When I first came to Kenya I thought that I would be living in a traditional Maasai hut with no running water and no electricity. However this was not how it turned out to be, as a student of Anthropology this still really intrigued me however. So after talking with my African Mamma she arranged for us to go and visit and stay with some of the more traditional Maasai.
So our little adventure began on Thursday
We had to wait until later in the morning to do some stuff at the bank, then go with David another volunteer at the house, he was buying mattresses for the school! Then we took the mattresses there. As that would be his last day, he stuck around for awhile for a good-bye ceremony type thing. When we all finally met up it was later in the afternoon. After a decent drive on roads that were leading to the middle of nowhere and where the best typical African roads, and getting lost and having to pick up some traditional Maasai men, we found our way.
When we arrived at this first manyatta, before we were allowed to enter we had to meet up with the higher ups in the group, and they had to discuss whether we were allowed in or not. After not too much contention and our offering of 5,000 Ksh we were allowed in. We were allowed to take pictures of everything except the warriors....I was really bad though and kind of maybe snuck one. I think he knew what I was doing though, I wasn't very subtle about it lol.
This village contained 40 manyattas and about 89 residents, this village had been set up as part of a ceremony that happens in the maasai culture. Young men in their early 20's must be seperated from their families for around 1 year to learn to become independent and men. After the year is up they have a huge feast and I believe they are then eligible to marry.
We visited two of the manyattas and in the second one we got to try their "brew". It is essentially sugar, water, and honey comb. It is then left to ferment for a while and apparently can get you quite drunk. We all only split 1 cup though. It was actually quite good the only thing that threw you off was the gas can they poured it out of and the bees and wasps that you drank with it. Oh well a little protein never did anyone harm.
After this manyatta we had to go back through Kajiado to pick up another man to come with us to the second manyatta where we would be staying at.
This manyatta was not like the other we had just been at, it was more of a homestead - there were about 10 people living there currently, the man his two wives, his mother, and some of the children. Others were away at boarding school.
They all seemed quite nice but who would have guessed they spoke basically no english, only a boy who wouldn't you know it goes to the school that I am working at, and another older girl.
It was nearing nightfall when we arrived, so we had to get on with everything. They had arranged to slaughter a goat for us, so we watched as they slaughtered the goat....its really not as bad as most people would think. Then they cooked it the traditional way for us, and we ate. It was quite good, I do enjoy the goat that we eat here - and we eat alot of goat here, except it is a little fatty. After supper we really just went to bed.
We slept in one of the manyattas; Jetteka, Mamma, and I the manyattas are very small, and you can't really stand up straight in them. They are made up of sticks and cow dung, there is nearly no light at all minus a small candle maybe, and very poor ventilation. The ladies cook in these manyattas and also heat them through fire, so all night and day there is a small fire in there as well. So the three of us cuddled up and slept as best we could with the cow hide mat and our cockroach friends. In the morning we made tea, and watched as the boys cleaned / sprayed the cattle with an insecticide. Then I helped to spray all of the sheep. We said goodbye to Mamma, Jetteka, and David then Brad and I continued on with our day.
The other duties of the day were to shovel cow poop. Who doesn't love that? Ha! We then went and watered some really thorny bushes, I believe it was to start a boma. We never really knew what we were doing due to the language barrier so we just went with it. We also moved some thorny bushes into the water to create a barrier for the animals. Then carried some water and wood back to the home stead. Then we ate lunch and rested and went for a walk. The day other than that was quite uneventful. However I did try something that was not the most tasty thing I have ever tried. When they slaughter a goat they use everything possible from the goat that they can, so I was curious as to what they did with the head. Then I found out when we walked over and they were roasting the goats head which had a stick through its nose. After it was all roasted they then split it in half and boil it all down with a little water. They take the bones out and mix and grind all of the little pieces in, and then you drink it. Its probably not as bad as it sounds, but it was far from good. I respectfully finished the whole cup, but politely had to decline the second. After supper it was bed time again, I slept in the same manyatta only this time I shared the cow hide mat with the one of the mothers and daughters. In the morning we helped with more chores, mainly just herding the cattle and sheep. There was a baby calf born while we were there, so that was pretty cool! Afterwards we left around 3:30 or 4 though, we were planning on staying until Sunday evening but we would have been expected to go to church with them, and I really had no desire to go nor did Brad as he was a buddhist. Also Sunday is there day to rest so there wouldn't have been much to do.
Maasai life is very interesting very simple but very different. The main issue that I had was the gender differences, and gender separation. Even with Brad and I they were very sure to make sure that we were separated most of the time, and they made it very clear that we were to sleep in separate manyattas haha obviously neither of us cared it was just amusing. My favourite was that the girl specifically told me that if I had to wake up in the night, that I was instructed to wake her up...probably so she could make sure I was not wandering over to the boys side. Lmao if felt kind of like being at summer bible camp when I was young again.
Either way it was a phenomenal experience, and one that has really encouraged me to pursue Anthropology and has furthered my love for the studies of different cultures and has intrigued my interest even more.
Monday, 25 July 2011
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Free Mobile Medical Camp & Kibera Slums
So these last few days have been quite interesting and a few more eye-opening experiences to add to the list of the many I have had here so far. On Monday I helped out at a free mobile medical camp and Tuesday I went through a tour of what can tie for first place of the largest slum in Africa.
Brad, Jen (two other volunteers staying with me) and I had to leave from Kajiado on Sunday afternoon and just met up with some of the other volunteers and went out for supper and generally hung out.
Monday
We woke up early, and headed out to the meeting point to join up with everyone else who was headed to the medical camp. We split up into 2 matatus (little mini van / bus) type things. Then we drove for about 2.5 hours until we reached Nakuru. This is where the mobile camp was located, when we arrived it was not too busy so because there were so many of us volunteers it was a little hectic at first, simply because we all wanted to find something to do. Ha it was pretty crazy, at the camp they had several different local doctors and nurses helping, as well as some that had come from the US as well. (sort of like a red cross type thing) At the clinic we had people doing everything involving, general illness, disease, and diagnostics, HIV testing, prenatal and women care, vision testing, diabetes testing and treatment, as well as some other things. We were also providing free medication for everyone who required it.
So once we all sort of get settled in and organized we finally figured out some tasks for all of us. Another volunteer named Julie and I offered to help out with figuring out all of the lunch stuff. So we essentially just went around and took everyone’s lunch menus, ha our choices were PB+J, or some meat type sandwich, and coke or fanta. Regardless we went around and got all 56 orders or so. Then we had to go to the supermarket to buy enough food for everyone, then we proceeded to make all of the sandwiches and portion the pop, and chips we got as well. After lunch was served to everyone I got to do some real medical type work, lol even though feeding people was decently important to as well.
Brad, one of the volunteers that I live with back in Kajiado has crazy amounts of medical training, especially in wilderness rescue and all of that jazz, but he was helping deal with the general illnesses and seeing patients, and prescribing them the proper meds that they needed, but he asked me if I wanted to help him. So I basically screened all of the patients and would get all of their information, take their temperature, and write down everything that was wrong with them. Afterwards Brad would actually do their assessment and all that fun stuff, but either way it was an awesome experience and it felt like I was doing quite a bit to help out actually which was really really cool.
At the end of the day, the medical camp didn’t get nearly as many people as they were expecting, which was upwards of 1000. We only ended up getting around 420, but it was still a really awesome thing, and we got to do alot of good stuff and help the people, especially those who couldn’t afford the medications that they needed. It was quite a late day, and we didn’t end up getting back into Nairobi until about 8:00p.m. that night. So it was obviously way too late to go home at that point, because travelling after dark is not the best idea in the world here, and we had some other stuff to do in Nairobi anyways. So we had to stay the night again.
Tuesday
In the morning I went with some of the girls who are volunteering in the Kibera Slums, here in Nairobi to do a tour of the slum, distribute some food, and meet some of the local people. Kibera slums is tied to be the biggest slum in all of Africa, right now I believe that the slum in Johannesburg, South Africa is slightly larger but it goes back and forth between the two, not exactly a title that anyone strives for though! It is estimated that there are between 1 and 1.5 million people living here, and these people are all there as a result of several different things like; lack of employment opportunity, abandonment, illness, or post-election violence. All have different stories, and come from different backgrounds. It is a very dangerous slum for the locals, 2 people were killed there last week, 1 was shot, the other beaten to death for trying to steal a radio. Due to the danger factor, we had to walk around with 2 local guards, so that we would be protected from those who are the most desperate as well. If we did not have these guys with us and we tried to take a picture for example, we would probably be attacked...people are quite uncomfortable with it, and rightly so – no one deserves to be treated like they live in a zoo. They also think that we go home and sell these pictures, so they think we are just using them to make money essentially. When really the main reason we take the pictures, is to show people back home and try and create awareness about these things that are going on in other parts of the world, so some people might feel inclined to do what they can to help out. Also these local people know that we carry around food to distribute to some of the families, so with out the guards we would most likely be attacked and have the food and any other belongings stolen from us. It sounds much more dangerous than I ever felt, though I would never want to risk what it would be like with out the guards walking around with us. The slum is something I can not describe in words to fully get the point across, it is a hilled, muddy, trash-strewn, dirty place essentially. The shacks are mainly made of tin and dirt, usually with only 1 room per person. There are supposed to be police there for security, but it is extremely rare to find them. They have no running water and only the very lucky have 1 light in their room, so you must realize that it gets dark at 6:30 and then they essentially have nothing except for danger.
So we went around the slum and toured the different areas, and we went to 4 different shacks to distribute food
The first was occupied by a father and her daughter, the father was around 75 and the daughter in her 30’s (a huge percent of the population in Africa doesn’t know when their birthday is, or even how old they are.) The father had been in Kibera for around 50 years, his daughter is HIV+ and will soon be getting trained to sew, to help sustain her and her father. The father also has very bad eye issues, and is nearly blind and unable to work.
The second, was the smiley-ist little old man I have ever met, he was about 85 and has lived in Kibera for around 60 years, due to his age he is unable to work anymore obviously. It was amazing to see someone so happy in such a terribly situation though. Puts things into perspective quite a bit, he also raises 3 of his grand children because one of his children got killed, and there was no one else to look after them.
Third was a middle aged man who has no family members, or friends essentially, I believe that basically everyone he knew died. He is unable to work because of severe arthritis and his age. He also suffers from severe depression.
Lastly was a mother and daughter, the mother didn’t know how old she was, and the daughter is about 17 years old. The daughter is HIV+ and also got some sort of disease around the age of 7 that paralyzed the left half of her body. They do not know the disease caused it though or what happened. She receives medication and physical therapy for her paralysis once a week, and over the last 6 months of treatment she has really started improving. They are working towards getting her to one day be able to walk on her own, so that she can attend school. Her mother can’t work because she must take care of the daughter full time.
After the food distribution and meeting the families, we went to the WEEP centre (Womens Empowerment Equality Program) This centre has been established for women who are HIV+ and have suffered much from the stigma that still comes with a diagnosis like this here. These womens husbands will leave when they discover the status of their wives, they leave them with all of the children and no way to get money. This is unfortunate as most of these women contracted the HIV from their adulterous husbands (not always the case though). These women can be run out of their homes and left to die, this is where the WEEP centre steps in, they educate the women on sewing and jewellery making so that they can learn to support their on families. These women are incredibly strong people, and women who should be looked up to rather than looked down upon and treated like trash and immediately dismissed like so many of them unfortunately are. They also have established and run a nursery and pre-primary school for some of the local kids who live in the slums.
It was again another one of these crazy things, which I have so many frustrations with. One of the main frustrations being my inability to fully explain the situation and the way it is here, to get people to really understand it. It really is an absolutely amazing, sad, upsetting, frustrating, and in an odd way inspiring thing to see.
After Kibera we just went for lunch, and after that it was back to Kajiado for us.
Brad, Jen (two other volunteers staying with me) and I had to leave from Kajiado on Sunday afternoon and just met up with some of the other volunteers and went out for supper and generally hung out.
Monday
We woke up early, and headed out to the meeting point to join up with everyone else who was headed to the medical camp. We split up into 2 matatus (little mini van / bus) type things. Then we drove for about 2.5 hours until we reached Nakuru. This is where the mobile camp was located, when we arrived it was not too busy so because there were so many of us volunteers it was a little hectic at first, simply because we all wanted to find something to do. Ha it was pretty crazy, at the camp they had several different local doctors and nurses helping, as well as some that had come from the US as well. (sort of like a red cross type thing) At the clinic we had people doing everything involving, general illness, disease, and diagnostics, HIV testing, prenatal and women care, vision testing, diabetes testing and treatment, as well as some other things. We were also providing free medication for everyone who required it.
So once we all sort of get settled in and organized we finally figured out some tasks for all of us. Another volunteer named Julie and I offered to help out with figuring out all of the lunch stuff. So we essentially just went around and took everyone’s lunch menus, ha our choices were PB+J, or some meat type sandwich, and coke or fanta. Regardless we went around and got all 56 orders or so. Then we had to go to the supermarket to buy enough food for everyone, then we proceeded to make all of the sandwiches and portion the pop, and chips we got as well. After lunch was served to everyone I got to do some real medical type work, lol even though feeding people was decently important to as well.
Brad, one of the volunteers that I live with back in Kajiado has crazy amounts of medical training, especially in wilderness rescue and all of that jazz, but he was helping deal with the general illnesses and seeing patients, and prescribing them the proper meds that they needed, but he asked me if I wanted to help him. So I basically screened all of the patients and would get all of their information, take their temperature, and write down everything that was wrong with them. Afterwards Brad would actually do their assessment and all that fun stuff, but either way it was an awesome experience and it felt like I was doing quite a bit to help out actually which was really really cool.
At the end of the day, the medical camp didn’t get nearly as many people as they were expecting, which was upwards of 1000. We only ended up getting around 420, but it was still a really awesome thing, and we got to do alot of good stuff and help the people, especially those who couldn’t afford the medications that they needed. It was quite a late day, and we didn’t end up getting back into Nairobi until about 8:00p.m. that night. So it was obviously way too late to go home at that point, because travelling after dark is not the best idea in the world here, and we had some other stuff to do in Nairobi anyways. So we had to stay the night again.
Tuesday
In the morning I went with some of the girls who are volunteering in the Kibera Slums, here in Nairobi to do a tour of the slum, distribute some food, and meet some of the local people. Kibera slums is tied to be the biggest slum in all of Africa, right now I believe that the slum in Johannesburg, South Africa is slightly larger but it goes back and forth between the two, not exactly a title that anyone strives for though! It is estimated that there are between 1 and 1.5 million people living here, and these people are all there as a result of several different things like; lack of employment opportunity, abandonment, illness, or post-election violence. All have different stories, and come from different backgrounds. It is a very dangerous slum for the locals, 2 people were killed there last week, 1 was shot, the other beaten to death for trying to steal a radio. Due to the danger factor, we had to walk around with 2 local guards, so that we would be protected from those who are the most desperate as well. If we did not have these guys with us and we tried to take a picture for example, we would probably be attacked...people are quite uncomfortable with it, and rightly so – no one deserves to be treated like they live in a zoo. They also think that we go home and sell these pictures, so they think we are just using them to make money essentially. When really the main reason we take the pictures, is to show people back home and try and create awareness about these things that are going on in other parts of the world, so some people might feel inclined to do what they can to help out. Also these local people know that we carry around food to distribute to some of the families, so with out the guards we would most likely be attacked and have the food and any other belongings stolen from us. It sounds much more dangerous than I ever felt, though I would never want to risk what it would be like with out the guards walking around with us. The slum is something I can not describe in words to fully get the point across, it is a hilled, muddy, trash-strewn, dirty place essentially. The shacks are mainly made of tin and dirt, usually with only 1 room per person. There are supposed to be police there for security, but it is extremely rare to find them. They have no running water and only the very lucky have 1 light in their room, so you must realize that it gets dark at 6:30 and then they essentially have nothing except for danger.
So we went around the slum and toured the different areas, and we went to 4 different shacks to distribute food
The first was occupied by a father and her daughter, the father was around 75 and the daughter in her 30’s (a huge percent of the population in Africa doesn’t know when their birthday is, or even how old they are.) The father had been in Kibera for around 50 years, his daughter is HIV+ and will soon be getting trained to sew, to help sustain her and her father. The father also has very bad eye issues, and is nearly blind and unable to work.
The second, was the smiley-ist little old man I have ever met, he was about 85 and has lived in Kibera for around 60 years, due to his age he is unable to work anymore obviously. It was amazing to see someone so happy in such a terribly situation though. Puts things into perspective quite a bit, he also raises 3 of his grand children because one of his children got killed, and there was no one else to look after them.
Third was a middle aged man who has no family members, or friends essentially, I believe that basically everyone he knew died. He is unable to work because of severe arthritis and his age. He also suffers from severe depression.
Lastly was a mother and daughter, the mother didn’t know how old she was, and the daughter is about 17 years old. The daughter is HIV+ and also got some sort of disease around the age of 7 that paralyzed the left half of her body. They do not know the disease caused it though or what happened. She receives medication and physical therapy for her paralysis once a week, and over the last 6 months of treatment she has really started improving. They are working towards getting her to one day be able to walk on her own, so that she can attend school. Her mother can’t work because she must take care of the daughter full time.
After the food distribution and meeting the families, we went to the WEEP centre (Womens Empowerment Equality Program) This centre has been established for women who are HIV+ and have suffered much from the stigma that still comes with a diagnosis like this here. These womens husbands will leave when they discover the status of their wives, they leave them with all of the children and no way to get money. This is unfortunate as most of these women contracted the HIV from their adulterous husbands (not always the case though). These women can be run out of their homes and left to die, this is where the WEEP centre steps in, they educate the women on sewing and jewellery making so that they can learn to support their on families. These women are incredibly strong people, and women who should be looked up to rather than looked down upon and treated like trash and immediately dismissed like so many of them unfortunately are. They also have established and run a nursery and pre-primary school for some of the local kids who live in the slums.
It was again another one of these crazy things, which I have so many frustrations with. One of the main frustrations being my inability to fully explain the situation and the way it is here, to get people to really understand it. It really is an absolutely amazing, sad, upsetting, frustrating, and in an odd way inspiring thing to see.
After Kibera we just went for lunch, and after that it was back to Kajiado for us.
Saturday, 16 July 2011
Outreach Weekend - A Life Changing Experience
Outreach Weekend
Outreach weekend is something that Fadhili has started for their volunteers, so that we may get to see the not so pretty sides of Kenya, and the areas most affected by poverty and election violence, so that we may be able to help as much as possible. Volunteering wise it has been the most amazing thing that I have done on this trip, a truly remarkable, sad, and somehow inspiring weekend.
Outreach was to start early Friday Morning, so we had to go back to Nairobi on Thursday and stay the night there.
Friday
We woke up quite early in the morning and were picked up by the Fadhili guys, and brought to Junction the main meeting place, and a huge white person area....its still really weird to see large groups of white people. There were probably just over 30 of us from Fadhili in total that attended outreach weekend. So we all met up and then off we went.
We drove 3 or 4 hours until we reached Naivasha, on the way though we passed down into the Rift Valley, and we stopped for a couple minutes at some view points, it truly was quite gorgeous. When we arrived in Naivasha though, we went into the outskirts of the town and made our first real stop of the weekend at KCC Slums. From here we were split up into two groups, one group stayed and played with some of the children from the school that is part of the slum, and the other group, my group went on a tour of the slums. As we walked through we were told all about the slum, and these are some of the main points:
There are 6000 people who live here, they have absolutely no way of getting any clean water and the water they do use is from a little creek that can be very dangerous due to hippos and crocodiles and is almost guaranteed to make you violently ill. It is the reason that many people here have died, There is also only 1 bathroom per 200 shacks (and there are 4-8 people living in each shack) The toilets are also very dangerous for two main reasons, they are terribly constructed and several children have fallen through and died, as well as at night they are impossible to use, because of the risk of getting raped, and that risk is very very high here. With the large percentage of rape the rates of HIV within KCC slums are also extremely high.
The Fadhili volunteers that have been working here have definitely been doing some amazing and very helpful things, for example they built a very small school, and have started a feeding program so that the children actually get something to eat everyday even though it is usually very minimal. They have also started working with the women and have taught them how to make jewellery out of old magazines, so that they can start to sustain themselves. Afterwards the other group did the tour while we played with the children and got extremely worn out by them! Also we helped to dish out and serve the food for lunch to the kids and help clean up afterwards.
Then we left to go get our own lunch at a small supermarket. After lunch we went off onto our next thing what was supposed to be the not so serious part of outreach weekend, visiting Hells Gate National Park
At Hells Gate National Park we all got fitted with bikes and sunscreen, and then started our journey through the park. We biked on what weren’t the nicest roads in Africa but did enjoy some very nice scenery as we biked the 7.7km to Hells Gate Gorge, on the way we saw quite a bit of wildlife, mostly just gazelles, zebras, and warthogs. You had to be quite careful though when you were looking around at the animals because you would hit a huge rock in the road and almost be thrown off your bike, some people were!
At the Gorge after our bike ride we all hiked down into the gorge itself, and saw some really really beautiful natural scenery, and water erosion. We walked past the place where parts of Tomb Raider were filmed, as well as parts that are the inspirations/replicas to parts of Avatar. So you know it was pretty gorgeous. I really love this kind of hiking, and truly need to move to a place that isn’t so flat and is a little more interesting nature wise.
Then we just biked the 7.7 km back, except uphill – me and hills we just don’t get along so well apparently. It was very cool though because on the way back we passed right by a huge herd of water buffalo!
Then we were driven to Gil Gil which wasn’t far, and were put up for the night at one of the local hotels, it was so weird we all had our own rooms and toilets and showers....I think everyone had a hot shower as well except for me, go figure ha!
Saturday
In the morning after breakfast we all worked together to portion corn flour and vegetable fat, as these were the things we would later on distribute. We drove only a very short distance, and came to our first stop of the day. Vumilia IDP Camp, an IDP camp is a place for internally displaced persons, and is essentially the same as a refugee camp, it is just within their own country. These people are here as a result of the 2007 election violence that happened, where people had to flee from their homes, and people were being killed due to the disbelief in the election results.
The people that are living here, and there are 130 families here, were only supposed to be here for 6 months, the governments plan was to have relocated and re-established all of these families by this time. It has now been 3 years and they are still there, though in good news a few days before we left 28 families got relocated.
The living conditions here are terribly sad, the tents the gov’t provided were temporary only supposed to be there for 6 months just like the people, and they have now almost completely diminished. Each tent is supposed to hold 1 family, but a family can range from 4-12 people. They are held together with little scraps of fabric, and are full of holes. The cold weather here is a huge problem, and has cause many many health issues for these people, they also dread the rain as they basically have no protection from it at this point. The Gov’t brings food for these people only once every 3 months, so they must ration it for the whole 3 months, and there is just never enough. They really depend on the food that we distribute when we come to visit them. Very few people here are able to work as well, so Fadhili volunteers have helped to establish programs for the women to weave their own baskets, and make bracelets as a way to sustain themselves. Fadhili volunteers have also started a school for the young children (4-7) because it is too difficult for them to walk the 4km each way to the nearest school, the children 8 and up will make this walk 2 or 4 times a day though. The volunteers have also started a feeding program so that the kids get uji (porridge) every morning and lunch 2x a week. Another volunteer is also in the process of helping put in a water tank and irrigation system. So while we were there we toured around saw the tents, or what is left of them and helped give out the uji in the morning, and helped dig the trenches for the irrigation system, and we distributed the food to the families. They were so grateful and did a thank you song and dance for us, which was very nice.
From there it was time for our own lunch and then to head out to the last and one of the saddest places that I have come across here in Africa, and in all my life. Gioto Garbage Slum.
This garbage dump is located only 10 minutes out of one of Kenyas large towns, Nakuru – it is the main dumping spot for all major hotels and hospitals. There are approximately 700 people that live here amongst the rubbish. The rubbish that has consumed their daily lives, this garbage creates the rooms they sleep in, the food they eat, and the playgrounds for these children. These are the people that have absolutely no where else to go, 98% of the people here are unemployed and 50-60% of them are HIV positive. There is such a high HIV rate for several reasons, girls as young as 10 resort to prostitution to make some sort of money, they will sell themselves for 10 or 15 minutes for only 20 shillings. That is not even 20 cents Canadian. Rape is also a huge, huge problem and risk here, and another way that HIV is spread so quickly here. Another problem that was adding to the high HIV rate was a result of the garbage from the hospital. The people here have hardly anything more than the clothes on their backs, if they even have that. Shoes are almost never seen here and the people here walk over the trash everyday all day with no protection, many of the children were getting poked by infected needles that were disposed by the hospital. Now as soon as rubbish from the hospital comes in, they immediately set it on fire to further prevent this as a means of the spread of HIV here.
The chances that a child born here will live past the age of 4, has an extremely scary statistic of only being 20-30%. They have no access to food or water at all, the only nutrition they receive is whatever they can find from sorting through the trash and eating the rotten left over scraps from the hotels. Their only means of making money beyond selling their bodies or stealing are to search through the trash to find plastic bottles where they can sell 1kg of plastic bottles for a mere 15 shillings, Fadhili has trained the women to weave bags out of discarded plastic bags that they find, as a means of supporting themselves. Fadhili volunteers are also working on educating the women on how to sew, so that hopefully with enough donations they will be able to open a shop one day to sell things out of to sustain themselves, they also hope to do this with the men for establishing a barber shop. We are also working on sponsoring the kids so that they can get sent to boarding schools, so they can escape this sad and harsh life, and actually have a chance to make something of themselves. It is not cheap to sponsor a child though, but they have currently got over 35 kids sponsored, and after talking to some of the girls I realized just how much they really do need to go to school and get away from the dangers here. The government does not want these people here, but they do not do anything to help them get out of this situation. Every 6 months or so they government will send people to kick them all off the land, and then they all just camp out on the side of the road for a few days until the people leave and then just go back to their daily life as it was before.
We distributed the rest of our food here as well, and I have never seen people so desperate for food in their entire lives, it was very eye-opening.
I just want to quickly share 4 stories, so that people at home really understand just how terrible and dangerous it is for the people living here.
There is a lady who suffers from such severe arthritis that she can hardly even move, she is quite elderly (for Kenya at least – the life expectancy rate is only 54) She has mothered 14 children, 4 of these kids were the for sure result of rape, and some of the others may have been as well. She can do absolutely nothing to support herself or her children. It is likely that some of these kids will not live to see their 20th birthdays.
There is a girl here who is only 15 years old, and has just had her 3rd child, all 3 children were the result of her being raped. This girl should be in school.
The boys here have no good male influences as most of the men whose families come here will just disappear as they are so shamed to not be able to support their families, these boys resort to drugs quite often, as drugs are cheaper here than any sort of food is. 1 joint is only 10 - 15 shillings, and 1 loaf of bread is at least 60 shillings.
The most heart breaking story I heard from here was a girl who was only 10 or 11 years old, was kidnapped essentially and locked up in this tiny little shack for a week, where she was raped and beaten repeatedly by 7 different men. This should not be happening anywhere. The girl immediately got sponsored and got sent to boarding school, and is starting to do better but has much physical and mental trauma obviously, and when she was asked what she wanted to be when she grows up she says a Nun.
The things that I saw over this weekend are things that I will never forget, and are things that will stay with me and change the way I am to many different things over the course of my entire life. It is extremely sad and upsetting to read about in a book, or on a blog like this one, but to actually experience it is a whole different thing.
The Sunday after we got back into Nairobi we went on a city excursion to kiss some giraffes at the Karen Blixen Giraffe Centre, and see the elephant orphans at David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust ( I got to see the elephant that I sponsor there but I did not actually get to meet it – so I will be doing that next week) Then we went to play with some Monkeys in Nairobi City Park.
I know this was a long read, but for those of you who made it through thank you for taking the time to read all of this, and I hope it has touched you in at least a fraction of the way that it has touched me. If anyone has anymore questions about any of these places or wants to know how to help, just get a hold of me! Love you and miss you all!
Outreach weekend is something that Fadhili has started for their volunteers, so that we may get to see the not so pretty sides of Kenya, and the areas most affected by poverty and election violence, so that we may be able to help as much as possible. Volunteering wise it has been the most amazing thing that I have done on this trip, a truly remarkable, sad, and somehow inspiring weekend.
Outreach was to start early Friday Morning, so we had to go back to Nairobi on Thursday and stay the night there.
Friday
We woke up quite early in the morning and were picked up by the Fadhili guys, and brought to Junction the main meeting place, and a huge white person area....its still really weird to see large groups of white people. There were probably just over 30 of us from Fadhili in total that attended outreach weekend. So we all met up and then off we went.
We drove 3 or 4 hours until we reached Naivasha, on the way though we passed down into the Rift Valley, and we stopped for a couple minutes at some view points, it truly was quite gorgeous. When we arrived in Naivasha though, we went into the outskirts of the town and made our first real stop of the weekend at KCC Slums. From here we were split up into two groups, one group stayed and played with some of the children from the school that is part of the slum, and the other group, my group went on a tour of the slums. As we walked through we were told all about the slum, and these are some of the main points:
There are 6000 people who live here, they have absolutely no way of getting any clean water and the water they do use is from a little creek that can be very dangerous due to hippos and crocodiles and is almost guaranteed to make you violently ill. It is the reason that many people here have died, There is also only 1 bathroom per 200 shacks (and there are 4-8 people living in each shack) The toilets are also very dangerous for two main reasons, they are terribly constructed and several children have fallen through and died, as well as at night they are impossible to use, because of the risk of getting raped, and that risk is very very high here. With the large percentage of rape the rates of HIV within KCC slums are also extremely high.
The Fadhili volunteers that have been working here have definitely been doing some amazing and very helpful things, for example they built a very small school, and have started a feeding program so that the children actually get something to eat everyday even though it is usually very minimal. They have also started working with the women and have taught them how to make jewellery out of old magazines, so that they can start to sustain themselves. Afterwards the other group did the tour while we played with the children and got extremely worn out by them! Also we helped to dish out and serve the food for lunch to the kids and help clean up afterwards.
Then we left to go get our own lunch at a small supermarket. After lunch we went off onto our next thing what was supposed to be the not so serious part of outreach weekend, visiting Hells Gate National Park
At Hells Gate National Park we all got fitted with bikes and sunscreen, and then started our journey through the park. We biked on what weren’t the nicest roads in Africa but did enjoy some very nice scenery as we biked the 7.7km to Hells Gate Gorge, on the way we saw quite a bit of wildlife, mostly just gazelles, zebras, and warthogs. You had to be quite careful though when you were looking around at the animals because you would hit a huge rock in the road and almost be thrown off your bike, some people were!
At the Gorge after our bike ride we all hiked down into the gorge itself, and saw some really really beautiful natural scenery, and water erosion. We walked past the place where parts of Tomb Raider were filmed, as well as parts that are the inspirations/replicas to parts of Avatar. So you know it was pretty gorgeous. I really love this kind of hiking, and truly need to move to a place that isn’t so flat and is a little more interesting nature wise.
Then we just biked the 7.7 km back, except uphill – me and hills we just don’t get along so well apparently. It was very cool though because on the way back we passed right by a huge herd of water buffalo!
Then we were driven to Gil Gil which wasn’t far, and were put up for the night at one of the local hotels, it was so weird we all had our own rooms and toilets and showers....I think everyone had a hot shower as well except for me, go figure ha!
Saturday
In the morning after breakfast we all worked together to portion corn flour and vegetable fat, as these were the things we would later on distribute. We drove only a very short distance, and came to our first stop of the day. Vumilia IDP Camp, an IDP camp is a place for internally displaced persons, and is essentially the same as a refugee camp, it is just within their own country. These people are here as a result of the 2007 election violence that happened, where people had to flee from their homes, and people were being killed due to the disbelief in the election results.
The people that are living here, and there are 130 families here, were only supposed to be here for 6 months, the governments plan was to have relocated and re-established all of these families by this time. It has now been 3 years and they are still there, though in good news a few days before we left 28 families got relocated.
The living conditions here are terribly sad, the tents the gov’t provided were temporary only supposed to be there for 6 months just like the people, and they have now almost completely diminished. Each tent is supposed to hold 1 family, but a family can range from 4-12 people. They are held together with little scraps of fabric, and are full of holes. The cold weather here is a huge problem, and has cause many many health issues for these people, they also dread the rain as they basically have no protection from it at this point. The Gov’t brings food for these people only once every 3 months, so they must ration it for the whole 3 months, and there is just never enough. They really depend on the food that we distribute when we come to visit them. Very few people here are able to work as well, so Fadhili volunteers have helped to establish programs for the women to weave their own baskets, and make bracelets as a way to sustain themselves. Fadhili volunteers have also started a school for the young children (4-7) because it is too difficult for them to walk the 4km each way to the nearest school, the children 8 and up will make this walk 2 or 4 times a day though. The volunteers have also started a feeding program so that the kids get uji (porridge) every morning and lunch 2x a week. Another volunteer is also in the process of helping put in a water tank and irrigation system. So while we were there we toured around saw the tents, or what is left of them and helped give out the uji in the morning, and helped dig the trenches for the irrigation system, and we distributed the food to the families. They were so grateful and did a thank you song and dance for us, which was very nice.
From there it was time for our own lunch and then to head out to the last and one of the saddest places that I have come across here in Africa, and in all my life. Gioto Garbage Slum.
This garbage dump is located only 10 minutes out of one of Kenyas large towns, Nakuru – it is the main dumping spot for all major hotels and hospitals. There are approximately 700 people that live here amongst the rubbish. The rubbish that has consumed their daily lives, this garbage creates the rooms they sleep in, the food they eat, and the playgrounds for these children. These are the people that have absolutely no where else to go, 98% of the people here are unemployed and 50-60% of them are HIV positive. There is such a high HIV rate for several reasons, girls as young as 10 resort to prostitution to make some sort of money, they will sell themselves for 10 or 15 minutes for only 20 shillings. That is not even 20 cents Canadian. Rape is also a huge, huge problem and risk here, and another way that HIV is spread so quickly here. Another problem that was adding to the high HIV rate was a result of the garbage from the hospital. The people here have hardly anything more than the clothes on their backs, if they even have that. Shoes are almost never seen here and the people here walk over the trash everyday all day with no protection, many of the children were getting poked by infected needles that were disposed by the hospital. Now as soon as rubbish from the hospital comes in, they immediately set it on fire to further prevent this as a means of the spread of HIV here.
The chances that a child born here will live past the age of 4, has an extremely scary statistic of only being 20-30%. They have no access to food or water at all, the only nutrition they receive is whatever they can find from sorting through the trash and eating the rotten left over scraps from the hotels. Their only means of making money beyond selling their bodies or stealing are to search through the trash to find plastic bottles where they can sell 1kg of plastic bottles for a mere 15 shillings, Fadhili has trained the women to weave bags out of discarded plastic bags that they find, as a means of supporting themselves. Fadhili volunteers are also working on educating the women on how to sew, so that hopefully with enough donations they will be able to open a shop one day to sell things out of to sustain themselves, they also hope to do this with the men for establishing a barber shop. We are also working on sponsoring the kids so that they can get sent to boarding schools, so they can escape this sad and harsh life, and actually have a chance to make something of themselves. It is not cheap to sponsor a child though, but they have currently got over 35 kids sponsored, and after talking to some of the girls I realized just how much they really do need to go to school and get away from the dangers here. The government does not want these people here, but they do not do anything to help them get out of this situation. Every 6 months or so they government will send people to kick them all off the land, and then they all just camp out on the side of the road for a few days until the people leave and then just go back to their daily life as it was before.
We distributed the rest of our food here as well, and I have never seen people so desperate for food in their entire lives, it was very eye-opening.
I just want to quickly share 4 stories, so that people at home really understand just how terrible and dangerous it is for the people living here.
There is a lady who suffers from such severe arthritis that she can hardly even move, she is quite elderly (for Kenya at least – the life expectancy rate is only 54) She has mothered 14 children, 4 of these kids were the for sure result of rape, and some of the others may have been as well. She can do absolutely nothing to support herself or her children. It is likely that some of these kids will not live to see their 20th birthdays.
There is a girl here who is only 15 years old, and has just had her 3rd child, all 3 children were the result of her being raped. This girl should be in school.
The boys here have no good male influences as most of the men whose families come here will just disappear as they are so shamed to not be able to support their families, these boys resort to drugs quite often, as drugs are cheaper here than any sort of food is. 1 joint is only 10 - 15 shillings, and 1 loaf of bread is at least 60 shillings.
The most heart breaking story I heard from here was a girl who was only 10 or 11 years old, was kidnapped essentially and locked up in this tiny little shack for a week, where she was raped and beaten repeatedly by 7 different men. This should not be happening anywhere. The girl immediately got sponsored and got sent to boarding school, and is starting to do better but has much physical and mental trauma obviously, and when she was asked what she wanted to be when she grows up she says a Nun.
The things that I saw over this weekend are things that I will never forget, and are things that will stay with me and change the way I am to many different things over the course of my entire life. It is extremely sad and upsetting to read about in a book, or on a blog like this one, but to actually experience it is a whole different thing.
The Sunday after we got back into Nairobi we went on a city excursion to kiss some giraffes at the Karen Blixen Giraffe Centre, and see the elephant orphans at David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust ( I got to see the elephant that I sponsor there but I did not actually get to meet it – so I will be doing that next week) Then we went to play with some Monkeys in Nairobi City Park.
I know this was a long read, but for those of you who made it through thank you for taking the time to read all of this, and I hope it has touched you in at least a fraction of the way that it has touched me. If anyone has anymore questions about any of these places or wants to know how to help, just get a hold of me! Love you and miss you all!
First Few Days of Kenya - Life and Placement in Kajiado
Friday July 1st
I arrived in Kenya by bus on my way back from Uganda where I had rafted the Nile. My bus got into Nairobi, Kenya at about 6am. I was very relieved to see my luggage as someone had tried to steal it off the bus in the middle of the night. Quite scary. Eventually a member of Fadhili (the organization I am volunteering with) came to pick me up, he dropped me off at the homestay of Pastor Reginas I rested there until the other house members woke up. I met two people from London also going to orientation with me, Scott and Sasha. After talking with Scott, I was even more excited for my overland tour, as he had just finished doing the same tour I will be doing.
We left for orientation, and joined the other 45 or so people. We took tea and mandazi, then finally started. Orientation was long but okay, though a little unorganized as I have later come to the conclusion that most things Fadhili does are a little on the unorganized side. They told us the history of Fadhili, told us our placements, and locations, we listened to some of the guest speakers, mainly regarding different opportunities available to us, some of which sounded really really good. (Outreach weekend, Womens Outreach, Medical Camp, Clean-up weekend in Lilong, HIV/AIDS awareness, and Kibera slums)....so many things to do, so little time. Afterwards we went to the supermarked to get whatever it is we might need while we are at our placements. Then eventually after quite a bit of miscommunication and disorganization we split up into matatus and headed off to our homestay locations.
My Location
So, I am located in Maasailand, about 2-4 hours (depending on traffic) south of Nairobi on the outskirts of a town known as Kajiado. We finally arrived after a very long time, getting lost, and turning around only twice. Two other people from my orientation with me in Kajiado as well. David from Maryland, USA and Jetteka from Holland, both doing teaching placements as well.
Our New Home – Mamma Fatuma’s
From what IVHQ had implied, we were under the impressions that we would be living in the middloe of nowhere with traditional Maasai in a Manyatta with bomas, cattle, goats, no running water, and no electricity. This was definitely not the case! I was actually a little disappointed though, as I was really looking forward to all of that craziness. This was really my only expectation about anything on this trip so serves me right I guess, as it really is best to come with no expectations and just go with it and enjoy it. In the end though I really do enjoy living here at Mamma Fatuma’s and am secretly probably quite glad I get some amenities for this month.
So Mamma Fatuma’s, as I just mentioned really is still a very amazing place. We arrived quite late at night, so couldn’t see much we just knew we went through a small town and drove for quite a while out of the town, and there didn’t seem to be much of a road. When we got here we were met by Mamma Fatuma, a truly inspiring and hard working lady, Mommi, and Brad another volunteer doing a medical placement who has already been here for two months or so. Mammas house is very nice actually and decently sized. We do have power most of the time, though no running water. There is supposed to be another volunteer here but is away hiking in the jungle right now, and will be back later.
Saturday July, 2nd
In the morning we also got to meet Mommis two little girls. Djara (5) she is the cutest little thing, but is ill with Malaria right now, though you would never guess with the amount of energy she has. The other daughter is Kamema (11) she is much more shy and quiet than Djara but she is so intelligent. She really wants to be a doctor one day, she said that her favourite thing about Kenya is the education (Mommi and the girls recently moved here from Mali). On Saturday we didn’t do much more than go into town, meet some of Mammas friends, and see her businesses – she really is quite the business lady (her family has a shop, a timber yard, a real estate business, and are opening a car wash shortly) Saturday was also the first day that we got to experience our day toilet. Which is this tiny little tin shack with some pieces of wood for a floor and a very small hole down to the ground. Like I have said previously, I should have amazing thighs after all of these squatter toilets and having to pee in the bush when I will be camping. We only use this toilet during the day because it is placed about 50 feet from the house and with the wildlife it could be too dangerous to use it at night, though I wouldn’t be really worried about it.
Sunday July 3rd
We woke up had our tea and breakfast and Mamma even though she is Muslim, arranged for us to attend an African Church Service, so we walked the hour there, then met up with some of the people that had organized for us to go there. We waited around for a bit, and were quite entertaining to the local kids. When we finally went to church...it was interesting I suppose, we got there for the Swahili service, someone thought it was better for us to not go to the English service which was apparently right before. Parts of church were interesting and really nice, like when the girls from a nearby school all got up and danced and sang in their individual groups, and other parts weren’t so pleasant like when we sat there and got yelled at in Swahili (this is just how they preach though). Church was insanely long....3 hours insanely long! We did get driven back though, so that was nice at least. Sunday other than that was a lazy day and an early night to prepare for our first day of work the next day.
Monday July 4th – My Placement
So I was placed at a school called PBS (Primary Boarding School). This is an all boys school with about 550 students, 120 of them are day scholars the other 430 live there at the school during the 3 month terms. Each boarder pays 4,700 Kenyan Shillings per 3 months for school, food, and board.
I was quite nervous about going into PBS because: 1. It is an all boys school, 2. The children are between 7 and 17 years old, 3. I was the first volunteer to ever go there. Mamma switched it though so that David one of the volunteers I came with, would be placed with me at PBS to make it easier.
So in the morning we had our breakfast and Mamma, David, Jetteka, and I headed out. We dropped Jetteka off first, her school was about a 40 minute walk away, then we walked for another 45 minutes or so, and finally arrived at PBS. When we arrived we met the Headmaster, who was quite pleasant. He really wanted us to feel a part of the school so one of his ways of doing that was to give us traditional Maasai names. Mine is Nashipae, and David’s is Tajeu. Nashipae translates to one who is very happy and brings Joy, thats what I understood of it anyways. Tajeu translates to the one who has come to save. We were taken and introduced to all of the boys and classes, he introduced us with our Maasai names, and English names though he refused to call me Kate as it was not proper to him, so I am Madam Catherine Nashipae. It was a little awkward that he introduced us with our Maasai names and strongly encouraged the boys to use those names. He also told all of the students how he had prayed for so long for volunteers to come and help them, and we were the answers to their prayers. That was quite uncomfortable and was the start of my unease because he seemed to be setting really high expectations of us, which I am afraid I will not be able to reach and therefore disappoint these kids.
We went back to the office again, and discussed which classes we would be best teaching and which subjects. I am supposed to be doing English and Science for Classes 1 – 3. Then he kept talking about all of the issues that this school is facing particularly with water. It seemed then that he was really encouraging us to tell him what kind of things we could contribute to the school. He didn’t directly ask us for anything but it seemed to have a strong implication that we should help out with things financially mainly. He said to fix the water issue they would have to dig a bore-hole, when asked how much this would cost he replied with 3 million Ksh, or a more temporary solution would be too gutter the roofs which would cost 1 million Ksh. He also talked about how the boys needed mattresses as well. In the end David and I went our separate ways to help teach. I went to Class 2, which I was told would be my main class, and the boys seemed really excited for me to be there but they were extremely shy with me. I just watched Madam Grace teach until lunch and then we took Lunch....which consists of Maize and Beans every day, its not the worst thing in the world, but it gets old pretty fast. After lunch I just did some marking, and then David and I walked the hour it takes to get back to Mammas.
That is all for my first couple of days here in Kajiado, Kenya – will write more updates soon. Also I am going on an Outreach Weekend this weekend, and I’m sure will have much to report about that!
Missing everyone, and love you all!
I arrived in Kenya by bus on my way back from Uganda where I had rafted the Nile. My bus got into Nairobi, Kenya at about 6am. I was very relieved to see my luggage as someone had tried to steal it off the bus in the middle of the night. Quite scary. Eventually a member of Fadhili (the organization I am volunteering with) came to pick me up, he dropped me off at the homestay of Pastor Reginas I rested there until the other house members woke up. I met two people from London also going to orientation with me, Scott and Sasha. After talking with Scott, I was even more excited for my overland tour, as he had just finished doing the same tour I will be doing.
We left for orientation, and joined the other 45 or so people. We took tea and mandazi, then finally started. Orientation was long but okay, though a little unorganized as I have later come to the conclusion that most things Fadhili does are a little on the unorganized side. They told us the history of Fadhili, told us our placements, and locations, we listened to some of the guest speakers, mainly regarding different opportunities available to us, some of which sounded really really good. (Outreach weekend, Womens Outreach, Medical Camp, Clean-up weekend in Lilong, HIV/AIDS awareness, and Kibera slums)....so many things to do, so little time. Afterwards we went to the supermarked to get whatever it is we might need while we are at our placements. Then eventually after quite a bit of miscommunication and disorganization we split up into matatus and headed off to our homestay locations.
My Location
So, I am located in Maasailand, about 2-4 hours (depending on traffic) south of Nairobi on the outskirts of a town known as Kajiado. We finally arrived after a very long time, getting lost, and turning around only twice. Two other people from my orientation with me in Kajiado as well. David from Maryland, USA and Jetteka from Holland, both doing teaching placements as well.
Our New Home – Mamma Fatuma’s
From what IVHQ had implied, we were under the impressions that we would be living in the middloe of nowhere with traditional Maasai in a Manyatta with bomas, cattle, goats, no running water, and no electricity. This was definitely not the case! I was actually a little disappointed though, as I was really looking forward to all of that craziness. This was really my only expectation about anything on this trip so serves me right I guess, as it really is best to come with no expectations and just go with it and enjoy it. In the end though I really do enjoy living here at Mamma Fatuma’s and am secretly probably quite glad I get some amenities for this month.
So Mamma Fatuma’s, as I just mentioned really is still a very amazing place. We arrived quite late at night, so couldn’t see much we just knew we went through a small town and drove for quite a while out of the town, and there didn’t seem to be much of a road. When we got here we were met by Mamma Fatuma, a truly inspiring and hard working lady, Mommi, and Brad another volunteer doing a medical placement who has already been here for two months or so. Mammas house is very nice actually and decently sized. We do have power most of the time, though no running water. There is supposed to be another volunteer here but is away hiking in the jungle right now, and will be back later.
Saturday July, 2nd
In the morning we also got to meet Mommis two little girls. Djara (5) she is the cutest little thing, but is ill with Malaria right now, though you would never guess with the amount of energy she has. The other daughter is Kamema (11) she is much more shy and quiet than Djara but she is so intelligent. She really wants to be a doctor one day, she said that her favourite thing about Kenya is the education (Mommi and the girls recently moved here from Mali). On Saturday we didn’t do much more than go into town, meet some of Mammas friends, and see her businesses – she really is quite the business lady (her family has a shop, a timber yard, a real estate business, and are opening a car wash shortly) Saturday was also the first day that we got to experience our day toilet. Which is this tiny little tin shack with some pieces of wood for a floor and a very small hole down to the ground. Like I have said previously, I should have amazing thighs after all of these squatter toilets and having to pee in the bush when I will be camping. We only use this toilet during the day because it is placed about 50 feet from the house and with the wildlife it could be too dangerous to use it at night, though I wouldn’t be really worried about it.
Sunday July 3rd
We woke up had our tea and breakfast and Mamma even though she is Muslim, arranged for us to attend an African Church Service, so we walked the hour there, then met up with some of the people that had organized for us to go there. We waited around for a bit, and were quite entertaining to the local kids. When we finally went to church...it was interesting I suppose, we got there for the Swahili service, someone thought it was better for us to not go to the English service which was apparently right before. Parts of church were interesting and really nice, like when the girls from a nearby school all got up and danced and sang in their individual groups, and other parts weren’t so pleasant like when we sat there and got yelled at in Swahili (this is just how they preach though). Church was insanely long....3 hours insanely long! We did get driven back though, so that was nice at least. Sunday other than that was a lazy day and an early night to prepare for our first day of work the next day.
Monday July 4th – My Placement
So I was placed at a school called PBS (Primary Boarding School). This is an all boys school with about 550 students, 120 of them are day scholars the other 430 live there at the school during the 3 month terms. Each boarder pays 4,700 Kenyan Shillings per 3 months for school, food, and board.
I was quite nervous about going into PBS because: 1. It is an all boys school, 2. The children are between 7 and 17 years old, 3. I was the first volunteer to ever go there. Mamma switched it though so that David one of the volunteers I came with, would be placed with me at PBS to make it easier.
So in the morning we had our breakfast and Mamma, David, Jetteka, and I headed out. We dropped Jetteka off first, her school was about a 40 minute walk away, then we walked for another 45 minutes or so, and finally arrived at PBS. When we arrived we met the Headmaster, who was quite pleasant. He really wanted us to feel a part of the school so one of his ways of doing that was to give us traditional Maasai names. Mine is Nashipae, and David’s is Tajeu. Nashipae translates to one who is very happy and brings Joy, thats what I understood of it anyways. Tajeu translates to the one who has come to save. We were taken and introduced to all of the boys and classes, he introduced us with our Maasai names, and English names though he refused to call me Kate as it was not proper to him, so I am Madam Catherine Nashipae. It was a little awkward that he introduced us with our Maasai names and strongly encouraged the boys to use those names. He also told all of the students how he had prayed for so long for volunteers to come and help them, and we were the answers to their prayers. That was quite uncomfortable and was the start of my unease because he seemed to be setting really high expectations of us, which I am afraid I will not be able to reach and therefore disappoint these kids.
We went back to the office again, and discussed which classes we would be best teaching and which subjects. I am supposed to be doing English and Science for Classes 1 – 3. Then he kept talking about all of the issues that this school is facing particularly with water. It seemed then that he was really encouraging us to tell him what kind of things we could contribute to the school. He didn’t directly ask us for anything but it seemed to have a strong implication that we should help out with things financially mainly. He said to fix the water issue they would have to dig a bore-hole, when asked how much this would cost he replied with 3 million Ksh, or a more temporary solution would be too gutter the roofs which would cost 1 million Ksh. He also talked about how the boys needed mattresses as well. In the end David and I went our separate ways to help teach. I went to Class 2, which I was told would be my main class, and the boys seemed really excited for me to be there but they were extremely shy with me. I just watched Madam Grace teach until lunch and then we took Lunch....which consists of Maize and Beans every day, its not the worst thing in the world, but it gets old pretty fast. After lunch I just did some marking, and then David and I walked the hour it takes to get back to Mammas.
That is all for my first couple of days here in Kajiado, Kenya – will write more updates soon. Also I am going on an Outreach Weekend this weekend, and I’m sure will have much to report about that!
Missing everyone, and love you all!
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Fuck The Paddle - Rafting the Nile in Bujagali Falls, Jinja, Uganda
My time in Tanzania came to an end much too quickly for my liking! :( The time I spent there was truly inspiring and life changing, the people I met were all absolutely fantastic and will certainly be missed dearly! I thought 6 weeks would be long enough and it was long enough to call it home and make a new family, and truly develop a bond with some of the people I met there and fall in love with all of my babies. I would much rather have preferred to stay longer, but I have other exciting things planned so I had to go on. One day I will for sure be back though! My best wishes to everyone I have met in that amazing country! You made the trip thus far just that much better!
My placement was finished on June 24th, so after a lovely but very long dinner out for mine and some of the other peoples last nights at a Mediterranean restaurant, came home went to bed. Then started the horrible ordeal of packing....somehow managed though I think my bag was literally almost bursting at the seams! Then a girl who came at the same time as me named Lindsay (also from Canada and I headed off to the bus station to start our long long journey to Uganda.
Our bus left at about 2PM and about 18 hours later we arrived into Jinja, Uganda around 7AM. The buses weren't so bad, luckily I slept most of the way, only once only having to have Lindsay run after the bus because we almost got left at the Kenyan Border...but all was well! We took a boda and finally arrived into Explorers Campsite into Bujagali Falls, which is absolutely gorgeous! It has dorms, tenting areas, permanent safari tents, and double rooms.
Somehow our reservation had gotten mixed up, but we ended up staying in a safari tent for the first two nights, the view from our little porch was gorgeous as it overlooked the Nile down below and just an amazing view with tones of monkeys and birds over head.
Our first day we just chilled out and didn't do a whole lot, went back into Jinja to exchange money and get a smoothie and wander around.
Monday morning we woke up early, and prepared for our full day of rafting the Nile that we had ahead of us. We got on a bus to go meet up with the rest of the rafters then drove for 40 minutes or so to our take off point. After we did our safety briefing on land we divided into groups and got into our rafts. In my raft we only had 5 all together...max is 9. It was Lindsay, I, and two girls traveling separately but both from the states and our guide Jeffrey (who was continually saying Happy Days! and Fuck the Paddle!-in regards to whether or not we should try and hold on to the paddle in the case of us flipping)! Once in the water we did our in water safety briefing and training, of showing us how to paddle and doing practice flips and explaining what to do when we flip in the rapids. Then off we went.....we were the first group to do the first "rapid" which is actually a smallish waterfall...haha and amazingly we didn't flip but it was a good fun start.
There are 8 sets of rapids all together...6 big ones in my opinion. Our raft ended up flipping on 4 of these rapids! The first couple times are a little terrifying because you get caught under the boat and you get sucked back from the undercurrent and wave after wave topples over you. Sounds scary than it was I think...ha I was pretty much just going off of adrenaline the whole time, but thus far on my trip my fear of water has diminished substantially! In between rapids we would just float down the river chilling...i would occasionally get pushed in ha...but it was okay because according to our guide the crocs here were vegetarian......haha I have found that locals all love to lie and joke, you never really know what to believe....obviously he was joking there. In reality there were not really any worries of hippos or crocs because the water is to rough in most spots for them. During the breaks between rapids we would also pick up the 3 boys who were river boarding, essentially going down these Class 5 rapids, on a boogie board. Crazy I thought at first, but then realized at the end I had pretty much gone down every rapid without even a boogie board because we were flipped in so many times. On our last set of rapids....this is the set that nearly every boat flips on...we managed to actually be one of the only groups to make it through............except for me....because when we were nearly vertical on a wave. I ended up flipping out of the boat backwards, only to be crushed by waves and then have the raft run over me again lmao! This was the only time though that I needed to get one of the safety kayakers to come rescue me! ( The guides and safety kayakers were absolutely amazing, and it is crazy the things that they can do! Some of them have even been asked to go and train for the Olympics...so we knew we were definitely in safe hands)
After all the rafting was said and done, we were given an amazing supper all you can eat and all you can drink! Here we were dubbed the swim team, because we essentially did swim down the Nile through the Class 5 rapids lol, my guide also had to kindly point out that I had flipped/fallen in the most as well! HA! It was great fun!
After we came back to rest, and take some tylenol for our now sore joints!
Tuesday we did pretty much nothing all day and then went on a sunset cruise all you can eat all you can drink again! Ha and had an absolute blast and met up with some more cool people. Afterwards we had to say goodbye to over river board friends Jason and Bryan, but went back to the campsite and met lots of other awesome people had a really fun night, and went for a midnight swim in the Nile....pretty amazing I won't lie!
Wednesday was a day of recovery and relaxing, and now today is Thursday, so we will be checking out and Lindsay wants to go Bunjee Jumping!
Then on to another bus adventure, Lindsay back to Arusha, TZ...myself to Nairobi, Kenya....though I will be arriving at about 5:30AM only to start orientation at 9:30AM a mere 4 hours later. Then Saturday I will be off to my Maasai village to be teaching for the month! Will try and get some sort of internet sometime, though I am not sure when!
For everyone who reads this, I hope you are all having an awesome summer....have a blast at C-fest for those of you who are going, sad I can't be there! Love you and miss you all :)
My placement was finished on June 24th, so after a lovely but very long dinner out for mine and some of the other peoples last nights at a Mediterranean restaurant, came home went to bed. Then started the horrible ordeal of packing....somehow managed though I think my bag was literally almost bursting at the seams! Then a girl who came at the same time as me named Lindsay (also from Canada and I headed off to the bus station to start our long long journey to Uganda.
Our bus left at about 2PM and about 18 hours later we arrived into Jinja, Uganda around 7AM. The buses weren't so bad, luckily I slept most of the way, only once only having to have Lindsay run after the bus because we almost got left at the Kenyan Border...but all was well! We took a boda and finally arrived into Explorers Campsite into Bujagali Falls, which is absolutely gorgeous! It has dorms, tenting areas, permanent safari tents, and double rooms.
Somehow our reservation had gotten mixed up, but we ended up staying in a safari tent for the first two nights, the view from our little porch was gorgeous as it overlooked the Nile down below and just an amazing view with tones of monkeys and birds over head.
Our first day we just chilled out and didn't do a whole lot, went back into Jinja to exchange money and get a smoothie and wander around.
Monday morning we woke up early, and prepared for our full day of rafting the Nile that we had ahead of us. We got on a bus to go meet up with the rest of the rafters then drove for 40 minutes or so to our take off point. After we did our safety briefing on land we divided into groups and got into our rafts. In my raft we only had 5 all together...max is 9. It was Lindsay, I, and two girls traveling separately but both from the states and our guide Jeffrey (who was continually saying Happy Days! and Fuck the Paddle!-in regards to whether or not we should try and hold on to the paddle in the case of us flipping)! Once in the water we did our in water safety briefing and training, of showing us how to paddle and doing practice flips and explaining what to do when we flip in the rapids. Then off we went.....we were the first group to do the first "rapid" which is actually a smallish waterfall...haha and amazingly we didn't flip but it was a good fun start.
There are 8 sets of rapids all together...6 big ones in my opinion. Our raft ended up flipping on 4 of these rapids! The first couple times are a little terrifying because you get caught under the boat and you get sucked back from the undercurrent and wave after wave topples over you. Sounds scary than it was I think...ha I was pretty much just going off of adrenaline the whole time, but thus far on my trip my fear of water has diminished substantially! In between rapids we would just float down the river chilling...i would occasionally get pushed in ha...but it was okay because according to our guide the crocs here were vegetarian......haha I have found that locals all love to lie and joke, you never really know what to believe....obviously he was joking there. In reality there were not really any worries of hippos or crocs because the water is to rough in most spots for them. During the breaks between rapids we would also pick up the 3 boys who were river boarding, essentially going down these Class 5 rapids, on a boogie board. Crazy I thought at first, but then realized at the end I had pretty much gone down every rapid without even a boogie board because we were flipped in so many times. On our last set of rapids....this is the set that nearly every boat flips on...we managed to actually be one of the only groups to make it through............except for me....because when we were nearly vertical on a wave. I ended up flipping out of the boat backwards, only to be crushed by waves and then have the raft run over me again lmao! This was the only time though that I needed to get one of the safety kayakers to come rescue me! ( The guides and safety kayakers were absolutely amazing, and it is crazy the things that they can do! Some of them have even been asked to go and train for the Olympics...so we knew we were definitely in safe hands)
After all the rafting was said and done, we were given an amazing supper all you can eat and all you can drink! Here we were dubbed the swim team, because we essentially did swim down the Nile through the Class 5 rapids lol, my guide also had to kindly point out that I had flipped/fallen in the most as well! HA! It was great fun!
After we came back to rest, and take some tylenol for our now sore joints!
Tuesday we did pretty much nothing all day and then went on a sunset cruise all you can eat all you can drink again! Ha and had an absolute blast and met up with some more cool people. Afterwards we had to say goodbye to over river board friends Jason and Bryan, but went back to the campsite and met lots of other awesome people had a really fun night, and went for a midnight swim in the Nile....pretty amazing I won't lie!
Wednesday was a day of recovery and relaxing, and now today is Thursday, so we will be checking out and Lindsay wants to go Bunjee Jumping!
Then on to another bus adventure, Lindsay back to Arusha, TZ...myself to Nairobi, Kenya....though I will be arriving at about 5:30AM only to start orientation at 9:30AM a mere 4 hours later. Then Saturday I will be off to my Maasai village to be teaching for the month! Will try and get some sort of internet sometime, though I am not sure when!
For everyone who reads this, I hope you are all having an awesome summer....have a blast at C-fest for those of you who are going, sad I can't be there! Love you and miss you all :)
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Diani (Dee-on-nee) Beach, Mombasa - Kenya
So a week ago my friend Megan from Australia and I decided to do a weekend trip to Mombasa Kenya quite out of the blue! So we booked our tickets packed and off we went.
Here is the synopsis of how our adventures went there!
We left the house at 5:40AM on Friday to head to the bus, while waiting for the bus we met up with an American girl named Alli from Utah also traveling to Mombasa. Our bus left at 6:30 and then we ran into trouble just before 8AM. We had stopped at a little tiny bus station to drop off some people and as we were leaving there was a large snap! So back into the bus station we rolled, turns out we had snapped one of our wheel axles and needed to have both things that attach the wheel to the axle replaced. So we ended up waiting there a total of 8 hours. A very hot uncomfortable 8 hours that is, ha slightly irritating when the whole trip was supposed to take 8 hours, either way TIA This is Africa, it is to be expected with african transportation! Once we finally got going again it was smooth sailing, after everything was said and done we didn't end up in Mombasa until around 12. Then we had to get a tuk tuk and then take a ferry and then thank god we met the kindest man in the world, or I feel like we wouldn't have made it out alive through the next part.
We met this man named Masai who was just the happiest and friendliest old man, he was also going to Ukunda Junction...where our final destination was. So luckily we just tagged along with him, we had to negotiate with a taxi after the boda boda (motorcycle) drivers continued to stalk us like lions, and after dealing with angry probably drunk matatu (mini van) drivers. Masai was so helpful, he made sure that we got all the way to our campsite first before going to his destination, and was just so amazing haha! He was a priest but he had about 4 other degrees and seemed to do everything, he told us a bit about his life and it seemed like he had certainly gone through some hard spots in his life, it was amazing he could be so light hearted and happy with life after some of his troubles. In the end we finally ended up getting into our cottage at about 2 in the morning! And pretty much collapsed into our bed. Our cottage was actually really nice for the amount we paid for it 2,500Ksh (80Ksh = 1CND $)
Day 1
I woke up pretty early and went to read on our porch only to get completely immersed in that monkeys that were swinging through the trees right above me! When we actually decided to do something we walked down to a grocery store and bought our selves some groceries for breakfast, and just explored down the beach! Later on we went back to the grocery store and bought ourselves a feast of cheese and lunch meat for our lupper! Then it was back to the beach and hanging out in the cottage. Later in the evening around 9:30 we went down the beach to a bar and restaurant called Forty Theives and ate there, and then stayed and hang out with some new people we had met!
Day 2
I woke up in the morning and watched the monkeys again, and decided to give them peanuts. So I went to wake up Megan who had been bummed she didn't see them the morning before, and I not so intelligently brought out a whole bag of peanuts with me! So as soon as I sat down, the big mamma monkey literally jumped on me and started trying to grab my bag of peanuts ahaha and then it punched me before I basically pushed it off me and we ran laughing and screaming back into the cottage because it was trying to follow us into the cottage through the door, ahaha so in a sense me and a monkey had a fair fight. Afterwards we made up and I fed him from my hand! I even got a video of it! That was my monkey adventure!
We went to the beach again, and re met up with our friend Alli who had sort of disappeared all the day before. So we just hung out on the beach, had lunch again, and then we went and rode camels and explored some tide pools! We then for supper around 7 went to this restaurant called Ali Barbour's Cave Restaurant, which was the most amazing restaurant I have legitimately ever been to in my life! It was actually down tucked away into natural caves that hadn't been restored or anything just fixed with a proper floor and lighting and fixtures put in! The cave was approximately 180,000 years old they said, it was also an open cave so there was no roof to it so if you looked up, you were just looking up at the stars! Which are amazing here by the way! The food was also absolutely incredible, it was all around just great! We were stuffed and had a somewhat early night after that!
Day 3
We woke up to watch the sunrise and that was really nice, except that I didn't fall back asleep later. So I just watched the monkeys yet again haha! We met up with Alli again, and decided to go snorkeling so we went out on this tiny little boat out to the reefs and went snorkeling! It was pretty awesome, and really cheap less than 4 dollars for 2 and a half hours! Afterwards we just had lunch, packed up and headed back to Mombasa on the ferry. Here we tried finding a place to stay and ended up only being able to stay at the sketchiest looking hotel ever, the entrance was actually a dilapitated building with no lights and garbage! Ha the rooms weren't nearly as bad though! The three of us ended up sleeping in one bed though lol because none of us wanted to get a single room to ourselves!
We had ended up staying the extra day just because we had got no time in Mombasa because of our horrendous 21 hour journey there! We left early tuesday morning and made it back to Arusha before supper! So it was only a 10 hour drive that time!
Unfortunately I had to come home to really upsetting news, I found out that my baby at Cradle, Riziki had died Sunday night, I took it quite hard because it was just such an upsetting situation and her whole story was quite sad. It was much more difficult because although she had been sick before she started getting much better and putting weight on, so we all thought she was in the clear! It really is heart breaking, but she may be better off where she is now then being a sick little girl never to be adopted and suffer her way through orphanage to orphanage her whole life. She was loved dearly by the people at Cradle, and its the only saving grace that she was given so much love and good care while she was here with us.
R.I.P Riziki
Here is the synopsis of how our adventures went there!
We left the house at 5:40AM on Friday to head to the bus, while waiting for the bus we met up with an American girl named Alli from Utah also traveling to Mombasa. Our bus left at 6:30 and then we ran into trouble just before 8AM. We had stopped at a little tiny bus station to drop off some people and as we were leaving there was a large snap! So back into the bus station we rolled, turns out we had snapped one of our wheel axles and needed to have both things that attach the wheel to the axle replaced. So we ended up waiting there a total of 8 hours. A very hot uncomfortable 8 hours that is, ha slightly irritating when the whole trip was supposed to take 8 hours, either way TIA This is Africa, it is to be expected with african transportation! Once we finally got going again it was smooth sailing, after everything was said and done we didn't end up in Mombasa until around 12. Then we had to get a tuk tuk and then take a ferry and then thank god we met the kindest man in the world, or I feel like we wouldn't have made it out alive through the next part.
We met this man named Masai who was just the happiest and friendliest old man, he was also going to Ukunda Junction...where our final destination was. So luckily we just tagged along with him, we had to negotiate with a taxi after the boda boda (motorcycle) drivers continued to stalk us like lions, and after dealing with angry probably drunk matatu (mini van) drivers. Masai was so helpful, he made sure that we got all the way to our campsite first before going to his destination, and was just so amazing haha! He was a priest but he had about 4 other degrees and seemed to do everything, he told us a bit about his life and it seemed like he had certainly gone through some hard spots in his life, it was amazing he could be so light hearted and happy with life after some of his troubles. In the end we finally ended up getting into our cottage at about 2 in the morning! And pretty much collapsed into our bed. Our cottage was actually really nice for the amount we paid for it 2,500Ksh (80Ksh = 1CND $)
Day 1
I woke up pretty early and went to read on our porch only to get completely immersed in that monkeys that were swinging through the trees right above me! When we actually decided to do something we walked down to a grocery store and bought our selves some groceries for breakfast, and just explored down the beach! Later on we went back to the grocery store and bought ourselves a feast of cheese and lunch meat for our lupper! Then it was back to the beach and hanging out in the cottage. Later in the evening around 9:30 we went down the beach to a bar and restaurant called Forty Theives and ate there, and then stayed and hang out with some new people we had met!
Day 2
I woke up in the morning and watched the monkeys again, and decided to give them peanuts. So I went to wake up Megan who had been bummed she didn't see them the morning before, and I not so intelligently brought out a whole bag of peanuts with me! So as soon as I sat down, the big mamma monkey literally jumped on me and started trying to grab my bag of peanuts ahaha and then it punched me before I basically pushed it off me and we ran laughing and screaming back into the cottage because it was trying to follow us into the cottage through the door, ahaha so in a sense me and a monkey had a fair fight. Afterwards we made up and I fed him from my hand! I even got a video of it! That was my monkey adventure!
We went to the beach again, and re met up with our friend Alli who had sort of disappeared all the day before. So we just hung out on the beach, had lunch again, and then we went and rode camels and explored some tide pools! We then for supper around 7 went to this restaurant called Ali Barbour's Cave Restaurant, which was the most amazing restaurant I have legitimately ever been to in my life! It was actually down tucked away into natural caves that hadn't been restored or anything just fixed with a proper floor and lighting and fixtures put in! The cave was approximately 180,000 years old they said, it was also an open cave so there was no roof to it so if you looked up, you were just looking up at the stars! Which are amazing here by the way! The food was also absolutely incredible, it was all around just great! We were stuffed and had a somewhat early night after that!
Day 3
We woke up to watch the sunrise and that was really nice, except that I didn't fall back asleep later. So I just watched the monkeys yet again haha! We met up with Alli again, and decided to go snorkeling so we went out on this tiny little boat out to the reefs and went snorkeling! It was pretty awesome, and really cheap less than 4 dollars for 2 and a half hours! Afterwards we just had lunch, packed up and headed back to Mombasa on the ferry. Here we tried finding a place to stay and ended up only being able to stay at the sketchiest looking hotel ever, the entrance was actually a dilapitated building with no lights and garbage! Ha the rooms weren't nearly as bad though! The three of us ended up sleeping in one bed though lol because none of us wanted to get a single room to ourselves!
We had ended up staying the extra day just because we had got no time in Mombasa because of our horrendous 21 hour journey there! We left early tuesday morning and made it back to Arusha before supper! So it was only a 10 hour drive that time!
Unfortunately I had to come home to really upsetting news, I found out that my baby at Cradle, Riziki had died Sunday night, I took it quite hard because it was just such an upsetting situation and her whole story was quite sad. It was much more difficult because although she had been sick before she started getting much better and putting weight on, so we all thought she was in the clear! It really is heart breaking, but she may be better off where she is now then being a sick little girl never to be adopted and suffer her way through orphanage to orphanage her whole life. She was loved dearly by the people at Cradle, and its the only saving grace that she was given so much love and good care while she was here with us.
R.I.P Riziki
Monday, 13 June 2011
Waterfalls in Arusha and Coffee on Kilimanjaro
Alright so I had a fairly busy weekend this past weekend!
Friday night, nearly the whole house decided to go to a restaurant because it was the start of 8 peoples last weekend here, so we went out to this place called TGTs. Its very much so a mzungu place, and I won't lie its weird being around a lot of other white people besides the ones in the house, lol i've gotten used to being the minority here, and I really don't mind it at all actually. So there was 22 of us that went, and that means we took 3 cabs only, 7 people to a car haha thats how we do it here in TZ. The max i've had in my cab was 10 at a time, they literally look like little clown cars when we all pile out, but its good fun!
Saturday we decided to go out on a waterfall hike. There was me, sarah, rylee, jz, emilie, and bryan. It wasn't that much of a hike, about 2.5 hours each way, at first you just walk down a side street in town, and work your way into the foothills and through the little villages in the foothills. Words really can not describe how gorgeous it was with nearly all clear sunny skies and seeing the different hills and the terrain and the terracing into the hills, and all of the local children. In general words will never be able to describe what my time here in Africa has been like.
After hiking through the villages we reached the point where we had to climb all the way down to the river, to where the bottom of the falls actually are. The climb down was sooo muddy and slippery haha it was a little bit sketchy but in the end it was really fun I thought, haha and you all know how I like the mud anyways so I really didn't mind! Once we were at the river, we had to walk for quite a ways down the river so we switched into flip flops and walked up stream. The funniest part about it was how clean my feet were after being in the water, definitely the cleanest they have been since i've got here, it also flushed out all of the dried up blood under my big toes from when I climbed Meru, but then they looked kind of gross and yellow and the left one has a big air pocket in it. Lol I still am not sure if it will fall off! (Also since the hike, the blood pooled under my toenails has mostly returned! Goody! I finally painted them, because people in the house we're really grossed out haha!
Regardless the walk through the water and up stream was so pretty, it looked like straight out of a movie with high walls of rock and the greenest vegetation all the way up, and the sun coming through the trees and sparkling off the water. We reached the waterfall and we could feel the pressure of it from the spray that was coming off of the fall. We took our pictures and enjoyed the scenery and watched some crazy locals go swimming in the freezing water, then we headed back but not before enjoying our pb and j sandwiches on some of the rocks by the river. The walk back was just as amazing, the only downfall was that my left hip started acting up again from when I did something to it climbing Meru.
I'm really happy I did it though, because it was just yet another reminder of the fact that, there is so much more to Africa than a lion in the savannah.
Sunday brought more hiking with it!
We woke up bright and early and took a bus to Moshi, which takes about 2 hours or a little less, so we arrived just before10. Then we met our tour guide after a little hassle about mis communication and language barriers haha but all was good. We took a dala dala up through the foothills of Kilimanjaro and then arrived, and we walked for maybe another 45 minutes through little paths through villages and coffee fields. We arrived at a nicely constructed hut where we were served fresh coffee and had a little break before starting on our real tour.
Our guide showed us the whole process of what goes into making your daily cup of coffee from starbucks ( yes starbucks does buy free trade coffee and they do buy coffee from Moshi) He explained the differences in different types of coffee and how they make them differently. At the end of it all, we got some fresh fresh fresh coffee, and i'm not a huge coffee drinker but it was good coffee! After the tour, we got served a very delicious lunch of banana soup, rice, pilau, beef, spinach, and bananas. And more coffee of course!
We walked back down to the dala dala and then back into town. While we waited for our bus we got a milkshake at this delicious deli!
The bus ride home was an adventure in itself because we got on a different bus than the one we had come with. So we were puttering along, and we hit some speed bumps really fast and thought it was really kind of funny until the bus broke down right after. So we waited on the bus for 30-40 minutes, and they seemed to have fixed so we started again though the bus really didn't sound very healthy, and maybe 15 minutes later it broke down again, but started smoking at this point, so they made us all get off and wait on the side of the road beside a corn field hahaha! Then one of the guys I was with, flagged down another bus and we got on that one! Except it was all full obviously so we just had to sit on the floor in the aisle, I personally found the whole thing really amusing but everyone else not as much!
All in all it was a great weekend, though it was busy and I didn't leave much time to just relax...or do laundry ha ooops! It was just a sliver of everything that Africa has to offer, even just that Tanzania has to offer.
Hope everyone is doing well.
Friday night, nearly the whole house decided to go to a restaurant because it was the start of 8 peoples last weekend here, so we went out to this place called TGTs. Its very much so a mzungu place, and I won't lie its weird being around a lot of other white people besides the ones in the house, lol i've gotten used to being the minority here, and I really don't mind it at all actually. So there was 22 of us that went, and that means we took 3 cabs only, 7 people to a car haha thats how we do it here in TZ. The max i've had in my cab was 10 at a time, they literally look like little clown cars when we all pile out, but its good fun!
Saturday we decided to go out on a waterfall hike. There was me, sarah, rylee, jz, emilie, and bryan. It wasn't that much of a hike, about 2.5 hours each way, at first you just walk down a side street in town, and work your way into the foothills and through the little villages in the foothills. Words really can not describe how gorgeous it was with nearly all clear sunny skies and seeing the different hills and the terrain and the terracing into the hills, and all of the local children. In general words will never be able to describe what my time here in Africa has been like.
After hiking through the villages we reached the point where we had to climb all the way down to the river, to where the bottom of the falls actually are. The climb down was sooo muddy and slippery haha it was a little bit sketchy but in the end it was really fun I thought, haha and you all know how I like the mud anyways so I really didn't mind! Once we were at the river, we had to walk for quite a ways down the river so we switched into flip flops and walked up stream. The funniest part about it was how clean my feet were after being in the water, definitely the cleanest they have been since i've got here, it also flushed out all of the dried up blood under my big toes from when I climbed Meru, but then they looked kind of gross and yellow and the left one has a big air pocket in it. Lol I still am not sure if it will fall off! (Also since the hike, the blood pooled under my toenails has mostly returned! Goody! I finally painted them, because people in the house we're really grossed out haha!
Regardless the walk through the water and up stream was so pretty, it looked like straight out of a movie with high walls of rock and the greenest vegetation all the way up, and the sun coming through the trees and sparkling off the water. We reached the waterfall and we could feel the pressure of it from the spray that was coming off of the fall. We took our pictures and enjoyed the scenery and watched some crazy locals go swimming in the freezing water, then we headed back but not before enjoying our pb and j sandwiches on some of the rocks by the river. The walk back was just as amazing, the only downfall was that my left hip started acting up again from when I did something to it climbing Meru.
I'm really happy I did it though, because it was just yet another reminder of the fact that, there is so much more to Africa than a lion in the savannah.
Sunday brought more hiking with it!
We woke up bright and early and took a bus to Moshi, which takes about 2 hours or a little less, so we arrived just before10. Then we met our tour guide after a little hassle about mis communication and language barriers haha but all was good. We took a dala dala up through the foothills of Kilimanjaro and then arrived, and we walked for maybe another 45 minutes through little paths through villages and coffee fields. We arrived at a nicely constructed hut where we were served fresh coffee and had a little break before starting on our real tour.
Our guide showed us the whole process of what goes into making your daily cup of coffee from starbucks ( yes starbucks does buy free trade coffee and they do buy coffee from Moshi) He explained the differences in different types of coffee and how they make them differently. At the end of it all, we got some fresh fresh fresh coffee, and i'm not a huge coffee drinker but it was good coffee! After the tour, we got served a very delicious lunch of banana soup, rice, pilau, beef, spinach, and bananas. And more coffee of course!
We walked back down to the dala dala and then back into town. While we waited for our bus we got a milkshake at this delicious deli!
The bus ride home was an adventure in itself because we got on a different bus than the one we had come with. So we were puttering along, and we hit some speed bumps really fast and thought it was really kind of funny until the bus broke down right after. So we waited on the bus for 30-40 minutes, and they seemed to have fixed so we started again though the bus really didn't sound very healthy, and maybe 15 minutes later it broke down again, but started smoking at this point, so they made us all get off and wait on the side of the road beside a corn field hahaha! Then one of the guys I was with, flagged down another bus and we got on that one! Except it was all full obviously so we just had to sit on the floor in the aisle, I personally found the whole thing really amusing but everyone else not as much!
All in all it was a great weekend, though it was busy and I didn't leave much time to just relax...or do laundry ha ooops! It was just a sliver of everything that Africa has to offer, even just that Tanzania has to offer.
Hope everyone is doing well.
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