alma the Finn and Nancy the American. Kiitos!

We had some pizza's and wine, and played a movie trivia quiz on a web-based game called Kahoot - I've played it with my students but it worked fantastically with a group of adults, too! 

The next day I got the sweetest birthday gift - kiitos Nancy!

 In preparations for the bigger bash this Saturday, I baked some korvapuusti (cinnamon rolls) with the American and the Swiss on Wednesday evening. They turned out nice! 

Yesterday I got a sweet postcard from mamma, kiitos! 

After work I went to the official launch party for Uber taxi service. I had met the launcher for it at a Digital Fair that I attended a while back, and got the invite to this really cool event through him. I was stoked to go, but since I was flying solo, I wasn't sure how fun it was going to be. 

My worries were in vain, as usual, since right off the bat I met a very nice lady working for a food-delivery company. I had met her at the Digital Fair, too. She introduced me to a real estate agent/upcoming artist in Nairobi, who in turn introduced me to a publicist for a cool Kenyan DJ, who in turn introduced me to her boyfriend, who's the spokesperson for a music-sharing platform. Now, this guy knew a lot of people and introduced me to many; one of which was a guy working for largest teleoperator in Kenya - someone I wanted to ask a couple of work-related questions. The event was held at a trendy venue, suitable for this young, beautiful and fashionable crowd. I was so happy I got to go! 

Which brings us to today. Since my boss is travelling, I have the pleasure of attending the Constitution Day reception at the Embassy of Denmark on his behalf. I'm not quite sure what to expect, but presumably it's something calmer than last night. ;) 

After an early night today, I'll have the energy to party tomorrow at my birthday party, yey! I've invited pretty much every awesome person I've met in Nairobi so far (few from last night), and I was very pleased to note that I got to invite around 25 people, 18 of which have RSVP:d yes! With friends bringing friends, I have a feeling the party will be pretty great. 

So all in all, this has been a wonderful week thanks to many wonderful people in my life! :) 

Have a good weekend, everybody!