It's now the end of July, and besides Kenya, I have successfully visited Jinja and Kampala. The boys who work at Adrift just kept telling me that I wasn't going to leave, so I didn't. And just as I was beginning to make plans to go to Kigali, Butare, and Bujumbura, I was attacked by an unidentifiable stomach bug that put me out for almost a week, and my bank card was attacked by the Barclays ATM. I withdrew some money from my account to pay for the medicine I needed to feel better when the machine scratched the CHIP identification, making it impossible for me to use my debit card thereafter.
So I have been stuck in Jinja, in both a good and a bad way. The only other development has been that people believe me now when I say I'm coming back to Adrift to get a job, and I've realized that I have to leave at some point, so I've started taking a few pictures. Also, because I've been so bored and Adrift has been so busy, I've started helping in the kitchen. Next week, a large group is staying at the campsite for a full week and we'll be running a program of traditional food, so I'll learn how to make things like chapatis, posho, matoke, beans, etc.
My rough plan for the rest of my time here is this: Next week, I will be in the kitchen all week, rafting perhaps if there is a small trip, learning to kayak and then leaving on Wednesday night to go back to Nairobi. In Nairobi, I will try to find volunteers from my organization that want to go rafting for my last weekend. Then, as soon as possible, I'll return to Jinja to spend my last week working in the kitchen, kayaking, rafting, laying by the pool, learning Luganda, cooking traditional food, eating my last meals of matoke and beans, rolex chapatis, and sumbusa, learning to drive a boda boda, and perhaps even bungee jumping (tandem, I won't be able to walk to the edge of the platform on my own). I'll hop the bus back to Nairobi on Monday night, and catch the plane on Tuesday night. I'll get to Zurich in the morning, and chill in the airport until I catch the last plane to Toronto. You're allowed to start deciding who will be in my recieving party now.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Meghan Meets Kenya and Other Countries
I apologize for my blatant neglect of my blog. I will try to be better.
But I have revised the title of my blog as I finished volunteering and am setting out on a backpacking trip. I finished my four-and-a-half months in Kenya at the end of June, but hung around in Kenya until the third of July, whereupon I took a bus to Uganda, as I do often. The last two days of volunteering at school were hectic. On Thursday, myself and a few other volunteers bought pizza for all the kids at school, and in the afternoon, we all walked to a nearby field to play games. The kids were thrilled, and we enjoyed it as well. On Friday, after lunch, Pastor Regina told me that the boarders, the kids who live at the school had a presentation for me. We all went into the church hall and the kids sang a bunch of songs in Kiswahili. Most of them were church songs, but there was one that was about me and the work that I did at the school. It was amazing to hear all the kids singing, and to see them dancing and clapping in time. I took video of it, but I don't know if I can post it. I'll certainly try this week. I walked out of the church hall in tears.
I'm currently in Jinja, Uganda, planning my further travels. I'd like to visit the rest of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. Tanzania has been mostly fazed out of my travel plans as I'm not really interested in it. Also, I've hypothesized that I'll be back soon to climb Kilimanjaro and watch the wildebeest on the Serengeti, after which I'll relax on the beach in Zanzibar. There is very little else of interest for a poor backpacker like myself. It was also pushed out by my desire to spend another week or two in Nairobi in August, hanging out with friends and visiting the schools that I worked at. I'll keep you posted on my travel plans as they happen.
Also, I want everyone to know that I just spent about three hours on the internet for a total cost of 4500 Ugandan shillings, the equivalent of $2.20 US dollars. I will now go get a Rolex chapati for lunch at the cost of 700 Ugandan shillings, the equivalent of 34 cents American. I love it here.
But I have revised the title of my blog as I finished volunteering and am setting out on a backpacking trip. I finished my four-and-a-half months in Kenya at the end of June, but hung around in Kenya until the third of July, whereupon I took a bus to Uganda, as I do often. The last two days of volunteering at school were hectic. On Thursday, myself and a few other volunteers bought pizza for all the kids at school, and in the afternoon, we all walked to a nearby field to play games. The kids were thrilled, and we enjoyed it as well. On Friday, after lunch, Pastor Regina told me that the boarders, the kids who live at the school had a presentation for me. We all went into the church hall and the kids sang a bunch of songs in Kiswahili. Most of them were church songs, but there was one that was about me and the work that I did at the school. It was amazing to hear all the kids singing, and to see them dancing and clapping in time. I took video of it, but I don't know if I can post it. I'll certainly try this week. I walked out of the church hall in tears.
I'm currently in Jinja, Uganda, planning my further travels. I'd like to visit the rest of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. Tanzania has been mostly fazed out of my travel plans as I'm not really interested in it. Also, I've hypothesized that I'll be back soon to climb Kilimanjaro and watch the wildebeest on the Serengeti, after which I'll relax on the beach in Zanzibar. There is very little else of interest for a poor backpacker like myself. It was also pushed out by my desire to spend another week or two in Nairobi in August, hanging out with friends and visiting the schools that I worked at. I'll keep you posted on my travel plans as they happen.
Also, I want everyone to know that I just spent about three hours on the internet for a total cost of 4500 Ugandan shillings, the equivalent of $2.20 US dollars. I will now go get a Rolex chapati for lunch at the cost of 700 Ugandan shillings, the equivalent of 34 cents American. I love it here.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
To my faithful readers:
I have not posted in a while, and for that, I must apologize. It's not that I've not done anything interesting, it's just that I've rather lost the motivation to tell people about it. A welcome relief for all of you, I'm sure. The lack of motivation can be traced back to a small pool of factors. (A) I've been busy with a combination of volunteer work, hanging out with other volunteers, and going on weekend holidays. (B) I managed to pick up typhoid, either from drinking tap water in Nairobi or from eating from a random shack at the side of the road in Uganda. My guess is Nairobi water. Before anyone panics (too late!), I'm fine. It left me very exhausted for two weeks or so, but I got some shots and some antibiotics, so I'm better now. (C) Most of the internet in the country of Kenya operates on an archaic satellite system, so there is no hope for any type of Western-standard high speed internet. I have lost my patience for this. I also dislike paying for internet, it's so much cheaper at the parents' home.
I intend to post something of a summary when I get back to Nairobi. I'm currently in Jinja, Uganda (again), and I have a cool story. Because I go to Uganda so much, I'm learning to guide rafts, give safety talks, and most importantly, kayak. Kayaking is difficult, because I need to learn to roll the kayak. Rolling a kayak is what one must achieve after one's kayak capsizes, usually in the middle of a rapid. Through some unnatural underwater contortions, one can flip the kayak upright, thereby restoring oxygen to the entrance points of the respiratory system, ensuring that one will avoid drowning (for a short time). Though I have not achieved this, I have been assured that it takes one to two weeks of daily practice, which translates into one to two weeks of getting water up my nose everytime I roll. So Geoffrey, Bosco, and Ollo took me along on a "family float trip," a trip designed for families that don't want to paddle, but want to go down the river. The first rapid they encounter is a class two, and it's the largest rapid they'll encounter. It's quite small. However, when you're sitting in a kayak approaching your first rapid ever, unsure of your ability to paddle straight, keep the kayak upright, and/or recover after the kayak capsizes, it's quite large. Geoffrey went first, and I watched him, but he surfed it, because he's a master of the Nile. Bosco went next, and he also surfed it, but for not as long. I went last, and I don't yet know how to surf. My goal was to get through the rapid without dying. There was a small ramp down to a small wave, and I made it! I got through the wave and stayed upright! All the kayakers, when you ask them to tell stories about how they learned to kayak, will say that you swim every rapid your first day on the river. (Swimming, in relation to kayaking, is when you capsize but can't roll back up, so you pull the skirt, which keeps water out of the kayak, and swim the rapid while the kayak fills with water.) As soon as I conquered the wave, I stopped trying out of the sheer surprise that I didn't swim my first rapid, so the kayak capsized at the end of the rapid while I was celebrating.
I intend to post something of a summary when I get back to Nairobi. I'm currently in Jinja, Uganda (again), and I have a cool story. Because I go to Uganda so much, I'm learning to guide rafts, give safety talks, and most importantly, kayak. Kayaking is difficult, because I need to learn to roll the kayak. Rolling a kayak is what one must achieve after one's kayak capsizes, usually in the middle of a rapid. Through some unnatural underwater contortions, one can flip the kayak upright, thereby restoring oxygen to the entrance points of the respiratory system, ensuring that one will avoid drowning (for a short time). Though I have not achieved this, I have been assured that it takes one to two weeks of daily practice, which translates into one to two weeks of getting water up my nose everytime I roll. So Geoffrey, Bosco, and Ollo took me along on a "family float trip," a trip designed for families that don't want to paddle, but want to go down the river. The first rapid they encounter is a class two, and it's the largest rapid they'll encounter. It's quite small. However, when you're sitting in a kayak approaching your first rapid ever, unsure of your ability to paddle straight, keep the kayak upright, and/or recover after the kayak capsizes, it's quite large. Geoffrey went first, and I watched him, but he surfed it, because he's a master of the Nile. Bosco went next, and he also surfed it, but for not as long. I went last, and I don't yet know how to surf. My goal was to get through the rapid without dying. There was a small ramp down to a small wave, and I made it! I got through the wave and stayed upright! All the kayakers, when you ask them to tell stories about how they learned to kayak, will say that you swim every rapid your first day on the river. (Swimming, in relation to kayaking, is when you capsize but can't roll back up, so you pull the skirt, which keeps water out of the kayak, and swim the rapid while the kayak fills with water.) As soon as I conquered the wave, I stopped trying out of the sheer surprise that I didn't swim my first rapid, so the kayak capsized at the end of the rapid while I was celebrating.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
And then I became Ugandan...
Another day, another trip to Uganda. I have absolutely fallen in love with the place. This being my third trip, I decided to make it a Ugandan triple (just as last time was a Ugandan double), and I went rafting three times. But the highlight of this trip was my inauguration as a Ugandan.
When visiting the same place in Uganda so many times, it's hard to not make friends. I've tried, as always, but this time, I have failed. I have friends in Uganda. This is beginning to challenge my belief that I have more books than friends. I should read more. Most of my friends there are guides or kayakers that work at Adrift (this makes sense). So I spent five days in Uganda. For the first day, I just lazed around. For the second, third, and fourth day, I rafted. And for the fifth days, the mzungus that I went to Uganda with were rafting (they went on a two day trip that I neglected to participate in on the basis of cost), so I had to find something else to do. One of the kayakers, Bosco, had that fifth day off of work, so we decided to hang out. As a precursor to the rest of the story, everybody needs to know that Uganda is one of the safest places to travel in Africa, perhaps besides Rwanda. It's perfectly safe, even in their largest city of Kampala, to be a mzungu walking around even late at night. Look it up, I'm right.
We started my inauguration as a Ugandan on the fourth night. Bosco took me out to a local bar where we played pool. I decided to lose, but still have a ton of fun. It was then that Bosco concocted the elaborate story that I was Ugandan. There were a number of drunk Ugandans there, being that we were at a bar in Uganda, and one in particular tried to tell me and everybody else that he was my husband. It was amusing, though he had never spoken to me before and still didn't after the announcement. They started asking Bosco -- in Lugandan, so I wouldn't understand -- where I was from. Instead of saying Canada, he told them a story about how my father was American, my mother was Ugandan, and I was born in Kampala. Which also explains why I can't speak a word of their language (not). Everybody laughed, but we stuck to the story. After the bar, Bosco learned from the boda boda driver that there was something of a gathering going on in his village because someone in his village had passed away and the burial was occurring the next day. So instead of dropping me off at camp, he decided to take me to the village. As we entered the village, we were the subject of many stares and what in any other country would have been whispers, but ended up being shouts of "Bosco!" and "mzungu!" and whatever Lugandan they could throw in between. Bosco introduced me to a girl named Becca, who was really cool. I hung out with her for most of the night, because it turns out that Bosco is something of a village hero, and had to spend the night moving around a greeting anybody that shouted one of his many nicknames.
Becca is seventeen years old, and is about to sit her final secondary school exams, which will determine whether she is qualified to continue in university, which I personally believe she is. And it's my opinion that counts. She took time to explain to me, in abbreviated versions, what people were saying about me. More importantly, she took the time to explain their psyche, and how they felt about my being there. Being a white person in Africa is difficult. I personally have a fear that everyone hates me based on my skin colour and I also fear that they have a reason to. This is rarely the case. Most people are just curious, and if you bother to greet them in their language, they usually brighten up. Using local slang to greet them is usually met with surprise, and that's how I usually make friends in the villages. Uganda is no exception. Becca told me that most people in the village had only ever seen white people from a distance, so it made sense that they wanted to touch my hair and skin. She explained it in a way that made sense to me: a lot of the people in the village think that a white person would never bother to come out to a village like theirs, so they were very impressed with me, and quite curious about it as well. Generally, it meant they had a good opinion about me. I spent most of the night surrounded by a crowd of teenage girls and young boys, and "bonga's" abounded. (Bonga is the equivalent of a North American "props," or "daps;" you say bonga and then put your fist against the fist of the person you are greeting. I have yet to teach them to "blow it up.")
On the fifth day, everyone was still rafting, so Bosco and I rented a boda (a motorcycle) and spent the day coasting around the countryside. He started to teach me how to drive one, but he had to stop because there were policemen around. I'm sure the lessons will continue, though, when I return to Uganda. I'll take up kayaking lessons as well, but one of the other kayakers, Steve-O, wants to teach me. And Tutu, the river guide, will teach me how to guide a raft and give safety talks. So if I don't come back in August, I got a job in Uganda. Anyway, in the afternoon, Bosco and I went up to the burial, where I met a few more of his friends, namely Cags and Silver (I know, right?), and hung out with Becca some more. I entertained them when one of the cows wouldn't stop staring at me, and subsequently went a little bit crazy; I explained it to them by telling them that it had never seen a mzungu before. (This is notable because the previous evening, someone had brought their baby over to where we were sitting, but as soon as it caught sight of my skin, -- which was not very hard, because it was very dark out -- it screamed. I'm used to these reactions now, and can makes jokes about them.)
Anyway, this is the beginning of my inauguration as a Ugandan, although it is a process that will continue as I learn to kayak, boda, guide, speak Lugandan, and make the Ugandan delicacy of rolexes. Rolexes are chapatis (which are something of an African equivalent of or cross between tortillas and naan bread) with eggs and veggies that are fried up and rolled into the centre of the chapati, thus the name rolex. They are delicious, and ridiculously cheap. Only 700 units of money! 700 Ugandan shillings, which is the equivalent of 25 Kenyan shillings, and I think about three cents American? It might be one 32nd of a cent, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, it constitutes an entire meal. I want to move to Uganda. Forever.
When visiting the same place in Uganda so many times, it's hard to not make friends. I've tried, as always, but this time, I have failed. I have friends in Uganda. This is beginning to challenge my belief that I have more books than friends. I should read more. Most of my friends there are guides or kayakers that work at Adrift (this makes sense). So I spent five days in Uganda. For the first day, I just lazed around. For the second, third, and fourth day, I rafted. And for the fifth days, the mzungus that I went to Uganda with were rafting (they went on a two day trip that I neglected to participate in on the basis of cost), so I had to find something else to do. One of the kayakers, Bosco, had that fifth day off of work, so we decided to hang out. As a precursor to the rest of the story, everybody needs to know that Uganda is one of the safest places to travel in Africa, perhaps besides Rwanda. It's perfectly safe, even in their largest city of Kampala, to be a mzungu walking around even late at night. Look it up, I'm right.
We started my inauguration as a Ugandan on the fourth night. Bosco took me out to a local bar where we played pool. I decided to lose, but still have a ton of fun. It was then that Bosco concocted the elaborate story that I was Ugandan. There were a number of drunk Ugandans there, being that we were at a bar in Uganda, and one in particular tried to tell me and everybody else that he was my husband. It was amusing, though he had never spoken to me before and still didn't after the announcement. They started asking Bosco -- in Lugandan, so I wouldn't understand -- where I was from. Instead of saying Canada, he told them a story about how my father was American, my mother was Ugandan, and I was born in Kampala. Which also explains why I can't speak a word of their language (not). Everybody laughed, but we stuck to the story. After the bar, Bosco learned from the boda boda driver that there was something of a gathering going on in his village because someone in his village had passed away and the burial was occurring the next day. So instead of dropping me off at camp, he decided to take me to the village. As we entered the village, we were the subject of many stares and what in any other country would have been whispers, but ended up being shouts of "Bosco!" and "mzungu!" and whatever Lugandan they could throw in between. Bosco introduced me to a girl named Becca, who was really cool. I hung out with her for most of the night, because it turns out that Bosco is something of a village hero, and had to spend the night moving around a greeting anybody that shouted one of his many nicknames.
Becca is seventeen years old, and is about to sit her final secondary school exams, which will determine whether she is qualified to continue in university, which I personally believe she is. And it's my opinion that counts. She took time to explain to me, in abbreviated versions, what people were saying about me. More importantly, she took the time to explain their psyche, and how they felt about my being there. Being a white person in Africa is difficult. I personally have a fear that everyone hates me based on my skin colour and I also fear that they have a reason to. This is rarely the case. Most people are just curious, and if you bother to greet them in their language, they usually brighten up. Using local slang to greet them is usually met with surprise, and that's how I usually make friends in the villages. Uganda is no exception. Becca told me that most people in the village had only ever seen white people from a distance, so it made sense that they wanted to touch my hair and skin. She explained it in a way that made sense to me: a lot of the people in the village think that a white person would never bother to come out to a village like theirs, so they were very impressed with me, and quite curious about it as well. Generally, it meant they had a good opinion about me. I spent most of the night surrounded by a crowd of teenage girls and young boys, and "bonga's" abounded. (Bonga is the equivalent of a North American "props," or "daps;" you say bonga and then put your fist against the fist of the person you are greeting. I have yet to teach them to "blow it up.")
On the fifth day, everyone was still rafting, so Bosco and I rented a boda (a motorcycle) and spent the day coasting around the countryside. He started to teach me how to drive one, but he had to stop because there were policemen around. I'm sure the lessons will continue, though, when I return to Uganda. I'll take up kayaking lessons as well, but one of the other kayakers, Steve-O, wants to teach me. And Tutu, the river guide, will teach me how to guide a raft and give safety talks. So if I don't come back in August, I got a job in Uganda. Anyway, in the afternoon, Bosco and I went up to the burial, where I met a few more of his friends, namely Cags and Silver (I know, right?), and hung out with Becca some more. I entertained them when one of the cows wouldn't stop staring at me, and subsequently went a little bit crazy; I explained it to them by telling them that it had never seen a mzungu before. (This is notable because the previous evening, someone had brought their baby over to where we were sitting, but as soon as it caught sight of my skin, -- which was not very hard, because it was very dark out -- it screamed. I'm used to these reactions now, and can makes jokes about them.)
Anyway, this is the beginning of my inauguration as a Ugandan, although it is a process that will continue as I learn to kayak, boda, guide, speak Lugandan, and make the Ugandan delicacy of rolexes. Rolexes are chapatis (which are something of an African equivalent of or cross between tortillas and naan bread) with eggs and veggies that are fried up and rolled into the centre of the chapati, thus the name rolex. They are delicious, and ridiculously cheap. Only 700 units of money! 700 Ugandan shillings, which is the equivalent of 25 Kenyan shillings, and I think about three cents American? It might be one 32nd of a cent, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, it constitutes an entire meal. I want to move to Uganda. Forever.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The third try...
This is the third time I'm trying to start this blog post. I'm very behind, as usual, and instead of putting my adventures in three consecutive blogs as I tried last time, I will summarize each adventure as simply as possible.
The first was a three day safari at the Masaai Mara National Reserve. Three days of sitting in a safari van was about all I could take, although it was really cool. We saw everything except for rhinos, leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas. So to translate, it was bunk. Just kidding, it was pretty good. I had to be satisfied with seeing zebras, gazelles, impalas, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, buffaloes, wildebeests, and several other -beests. The mara hadn't gotten rain in quite a while, but the weekend before we came and even while we were there, it rained some. So the excitement for the trip came whenever a van got stuck in the mud. Notable pinches include when another safari van got stuck right beside a pride of lions preparing to hunt (every camera in the vicinity was trained on that van, waiting for an attack that didn't come) and when our own safari van got stuck about ten feet away from four lionesses who were finishing off a wildebeest (it smelled delightful, and I got lots of pictures of that graphic escapade).
The second adventure was a second trip to Uganda. I went rafting again, twice this time, and I made plans to go back a third time, two weeks after the second. I'm getting a bit better at this rafting nonsense (some call it an addiction), so there were no instances of almost drowning. After the second day of rafting, I met a pair of British girls who invited me to their house just outside of Kamapala, so I went there the following night. They had been volunteering on their own -- they hadn't come with an organization -- in Uganda for three months, were finishing up the following week and continuing on to backpack South East Asia. So they showed me around Kampala, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a far more lovely city than Nairobi could ever be. It was safe, friendly, and very clean. I recommend Kampala and all of Uganda to anyone who travels, it's fantastic. If I volunteered in East Africa again, Uganda would be the place. I hear good things about Rwanda as well, and I'm very much looking forward to traveling there.
The third adventure was a trip to Hell's Gate National Park in Naivasha District. We stayed at a camp on the shores of the Lake, although, as it's a small, warm lake, we didn't really go down there much. I should mention that "we" was a group of volunteers from IVHQ (myslef, Jenny from England, who I currently live with, Jon from Chicago, Andrew from Australia) and another Canadian girl from Vancouver named Abby who we met in the matatu on the way to Naivasha. The main activity was a bike safari through the park, which was amazing. I biked within ten feet of zebras. The road went through a valley and was mostly flat, which made it an amazing ride. Our destination was the rangers' post, where we would hire a guide and take a walk through the famous gorge (which I hear was featured in a Tomb Raider movie). We stopped on the way there, though, so that Abby and I could do some rock climbing on an odd out-cropping called the Tower. When we got to the rangers' post, we hired a guide and set out on a two-hour walk of the gorge. It was beautiful, and I did most of the walk barefoot due to the alternation between climbing rocks and walking through water. Our guide was really cool. His name was John, and he talked to us all about his life story, which was amazing, about the park, and, as all Kenyans do, about the politics of the country. When we finished the walk, Abby, Jenny and I decided to take an alternate route to exit the park. The ride was absolutely miserable. We biked about 20 kms, with a good portion of it being uphill. We were thoroughly exhausted by the time we got back to camp, and delighted in hot showers, huge dinners, and early bedtimes.
Our guide John was so interesting that I feel he warrants a separate paragraph. As we walked through the gorge, he gradually told us some of his story. At fourteen, he was walking home from school with his brother and some friends when they were ambushed suddenly by gunmen. I don't know of the other boys, but John's twin brother was killed. When John was sixteen, his younger sisters (also twins), were supposed to be circumcised, as was the custom of his tribe (the Samburu tribe from the North of Kenya). He said that the circumcision's main purpose is to indicate to the men of the tribe that the girls were ready to be married; they were eleven years old. They had a big party in the days before the circumcision, and on the day of the actual event, John woke his sisters very early and made them walk to a school very far away, where he talked the head teacher into admitting the girls with the promise that he would pay later. Days after the failed circumcision, he was grazing his father's herd of cows when he sold five bulls to pay for his sisters' education. He had to lie to his parents about the bulls, and they were convinced that the girls had run away, died, both, or worse. He only told them the truth after two years. He then joined the army so he could continue to provide for his sisters; he joked that he couldn't marry until his sisters were finished with school, because he was married to them. He was with the army for three years, and during that time, participated in operations in Uganda and Sudan. He left the army, though, after he was deployed as a peacekeeper during the 2007 post-election violence. He told us about the things that he had seen that journalists and photographers hadn't seen, and wouldn't have been allowed to talk about. He said he left the army because he was worried for his mental state. He joined the park rangers after that, because he said that being in the natural world saved him from going insane. And going on the walk with him, we could tell that he was in love with the park and the gorge. He told us about how he went on runs in the morning, through the gorge or through the park, how he went on long walks in the evening to see the animals, how he had trained a wild owl to sit on his shoulder (his father killed the first one because it was a bad omen, but he trained another, and told his father that if he killed the second, he would have him arrested), and how he camped in the caves of the gorge and showered under the hot springs from which Hell's Gate gets its name. Every time we had to climb, he would help all three of us up after he walked up without any effort. Another thing that he loved to do was stop and help the animals and bugs that we would see. He cleaned cobwebs off a stick bug, lifted up a beetle that had a short leg, and picked up a chameleon who was in the middle of the gorge and brought him over to some trees. I'd be very happy to go back again, but only if I could get the same guide. His love for the park showed through everything that he did.
So I have a few adventures coming up. This coming weekend, I'm going to Uganda for a third time. The guys at Adrift have started discounting my one-day trips (from $125 USD to either $65 or $50, depending on how much the guy taking the money likes me), but I'm going on a whopping two-day trip, so that will put a dent in the bank account. The following weekend, I'm hoping to go to Lamu with Jenny. Lamu is a little island on the northern coast that is supposedly the pinnacle of Swahili culture, so we're looking forward to that. I think most of the month of May will be fairly quiet, although I'd like to check out Amboseli National Park and Lake Nakuru, and perhaps I'll climb Mount Longonot. I'll try to post more frequently from now on, so you don't get little blitzes like this anymore.
The first was a three day safari at the Masaai Mara National Reserve. Three days of sitting in a safari van was about all I could take, although it was really cool. We saw everything except for rhinos, leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas. So to translate, it was bunk. Just kidding, it was pretty good. I had to be satisfied with seeing zebras, gazelles, impalas, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, buffaloes, wildebeests, and several other -beests. The mara hadn't gotten rain in quite a while, but the weekend before we came and even while we were there, it rained some. So the excitement for the trip came whenever a van got stuck in the mud. Notable pinches include when another safari van got stuck right beside a pride of lions preparing to hunt (every camera in the vicinity was trained on that van, waiting for an attack that didn't come) and when our own safari van got stuck about ten feet away from four lionesses who were finishing off a wildebeest (it smelled delightful, and I got lots of pictures of that graphic escapade).
The second adventure was a second trip to Uganda. I went rafting again, twice this time, and I made plans to go back a third time, two weeks after the second. I'm getting a bit better at this rafting nonsense (some call it an addiction), so there were no instances of almost drowning. After the second day of rafting, I met a pair of British girls who invited me to their house just outside of Kamapala, so I went there the following night. They had been volunteering on their own -- they hadn't come with an organization -- in Uganda for three months, were finishing up the following week and continuing on to backpack South East Asia. So they showed me around Kampala, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a far more lovely city than Nairobi could ever be. It was safe, friendly, and very clean. I recommend Kampala and all of Uganda to anyone who travels, it's fantastic. If I volunteered in East Africa again, Uganda would be the place. I hear good things about Rwanda as well, and I'm very much looking forward to traveling there.
The third adventure was a trip to Hell's Gate National Park in Naivasha District. We stayed at a camp on the shores of the Lake, although, as it's a small, warm lake, we didn't really go down there much. I should mention that "we" was a group of volunteers from IVHQ (myslef, Jenny from England, who I currently live with, Jon from Chicago, Andrew from Australia) and another Canadian girl from Vancouver named Abby who we met in the matatu on the way to Naivasha. The main activity was a bike safari through the park, which was amazing. I biked within ten feet of zebras. The road went through a valley and was mostly flat, which made it an amazing ride. Our destination was the rangers' post, where we would hire a guide and take a walk through the famous gorge (which I hear was featured in a Tomb Raider movie). We stopped on the way there, though, so that Abby and I could do some rock climbing on an odd out-cropping called the Tower. When we got to the rangers' post, we hired a guide and set out on a two-hour walk of the gorge. It was beautiful, and I did most of the walk barefoot due to the alternation between climbing rocks and walking through water. Our guide was really cool. His name was John, and he talked to us all about his life story, which was amazing, about the park, and, as all Kenyans do, about the politics of the country. When we finished the walk, Abby, Jenny and I decided to take an alternate route to exit the park. The ride was absolutely miserable. We biked about 20 kms, with a good portion of it being uphill. We were thoroughly exhausted by the time we got back to camp, and delighted in hot showers, huge dinners, and early bedtimes.
Our guide John was so interesting that I feel he warrants a separate paragraph. As we walked through the gorge, he gradually told us some of his story. At fourteen, he was walking home from school with his brother and some friends when they were ambushed suddenly by gunmen. I don't know of the other boys, but John's twin brother was killed. When John was sixteen, his younger sisters (also twins), were supposed to be circumcised, as was the custom of his tribe (the Samburu tribe from the North of Kenya). He said that the circumcision's main purpose is to indicate to the men of the tribe that the girls were ready to be married; they were eleven years old. They had a big party in the days before the circumcision, and on the day of the actual event, John woke his sisters very early and made them walk to a school very far away, where he talked the head teacher into admitting the girls with the promise that he would pay later. Days after the failed circumcision, he was grazing his father's herd of cows when he sold five bulls to pay for his sisters' education. He had to lie to his parents about the bulls, and they were convinced that the girls had run away, died, both, or worse. He only told them the truth after two years. He then joined the army so he could continue to provide for his sisters; he joked that he couldn't marry until his sisters were finished with school, because he was married to them. He was with the army for three years, and during that time, participated in operations in Uganda and Sudan. He left the army, though, after he was deployed as a peacekeeper during the 2007 post-election violence. He told us about the things that he had seen that journalists and photographers hadn't seen, and wouldn't have been allowed to talk about. He said he left the army because he was worried for his mental state. He joined the park rangers after that, because he said that being in the natural world saved him from going insane. And going on the walk with him, we could tell that he was in love with the park and the gorge. He told us about how he went on runs in the morning, through the gorge or through the park, how he went on long walks in the evening to see the animals, how he had trained a wild owl to sit on his shoulder (his father killed the first one because it was a bad omen, but he trained another, and told his father that if he killed the second, he would have him arrested), and how he camped in the caves of the gorge and showered under the hot springs from which Hell's Gate gets its name. Every time we had to climb, he would help all three of us up after he walked up without any effort. Another thing that he loved to do was stop and help the animals and bugs that we would see. He cleaned cobwebs off a stick bug, lifted up a beetle that had a short leg, and picked up a chameleon who was in the middle of the gorge and brought him over to some trees. I'd be very happy to go back again, but only if I could get the same guide. His love for the park showed through everything that he did.
So I have a few adventures coming up. This coming weekend, I'm going to Uganda for a third time. The guys at Adrift have started discounting my one-day trips (from $125 USD to either $65 or $50, depending on how much the guy taking the money likes me), but I'm going on a whopping two-day trip, so that will put a dent in the bank account. The following weekend, I'm hoping to go to Lamu with Jenny. Lamu is a little island on the northern coast that is supposedly the pinnacle of Swahili culture, so we're looking forward to that. I think most of the month of May will be fairly quiet, although I'd like to check out Amboseli National Park and Lake Nakuru, and perhaps I'll climb Mount Longonot. I'll try to post more frequently from now on, so you don't get little blitzes like this anymore.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Uganda and the new religion
I arrived home from the school trip a bit late on Friday. I had been expecting to get back around five or five thirty, but I got back at six. I had to pack my stuff for a long weekend and catch a matatu so I could ride 45-minutes (or more, because it was rush hour) to the city centre, then scramble to find the bus offices again. My bus was to leave at seven. That clearly was not going to happen.
I almost ran home, looking disgusting and feeling great, so I could throw my stuff into my too-small backpack within fifteen minutes and scamper next door to meet up with the other volunteers I was traveling with. When I got there, the woman who answered my knocking at the gate told me that they had left earlier that afternoon. I had to laugh. So I rushed down the road to the Fadhili offices, hoping to get a cell number for one of the volunteers. The first number they gave me was wrong, but on the second try I got through to Scott. He was in the area and sent a taxi over to pick me up at the offices and take me downtown to the offices of the bus company.
A little third-world primer: here in Kenya there is no bus station. There are offices spread throughout one neighborhood of Nairobi, this neighborhood having particularly narrow streets and tight corners. All the buses leave at set times throughout the day: seven in the morning, nine in the morning, two in the afternoon, seven at night, and nine at night. At these times, the streets are mayhem, in addition to the regular (heavy) traffic at seven in the am and pm.
I arrived at the office at seven thirty, due to heavy rush hour traffic. I got there in time to hear the conductor of the bus telling the other volunteers I was traveling with that he couldn't hold the bus any longer. They were so relieved that they hugged me, even though I hadn't met them before (besides Anna). The volunteers I traveled with are Anna, a 22-year-old student from Tennessee who studied in Wales for two years, Scott, a 34-year-old park ranger who works in Alaska, Cory, a 24-year-old nurse from somewhere in the States. I hang out with so many Americans these days, I forget which state they say they're from.
After the miserable bus ride and crossing the border at 3 am, we arrived in the small town of Jinja, Uganda, at 7 am. Thank goodness all the business began to open at eight thirty. What a relief. We wandered around the town, which consisted of one main street with a market at end and a hospital at the other, until the most American looking restaurant opened up and we could order breakfast. We discussed our options over the meal, and, after we eliminated all the others, we decided to go for a boat ride on Lake Victoria that afternoon.
The boat ride was wonderful. The sun was warm, the water was calm, and the breeze was cool; I could barely keep my eyes open to take in all the beautiful scenery, having barely slept on the overnight bus. The highlights of the boat ride was the tour of a fishing village and the stop at the source of the Nile. After the tour, we hopped a pair of boda bodas (motorcycles) to the Adrift campsite. As we got on the boda bodas, we tried to tell the drivers that we should be paying less because we were putting two passengers on each bike. During this exchange, Scott mentioned that we would be riding like Canadian coffees, double-double. I laughed and warmed to him instantly when he confessed his love for Tim Hortons, saying that he eats there all the time when he goes into the Yukon (he is a devotee of the bread bowl chili). Although I hate Tim Hortons, it's been well bred into me that I should be proud of this symbol of Canada, despite how poorly the actual company reflects on Canadians.
The Adrift campsite was fantastic. We stayed in a dormitory, the second cheapest option after bringing our own tent, where the bunks were stacked four high and covered in colorful fleece blankets. The food was cheap and delicious: a personal pizza for 10,000 Ugandan shillings. That doesn't sound cheap, but it works out to 385 Kenyan shillings, and about 5 Canadian dollars. We all went to bed early, but were woken up in the night by a thunderous rain storm (including lightning), a delightful relief from the drought in Kenya.
On Sunday, we woke up late, ate a cheap breakfast (USH 4,000/KSH 154/$2 CDN), and hung around until Scott, Cory, and the new arrival, Jennifer, got back from church. Scott met Jennifer at church in Kenya; she's a 30-something American woman who has been living in Kenya for over a year now establishing an NGO program. That afternoon, we went for a hike through the jungle with Erin, a girl from New Zealand who was there with a large tour group, but was the only one staying in the dormitory with us. I wish I could upload pictures, especially of the tree that we all took turns climbing; the roots formed an arch that had almost a ladder up one side. It was an irresistible climb.
The excitement came on Monday: white water rafting on the Nile River. This is the aforementioned "new religion." The route along the Nile took us over six fair-sized rapids (fair-sized being class 4 and 5) and a few class threes. I don't remember anything lower than that, probably because they would have been boring enough to warrant forgetting. Seven of us were in the raft: myself, Jennifer, Scott, Anna, Cory, Ryan (a guy from California who quit his job in finance before he got fired and came to Uganda with his wife to volunteer teaching), and our guide, an Englishman from Leeds known as Clarky.
Besides the practice flip, we flipped three times going through rapids. The instruction when the raft flips is usually to hold on until everyone surfaces, then flip the raft over and climb back in. I usually ended up getting pulled back in by the lifejacket by the guys already in the raft. Of the three flips, I held on once. The first time, I got pushed under the raft, then resurfaced and floated down the river a little ahead of the raft until a kayaker paddled over to rescue me. (There were about seven guys in kayaks with us -- two of them manned a video camera a still camera, to record our progress over the larger rapids -- in addition to the two guys in the safety raft.) The second flip over the Big Brother rapid was just before lunch, and was larger and more exciting. My recollection tells me that we were going over the rapid when suddenly, the paddle in my charge was no longer in my hands and the raft was no longer beneath me. I was surrounded in a watery abyss, and it tugged me and pulled me in any direction it felt was necessary. My helmet was being pulled up, my legs were being pulled down, and the rest was being pushed forward at an alarming speed. I resurfaced suddenly, only to see a wave that could have been classified as HUGE coming toward me. I gasped air and squeezed my eyes shut as I passed through the wave. I emerged on the other side, hyperventilating now, and knocking heads with Ryan. He pulled me around to face him and hollered at me, checking if I was okay, but the water pulled us apart before I could reply. He was washed almost directly into a kayaker, and he grabbed the handle on the back and began to kick toward me. The worst feeling of the day came as I was being washed down the river, no more than three feet away from the kayaker who couldn't get to me across the current. As I was pulled under by my feet another time, I recall thinking: So this is it, this is how I go. Not awesome. And I began kicking toward the kayak with all the effort left in me. The only effect it had was that I brought my feet closer to the surface, and so, wasn't pulled down as much. When the kayak got to me, I grasped the handle on the front and wrapped my legs around the body of the kayak, gasping for air, closing my eyes, and laying my head back on the water.
The third flip was the best, because I finally held on to both the raft and my paddle. The rapid was called Fifty/Fifty, because those are the chances you have of flipping. The chance of flipping increases, though, when you discuss with your guide beforehand about whether or not he'll flip you. Anna and Jennifer got out of the raft and into the safety boat, because they didn't want to flip, but the rest of us did. It garnered a laugh from all of us when the safety boat got inches away from flipping (due to a metal chassis in the middle of the boat, it is considerably more difficult to flip it right-side-up). This time, I was on the right side of the boat, and as we flipped, I was thrown right over Cory. I watched as we approached the rapid, as the boat rode up the wave and kept going up until it flipped. I thought only of keeping my grip on the rope of the raft and the handle of my paddle. And I did. After being pulled into the raft, I gave a number of triumphant shouts, and would've jumped, if I hadn't remembered that I was in a boat.
My love for rafting was immediate and strong. I'm hoping to return to Uganda in the middle of April, the beginning of May, and the end of June, simply to raft (and probably to bungee jump at least once -- 44 metres!). I was encouraged by the guide known as Rooster, who paddled the safety raft, to take roll classes and learn to kayak on the Ottawa River, where I hope to conveniently move in September. New career path, here I come!
I almost ran home, looking disgusting and feeling great, so I could throw my stuff into my too-small backpack within fifteen minutes and scamper next door to meet up with the other volunteers I was traveling with. When I got there, the woman who answered my knocking at the gate told me that they had left earlier that afternoon. I had to laugh. So I rushed down the road to the Fadhili offices, hoping to get a cell number for one of the volunteers. The first number they gave me was wrong, but on the second try I got through to Scott. He was in the area and sent a taxi over to pick me up at the offices and take me downtown to the offices of the bus company.
A little third-world primer: here in Kenya there is no bus station. There are offices spread throughout one neighborhood of Nairobi, this neighborhood having particularly narrow streets and tight corners. All the buses leave at set times throughout the day: seven in the morning, nine in the morning, two in the afternoon, seven at night, and nine at night. At these times, the streets are mayhem, in addition to the regular (heavy) traffic at seven in the am and pm.
I arrived at the office at seven thirty, due to heavy rush hour traffic. I got there in time to hear the conductor of the bus telling the other volunteers I was traveling with that he couldn't hold the bus any longer. They were so relieved that they hugged me, even though I hadn't met them before (besides Anna). The volunteers I traveled with are Anna, a 22-year-old student from Tennessee who studied in Wales for two years, Scott, a 34-year-old park ranger who works in Alaska, Cory, a 24-year-old nurse from somewhere in the States. I hang out with so many Americans these days, I forget which state they say they're from.
After the miserable bus ride and crossing the border at 3 am, we arrived in the small town of Jinja, Uganda, at 7 am. Thank goodness all the business began to open at eight thirty. What a relief. We wandered around the town, which consisted of one main street with a market at end and a hospital at the other, until the most American looking restaurant opened up and we could order breakfast. We discussed our options over the meal, and, after we eliminated all the others, we decided to go for a boat ride on Lake Victoria that afternoon.
The boat ride was wonderful. The sun was warm, the water was calm, and the breeze was cool; I could barely keep my eyes open to take in all the beautiful scenery, having barely slept on the overnight bus. The highlights of the boat ride was the tour of a fishing village and the stop at the source of the Nile. After the tour, we hopped a pair of boda bodas (motorcycles) to the Adrift campsite. As we got on the boda bodas, we tried to tell the drivers that we should be paying less because we were putting two passengers on each bike. During this exchange, Scott mentioned that we would be riding like Canadian coffees, double-double. I laughed and warmed to him instantly when he confessed his love for Tim Hortons, saying that he eats there all the time when he goes into the Yukon (he is a devotee of the bread bowl chili). Although I hate Tim Hortons, it's been well bred into me that I should be proud of this symbol of Canada, despite how poorly the actual company reflects on Canadians.
The Adrift campsite was fantastic. We stayed in a dormitory, the second cheapest option after bringing our own tent, where the bunks were stacked four high and covered in colorful fleece blankets. The food was cheap and delicious: a personal pizza for 10,000 Ugandan shillings. That doesn't sound cheap, but it works out to 385 Kenyan shillings, and about 5 Canadian dollars. We all went to bed early, but were woken up in the night by a thunderous rain storm (including lightning), a delightful relief from the drought in Kenya.
On Sunday, we woke up late, ate a cheap breakfast (USH 4,000/KSH 154/$2 CDN), and hung around until Scott, Cory, and the new arrival, Jennifer, got back from church. Scott met Jennifer at church in Kenya; she's a 30-something American woman who has been living in Kenya for over a year now establishing an NGO program. That afternoon, we went for a hike through the jungle with Erin, a girl from New Zealand who was there with a large tour group, but was the only one staying in the dormitory with us. I wish I could upload pictures, especially of the tree that we all took turns climbing; the roots formed an arch that had almost a ladder up one side. It was an irresistible climb.
The excitement came on Monday: white water rafting on the Nile River. This is the aforementioned "new religion." The route along the Nile took us over six fair-sized rapids (fair-sized being class 4 and 5) and a few class threes. I don't remember anything lower than that, probably because they would have been boring enough to warrant forgetting. Seven of us were in the raft: myself, Jennifer, Scott, Anna, Cory, Ryan (a guy from California who quit his job in finance before he got fired and came to Uganda with his wife to volunteer teaching), and our guide, an Englishman from Leeds known as Clarky.
Besides the practice flip, we flipped three times going through rapids. The instruction when the raft flips is usually to hold on until everyone surfaces, then flip the raft over and climb back in. I usually ended up getting pulled back in by the lifejacket by the guys already in the raft. Of the three flips, I held on once. The first time, I got pushed under the raft, then resurfaced and floated down the river a little ahead of the raft until a kayaker paddled over to rescue me. (There were about seven guys in kayaks with us -- two of them manned a video camera a still camera, to record our progress over the larger rapids -- in addition to the two guys in the safety raft.) The second flip over the Big Brother rapid was just before lunch, and was larger and more exciting. My recollection tells me that we were going over the rapid when suddenly, the paddle in my charge was no longer in my hands and the raft was no longer beneath me. I was surrounded in a watery abyss, and it tugged me and pulled me in any direction it felt was necessary. My helmet was being pulled up, my legs were being pulled down, and the rest was being pushed forward at an alarming speed. I resurfaced suddenly, only to see a wave that could have been classified as HUGE coming toward me. I gasped air and squeezed my eyes shut as I passed through the wave. I emerged on the other side, hyperventilating now, and knocking heads with Ryan. He pulled me around to face him and hollered at me, checking if I was okay, but the water pulled us apart before I could reply. He was washed almost directly into a kayaker, and he grabbed the handle on the back and began to kick toward me. The worst feeling of the day came as I was being washed down the river, no more than three feet away from the kayaker who couldn't get to me across the current. As I was pulled under by my feet another time, I recall thinking: So this is it, this is how I go. Not awesome. And I began kicking toward the kayak with all the effort left in me. The only effect it had was that I brought my feet closer to the surface, and so, wasn't pulled down as much. When the kayak got to me, I grasped the handle on the front and wrapped my legs around the body of the kayak, gasping for air, closing my eyes, and laying my head back on the water.
The third flip was the best, because I finally held on to both the raft and my paddle. The rapid was called Fifty/Fifty, because those are the chances you have of flipping. The chance of flipping increases, though, when you discuss with your guide beforehand about whether or not he'll flip you. Anna and Jennifer got out of the raft and into the safety boat, because they didn't want to flip, but the rest of us did. It garnered a laugh from all of us when the safety boat got inches away from flipping (due to a metal chassis in the middle of the boat, it is considerably more difficult to flip it right-side-up). This time, I was on the right side of the boat, and as we flipped, I was thrown right over Cory. I watched as we approached the rapid, as the boat rode up the wave and kept going up until it flipped. I thought only of keeping my grip on the rope of the raft and the handle of my paddle. And I did. After being pulled into the raft, I gave a number of triumphant shouts, and would've jumped, if I hadn't remembered that I was in a boat.
My love for rafting was immediate and strong. I'm hoping to return to Uganda in the middle of April, the beginning of May, and the end of June, simply to raft (and probably to bungee jump at least once -- 44 metres!). I was encouraged by the guide known as Rooster, who paddled the safety raft, to take roll classes and learn to kayak on the Ottawa River, where I hope to conveniently move in September. New career path, here I come!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Mutinda
I had a rather busy weekend, and I will attempt to encapsulate it in two posts. The first post (this one) will be shorter, as it concerns itself with Friday, and the second post concerns itself with Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.
So I arrived at school on Friday morning to see the kids lined up and ready to go on a trip. They packed large volumes of water, as well as a large pot of rice and a large pot of green beans, which is what the boarders would be eating. We packed all of this onto a "City hoppa" bus, packing five or six kids onto a bench where only three adults could fit. I sat on a bench intended for two with one girl in class five, but I held the orphanage baby, Davey on my lap. [Since the trip, the teachers have started telling me that I'm Davey's adoptive mama, and he seems to get the idea.] He sat for a small part of the ride, but when we gave up the window seat to Naomi, Davey decided he still wanted to look out the window, and he began standing on my knees. It was my job to put my hands on the seat in front of us so that he wouldn't fall to the left or right. I had little control over him falling forward, but I managed to get my hand between his forehead and the metal bar in front of him most of the many times that he fell forward.
The first stop we made was on the side of the road that descended into the Rift Valley. I'd seen mountains before, but usually in ranges. Mount Longonot rose up out of the flat plateau of the valley entirely on its own. It was one of the most incredible sights I have seen in my eighteen short years. Anyway, the highlight besides the view was when a local shopkeep came over to me while I was holding Davey and asked me if Davey was mine. I laughed and said no, but it was bittersweet.
The second stop was another random side of the road, this with nothing to distinguish it except that this was where we were going to eat a snack, because lunch -- although I didn't know this -- was going to be at three o'clock, at yet another random spot on the side of the road.
The third stop, though, brought us to what seemed like another random side of the road, but was actually the intended destination. We loaded off the bus and took a path at the side of the road toward Lake Naivasha. The path was completely surrounded by cacti, as if to enforce just how dry and dusty the path was. Davey sat on my shoulders, because if he had had to walk, he wouldn't have been able to breath; I barely could. The students were instructed by Pastor Regina, the head teacher, to hold either their sweaters or a handkerchief over their mouth and nose. Most of them emerged with a light coating of white dust on their hair, faces, clothing, and cutest of all, their eyelashes. It was like reverse mascara. After the dusty cactus pathway, which resembled a tunnel at some parts, we entered a small grove of beautiful acacia trees that opened onto an open plain: the beach. The grass was short on the plain as it was being mowed by herds of cows, goats, and sheep. I had hoped that I saw zebras, but no dice.
The lake was beautiful, although the kids were too afraid to touch the water. If I could, I'd post the picture that I took of the whole school of kids standing on the edge of the water just looking at it. Pastor Regina paid eight hundred shillings so that the kids could all take a brief boat ride around the lake. Everyone laughed as the first returning boat wailed toward the shore, literally wailing, as Davey was sitting in the middle, sobbing and screaming. I went around the lake in a boat with the teachers, and was sure to get good pictures of the herd of hippopotamuses sitting in the shallows near an island. I was also sure to get video of the kids walking across the field with the newest teacher, Teacher Lawrence, singing praise songs in English and Kiswahili.
The highlight of my day came on the ride home. Davey stood on my knees until we stopped for "lunch" at three. When we boarded the bus again, the boy that I was friends with first at the school, Mark Mutinda from Pre-Unit (preschool) decided that he was going to sit with me. For the first half hour of the two hour ride home, we goofed around, him making faces and me giving him wet willies and the like. Every few minutes, he would pull himself up on the seat in front of us, lean back and shout, "Brrrrrriiiaaaannnn!" to his friend (Brian, clearly), rolling his r's in that adorable way that he has, before giving Brian a huge grin that said, "I'm up here, you're not." Occasionally, this would be followed by a short argument in Kiswahili. But after he got sick of all that, he put his arms around my neck and rested his head on my collarbone. I wrapped my arms around his back and his legs, and he slept like that for the next hour and a half of bumpy road, waking sometimes when he got too jostled, only to shift his position and fall asleep again. I fell asleep a few times, resting my head on the top of his. But when I wasn't sleeping, I was thinking about how I'd be back at a country here in Africa in ten or fifteen years, and the little boy sleeping in my lap wouldn't just be the little boy who took a shine to me in my first week there. I imagined riding on a local bus, on terrible roads, holding onto my adopted son (or daughter, whatever happens), going back to a makeshift home in a cheap apartment or hotel room. [However, that country will not be Kenya, as the Kenyan adoption laws are very strict. To adopt here, you have to have lived here for five years, and if you adopt after that, you can't just move out of the country; you have to live here to the child stays Kenyan.]
When we arrived back at the school, I shook Mark awake, but he continued holding onto me, hoping to keep sleeping. He was thoroughly disoriented, but I had to rush off to make sure that I could pack and make it downtown before the bus I had a ticket for left for Uganda. As I walked back to the flat, I drew looks from the locals, mostly due to the state of my clothing. My previously clean denim shorts had acquired a layer of light brown, but their filth paled in comparison to my green shirt. It was covered in dirt (from having kids climb all over me all day), sweat (because it's not cool riding on an overfull bus with a sweaty little boy sleeping on your lap), and drool (which just entertained me as opposed to disgusting me). Not to mention the coating of dirt and dust I had acquired on my legs and feet from the lake and pathway. I find that people in third-world countries like Kenya pride themselves on not leaving the house without their clothing in immaculate condition. They couldn't understand what would possess a person to be as filthy as me. But for me, it was the best feeling in the world.
So I arrived at school on Friday morning to see the kids lined up and ready to go on a trip. They packed large volumes of water, as well as a large pot of rice and a large pot of green beans, which is what the boarders would be eating. We packed all of this onto a "City hoppa" bus, packing five or six kids onto a bench where only three adults could fit. I sat on a bench intended for two with one girl in class five, but I held the orphanage baby, Davey on my lap. [Since the trip, the teachers have started telling me that I'm Davey's adoptive mama, and he seems to get the idea.] He sat for a small part of the ride, but when we gave up the window seat to Naomi, Davey decided he still wanted to look out the window, and he began standing on my knees. It was my job to put my hands on the seat in front of us so that he wouldn't fall to the left or right. I had little control over him falling forward, but I managed to get my hand between his forehead and the metal bar in front of him most of the many times that he fell forward.
The first stop we made was on the side of the road that descended into the Rift Valley. I'd seen mountains before, but usually in ranges. Mount Longonot rose up out of the flat plateau of the valley entirely on its own. It was one of the most incredible sights I have seen in my eighteen short years. Anyway, the highlight besides the view was when a local shopkeep came over to me while I was holding Davey and asked me if Davey was mine. I laughed and said no, but it was bittersweet.
The second stop was another random side of the road, this with nothing to distinguish it except that this was where we were going to eat a snack, because lunch -- although I didn't know this -- was going to be at three o'clock, at yet another random spot on the side of the road.
The third stop, though, brought us to what seemed like another random side of the road, but was actually the intended destination. We loaded off the bus and took a path at the side of the road toward Lake Naivasha. The path was completely surrounded by cacti, as if to enforce just how dry and dusty the path was. Davey sat on my shoulders, because if he had had to walk, he wouldn't have been able to breath; I barely could. The students were instructed by Pastor Regina, the head teacher, to hold either their sweaters or a handkerchief over their mouth and nose. Most of them emerged with a light coating of white dust on their hair, faces, clothing, and cutest of all, their eyelashes. It was like reverse mascara. After the dusty cactus pathway, which resembled a tunnel at some parts, we entered a small grove of beautiful acacia trees that opened onto an open plain: the beach. The grass was short on the plain as it was being mowed by herds of cows, goats, and sheep. I had hoped that I saw zebras, but no dice.
The lake was beautiful, although the kids were too afraid to touch the water. If I could, I'd post the picture that I took of the whole school of kids standing on the edge of the water just looking at it. Pastor Regina paid eight hundred shillings so that the kids could all take a brief boat ride around the lake. Everyone laughed as the first returning boat wailed toward the shore, literally wailing, as Davey was sitting in the middle, sobbing and screaming. I went around the lake in a boat with the teachers, and was sure to get good pictures of the herd of hippopotamuses sitting in the shallows near an island. I was also sure to get video of the kids walking across the field with the newest teacher, Teacher Lawrence, singing praise songs in English and Kiswahili.
The highlight of my day came on the ride home. Davey stood on my knees until we stopped for "lunch" at three. When we boarded the bus again, the boy that I was friends with first at the school, Mark Mutinda from Pre-Unit (preschool) decided that he was going to sit with me. For the first half hour of the two hour ride home, we goofed around, him making faces and me giving him wet willies and the like. Every few minutes, he would pull himself up on the seat in front of us, lean back and shout, "Brrrrrriiiaaaannnn!" to his friend (Brian, clearly), rolling his r's in that adorable way that he has, before giving Brian a huge grin that said, "I'm up here, you're not." Occasionally, this would be followed by a short argument in Kiswahili. But after he got sick of all that, he put his arms around my neck and rested his head on my collarbone. I wrapped my arms around his back and his legs, and he slept like that for the next hour and a half of bumpy road, waking sometimes when he got too jostled, only to shift his position and fall asleep again. I fell asleep a few times, resting my head on the top of his. But when I wasn't sleeping, I was thinking about how I'd be back at a country here in Africa in ten or fifteen years, and the little boy sleeping in my lap wouldn't just be the little boy who took a shine to me in my first week there. I imagined riding on a local bus, on terrible roads, holding onto my adopted son (or daughter, whatever happens), going back to a makeshift home in a cheap apartment or hotel room. [However, that country will not be Kenya, as the Kenyan adoption laws are very strict. To adopt here, you have to have lived here for five years, and if you adopt after that, you can't just move out of the country; you have to live here to the child stays Kenyan.]
When we arrived back at the school, I shook Mark awake, but he continued holding onto me, hoping to keep sleeping. He was thoroughly disoriented, but I had to rush off to make sure that I could pack and make it downtown before the bus I had a ticket for left for Uganda. As I walked back to the flat, I drew looks from the locals, mostly due to the state of my clothing. My previously clean denim shorts had acquired a layer of light brown, but their filth paled in comparison to my green shirt. It was covered in dirt (from having kids climb all over me all day), sweat (because it's not cool riding on an overfull bus with a sweaty little boy sleeping on your lap), and drool (which just entertained me as opposed to disgusting me). Not to mention the coating of dirt and dust I had acquired on my legs and feet from the lake and pathway. I find that people in third-world countries like Kenya pride themselves on not leaving the house without their clothing in immaculate condition. They couldn't understand what would possess a person to be as filthy as me. But for me, it was the best feeling in the world.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Blogging kills me...
As far as I have been concerned, only eight people read my blog, so I realistically cannot be blamed for slacking off. I frequently wonder why someone would be interested in what I am doing, as it has become thoroughly normal for me. But I will try to continue where I left off. (And Elena, despite what you may think, the Communist Manifesto and the causes of the French Revolution sound extremely interesting.)
So after the exciting week of my previous post, there was another normal week, and at the end of that week, I rewarded myself by going to Mombasa. Mombasa is the largest city on the coast of Kenya and is its main port. It's also predominantly Muslim, which was interesting. We took a bus from the Nairobi city centre that departed promptly at 10pm African time, so it was really almost 11pm. Large sections of the highway were unpaved, the bus was terrible, and our driver had seriously impaired judgment, so there was no sleep for me that night. We arrived in Mombasa at around 6am, just in time to hear the call for prayers and watch the men and boys shuffling down the street in their pajamas en route to the mosque. Sharon's boyfriend Rico came to pick us up and take us to his apartment. When we got there, we all ate a light breakfast, Rico headed to work, Sharon and Erin went to bed, and I sat around and watched Bad Boys 1 and 2 before drifting off to sleep for half hour or so. Then we hit the beach.
We went to the beach everyday for the four days that we were there. Rico's apartment was a twenty minute walk from a really nice beach with a hotel on it. It was fairly empty on Friday, although Erin and I were thoroughly annoyed by the salesmen who walk the beach and pretend to just be interested in having a conversation with you.
To sample a conversation with any one of these salesmen:
Kenyan: "Hello, how are you?"
Me: "Fine." (Note the lack of a return question; clearly, I don't want to carry on this conversation, but it's not up to me...)
K: "How do you find Kenya?"
M: "It's great."
K: "You like it here?"
M: "Yeah."
K: "Are you from (Sweden/England/America)?"
M: "No. Canada."
K: "Ooohhh, Canada."
M: "Yeah."
K: "You like the beach?"
M: "The beach, but not the salesmen."
K: "Ooohh, the Masaai men are bothering you?" (Indicates other salesmen dressed in traditional Masaai garb who have not come to talk to me at all.)
M: "No, you're bothering me."
K: "You like (key chains/stone carvings/randomly decorated wooden plaques)?" (Indicates wares.)
M: "No. I'm not buying, I have no money."
K: "You have no money?" (Grins broadly to show that he doesn't believe me, as clearly all white people have infinite stores of cash that they keep on them at all times. Obviously.)
M: "I have no money."
K: "But looking is free!"
M: "I don't care, I'm not buying." (Turn over to lay on stomach and continue reading book.)
Following this, the local salesman might take the hint and leave, but he might stick around to (watch me tan/look out at the ocean or beach/wait for more tourists to approach/continue on a "conversation" while I respond with the occasional "mmm-hmmm"/kill time indefinitely).
On Saturday, we drove for a few hours for no other reason than to get ridiculously hot and visit a beach that was slightly worse than the one we could have walked to in twenty minutes. Overall, Sharon's boyfriend Rico was not a host. I could have said he wasn't a good host, but he just wasn't a host. It was a bit of a letdown and I think I'm going to go back later so I can actually see the city. On Sunday, we hit the regular beach, which was much busier, as Sunday is the only day of the week that there is no school. Needless to say, the locals were more than entertaining. On Monday, we went to see Fort Jesus. It was the original Portuguese outpost in the area, and it was really cool. Following that, we inevitably hit the beach.
I feel as though the weekend after that was Erin's last weekend, although there is a very real possibility that I lost a weekend in there somewhere. Doubtless, nothing much happened. So the next weekend excursion that I can remember was a trip to Mlongo. Another volunteer, Anina, has just bought a house here, so she had a housewarming party. When she got to Kenya, Anina decided that the HIV/AIDS treatment and awareness program through Fadhili was lacking, so she decided to change it. She remedied the situation by purchasing a house. Mlongo happened to be out in the sticks, but she lived on a brand new compound that is entirely safe, you can even walk outside after dark. It was really cool. That's also where I learned that if you have the money for the meds, malaria isn't actually a problem at all. It just gives you street cred.
So that brings me to now-ish. Erin left last week Monday, and it is much lonelier here without her. I'm currently the only volunteer working at my school, but it's fine, because either this week or next week, Mike from my orientation group (there are a lot of Mikes here) is going to start working there. And in about a week and a half, I'm going to get another roommate.
The weekdays here are mostly the same. I wake up at seven, Lucky comes to pick me up at 8:30, I work in the kitchen most mornings, I teach French in the afternoons, I go home at four, I go to either the internet cafe, the Nakumatt, or both, I have dinner, I read until I can't keep my eyes open, I fall asleep, and it starts all over again. But I still love what I'm doing. The kids at school are really great, and I'm starting to get to know a few of them really well. Lucky, for instance, doesn't even go to my school, but when Erin was working here, the head teacher of her school sent him to pick her up every morning. So after she left, he kept coming. But I refer to him as my little African brother: he's sixteen and is a Chelsea FC fan. Therefore, he is Tim, but named Lucky, and living in Kenya. Both Tim and Lucky are flattered by this comparison.
Anyway, the highlights of this week will hopefully be buying mattresses for the orphanage, as they are eight short, and taking the kids on a field trip to Naivasha. I hope to post more frequently from now so that the posts aren't as long and there aren't as many gaps in my memory. Also, I want to thank everyone for their interest (the eight people who follow my blog and the others who just read it, but may or may not exist), it's rather flattering.
So after the exciting week of my previous post, there was another normal week, and at the end of that week, I rewarded myself by going to Mombasa. Mombasa is the largest city on the coast of Kenya and is its main port. It's also predominantly Muslim, which was interesting. We took a bus from the Nairobi city centre that departed promptly at 10pm African time, so it was really almost 11pm. Large sections of the highway were unpaved, the bus was terrible, and our driver had seriously impaired judgment, so there was no sleep for me that night. We arrived in Mombasa at around 6am, just in time to hear the call for prayers and watch the men and boys shuffling down the street in their pajamas en route to the mosque. Sharon's boyfriend Rico came to pick us up and take us to his apartment. When we got there, we all ate a light breakfast, Rico headed to work, Sharon and Erin went to bed, and I sat around and watched Bad Boys 1 and 2 before drifting off to sleep for half hour or so. Then we hit the beach.
We went to the beach everyday for the four days that we were there. Rico's apartment was a twenty minute walk from a really nice beach with a hotel on it. It was fairly empty on Friday, although Erin and I were thoroughly annoyed by the salesmen who walk the beach and pretend to just be interested in having a conversation with you.
To sample a conversation with any one of these salesmen:
Kenyan: "Hello, how are you?"
Me: "Fine." (Note the lack of a return question; clearly, I don't want to carry on this conversation, but it's not up to me...)
K: "How do you find Kenya?"
M: "It's great."
K: "You like it here?"
M: "Yeah."
K: "Are you from (Sweden/England/America)?"
M: "No. Canada."
K: "Ooohhh, Canada."
M: "Yeah."
K: "You like the beach?"
M: "The beach, but not the salesmen."
K: "Ooohh, the Masaai men are bothering you?" (Indicates other salesmen dressed in traditional Masaai garb who have not come to talk to me at all.)
M: "No, you're bothering me."
K: "You like (key chains/stone carvings/randomly decorated wooden plaques)?" (Indicates wares.)
M: "No. I'm not buying, I have no money."
K: "You have no money?" (Grins broadly to show that he doesn't believe me, as clearly all white people have infinite stores of cash that they keep on them at all times. Obviously.)
M: "I have no money."
K: "But looking is free!"
M: "I don't care, I'm not buying." (Turn over to lay on stomach and continue reading book.)
Following this, the local salesman might take the hint and leave, but he might stick around to (watch me tan/look out at the ocean or beach/wait for more tourists to approach/continue on a "conversation" while I respond with the occasional "mmm-hmmm"/kill time indefinitely).
On Saturday, we drove for a few hours for no other reason than to get ridiculously hot and visit a beach that was slightly worse than the one we could have walked to in twenty minutes. Overall, Sharon's boyfriend Rico was not a host. I could have said he wasn't a good host, but he just wasn't a host. It was a bit of a letdown and I think I'm going to go back later so I can actually see the city. On Sunday, we hit the regular beach, which was much busier, as Sunday is the only day of the week that there is no school. Needless to say, the locals were more than entertaining. On Monday, we went to see Fort Jesus. It was the original Portuguese outpost in the area, and it was really cool. Following that, we inevitably hit the beach.
I feel as though the weekend after that was Erin's last weekend, although there is a very real possibility that I lost a weekend in there somewhere. Doubtless, nothing much happened. So the next weekend excursion that I can remember was a trip to Mlongo. Another volunteer, Anina, has just bought a house here, so she had a housewarming party. When she got to Kenya, Anina decided that the HIV/AIDS treatment and awareness program through Fadhili was lacking, so she decided to change it. She remedied the situation by purchasing a house. Mlongo happened to be out in the sticks, but she lived on a brand new compound that is entirely safe, you can even walk outside after dark. It was really cool. That's also where I learned that if you have the money for the meds, malaria isn't actually a problem at all. It just gives you street cred.
So that brings me to now-ish. Erin left last week Monday, and it is much lonelier here without her. I'm currently the only volunteer working at my school, but it's fine, because either this week or next week, Mike from my orientation group (there are a lot of Mikes here) is going to start working there. And in about a week and a half, I'm going to get another roommate.
The weekdays here are mostly the same. I wake up at seven, Lucky comes to pick me up at 8:30, I work in the kitchen most mornings, I teach French in the afternoons, I go home at four, I go to either the internet cafe, the Nakumatt, or both, I have dinner, I read until I can't keep my eyes open, I fall asleep, and it starts all over again. But I still love what I'm doing. The kids at school are really great, and I'm starting to get to know a few of them really well. Lucky, for instance, doesn't even go to my school, but when Erin was working here, the head teacher of her school sent him to pick her up every morning. So after she left, he kept coming. But I refer to him as my little African brother: he's sixteen and is a Chelsea FC fan. Therefore, he is Tim, but named Lucky, and living in Kenya. Both Tim and Lucky are flattered by this comparison.
Anyway, the highlights of this week will hopefully be buying mattresses for the orphanage, as they are eight short, and taking the kids on a field trip to Naivasha. I hope to post more frequently from now so that the posts aren't as long and there aren't as many gaps in my memory. Also, I want to thank everyone for their interest (the eight people who follow my blog and the others who just read it, but may or may not exist), it's rather flattering.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Two weeks...
I would estimate that it has been two weeks since I last posted. No chit chat, right down to business. I will try to summarize as interestingly as possible what I have done since my last post.
I last posted on the Tuesday of a rather eventful week. I had just been pick pocketed. Wednesday was a lull before the excitement of Thursday afternoon. For some reason, the school was deciding to take it easy that day. After lunch, all the boys were rounded up and carted of to some distant open space to play football. The girls remained at the school to play netball, which is a bit like basketball, but very polite. They don't bounce the ball, they don't run with the ball... I don't like it. Anyway, I was standing around watching the girls play netball when I was reminded of a stabbing pain just below my waist on my right side that had been bothering me for a few days. I turned to a fellow volunteer and asked a question that had just popped into my head: Where is the appendix? I happened to be holding my side where it hurt, and she said, "Right there," pointing to where my hand was resting. I burst into tears because I was worried that I might have appendicitis. The week could not go much worse. She immediately called the doctor of a clinic where some volunteers that she lived with worked, and after telling the headmaster, we started walking. When we got there, the doctor took some tests and told me I had food poisoning, probably from eating the beans at the school. So from now on, peanut butter sandwiches, which I am totally okay with.
The following Sunday, I was hanging out with my roommate, Erin, and two other volunteers from Canada who arrived around the same time as Erin, named Michelle and Ingrid. They were part of the group that went to the monkey park the previous weekend. On Sunday, we decided to go visit a giraffe sanctuary. It was really cool. When we got there, we went up to a raised platform where guides gathered around two waiting giraffes. Every group of tourists instantly got a guide, which surprised me at first, but after a while I realized we were expected to give him a generous tip. First, they let us feed the giraffes from our hand while putting our arm around their neck. Then they would throw the food pellets and the giraffe would catch them with her tongue. After that, they would give us a food pellet to put between our lips so the giraffe was trained to "kiss." I'll put up pictures probably next week. After feeding the giraffes, we went for a walk to see the one male giraffe that they have at the sanctuary and that they keep in a separate enclosure. It was really cool. I was sure to ask our guide if he had ever seen giraffes fighting, and he said he had. I was jealous. If you haven't seen them, Youtube it, because it's awesome. (Also recommended viewing: Battle at Kreuger. About seven minutes long, but worth watching as it's an epic safari battle involving lions, wildebeests, and a crocodile.)
Perhaps not the most exciting of posts, but as I am lazy and impatient, I will update you on the following weekend (involving a trip to Mombasa, on the coast of Kenya) in a later post. That's all for now...
I last posted on the Tuesday of a rather eventful week. I had just been pick pocketed. Wednesday was a lull before the excitement of Thursday afternoon. For some reason, the school was deciding to take it easy that day. After lunch, all the boys were rounded up and carted of to some distant open space to play football. The girls remained at the school to play netball, which is a bit like basketball, but very polite. They don't bounce the ball, they don't run with the ball... I don't like it. Anyway, I was standing around watching the girls play netball when I was reminded of a stabbing pain just below my waist on my right side that had been bothering me for a few days. I turned to a fellow volunteer and asked a question that had just popped into my head: Where is the appendix? I happened to be holding my side where it hurt, and she said, "Right there," pointing to where my hand was resting. I burst into tears because I was worried that I might have appendicitis. The week could not go much worse. She immediately called the doctor of a clinic where some volunteers that she lived with worked, and after telling the headmaster, we started walking. When we got there, the doctor took some tests and told me I had food poisoning, probably from eating the beans at the school. So from now on, peanut butter sandwiches, which I am totally okay with.
The following Sunday, I was hanging out with my roommate, Erin, and two other volunteers from Canada who arrived around the same time as Erin, named Michelle and Ingrid. They were part of the group that went to the monkey park the previous weekend. On Sunday, we decided to go visit a giraffe sanctuary. It was really cool. When we got there, we went up to a raised platform where guides gathered around two waiting giraffes. Every group of tourists instantly got a guide, which surprised me at first, but after a while I realized we were expected to give him a generous tip. First, they let us feed the giraffes from our hand while putting our arm around their neck. Then they would throw the food pellets and the giraffe would catch them with her tongue. After that, they would give us a food pellet to put between our lips so the giraffe was trained to "kiss." I'll put up pictures probably next week. After feeding the giraffes, we went for a walk to see the one male giraffe that they have at the sanctuary and that they keep in a separate enclosure. It was really cool. I was sure to ask our guide if he had ever seen giraffes fighting, and he said he had. I was jealous. If you haven't seen them, Youtube it, because it's awesome. (Also recommended viewing: Battle at Kreuger. About seven minutes long, but worth watching as it's an epic safari battle involving lions, wildebeests, and a crocodile.)
Perhaps not the most exciting of posts, but as I am lazy and impatient, I will update you on the following weekend (involving a trip to Mombasa, on the coast of Kenya) in a later post. That's all for now...
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Penniless in Kenya.
I hope this will be an exciting post. It certainly entertained me.
I begin with Saturday. After sleeping in, Erin, Sharon and I went shopping downtown Nairobi. There are these buildings that usually have five or so floors of the equivalent of a market stall, selling mostly clothes, shoes, and bags. The prices are fair, unless you're white, of course. The shops are in the Somalian area of town. As Sharon said, they started as refugees, and now they're everywhere. [It was a pretty cool experience, though. Everything closed at five o'clock for prayers, and as we left we could hear the call coming from the mosque.] We would walk past shops to shouts of "Karibu, customer!" or "Welcome, muzungu!" (These two phrases essentially mean the same thing.) Immediately afterward, people would begin their pitches, peddling their wares. I will tell you stories of the two most entertaining pitches of the day.
The first came as we sat in a shop, the owner of which had run downstairs to see if he had a certain shirt in a different size. The boys working at the shop across the hall started asking us where we were from. I said Canada, and Erin said America. They smiled and said, "Obamaland!" as so many people here do. One of the boys was Somalian, but the other was clearly Kenyan, and they began to try to sell us on the idea that he was Obama's cousin. As I'd gotten this from several students in my class and in other classes, I discounted it.
The second and most interesting pitch came from a perfume salesman. Sharon and Erin were standing in one of the shops and I was standing out in the hallway. The perfume salesman approacheth. I sort of looked away, expecting to avoid a sales pitch, but it was much more than that. First he told me that I "look good today." I tried to pretend I didn't hear him. Then he spoke up and told me he liked my hair. I looked at him and said thanks, which he took as an indication to further compliment my eyes. I said thanks again and looked away. He continued on to tell me that even though he "manages perfume sales" (or something to that effect), what he's really looking for is a white girl to love him. I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing right in front of him before I went into the store, saying, "not gonna happen."
On Sunday, a group of volunteers including Erin and myself went to the monkey park in Nairobi. We took a matatu into town and caught another matatu from there. The monkey park is a park in the city where monkeys roam freely. People there sell peanuts to feed the monkeys. The monkeys are well adjusted to people, and are very aggressive. If they dare, people will picnic there, but occasionally you will hear shouting and watch a monkey peel across the grass and up a tree, holding a stolen banana or mango. Much fighting ensues amongst the monkeys of that tree. And yes, I got a monkey to sit on my shoulder. We were a group of about six white people, though, and we began to suspect that we were as much or perhaps more of a spectacle than the monkeys. One little boy saw me and another girl feeding the monkeys and said "Muuuzuuunguuu," with such amazement that the other girl couldn't help but make fun of him. I laughed along. (So did he, slightly more sheepishly.)
And then Monday [editor's note: it was actually Tuesday], possibly the most exciting of the stories. As usual, I went to school in the morning. But Erin had to go to the post office, which closes at four and is downtown, so she didn't want to travel alone. We left our respective schools at one thirty, and after stopping at the apartment, boarded a matatu at two-ish. I was sitting by myself on the back bench when two men boarded and sat beside me. We were nearing downtown when I felt something scratch my leg. I picked up my backpack, which I had left slouching on my lap, to see what was going on. The side pocket of my backpack was wide open and my wallet, which had been there, had vanished. I looked at the man beside me and said loudly, "Sir, I think you have my wallet." He told me that he didn't and it must have been someone else. A vague argument ensued, but he definitely took that as his cue to leave, which he and his partner did very quickly. As soon as he left, a Kenyan lady, a Kenyan guy, and two German girls got in an argument with the fare taker, saying he shouldn't have let them off. But, there was nothing to be done about it. I was slightly upset, but I realized that I had been duped by a well established system. My lack of self-awareness is the only thing to blame for the situation.
Erin and I got off the matatu shortly after. We had to go through a metal detector in order to get into a building where we were told Erin's package would be. We both went inside, but I came out before her as I was anxious to call my mom so she could cancel my debit card. After I finished calling and texting, I was worried that I would have nothing to do waiting for Erin. Thank goodness the security guards were so professional. There were two standing opposite me on the other side of the doors and one had the courtesy to dare the other to come over and hit on me, effectively amending my dilemma. Erin came outside in time to rescue me (just as the guard was asking me for my number) and she told me that we had been sent to the wrong building; the post office was across the street. She was told that her package would be on the second floor. We crossed the street and went up to the second floor, where we learned from a pair of security guards that her package would be on the next floor. So we went down a floor, found some lifts, and were able to get up to the "second" floor (translated, I suppose that means the third floor). They pinballed Erin from desk to office and desk and desk to office, after about an hour (not including the half hour at the wrong building), she got her package.
We caught a matatu headed back to Suna, but it was rush hour and there was a huge traffic jam covering a huge stretch of Ngong Road. Our matatu driver thought he would be clever and edge his way around another car (a nice car, too). He failed miserably -- which is not common for matatu drivers -- completely ripping the bumper off the other car. The fare taker hopped off to survey the damage and Erin and I hopped off without paying when we were sure he was on the other side. We walked about a mile (mostly uphill) before stopping at a bus station and hopping an official bus back home.
Thus ends our eventful day, particularly because Erin only left me a certain amount of money for the internet and I'm running out. Also, for those who are interested, the contents of the wallet: about 3000 shillings (45-ish dollars), my debit card (cancelled), my health card (replaceable), and my drivers license (but there's no point in replacing that).
I begin with Saturday. After sleeping in, Erin, Sharon and I went shopping downtown Nairobi. There are these buildings that usually have five or so floors of the equivalent of a market stall, selling mostly clothes, shoes, and bags. The prices are fair, unless you're white, of course. The shops are in the Somalian area of town. As Sharon said, they started as refugees, and now they're everywhere. [It was a pretty cool experience, though. Everything closed at five o'clock for prayers, and as we left we could hear the call coming from the mosque.] We would walk past shops to shouts of "Karibu, customer!" or "Welcome, muzungu!" (These two phrases essentially mean the same thing.) Immediately afterward, people would begin their pitches, peddling their wares. I will tell you stories of the two most entertaining pitches of the day.
The first came as we sat in a shop, the owner of which had run downstairs to see if he had a certain shirt in a different size. The boys working at the shop across the hall started asking us where we were from. I said Canada, and Erin said America. They smiled and said, "Obamaland!" as so many people here do. One of the boys was Somalian, but the other was clearly Kenyan, and they began to try to sell us on the idea that he was Obama's cousin. As I'd gotten this from several students in my class and in other classes, I discounted it.
The second and most interesting pitch came from a perfume salesman. Sharon and Erin were standing in one of the shops and I was standing out in the hallway. The perfume salesman approacheth. I sort of looked away, expecting to avoid a sales pitch, but it was much more than that. First he told me that I "look good today." I tried to pretend I didn't hear him. Then he spoke up and told me he liked my hair. I looked at him and said thanks, which he took as an indication to further compliment my eyes. I said thanks again and looked away. He continued on to tell me that even though he "manages perfume sales" (or something to that effect), what he's really looking for is a white girl to love him. I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing right in front of him before I went into the store, saying, "not gonna happen."
On Sunday, a group of volunteers including Erin and myself went to the monkey park in Nairobi. We took a matatu into town and caught another matatu from there. The monkey park is a park in the city where monkeys roam freely. People there sell peanuts to feed the monkeys. The monkeys are well adjusted to people, and are very aggressive. If they dare, people will picnic there, but occasionally you will hear shouting and watch a monkey peel across the grass and up a tree, holding a stolen banana or mango. Much fighting ensues amongst the monkeys of that tree. And yes, I got a monkey to sit on my shoulder. We were a group of about six white people, though, and we began to suspect that we were as much or perhaps more of a spectacle than the monkeys. One little boy saw me and another girl feeding the monkeys and said "Muuuzuuunguuu," with such amazement that the other girl couldn't help but make fun of him. I laughed along. (So did he, slightly more sheepishly.)
And then Monday [editor's note: it was actually Tuesday], possibly the most exciting of the stories. As usual, I went to school in the morning. But Erin had to go to the post office, which closes at four and is downtown, so she didn't want to travel alone. We left our respective schools at one thirty, and after stopping at the apartment, boarded a matatu at two-ish. I was sitting by myself on the back bench when two men boarded and sat beside me. We were nearing downtown when I felt something scratch my leg. I picked up my backpack, which I had left slouching on my lap, to see what was going on. The side pocket of my backpack was wide open and my wallet, which had been there, had vanished. I looked at the man beside me and said loudly, "Sir, I think you have my wallet." He told me that he didn't and it must have been someone else. A vague argument ensued, but he definitely took that as his cue to leave, which he and his partner did very quickly. As soon as he left, a Kenyan lady, a Kenyan guy, and two German girls got in an argument with the fare taker, saying he shouldn't have let them off. But, there was nothing to be done about it. I was slightly upset, but I realized that I had been duped by a well established system. My lack of self-awareness is the only thing to blame for the situation.
Erin and I got off the matatu shortly after. We had to go through a metal detector in order to get into a building where we were told Erin's package would be. We both went inside, but I came out before her as I was anxious to call my mom so she could cancel my debit card. After I finished calling and texting, I was worried that I would have nothing to do waiting for Erin. Thank goodness the security guards were so professional. There were two standing opposite me on the other side of the doors and one had the courtesy to dare the other to come over and hit on me, effectively amending my dilemma. Erin came outside in time to rescue me (just as the guard was asking me for my number) and she told me that we had been sent to the wrong building; the post office was across the street. She was told that her package would be on the second floor. We crossed the street and went up to the second floor, where we learned from a pair of security guards that her package would be on the next floor. So we went down a floor, found some lifts, and were able to get up to the "second" floor (translated, I suppose that means the third floor). They pinballed Erin from desk to office and desk and desk to office, after about an hour (not including the half hour at the wrong building), she got her package.
We caught a matatu headed back to Suna, but it was rush hour and there was a huge traffic jam covering a huge stretch of Ngong Road. Our matatu driver thought he would be clever and edge his way around another car (a nice car, too). He failed miserably -- which is not common for matatu drivers -- completely ripping the bumper off the other car. The fare taker hopped off to survey the damage and Erin and I hopped off without paying when we were sure he was on the other side. We walked about a mile (mostly uphill) before stopping at a bus station and hopping an official bus back home.
Thus ends our eventful day, particularly because Erin only left me a certain amount of money for the internet and I'm running out. Also, for those who are interested, the contents of the wallet: about 3000 shillings (45-ish dollars), my debit card (cancelled), my health card (replaceable), and my drivers license (but there's no point in replacing that).
Thursday, February 19, 2009
It ain't easy being white... part two
So the last post never really got into how "ain't easy" it is "being white." But it shall be explained. I wrote about how I got here, now I will write about what I do here.
I've probably said this before, but I work at Lighthouse Grace Academy and Care Centre. In addition to being a school starting from preschool (or as stated on the door, Pre-Unit) and going to Standard 8 (grade eight) -- although I think a few of the classes are combined -- it is an orphanage that houses approximately 40 children. The kids are a lot of fun, but I'm not quite used to them yet. I'll get there.
I teach a Standard 5 class. There are usually six students in my class, and I focus on teaching them English. The first day that I was there (Tuesday), they were writing exams. First in English, then Kiswahili, Social Studies, and Science, with Math on the following day because the "short breaks" that I gave them were too long. The average mark on the exams were between 35 and 50%, if they were lucky. The highest mark was a 78%, and the rest of the students seemed thoroughly impressed. After they finished writing exams and I finished marking them (which brings us to Wednesday afternoon), I am left to find something to occupy the students. But I'm not a teacher! I have little to no idea what to do! If anyone has suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them.
Anyway, Lighthouse Grace is pretty cool. There are two other volunteers working there: Joe is from Massachusetts and is here with IVHQ, while Stephanie from New Hampshire is an older lady who came with IVHQ before and has returned independently. Joe doesn't really teach any class unless Stephanie is gone for the day, he mostly just hangs out. Stephanie teaches the Standard 3 class beside mine; she calls them little hellions. Before I arrived, Joe had arranged for the courtyard of the school to be paved with very rough concrete so they could put up basketball nets. The first day they worked on it was Tuesday, and it was finished by Wednesday afternoon. So for today and Friday, we've been taking it easy and giving the kids lots of breaks from class to play basketball. Joe is teaching them as much as he can.
Taking it easy seemed to me to mean that the two teachers who taught the older grades took the day off, and I was left with about twenty kids as opposed to the traditional six. So I had to occupy them. I did as much as I could. I wrote out English exercises on the board and they copied them into their books. We had a brief "Teach Meghan Kiswahili" time, but of course I don't remember any of it. I gave them a half hour break at some point, I let them out early for lunch and delayed calling them in again for as long as possible. We played a spelling game, but we stopped because the teacher next door (Stephanie) was tapping on the wall between the classes and shouting. Then I did more English exercises with them, before letting them out again 45 minutes early. I stayed late because James, Mike, and Joe from Fadhili were there, then I hung around a bit with Stephanie and Joe the volunteer. Then I walked home. I do a lot of walking here. Plus, I live five stories up and it's all stairs. I'm not used to that many stairs at home, so I run up them every time unless Erin is walking in front of me to pace me.
That's all for now, I'll write when I have something more exciting.
I've probably said this before, but I work at Lighthouse Grace Academy and Care Centre. In addition to being a school starting from preschool (or as stated on the door, Pre-Unit) and going to Standard 8 (grade eight) -- although I think a few of the classes are combined -- it is an orphanage that houses approximately 40 children. The kids are a lot of fun, but I'm not quite used to them yet. I'll get there.
I teach a Standard 5 class. There are usually six students in my class, and I focus on teaching them English. The first day that I was there (Tuesday), they were writing exams. First in English, then Kiswahili, Social Studies, and Science, with Math on the following day because the "short breaks" that I gave them were too long. The average mark on the exams were between 35 and 50%, if they were lucky. The highest mark was a 78%, and the rest of the students seemed thoroughly impressed. After they finished writing exams and I finished marking them (which brings us to Wednesday afternoon), I am left to find something to occupy the students. But I'm not a teacher! I have little to no idea what to do! If anyone has suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them.
Anyway, Lighthouse Grace is pretty cool. There are two other volunteers working there: Joe is from Massachusetts and is here with IVHQ, while Stephanie from New Hampshire is an older lady who came with IVHQ before and has returned independently. Joe doesn't really teach any class unless Stephanie is gone for the day, he mostly just hangs out. Stephanie teaches the Standard 3 class beside mine; she calls them little hellions. Before I arrived, Joe had arranged for the courtyard of the school to be paved with very rough concrete so they could put up basketball nets. The first day they worked on it was Tuesday, and it was finished by Wednesday afternoon. So for today and Friday, we've been taking it easy and giving the kids lots of breaks from class to play basketball. Joe is teaching them as much as he can.
Taking it easy seemed to me to mean that the two teachers who taught the older grades took the day off, and I was left with about twenty kids as opposed to the traditional six. So I had to occupy them. I did as much as I could. I wrote out English exercises on the board and they copied them into their books. We had a brief "Teach Meghan Kiswahili" time, but of course I don't remember any of it. I gave them a half hour break at some point, I let them out early for lunch and delayed calling them in again for as long as possible. We played a spelling game, but we stopped because the teacher next door (Stephanie) was tapping on the wall between the classes and shouting. Then I did more English exercises with them, before letting them out again 45 minutes early. I stayed late because James, Mike, and Joe from Fadhili were there, then I hung around a bit with Stephanie and Joe the volunteer. Then I walked home. I do a lot of walking here. Plus, I live five stories up and it's all stairs. I'm not used to that many stairs at home, so I run up them every time unless Erin is walking in front of me to pace me.
That's all for now, I'll write when I have something more exciting.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
It ain't easy being white...
Kenya is awesome, as my previous picture stated. I was a touch disappointed that nobody commented on it, I worked hard on it. I will now proceed to tell you about my life as a muzungu (a white person).
I left on Friday night. I took one seven hour flight to London, and an eight hour flight from London to Nairobi. Heathrow is undoubtedly the junkiest airport I've been to yet, although I'm sure that I will encounter worse. The Nairobi airport is a strong adversary, however, as I waited in a customs line for two hours in order to get my visa, and there were others who waited longer. It was abominable. When I finally got out of the line and found my bag (not as easy as you'd think at an airport with three baggage carousels in one room), I busted outta there. I was met by two staff from Fadhili and two other volunteers: Cleopas, who does a lot of stuff at Fadhili although I'm not sure of his official title, Mike, the driver, who's super awesome, Feng, a 24 year old volunteer from China, and Mike (we call him Big Mike), a 22 year old volunteer from Virginia. Also coming off planes from Heathrow were Becca, a 17 year old volunteer from Chicago and Ammabel, a 24 year old volunteer from the Philippines who lives in Scotland.
Mike and Cleo dropped Ammabel and I off at the home of a Kenyan couple, Phillipa and John, where we spent Saturday and Sunday night. I didn't have a mosquito net, so I got attacked by mosquitoes. The exciting part is that I had forgotten to start my malaria regimen, so I started it the next morning, only a week late. Cross your fingers for no malaria! I don't actually know the symptoms. On Sunday morning, Cleo came to pick me and Ammabel up and we walked to his church, just down the road. It was pretty cool, but being one of three white people in the building -- there was an Irish priest sitting on the other side of the church -- I felt a bit too insecure to get into it. I was also very tired. And Ammabel isn't technically white, she's Asian. Coming home from church, Cleo called another volunteer, Erin, and arranged for us to meet her and go shopping so we could get such essentials as water and mosquito nets. We walked to the shopping centre along a back road that was interesting. The first building was a private school with fancy buses, which set the tone for the street. The rest of the building were heavily gated, privately guarded affairs. You could just see the tops of the beautiful houses and trees peeking over the walls.
On Monday, it was orientation. Cleo walked over to pick us up again, being that the house we were staying at was a two minute walk from the tiny Fadhili offices. When we got to the offices, we met Pedro, a volunteer from Portugal, and the four of us set out for the orientation that was being held in a conference room a few minutes away. We arrived before the other volunteers, only two of whom I hadn't met: Claire, a mom from Florida (staying for ten days, of course), and Agnete from Denmark, staying for six months. Ammabel is only staying for ten days as well, while Feng and Pedro are staying for three months, like myself. Becca is staying for three and a half months and Big Mike is staying for six (I'm jealous). We met the Fadhili staff as well: there was Cleo and Mike, Boniface, the PR manager, James, the project director, Joe, a sort of co-director, and Maggie, who manages the office and the internet cafe that they have there.
After they gave us the appropriate lectures about safety, public transit, Kenyan culture and customs, Kiswahili, our work, and our accommodations, we walked back to the office and piled into a van bound for everywhere. I shared the front bench with Pedro and Mike, and Pedro and I tried to teach Mike some Spanish. We drove all through Nairobi, which is super awesome. I was the last volunteer to be dropped off. I was staying a minute further down the road that I stayed on the first night, but that doesn't count the time it takes to get up the stairs. I'm staying in an apartment with a Kenyan woman named Sharon, and also with Erin. Sharon's apartment is five stories up, and there's obviously no elevator.
I wish I could write more, but I've been on the internet for two hours now; I have to pay for it myself and there's a line up of people waiting. I'll write more about the school/orphanage that I work at later, perhaps tomorrow.
I left on Friday night. I took one seven hour flight to London, and an eight hour flight from London to Nairobi. Heathrow is undoubtedly the junkiest airport I've been to yet, although I'm sure that I will encounter worse. The Nairobi airport is a strong adversary, however, as I waited in a customs line for two hours in order to get my visa, and there were others who waited longer. It was abominable. When I finally got out of the line and found my bag (not as easy as you'd think at an airport with three baggage carousels in one room), I busted outta there. I was met by two staff from Fadhili and two other volunteers: Cleopas, who does a lot of stuff at Fadhili although I'm not sure of his official title, Mike, the driver, who's super awesome, Feng, a 24 year old volunteer from China, and Mike (we call him Big Mike), a 22 year old volunteer from Virginia. Also coming off planes from Heathrow were Becca, a 17 year old volunteer from Chicago and Ammabel, a 24 year old volunteer from the Philippines who lives in Scotland.
Mike and Cleo dropped Ammabel and I off at the home of a Kenyan couple, Phillipa and John, where we spent Saturday and Sunday night. I didn't have a mosquito net, so I got attacked by mosquitoes. The exciting part is that I had forgotten to start my malaria regimen, so I started it the next morning, only a week late. Cross your fingers for no malaria! I don't actually know the symptoms. On Sunday morning, Cleo came to pick me and Ammabel up and we walked to his church, just down the road. It was pretty cool, but being one of three white people in the building -- there was an Irish priest sitting on the other side of the church -- I felt a bit too insecure to get into it. I was also very tired. And Ammabel isn't technically white, she's Asian. Coming home from church, Cleo called another volunteer, Erin, and arranged for us to meet her and go shopping so we could get such essentials as water and mosquito nets. We walked to the shopping centre along a back road that was interesting. The first building was a private school with fancy buses, which set the tone for the street. The rest of the building were heavily gated, privately guarded affairs. You could just see the tops of the beautiful houses and trees peeking over the walls.
On Monday, it was orientation. Cleo walked over to pick us up again, being that the house we were staying at was a two minute walk from the tiny Fadhili offices. When we got to the offices, we met Pedro, a volunteer from Portugal, and the four of us set out for the orientation that was being held in a conference room a few minutes away. We arrived before the other volunteers, only two of whom I hadn't met: Claire, a mom from Florida (staying for ten days, of course), and Agnete from Denmark, staying for six months. Ammabel is only staying for ten days as well, while Feng and Pedro are staying for three months, like myself. Becca is staying for three and a half months and Big Mike is staying for six (I'm jealous). We met the Fadhili staff as well: there was Cleo and Mike, Boniface, the PR manager, James, the project director, Joe, a sort of co-director, and Maggie, who manages the office and the internet cafe that they have there.
After they gave us the appropriate lectures about safety, public transit, Kenyan culture and customs, Kiswahili, our work, and our accommodations, we walked back to the office and piled into a van bound for everywhere. I shared the front bench with Pedro and Mike, and Pedro and I tried to teach Mike some Spanish. We drove all through Nairobi, which is super awesome. I was the last volunteer to be dropped off. I was staying a minute further down the road that I stayed on the first night, but that doesn't count the time it takes to get up the stairs. I'm staying in an apartment with a Kenyan woman named Sharon, and also with Erin. Sharon's apartment is five stories up, and there's obviously no elevator.
I wish I could write more, but I've been on the internet for two hours now; I have to pay for it myself and there's a line up of people waiting. I'll write more about the school/orphanage that I work at later, perhaps tomorrow.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Blog is go!
Welcome to Meghan Meets Kenya, where I will catalogue my trip to Kenya. And since there aren't ten more blogs relaying an identical trip (reference to Belize), I will try to be more faithful in my posts than I was last time. Props to Ben vanderWoerd for the title of this blog.
Here is the information that I would tell you in person if I could remember it:
I am leaving on Friday, February 13th, 2009 on a flight to Nairobi, Kenya. I will be staying there for three months, living with a local family and working at an orphanage. The organization that I signed up with is called the International Volunteer Headquarters (IVHQ). They are based in New Zealand, and work internationally with pre-existing organizations. The Kenyan organization that I will be working with is Fadhili Helpers. While there, I will get the chance to go on a safari. While on safari, I fully intend to grapple with an alpha-male lion (or baboon, whichever charges the jeep first). I will emerge victorious, with a few strategically-placed, super-awesome scars, which I will refer to as visual aids for my autobiography, Meghan van Hoeve: Stories of Success, Survival and Awesome.
Everytime someone asks me if I'm excited, I halfheartedly offer a "yes," and a weak smile. Or I skip the smile and tell them that I'm "a bit nervous." Both of which are lame responses. For some reason, the only time I get really excited about going to Kenya is when I think about Belize. I should be excited. I've booked my tickets (through London on the way there and Zurich on the way back), I've bought a backpack (one that fits and is awesome), my iPod has been repaired (which is Apple-speak for "replaced"), I have all my needles (6 needles in one day), and I have Barack Obama's autobiography to be my guide to the country (yay!). Don't worry, I have a real guide book, too. I even have malaria medicine, of all things -- tropical diseases are like Pokemon, you gotta catch 'em all! The point is, I'm not excited because I'm scared as hell.
I'm not afraid of the things that I should be afraid of. My parents were worried when I told them I was going. (Permission? I do what I want.) John was angry. My grandpa was afraid that I would get AIDS. Liesl's worried that I'm going to bring home a black guy. Well, "worried" is probably the wrong word; perhaps "expectant," "excited," or more appropriately, "hopeful." I'm not afraid of malaria, yellow fever, AIDS, walking barefoot, getting sunburnt, getting lost, getting robbed... I'm afraid of meeting people. When I went to Belize, I didn't have to be afraid of meeting people, because I had my two best friends right there, and I made more best friends as I went along. But this time, I'm out on my own, for real. But this fear is the best feeling in the world. Who needs to feel comfortable and safe when I can feel scared and excited?
Now I'm excited.
Here is the information that I would tell you in person if I could remember it:
I am leaving on Friday, February 13th, 2009 on a flight to Nairobi, Kenya. I will be staying there for three months, living with a local family and working at an orphanage. The organization that I signed up with is called the International Volunteer Headquarters (IVHQ). They are based in New Zealand, and work internationally with pre-existing organizations. The Kenyan organization that I will be working with is Fadhili Helpers. While there, I will get the chance to go on a safari. While on safari, I fully intend to grapple with an alpha-male lion (or baboon, whichever charges the jeep first). I will emerge victorious, with a few strategically-placed, super-awesome scars, which I will refer to as visual aids for my autobiography, Meghan van Hoeve: Stories of Success, Survival and Awesome.
Everytime someone asks me if I'm excited, I halfheartedly offer a "yes," and a weak smile. Or I skip the smile and tell them that I'm "a bit nervous." Both of which are lame responses. For some reason, the only time I get really excited about going to Kenya is when I think about Belize. I should be excited. I've booked my tickets (through London on the way there and Zurich on the way back), I've bought a backpack (one that fits and is awesome), my iPod has been repaired (which is Apple-speak for "replaced"), I have all my needles (6 needles in one day), and I have Barack Obama's autobiography to be my guide to the country (yay!). Don't worry, I have a real guide book, too. I even have malaria medicine, of all things -- tropical diseases are like Pokemon, you gotta catch 'em all! The point is, I'm not excited because I'm scared as hell.
I'm not afraid of the things that I should be afraid of. My parents were worried when I told them I was going. (Permission? I do what I want.) John was angry. My grandpa was afraid that I would get AIDS. Liesl's worried that I'm going to bring home a black guy. Well, "worried" is probably the wrong word; perhaps "expectant," "excited," or more appropriately, "hopeful." I'm not afraid of malaria, yellow fever, AIDS, walking barefoot, getting sunburnt, getting lost, getting robbed... I'm afraid of meeting people. When I went to Belize, I didn't have to be afraid of meeting people, because I had my two best friends right there, and I made more best friends as I went along. But this time, I'm out on my own, for real. But this fear is the best feeling in the world. Who needs to feel comfortable and safe when I can feel scared and excited?
Now I'm excited.
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