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.
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Babies, Frustrations, Experiences, and Future Plans
Well I'll give everyone a little update on what is new, though it doesn't seem to be much, as i've pretty much adjusted and consider this home and go day by day about my new daily life.
This last weekend I was fairly lazy haha, Saturday we decided to go to Moshi which is a town about an hour or two away, and we really mostly just walked around and ate food...but the food was delicious and cheap as it always seems to be. We got to see an okay view of Kili, but i'd already seen it from Meru and I see it everyday that is clear from where the dala dala stops to drop me off at cradle. It was just a nice little day trip to get out of the house, and to get out of Arusha for a bit.
Sunday we had hopes of going swimming but the weather really just wasn't cooperating, so we were all pretty lazy that day. I don't remember doing a whole lot of anything. Just dealt with some of the good old drama that can come with living in a house that is similar to the show Big Brother's House. We had a girl who was supposed to be here for 6 weeks come and was gone after 5 days, sad thing really because she's missing out big time!
My update on Riziki the sick little baby, is mostly good news. She is now out of the hospital and back at cradle, shes also gained a little little bit of weight. We won't find out for a month if she for sure is HIV+ or not, but the rapid test does show that she has the HIV antibodies, though this sometimes happens with infants and it doesn't mean that she is for sure +. The hole in her heart will possibly be operable but not until she is a much older girl, around 12 years old they think. Right now the chances of her making it to that age are very slim though. She is a tough little girl and I have much hope that she will make it through. For now we are just extra careful with her and feeding her every 2 hours even through the night. She still does turn blue sometimes though. Also the doctors said that sometimes these kinds of holes will fix themselves, so fingers crossed that she will be one of those lucky patients.
As for other news at Cradle: 2 of our other babies got sent to another orphanage today. They are both quite sad stories, and very frustrating!
Pendo was abandoned I believe as a baby, and she was the one baby at Cradle who for sure is HIV+ and the poor little thing, is always so sick, and will most likely never get adopted. The procedures for adopting an abandoned baby is much more difficult than adopting a baby who has parents or a parent that can sign the rights over. This means that most people won't even get attached to an abandoned baby to adopt because its so hard emotionally when they find out that they can't have the baby over some technicallity.
James also was sent to another orphanage today, the same one Pendo was taken too. James's mamma had him quite young probably 15 or 16, and he was most likely the result of rape or prostitution. I believe family members took him in for the first few years because mom couldn't do it. Then at 18 she got pregnant again, and had Clara. I think it was at this point that she decided she just couldn't handle it, and for whatever her reasons may have been. She decided she was going to sell both James and Clara. Here in Africa most people believe in spirits and are very traditional in their ways, some much more than others. So, in some places they leave babies and children out to die, or they will throw them off a rock or kill them somehow and these childrens bodies being sacrificed is meant to keep the gods happy. I am not totally educated on that, but that is the general idea of what I understood so correct me if I am wrong. Either way James and Clara were lucky enough to have community members stop that from happening and bring them to cradle. Though they were essentially abandoned at Cradle, and didnt have any parents to sign them over. So there are 2 seperate families who both want to adopt James and Clara together, and I think they had started the tedious adoption process, when last week an eldery lady came and said that she was their bibi (grandma). She wanted to take James back with her but for whatever reason changed her mind. After this she signed something saying that they can't be adopted, even though shes not planning on taking them. This is the part that I don't understand and have alot of frustration over, because there were these 2 bright children who had families that wanted to take them together, and now they will forever be stuck in an orphanage and shipped from place to place, and the siblings will most likely be permanently seperated. So unfortunately because Cradle can only take them until the age of 3. James had reached that age, and he had to go to the other orphanage. It's truly frustrating, and extremely upsetting. There will always be things in the world that you don't agree with though, and that just don't seem right.
It is absolutely crazy to me that I have been here in Africa for a month, it really doesn't feel like it, but at the same time it does feel like home, and I am happy calling it that!
Yesterday (Tuesday) I went to another school I think called Jithadia with some of the other people in the house, because they had planned a field trip for their students (ages5-9 I would say) so they needed extra hands and it sounded like a lot of fun. They had set up a mini safari walk for the kids, so we all took dala dalas out to Arusha National Park, an hour and a bit away. For most of these kids that is the farthest they had ever been from home, and the longest dala dala ride...this proved itself when one of the little ones got car sick and threw up. Poor thing :( Regardless all of the kids were sooo excited, and it was great to see.
However we ran into some trouble when we got to the park gates, because previously the girls had went to check rates and the sign said that the entrance fee for East Africans was 1500Tsh (1CND $) and non East Africans it was 35US$. In order to work here we all have residents, and our passports say that we are actual residents of TZ so we assumed we would be charged the resident price. They didn't agree though, they said we had to be a citizen, and we were just residents. Soooo it really sucked because none of us actually got to go in then, because we didn't bring enough money with us. It was really upsetting, I felt terrible for the girls who had organized it and were so looking forward to spending the day with their kids. So the kids went in, and hopefully had a great day and we just went back to town walked around and tried some local food, so we still made a good out of a bad situation.
I was planning a trip to Uganda for the end of the month, after my program is done here and before my program starts in Kenya. We are suppposed to go rafting down the nile, and I was really really looking forward to it. However there is now some political stuff going on there, and we may not be able to go. So I was really bummed, but i'm just going to see how everything is before I leave and decide then. If I can't do Uganda I will just go to Mombasa or around there somewhere on the Kenyan coast. So still definitely not a bad time!
I am starting to get very sad, because a lot of my friends who I came with in the same orientation and many of the others I have become very close with are leaving me this weekend or have just left or are leaving really soon! It makes me really sad actually, because everyone I have met here is amazing!
Well i'm off for now to maybe nap before our Wine, Cheese, and Crepe dinner at a restaurant that is supposed to be great, and then to Empire the Karaoke Bar!
Missing you guys back at home, i've been wondering what you all are up to, and what I would have been up to this summer if I hadn't come here. Though I wouldn't change my mind for a second, this may be the best decision i've ever made.....its up there anyways, and I already have memories that will last a life time!
This last weekend I was fairly lazy haha, Saturday we decided to go to Moshi which is a town about an hour or two away, and we really mostly just walked around and ate food...but the food was delicious and cheap as it always seems to be. We got to see an okay view of Kili, but i'd already seen it from Meru and I see it everyday that is clear from where the dala dala stops to drop me off at cradle. It was just a nice little day trip to get out of the house, and to get out of Arusha for a bit.
Sunday we had hopes of going swimming but the weather really just wasn't cooperating, so we were all pretty lazy that day. I don't remember doing a whole lot of anything. Just dealt with some of the good old drama that can come with living in a house that is similar to the show Big Brother's House. We had a girl who was supposed to be here for 6 weeks come and was gone after 5 days, sad thing really because she's missing out big time!
My update on Riziki the sick little baby, is mostly good news. She is now out of the hospital and back at cradle, shes also gained a little little bit of weight. We won't find out for a month if she for sure is HIV+ or not, but the rapid test does show that she has the HIV antibodies, though this sometimes happens with infants and it doesn't mean that she is for sure +. The hole in her heart will possibly be operable but not until she is a much older girl, around 12 years old they think. Right now the chances of her making it to that age are very slim though. She is a tough little girl and I have much hope that she will make it through. For now we are just extra careful with her and feeding her every 2 hours even through the night. She still does turn blue sometimes though. Also the doctors said that sometimes these kinds of holes will fix themselves, so fingers crossed that she will be one of those lucky patients.
As for other news at Cradle: 2 of our other babies got sent to another orphanage today. They are both quite sad stories, and very frustrating!
Pendo was abandoned I believe as a baby, and she was the one baby at Cradle who for sure is HIV+ and the poor little thing, is always so sick, and will most likely never get adopted. The procedures for adopting an abandoned baby is much more difficult than adopting a baby who has parents or a parent that can sign the rights over. This means that most people won't even get attached to an abandoned baby to adopt because its so hard emotionally when they find out that they can't have the baby over some technicallity.
James also was sent to another orphanage today, the same one Pendo was taken too. James's mamma had him quite young probably 15 or 16, and he was most likely the result of rape or prostitution. I believe family members took him in for the first few years because mom couldn't do it. Then at 18 she got pregnant again, and had Clara. I think it was at this point that she decided she just couldn't handle it, and for whatever her reasons may have been. She decided she was going to sell both James and Clara. Here in Africa most people believe in spirits and are very traditional in their ways, some much more than others. So, in some places they leave babies and children out to die, or they will throw them off a rock or kill them somehow and these childrens bodies being sacrificed is meant to keep the gods happy. I am not totally educated on that, but that is the general idea of what I understood so correct me if I am wrong. Either way James and Clara were lucky enough to have community members stop that from happening and bring them to cradle. Though they were essentially abandoned at Cradle, and didnt have any parents to sign them over. So there are 2 seperate families who both want to adopt James and Clara together, and I think they had started the tedious adoption process, when last week an eldery lady came and said that she was their bibi (grandma). She wanted to take James back with her but for whatever reason changed her mind. After this she signed something saying that they can't be adopted, even though shes not planning on taking them. This is the part that I don't understand and have alot of frustration over, because there were these 2 bright children who had families that wanted to take them together, and now they will forever be stuck in an orphanage and shipped from place to place, and the siblings will most likely be permanently seperated. So unfortunately because Cradle can only take them until the age of 3. James had reached that age, and he had to go to the other orphanage. It's truly frustrating, and extremely upsetting. There will always be things in the world that you don't agree with though, and that just don't seem right.
It is absolutely crazy to me that I have been here in Africa for a month, it really doesn't feel like it, but at the same time it does feel like home, and I am happy calling it that!
Yesterday (Tuesday) I went to another school I think called Jithadia with some of the other people in the house, because they had planned a field trip for their students (ages5-9 I would say) so they needed extra hands and it sounded like a lot of fun. They had set up a mini safari walk for the kids, so we all took dala dalas out to Arusha National Park, an hour and a bit away. For most of these kids that is the farthest they had ever been from home, and the longest dala dala ride...this proved itself when one of the little ones got car sick and threw up. Poor thing :( Regardless all of the kids were sooo excited, and it was great to see.
However we ran into some trouble when we got to the park gates, because previously the girls had went to check rates and the sign said that the entrance fee for East Africans was 1500Tsh (1CND $) and non East Africans it was 35US$. In order to work here we all have residents, and our passports say that we are actual residents of TZ so we assumed we would be charged the resident price. They didn't agree though, they said we had to be a citizen, and we were just residents. Soooo it really sucked because none of us actually got to go in then, because we didn't bring enough money with us. It was really upsetting, I felt terrible for the girls who had organized it and were so looking forward to spending the day with their kids. So the kids went in, and hopefully had a great day and we just went back to town walked around and tried some local food, so we still made a good out of a bad situation.
I was planning a trip to Uganda for the end of the month, after my program is done here and before my program starts in Kenya. We are suppposed to go rafting down the nile, and I was really really looking forward to it. However there is now some political stuff going on there, and we may not be able to go. So I was really bummed, but i'm just going to see how everything is before I leave and decide then. If I can't do Uganda I will just go to Mombasa or around there somewhere on the Kenyan coast. So still definitely not a bad time!
I am starting to get very sad, because a lot of my friends who I came with in the same orientation and many of the others I have become very close with are leaving me this weekend or have just left or are leaving really soon! It makes me really sad actually, because everyone I have met here is amazing!
Well i'm off for now to maybe nap before our Wine, Cheese, and Crepe dinner at a restaurant that is supposed to be great, and then to Empire the Karaoke Bar!
Missing you guys back at home, i've been wondering what you all are up to, and what I would have been up to this summer if I hadn't come here. Though I wouldn't change my mind for a second, this may be the best decision i've ever made.....its up there anyways, and I already have memories that will last a life time!
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Just an Update
So I don't have much to report, but I figured I'd give a quick update anyways.
I have pretty much fully recovered after being sick from the mountain and then again with a throat ear nose thing. This past weekend was quite chill, doing nothing and being sick and sunday heading into town to the markets and going to a hotel with a pool for a swim. We also decided that we were going to have IVHQ Volunteer House Christmas on Sunday, so we tried to find ugly christmas clothes, all pitched in and did a 1.00$ gift exchange. It was good fun.
We currently have a new group of volunteers in the house (8 this time) and so far they all seem pretty awesome, we're all headed out for dinner tonight and then to a karaoke bar...always an interesting time!
My scary and sad news of the weekend was found out on Friday when I found out that one of the babies at my placement Riziki was in the hospital and they didn't know if she would make it through the night. I was worried all weekend, as Riziki is almost 4 months but looks like a newborn premature baby. She just never gained weight, and has always been sick. Amazingly she pulled through the weekend and is still hanging on, though they don't have much hope. It's been determined that she has a heart echo, and we will find out tomorrow if she is for sure HIV+ and if they will be able to operate on her heart or not, even if they can she will still have to get stronger, before they can perform the surgeries. I truly do hope she pulls through it all though, shes an amazing little baby. On the plus side though one of the other little babies Hafsiba was adopted over the weekend.
Yesterday I went to a school with some of the other volunteers to experience the schools, and we also got to do homevisits for 4 of the kids. They live in horrendous conditions, literally just mud huts with one tiny room for 4 people. Truly does make you much more appreciative though. We brought them sugar and rice, and they were so thank ful. Even though these people have nothing, they would still give you the clothes off their backs if you needed it.
That's all for now, sorry its short and a little unorganized. Hope everyone back home is having a good summer still!
I have pretty much fully recovered after being sick from the mountain and then again with a throat ear nose thing. This past weekend was quite chill, doing nothing and being sick and sunday heading into town to the markets and going to a hotel with a pool for a swim. We also decided that we were going to have IVHQ Volunteer House Christmas on Sunday, so we tried to find ugly christmas clothes, all pitched in and did a 1.00$ gift exchange. It was good fun.
We currently have a new group of volunteers in the house (8 this time) and so far they all seem pretty awesome, we're all headed out for dinner tonight and then to a karaoke bar...always an interesting time!
My scary and sad news of the weekend was found out on Friday when I found out that one of the babies at my placement Riziki was in the hospital and they didn't know if she would make it through the night. I was worried all weekend, as Riziki is almost 4 months but looks like a newborn premature baby. She just never gained weight, and has always been sick. Amazingly she pulled through the weekend and is still hanging on, though they don't have much hope. It's been determined that she has a heart echo, and we will find out tomorrow if she is for sure HIV+ and if they will be able to operate on her heart or not, even if they can she will still have to get stronger, before they can perform the surgeries. I truly do hope she pulls through it all though, shes an amazing little baby. On the plus side though one of the other little babies Hafsiba was adopted over the weekend.
Yesterday I went to a school with some of the other volunteers to experience the schools, and we also got to do homevisits for 4 of the kids. They live in horrendous conditions, literally just mud huts with one tiny room for 4 people. Truly does make you much more appreciative though. We brought them sugar and rice, and they were so thank ful. Even though these people have nothing, they would still give you the clothes off their backs if you needed it.
That's all for now, sorry its short and a little unorganized. Hope everyone back home is having a good summer still!
Friday, 27 May 2011
Mount Meru...best described as: Amazing Misery!
So I decided to climb Mt. Meru this past weekend after much humming and hawwing about the money situation mainly. I finally decided to do it, so we went to the company's office last Friday and picked up all of our extra gear that we hadn't brought! Free Rentals! This gear mainly consisted of winter clothes lol, something that was extremely odd to be trying on while I was in Africa, and it was about +27 outside that day.
Our crew consisted of 4 other people from the house I live in, and 6 Porters, 1 Head Guide, 1 Assistant Guide, a Chef, and a Ranger for safety. We also decided to do the 3 day climb versus the 4 day climb, simply for affordability's sake. This probably wasn't the best idea for me, haha oh well you live and you learn.
So....DAY ONE.....Saturday.
We woke up quite early, and packed the last of our belongings, ate breakfast and headed out to meet the truck. You wouldn't think there would be much to pack, but layering is essential, and we ended up having 3 big backpacks between the 5 of us, as well as our own day packs.
We drove for about an hour and a half to the other side of the mountain, and up a little bit to reach the gate. On the drive I got a glimpse at my first real African wildlife, we saw Zebras, Water Buffalo, Warthogs, Baboons, and White Colobus Monkeys.
The 1st days climb is supposed to be about 4 hours, and you go up 1000 meters. I can guarantee that I made our trek longer than that, and about half way up right before we stopped for our lunch my mindset was... (mind the language)....."What the Fuck am I doing here?! I can't do this, I don't belong here.....OH GOD!!! Then I also came to the realization that I was climbing with Sarah and Mark, whom have both climbed Kilimanjaro Mountain previoulsy, Rylee who is in amazing shape, and Jordan who did a tour in Afghanistan and is part of the Air Force I believe. At this point, that whole last train of thought went through my head again only much more vulgar I am sure!
Also for those of you who don't know this about me, but I have asthma - and it apparently really doesn't agree with me not working out or training, or climbing mountains! Who would've guessed eh? Haha
My asthma was certainly the biggest problem in this challenge, following closely by the fact that I am pretty sure I had gone to the gym twice in the last year, oops!
Either way on the first half of day one, we passed through savannah type areas where we saw more of the same animals as above, as well as giraffe, and on our lunch break we had a giraffe eating its lunch probably 40 meters or so from us! Super Cool.
Once we finally made it to Mirakamba Huts, where we would be staying for the night, we just relaxed, enjoyed the view, and ate. Before bed we all laid down on this deck thing they have, and I watched the most amazing stars I have ever seen in my life, there were literally so many that you couldn't tell constellation from constellation and we were lucky enough to see some shooting stars. We were high up enough here that we were above some clouds, and it was quite cold.
DAY TWO.......Sunday
We awoke early again, and then we were supposed to hike up another 1000 meters, and it was to take 4 or 5 hours, again I'm sure I made this longer. This part of the climb also involved make shift rainforest stairs, ALOT of them! The guide told us that there were over 1000 stairs, awesome I know! I also thought I was going to die today, and felt awfully horrible because one of the girls Sarah decided to help me by taking my day pack, and after this I did do quite a bit better...but far from good! Several hours of this hike were done walking through the clouds in this rainforesty type setting, it was a very eerie pretty and was nice because it kept us coolish.
Finally about 1 we arrived at Saddle Hut Lodges, and rested and had a snack, then to acclimatize we hiked another 300 meters up to a little peak known as Little Meru. This hike actually wasn't so bad, and most of the clouds had cleared so we got quite amazing views! We stayed at the top for awhile and then descended back to the lodges. By the way when I say Lodge, I don't mean much, minimal power run off solar power and small rooms with 2 bunk beds each, enough to do the job. When we got back from Little Meru we just hung out, ate supper and prepared for the hellish day that was about to happen next hahaha! We ended up getting to bed by about 8:30, though I didn't get to sleep for a good 2 hours or so, because of the cold mostly.
DAY THREE............Monday
We woke up at 12:30ish...as in midnight, as in pitch black, as in freezing cold! And started off our lovely little hike. We hiked with head lamps and I think I had 7 layers on my top and 3 or 4 on my bottom. She was a little chilly, to say the least.
My new theory for the hiking in the dark is so that you don't know what you have left to go, and so you can't really see what it is your going to have to go back down either!
This hike is supposed to take just over 5 hours we did it in almost that actually!
Here I would have been repeatedly cursing in my head, if I'd had the energy. Though you see my asthma decided to take a toll for the worse, and I actaully probably took 20 puffs in 4 hours....you're supposed to take 2 every hours as needed! Eeeks. So when we were about an hour from summit my inhaler decided to stop working because of the cold, but I thought I had just used it all up, so things got a little sketchy!
I want you to think about a 90 degree angle, now picture about a 110-120 degree angle, this is what we were climbing up in the dark with no path, and falls that would actually make you fall to your death on your sides. It was great times.
I would say that the scariest part of the whole thing was when I was about 30 feet away from summit, and the sun had started to rise so it was a little lighter out now, and I was climbing, and started seeing little black spots and started swaying back and forth, literally about to faint. I believe that it was this time that the guide pushed me against the rock to keep me safe until I was good to go again. So when I say I literally almost died, I'm not really exagerrating! All was good though, made it to summit watch the sun rise up from behind a clear view of Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance with the clouds far beneath us. We stayed only long enough to watch it rise and take pictures. I will try and post them to facebook but I don't know if it will work well!
THE DESCENT......also Monday!
Climbing down was not nearly as hard as going up, it actually hardly affected my asthma at all which was beyond amazing! Going down is just much harder on your body physically and it has left me with a good number of minor injuries. Just good for memories I say. We made it down the mountain late in the day about 4 o'clock. This meant that we had hiked for a solid 13 or 14 hours! Never again lol! We didn't go down in almost half the time that it took to go up though, so that was kind of nice lol, we were all just ready to get off of the mountain at that point!
In the end as bad as some of this sounds, I am extremely glad that I did it, and it was a great experience, one I probably wouldn't take back. The best part for me was just knowing that I could actually do it, and that I still haven't found the point where my body literally can't go any further. ( I'm not going to keep looking for this point, don't worry) But I was proud that I somewhat kept up with my group lol and that a girl who never works out or anything, and is from the prairies, with apparently some pretty bad asthma was actually able to do it! I have to give full credit to the other people I went with though, if it wasn't for them there is no way that I would have summit-ed!
Ha though of the group I think I did win most falls, and most injuries sustained! I fell down the stairs once, and fell down the rocks an hour and a bit away from summit, and Rylee said it looked like I would have actually fallen off the mountain if I hadn't grabbed some rocks...(this sounds more dramatic than it was though, lol I wasn't actually hanging off or anything)
We all came home absolutely exhausted but I think proud, and sure happy to be off the mountain now we just like enjoying its view from our little porch. That is certainly all I need from that mountain now.
TUESDAY...
I was supposed to go to placement, though figured I would be too tired anyways, but I ended up getting very sick. I was dizzy when I would walk, had absolutely no energy, I was nauseous, and had a slight fever, and was in the most pain that I think my body has ever been through, in my life...lol literally everything hurt!
It seems now that I have fully recovered, though my left hip feels slightly out of alignment, but hopefully that will correct itself, other than that all I am left with are great memories, closer friends, and a couple cuts and very black and blue toenails from the descent!
Would I recommend Meru? Hahaha only if you don't have breathing problems.
There was a sign at the start that said and I quote..."If you have breathing problems, don't attempt to climb this mountain"
Also I recommend being in decent shape, and maybe have climbed a decent hill or two in the past before. Mark and Sarah who both climbed Kili said that physically and technically Meru was quite a bit harder to do than Kilimanjaro, but Kili is longer so it wears you down more emotionally and its colder and higher!
Well thats all for now, hope you enjoyed this read. Sorry it was a little long, I wanted to include everything I could remember. Missing everyone from back home, and some of the luxuries we have back at home. On Tuesday I really just wanted an IV, an ice pack, and a magic bag, and some other things lol.
So truly appreciate what we have, especially hot showers! I miss them dearly! (We didn't shower or bathe the whole time on the mountain, ha we were pretty gross at the end!)
Bye for now!!! Keep in touch, I honestly love hearing from people back home!
Our crew consisted of 4 other people from the house I live in, and 6 Porters, 1 Head Guide, 1 Assistant Guide, a Chef, and a Ranger for safety. We also decided to do the 3 day climb versus the 4 day climb, simply for affordability's sake. This probably wasn't the best idea for me, haha oh well you live and you learn.
So....DAY ONE.....Saturday.
We woke up quite early, and packed the last of our belongings, ate breakfast and headed out to meet the truck. You wouldn't think there would be much to pack, but layering is essential, and we ended up having 3 big backpacks between the 5 of us, as well as our own day packs.
We drove for about an hour and a half to the other side of the mountain, and up a little bit to reach the gate. On the drive I got a glimpse at my first real African wildlife, we saw Zebras, Water Buffalo, Warthogs, Baboons, and White Colobus Monkeys.
The 1st days climb is supposed to be about 4 hours, and you go up 1000 meters. I can guarantee that I made our trek longer than that, and about half way up right before we stopped for our lunch my mindset was... (mind the language)....."What the Fuck am I doing here?! I can't do this, I don't belong here.....OH GOD!!! Then I also came to the realization that I was climbing with Sarah and Mark, whom have both climbed Kilimanjaro Mountain previoulsy, Rylee who is in amazing shape, and Jordan who did a tour in Afghanistan and is part of the Air Force I believe. At this point, that whole last train of thought went through my head again only much more vulgar I am sure!
Also for those of you who don't know this about me, but I have asthma - and it apparently really doesn't agree with me not working out or training, or climbing mountains! Who would've guessed eh? Haha
My asthma was certainly the biggest problem in this challenge, following closely by the fact that I am pretty sure I had gone to the gym twice in the last year, oops!
Either way on the first half of day one, we passed through savannah type areas where we saw more of the same animals as above, as well as giraffe, and on our lunch break we had a giraffe eating its lunch probably 40 meters or so from us! Super Cool.
Once we finally made it to Mirakamba Huts, where we would be staying for the night, we just relaxed, enjoyed the view, and ate. Before bed we all laid down on this deck thing they have, and I watched the most amazing stars I have ever seen in my life, there were literally so many that you couldn't tell constellation from constellation and we were lucky enough to see some shooting stars. We were high up enough here that we were above some clouds, and it was quite cold.
DAY TWO.......Sunday
We awoke early again, and then we were supposed to hike up another 1000 meters, and it was to take 4 or 5 hours, again I'm sure I made this longer. This part of the climb also involved make shift rainforest stairs, ALOT of them! The guide told us that there were over 1000 stairs, awesome I know! I also thought I was going to die today, and felt awfully horrible because one of the girls Sarah decided to help me by taking my day pack, and after this I did do quite a bit better...but far from good! Several hours of this hike were done walking through the clouds in this rainforesty type setting, it was a very eerie pretty and was nice because it kept us coolish.
Finally about 1 we arrived at Saddle Hut Lodges, and rested and had a snack, then to acclimatize we hiked another 300 meters up to a little peak known as Little Meru. This hike actually wasn't so bad, and most of the clouds had cleared so we got quite amazing views! We stayed at the top for awhile and then descended back to the lodges. By the way when I say Lodge, I don't mean much, minimal power run off solar power and small rooms with 2 bunk beds each, enough to do the job. When we got back from Little Meru we just hung out, ate supper and prepared for the hellish day that was about to happen next hahaha! We ended up getting to bed by about 8:30, though I didn't get to sleep for a good 2 hours or so, because of the cold mostly.
DAY THREE............Monday
We woke up at 12:30ish...as in midnight, as in pitch black, as in freezing cold! And started off our lovely little hike. We hiked with head lamps and I think I had 7 layers on my top and 3 or 4 on my bottom. She was a little chilly, to say the least.
My new theory for the hiking in the dark is so that you don't know what you have left to go, and so you can't really see what it is your going to have to go back down either!
This hike is supposed to take just over 5 hours we did it in almost that actually!
Here I would have been repeatedly cursing in my head, if I'd had the energy. Though you see my asthma decided to take a toll for the worse, and I actaully probably took 20 puffs in 4 hours....you're supposed to take 2 every hours as needed! Eeeks. So when we were about an hour from summit my inhaler decided to stop working because of the cold, but I thought I had just used it all up, so things got a little sketchy!
I want you to think about a 90 degree angle, now picture about a 110-120 degree angle, this is what we were climbing up in the dark with no path, and falls that would actually make you fall to your death on your sides. It was great times.
I would say that the scariest part of the whole thing was when I was about 30 feet away from summit, and the sun had started to rise so it was a little lighter out now, and I was climbing, and started seeing little black spots and started swaying back and forth, literally about to faint. I believe that it was this time that the guide pushed me against the rock to keep me safe until I was good to go again. So when I say I literally almost died, I'm not really exagerrating! All was good though, made it to summit watch the sun rise up from behind a clear view of Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance with the clouds far beneath us. We stayed only long enough to watch it rise and take pictures. I will try and post them to facebook but I don't know if it will work well!
THE DESCENT......also Monday!
Climbing down was not nearly as hard as going up, it actually hardly affected my asthma at all which was beyond amazing! Going down is just much harder on your body physically and it has left me with a good number of minor injuries. Just good for memories I say. We made it down the mountain late in the day about 4 o'clock. This meant that we had hiked for a solid 13 or 14 hours! Never again lol! We didn't go down in almost half the time that it took to go up though, so that was kind of nice lol, we were all just ready to get off of the mountain at that point!
In the end as bad as some of this sounds, I am extremely glad that I did it, and it was a great experience, one I probably wouldn't take back. The best part for me was just knowing that I could actually do it, and that I still haven't found the point where my body literally can't go any further. ( I'm not going to keep looking for this point, don't worry) But I was proud that I somewhat kept up with my group lol and that a girl who never works out or anything, and is from the prairies, with apparently some pretty bad asthma was actually able to do it! I have to give full credit to the other people I went with though, if it wasn't for them there is no way that I would have summit-ed!
Ha though of the group I think I did win most falls, and most injuries sustained! I fell down the stairs once, and fell down the rocks an hour and a bit away from summit, and Rylee said it looked like I would have actually fallen off the mountain if I hadn't grabbed some rocks...(this sounds more dramatic than it was though, lol I wasn't actually hanging off or anything)
We all came home absolutely exhausted but I think proud, and sure happy to be off the mountain now we just like enjoying its view from our little porch. That is certainly all I need from that mountain now.
TUESDAY...
I was supposed to go to placement, though figured I would be too tired anyways, but I ended up getting very sick. I was dizzy when I would walk, had absolutely no energy, I was nauseous, and had a slight fever, and was in the most pain that I think my body has ever been through, in my life...lol literally everything hurt!
It seems now that I have fully recovered, though my left hip feels slightly out of alignment, but hopefully that will correct itself, other than that all I am left with are great memories, closer friends, and a couple cuts and very black and blue toenails from the descent!
Would I recommend Meru? Hahaha only if you don't have breathing problems.
There was a sign at the start that said and I quote..."If you have breathing problems, don't attempt to climb this mountain"
Also I recommend being in decent shape, and maybe have climbed a decent hill or two in the past before. Mark and Sarah who both climbed Kili said that physically and technically Meru was quite a bit harder to do than Kilimanjaro, but Kili is longer so it wears you down more emotionally and its colder and higher!
Well thats all for now, hope you enjoyed this read. Sorry it was a little long, I wanted to include everything I could remember. Missing everyone from back home, and some of the luxuries we have back at home. On Tuesday I really just wanted an IV, an ice pack, and a magic bag, and some other things lol.
So truly appreciate what we have, especially hot showers! I miss them dearly! (We didn't shower or bathe the whole time on the mountain, ha we were pretty gross at the end!)
Bye for now!!! Keep in touch, I honestly love hearing from people back home!
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Cradle of Love Baby Home - My TZ Placement
First off I have to apologize for the delay in this, I have been ridiculously busy and lazy at the same time haha. I'll update now, i'm only a week and a bit late no big deal!
Okay so Cradle of Love is a baby orphanage run by an American woman, and funded by and American Church, it is very very well maintained and structured, so not what your typical African orphanage would probably be.
To get there and back everyday is a long commute, mine is the longest commute of all of the volunteers that are in the volunteer house right now I believe. It is about 20 km outside of Arusha, and not so conveniently on the opposite side of Arusha from where I live. So I leave at 8ish and take a yellow dala dala (300shillings - 20 some cents) for 20ish minutes and then I take a green dala dala (500 shillings) for about 35 minutes. Then just walk down a road for a bit. So all in all its about an hour each way, and transportation costs me 1600 shillings a day which is just over 1CND dollar, so I really can't complain.
There are over 40 babies at the orphanage right now, and it always seems to be quite full. Each one of the babies has a different story and different background, and all of the are at CoL for different reasons. For many their mothers will have died during child birth and their fathers can't support them until they are older, so they will stay at Cradle until they are older. Others have simply been abandoned and left on their own essentially, For many women in TZ it is quite shameful to give up your child, so many will go off have the child on their own, and pretend that the baby died, and they will simply leave it there. Other times mothers will have their baby at a hospital and then sneak out of the hospital leaving the child there. These are all the children that we receive at Cradle. Their ages range from days old to 3.5 years old.
My job really just consists of playing with the babies, whom are seperated into groups by different developmental stages (almost all of them are developmentally delayed.) We also do their feedings and put them down for naps.
My second day of placement I was in the nursery which is for Newborns to about 6 months-ish. Here you make bottles, feed, change, and rock the babies. It is very easy and all of the children just crave attention so much, it is quite common to have 5 or 6 of them crawling on you at one point. Sometimes are sadder than others when you think about everything they have come through already at such a young age, and to be able to physically see the trauma that they have from abandonment and such. They truly are in the best place they could be now though.
On my 3rd day we took 9 of the babies to a free clinic down the road called Dream, which is funded by a company from Madrid. 1 of the little girls Pendo is HIV + and she had another ear infection, so we had to take her for medicine. The other 8 were suspected of being HIV+ due to the backgrounds they came from. We got one of them tested, little Amani and he came back negative, so that was fantastic and put everyone in good spirits.
Well my internet time is nearly up so I will have to tell you more later when there is more to report. Missing everybody at home. I will also write a blog about my Mount Meru climbing adventures from last weekend, which literally include near death experiences! All is well though, I'm fine clearly. Hahahah
Cheers!
Okay so Cradle of Love is a baby orphanage run by an American woman, and funded by and American Church, it is very very well maintained and structured, so not what your typical African orphanage would probably be.
To get there and back everyday is a long commute, mine is the longest commute of all of the volunteers that are in the volunteer house right now I believe. It is about 20 km outside of Arusha, and not so conveniently on the opposite side of Arusha from where I live. So I leave at 8ish and take a yellow dala dala (300shillings - 20 some cents) for 20ish minutes and then I take a green dala dala (500 shillings) for about 35 minutes. Then just walk down a road for a bit. So all in all its about an hour each way, and transportation costs me 1600 shillings a day which is just over 1CND dollar, so I really can't complain.
There are over 40 babies at the orphanage right now, and it always seems to be quite full. Each one of the babies has a different story and different background, and all of the are at CoL for different reasons. For many their mothers will have died during child birth and their fathers can't support them until they are older, so they will stay at Cradle until they are older. Others have simply been abandoned and left on their own essentially, For many women in TZ it is quite shameful to give up your child, so many will go off have the child on their own, and pretend that the baby died, and they will simply leave it there. Other times mothers will have their baby at a hospital and then sneak out of the hospital leaving the child there. These are all the children that we receive at Cradle. Their ages range from days old to 3.5 years old.
My job really just consists of playing with the babies, whom are seperated into groups by different developmental stages (almost all of them are developmentally delayed.) We also do their feedings and put them down for naps.
My second day of placement I was in the nursery which is for Newborns to about 6 months-ish. Here you make bottles, feed, change, and rock the babies. It is very easy and all of the children just crave attention so much, it is quite common to have 5 or 6 of them crawling on you at one point. Sometimes are sadder than others when you think about everything they have come through already at such a young age, and to be able to physically see the trauma that they have from abandonment and such. They truly are in the best place they could be now though.
On my 3rd day we took 9 of the babies to a free clinic down the road called Dream, which is funded by a company from Madrid. 1 of the little girls Pendo is HIV + and she had another ear infection, so we had to take her for medicine. The other 8 were suspected of being HIV+ due to the backgrounds they came from. We got one of them tested, little Amani and he came back negative, so that was fantastic and put everyone in good spirits.
Well my internet time is nearly up so I will have to tell you more later when there is more to report. Missing everybody at home. I will also write a blog about my Mount Meru climbing adventures from last weekend, which literally include near death experiences! All is well though, I'm fine clearly. Hahahah
Cheers!
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Volunteer House and TVE Orientation
Okay so about this volunteer house.
Yes I arrived and it was very overwhelming, haha I arrived as people were leaving so a lot of people were outside, and I was the last to arrive for this group so I had no idea who was new and who was old. It has all worked out though. I got a tour of the place. It has one main house, and 3 smaller rooms in their own buildings outside.
It is gated, and we have a security guard, and a house manager Eliza, our driver Michael, and 3 cooking ladies, and everyone is absolutely amazing. This sounds a lot more fancy than it is though I warn you.
There are around 30 volunteers living here and staff members on top of that. We have two toilets and two showers....which have very minimal hot water. The power goes out here quite regularly and then sometimes the back up generator will fail as well. We make it work though. :)
In my room which is one of the back rooms that you have to go outside to get to, there is a shower and a toilet, as well as 11 other girls living with me in very small quarters. Many more females do this volunteering than males, I believe there are only 5 or 6 guys in the house. So yes we have 6 bunk beds and a couple feet of space and cabinets on both ends of the room, but that is it. Haha it's actually worked out better than you would originally think, the only crappy part is that my bed is right beside the bathroom area so as soon as people wake up for placement at 6:30 it means we basically all wake up not by choice. I am not a morning person at all, but am slowly adjusting!
On my first full day in the house, we had orientation.
Here they basically just gave us alot of information most of which seemed to be common sense, but unfortunately not for all people lol. We also went into town to get shown around, and alot of people had to get phones and such.
Every morning I take my breakfast which varies depending on the day, out to the front, where we have some couches on the steps and I eat my breakfast and watch the sunrise, if the sky is clear, we also have a decent view of Mt. Meru from our steps! I really do love it here, and can already tell that it will be hard to leave, and there will be a large adjustment from living in the volunteer house to a mud and cow dung hut with no electricity or running water ever with the Maasai haha. Still looking forward to it though.
:)
I will fill you in about my placement next time! Then I should be up to date, haha my posts might slow down a little now because I will have a little bit more of a regular schedule, so there won't be as much to report! I will still stay in touch though!
Yes I arrived and it was very overwhelming, haha I arrived as people were leaving so a lot of people were outside, and I was the last to arrive for this group so I had no idea who was new and who was old. It has all worked out though. I got a tour of the place. It has one main house, and 3 smaller rooms in their own buildings outside.
It is gated, and we have a security guard, and a house manager Eliza, our driver Michael, and 3 cooking ladies, and everyone is absolutely amazing. This sounds a lot more fancy than it is though I warn you.
There are around 30 volunteers living here and staff members on top of that. We have two toilets and two showers....which have very minimal hot water. The power goes out here quite regularly and then sometimes the back up generator will fail as well. We make it work though. :)
In my room which is one of the back rooms that you have to go outside to get to, there is a shower and a toilet, as well as 11 other girls living with me in very small quarters. Many more females do this volunteering than males, I believe there are only 5 or 6 guys in the house. So yes we have 6 bunk beds and a couple feet of space and cabinets on both ends of the room, but that is it. Haha it's actually worked out better than you would originally think, the only crappy part is that my bed is right beside the bathroom area so as soon as people wake up for placement at 6:30 it means we basically all wake up not by choice. I am not a morning person at all, but am slowly adjusting!
On my first full day in the house, we had orientation.
Here they basically just gave us alot of information most of which seemed to be common sense, but unfortunately not for all people lol. We also went into town to get shown around, and alot of people had to get phones and such.
Every morning I take my breakfast which varies depending on the day, out to the front, where we have some couches on the steps and I eat my breakfast and watch the sunrise, if the sky is clear, we also have a decent view of Mt. Meru from our steps! I really do love it here, and can already tell that it will be hard to leave, and there will be a large adjustment from living in the volunteer house to a mud and cow dung hut with no electricity or running water ever with the Maasai haha. Still looking forward to it though.
:)
I will fill you in about my placement next time! Then I should be up to date, haha my posts might slow down a little now because I will have a little bit more of a regular schedule, so there won't be as much to report! I will still stay in touch though!
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Another Long Journey and a New Home
Okay I will try and compile these last couple of days all into one. It may be long though, so take this as your warning.
So for my bus ride!
the bus ride is normally about 10 hours, and we stop once for food and to pee. So I thought I would be smart and drink lots the day before to keep myself hydrated so I wouldn't have to drink alot on the bus and therefore not have to make the bus stop for me to pee...a certain someone I know did this hahaha! Either way in drinking so much I woke up at 3am to pee, and then simply couldn't fall back asleep so at 5 I got out of bed and showered, I was at the bus stop by 6. (Also for anyone who doesn't know, the time difference is 8 hours, and I am in the future compared to back home) So the bus left at 6:20 and got to Ubongo the main bus station, and left at 7. The ride was absolutely gorgeous, and I could hardly take my eyes off the windows, I think I forgot to blink quite alot lol. The landscape and the scenery has been the main thing, that has truly made me feel like I am here in Africa. A city is just a city to a point, but the terrain and landscape is one of a kind. Truly amazing to see all of the villages made with literally next to nothing, and mind-boggling to understand how these people actually sustain themselves in any way, these really are the people who survive on less than a dollar a day. We stopped to pee and eat, and I experienced my very first hole in the ground toilet!
I then came to the conclusion that after doing that for a full month is Maasai, I'm probably going to have the best thighs I ever will in my life. Lol sorry if that was too much info for some people, its just a simple fact.
After the bus ride which took almost exactly 10 hours, which is apparently quite amazing for those buses...guess I have good bus luck, lets hope it stays that way.
We arrived in Arusha in the early evening and was met by Eliza the volunteer house manager and Michael the driver...who is the funniest and most ridiculous person I have met here thus far. We drove up to the house compound. Haha and the first couple minutes in the house can best be described as overwhelming.
And....I'm sorry to leave you on that note, but I have to go because it's almost dark here, and it's not really safe to be out in the dark, but I'll finish up as soon as I can. The Volunteer house is great though, so a good overwhelming, not a bad one! :)
Cheers!
So for my bus ride!
the bus ride is normally about 10 hours, and we stop once for food and to pee. So I thought I would be smart and drink lots the day before to keep myself hydrated so I wouldn't have to drink alot on the bus and therefore not have to make the bus stop for me to pee...a certain someone I know did this hahaha! Either way in drinking so much I woke up at 3am to pee, and then simply couldn't fall back asleep so at 5 I got out of bed and showered, I was at the bus stop by 6. (Also for anyone who doesn't know, the time difference is 8 hours, and I am in the future compared to back home) So the bus left at 6:20 and got to Ubongo the main bus station, and left at 7. The ride was absolutely gorgeous, and I could hardly take my eyes off the windows, I think I forgot to blink quite alot lol. The landscape and the scenery has been the main thing, that has truly made me feel like I am here in Africa. A city is just a city to a point, but the terrain and landscape is one of a kind. Truly amazing to see all of the villages made with literally next to nothing, and mind-boggling to understand how these people actually sustain themselves in any way, these really are the people who survive on less than a dollar a day. We stopped to pee and eat, and I experienced my very first hole in the ground toilet!
I then came to the conclusion that after doing that for a full month is Maasai, I'm probably going to have the best thighs I ever will in my life. Lol sorry if that was too much info for some people, its just a simple fact.
After the bus ride which took almost exactly 10 hours, which is apparently quite amazing for those buses...guess I have good bus luck, lets hope it stays that way.
We arrived in Arusha in the early evening and was met by Eliza the volunteer house manager and Michael the driver...who is the funniest and most ridiculous person I have met here thus far. We drove up to the house compound. Haha and the first couple minutes in the house can best be described as overwhelming.
And....I'm sorry to leave you on that note, but I have to go because it's almost dark here, and it's not really safe to be out in the dark, but I'll finish up as soon as I can. The Volunteer house is great though, so a good overwhelming, not a bad one! :)
Cheers!
Last Day in Dar for Awhile
So today was supposed to be my laid back, chill, do nothing but re-pack day. I went exploring instead. At breakfast ( which consists of a piece of not so fresh toast and a little blue band (fat spread) and jam, and a slice of watermelon and chai tea) a girl from the same hostel asked to join me. Her name was Mary and she's from Finland. She had just come off doing 10 weeks in Moshi working maternity at a hospital there. She was also by herself for the day. We decided to explore Dar together a little. We walked from city centre to the coast and all along the edges of the city. We walked for nearly 4 hours before taking a pajaji back to Slipway, where I'd been a couple days before. We just walked around and had a soda on a gorgeous patio overlooking the ocean. We ate at a little indian place and then did some other errands including stoppijng in at Dollarama bbahahaha. Later in the evening we went to an internet cafe and back to Chef's Pride for a snack. Now I just must finish packing and getting organized for my long bus journey to Arusha tomorrow.
Ciao for now!
Ciao for now!
Beach Bound
Friday May 13th was amazing as well. Around 10 am Sarah met me again and we walked 20 minutes of so to the ferry called Kigamboni. I bought a ticket for 200 shillings (13 cents) and crowded on with hundreds of other locals....I only saw 2other mzungus (white people) The ferry is only 5-10 minutes long and takes you to the south coast beaches. I then took a pajaji to the other side of the island to a very gorgeous laid back rustic resort type thing known as Kipepeo Beach. Here i met up with 2 other girls that the volunteer coordinator who helped me out before knew. There was an American from New York named Maggie and a Kiwi named Mary. They had both lived in Tanzania for quite awhile and were really helpful with giving me lots of advice about everything.
The beach itself was amazing with white sand and turquoise water. We sat and read under our cabana and watched the waves crash against the shore bringing in the crabs with them. I went swimming and for many of you who know me well you should realize that, that's a huge accomplishment for me, as deep water and sharks freak me out. Unreasonable and stupid I know haha but I'm working on it. Either way I went swimming , even in the deep water where I couldn't touch and I didn't have a floaty.....bahaha I sound so stupid!
Swimming was great though , the water was extremely salty and there were little "jellies: (jelly-fish) that were always around you. They were obvioulsy the non-poisononous non-stinging kind. They were actaully kind of fun once you got used to them! After the beach we just took a pajaji back to the ferry and then another one home.
That pretty much concluded my Day 2 of Dar and it was great and I'm sure that I will miss the coast very much while I'm inland. I'll just have to take weekend trips I suppose! From a now slightly more tanned me that is all for now. Continuing to miss everyone but am extremely excited for the weeks of great experiences yet to come.
The beach itself was amazing with white sand and turquoise water. We sat and read under our cabana and watched the waves crash against the shore bringing in the crabs with them. I went swimming and for many of you who know me well you should realize that, that's a huge accomplishment for me, as deep water and sharks freak me out. Unreasonable and stupid I know haha but I'm working on it. Either way I went swimming , even in the deep water where I couldn't touch and I didn't have a floaty.....bahaha I sound so stupid!
Swimming was great though , the water was extremely salty and there were little "jellies: (jelly-fish) that were always around you. They were obvioulsy the non-poisononous non-stinging kind. They were actaully kind of fun once you got used to them! After the beach we just took a pajaji back to the ferry and then another one home.
That pretty much concluded my Day 2 of Dar and it was great and I'm sure that I will miss the coast very much while I'm inland. I'll just have to take weekend trips I suppose! From a now slightly more tanned me that is all for now. Continuing to miss everyone but am extremely excited for the weeks of great experiences yet to come.
Saturday, 14 May 2011
First Day in Dar!
So today s Saturday May 14th. I will break up thise 3 days into sepersate posts, as I have too much info to share!
So far I've hardly had any problems with the jetlang, a benefit of being neqarly nocutrnal at home I am thinking!
So Thursday May 12th I mer with the volutneer coordinator of TVE, Sarah who lives here in Dar and she was amazingly helpful! She showed me around and took me where I could take out money. The exchange rate is crazy sounding here. 1,540.00 TZ Shillings is equivalent to 1.00 CND. So it feels like you are carrying around way too much $ all the time! I think I've nearly adjusted now though!
After getting out my money I also bought my bus ticket to Arusha, which was 28,000 shillings (18-19 CND). I also bought a phone which was 38,000 shillings (24-25 CND) As well as a SIM card for about 1CND dollar. If you want my TZ # message me on facebook or email me!
Sarah and I went to a local place where I tried Chips Mayai, this is essentially a french fry omlette and was actually really tasty! I tried out my first dala dala which are basically vans or mini buses, and they get crazy packed sometimes, and cost about 300 shillings (20cents) We took the dala dalas to Slipway a weekend craft market, though it wasn't very busy because it was only Thursday. It was at slipway where I saw the only other Mzungu (white person) of the day besides Sarah and I. From there we took a pajahji (i'm totally spelling it wrong but it's pronounced....pah-jaw-gee. They ar three-wheeled covered trike type things with no sides, they're super fun and cheap. After Sarah told me some good places to eat and left. I went to a restaurant called Chef's pride and had what I think was BBQ Chicken and Chapatti for 5,500 shillings (3.50 CND). All in all my first full day seemed to be a success and I already am loving it, though still not fully comprehending the fact that I am really here.
Will write more next time I get online, though it may be a few days away - I have so much to tell though I'll try not to get behind.
Miss everyone back home!
So far I've hardly had any problems with the jetlang, a benefit of being neqarly nocutrnal at home I am thinking!
So Thursday May 12th I mer with the volutneer coordinator of TVE, Sarah who lives here in Dar and she was amazingly helpful! She showed me around and took me where I could take out money. The exchange rate is crazy sounding here. 1,540.00 TZ Shillings is equivalent to 1.00 CND. So it feels like you are carrying around way too much $ all the time! I think I've nearly adjusted now though!
After getting out my money I also bought my bus ticket to Arusha, which was 28,000 shillings (18-19 CND). I also bought a phone which was 38,000 shillings (24-25 CND) As well as a SIM card for about 1CND dollar. If you want my TZ # message me on facebook or email me!
Sarah and I went to a local place where I tried Chips Mayai, this is essentially a french fry omlette and was actually really tasty! I tried out my first dala dala which are basically vans or mini buses, and they get crazy packed sometimes, and cost about 300 shillings (20cents) We took the dala dalas to Slipway a weekend craft market, though it wasn't very busy because it was only Thursday. It was at slipway where I saw the only other Mzungu (white person) of the day besides Sarah and I. From there we took a pajahji (i'm totally spelling it wrong but it's pronounced....pah-jaw-gee. They ar three-wheeled covered trike type things with no sides, they're super fun and cheap. After Sarah told me some good places to eat and left. I went to a restaurant called Chef's pride and had what I think was BBQ Chicken and Chapatti for 5,500 shillings (3.50 CND). All in all my first full day seemed to be a success and I already am loving it, though still not fully comprehending the fact that I am really here.
Will write more next time I get online, though it may be a few days away - I have so much to tell though I'll try not to get behind.
Miss everyone back home!
34 Hours Later but I arrived Safe and Sound!
Here I am currently sitting in a restaurant called Chef's Pride in Sakina, this means I arrived here in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania safe and sound.
My journey here can best be described as very long and very tiresome. I left my mamma's house on May 10th at 6:15AM. My flight from Winnipeg to Toronto left at 9AM. I landed in Toronto 2.5 hours later, from there I endured a painstakingly boring 5.5hour layover. The journey was then continued with a 7.5 hour flight to Amsterdam. My layover here was only 3.5 hours long-so I used it to explore. Amsterdam International "Schipol" is the best airport I've ever been in! It is very well designed and has so many things to do. IO soptted in internet cafe, walked through a mini museum, and took a peek in the library. We eventually went through securtiy where they had the coolest body scanner. It looked like a huge vertical plastic tube that you stepped in and put your arms above your head, then a big magnetic arm would swing all around you taking a 360 degree x-ray exxentially. Then I got good and fondled because of the underwire in my bra, oh the joys of airport security!
Anyways when we were waiting they told us there would be an hour delay because we needed a different plane, as something had happened to the one originally scheduled for us. The last and final flight of the day was approximately another 10.5 hours. All in all it was was about 20.5 hours flying time and 10 hours of layovers. Also I never got to sit in a window seat the whole time :( and maybe only 4 hours of sleep all together. If you're ever planning on flying to Africa I highly recommend either getting the shortest layovers possible or more ideally taking a day or two in each spot so you can explore those cities too, and get some real sleep.
I knew I was in Africa the minute I stepped off the place and a wall of humidity hit me literally at the same time as 1 of the hundreds of large grasshopper type things that were in the connection tunnel landed on my arm! Getting my visa was simple enough, and a huge sense of relief cam over me as soon as I saw my bag on the other side, because I'd been slightly paranoid that it was going to get lost the entire journey, because of the mixture of 3 flights through 2 different airlines, and 4 different airports as we technically made a stop in the Kilimanjaro airport, before getting off in Dar. Either was kudos to all of the people who handle all the airport baggage, I totally appreciate you! :) My volunteer coordinator had arranged for a taxi driver to be waiting for me at the airport, so he picked me up and took me to my hostel.
So 34 hours from the time I left my mamma's house I arrived at Econolodge in Dar Es Salaam! The room is a double but I only have to pay for a single. It is very no frills but it does the job. There is running water and even hot water though when you shower it kind of feels like what I can only imagine being peed on would feel like, as the water pressure is rather null. The area it is in looks rather sketchy, mostly because you have to go down a poorly lit alley to get to the front entrance - I have had no problems so far though! I am hoping to keep it that way! However they do warn you about not taking any valuables with you anywhere because muggings do occur commonly in that area. The rooms cost 20,000 shillings for a single with a fan (12-14 CND) and I will be here until Sunday, so for 4 nights! This concludes my write up for now, I will write about my first few days in Dar in another post!
Cheers for now! :)
My journey here can best be described as very long and very tiresome. I left my mamma's house on May 10th at 6:15AM. My flight from Winnipeg to Toronto left at 9AM. I landed in Toronto 2.5 hours later, from there I endured a painstakingly boring 5.5hour layover. The journey was then continued with a 7.5 hour flight to Amsterdam. My layover here was only 3.5 hours long-so I used it to explore. Amsterdam International "Schipol" is the best airport I've ever been in! It is very well designed and has so many things to do. IO soptted in internet cafe, walked through a mini museum, and took a peek in the library. We eventually went through securtiy where they had the coolest body scanner. It looked like a huge vertical plastic tube that you stepped in and put your arms above your head, then a big magnetic arm would swing all around you taking a 360 degree x-ray exxentially. Then I got good and fondled because of the underwire in my bra, oh the joys of airport security!
Anyways when we were waiting they told us there would be an hour delay because we needed a different plane, as something had happened to the one originally scheduled for us. The last and final flight of the day was approximately another 10.5 hours. All in all it was was about 20.5 hours flying time and 10 hours of layovers. Also I never got to sit in a window seat the whole time :( and maybe only 4 hours of sleep all together. If you're ever planning on flying to Africa I highly recommend either getting the shortest layovers possible or more ideally taking a day or two in each spot so you can explore those cities too, and get some real sleep.
I knew I was in Africa the minute I stepped off the place and a wall of humidity hit me literally at the same time as 1 of the hundreds of large grasshopper type things that were in the connection tunnel landed on my arm! Getting my visa was simple enough, and a huge sense of relief cam over me as soon as I saw my bag on the other side, because I'd been slightly paranoid that it was going to get lost the entire journey, because of the mixture of 3 flights through 2 different airlines, and 4 different airports as we technically made a stop in the Kilimanjaro airport, before getting off in Dar. Either was kudos to all of the people who handle all the airport baggage, I totally appreciate you! :) My volunteer coordinator had arranged for a taxi driver to be waiting for me at the airport, so he picked me up and took me to my hostel.
So 34 hours from the time I left my mamma's house I arrived at Econolodge in Dar Es Salaam! The room is a double but I only have to pay for a single. It is very no frills but it does the job. There is running water and even hot water though when you shower it kind of feels like what I can only imagine being peed on would feel like, as the water pressure is rather null. The area it is in looks rather sketchy, mostly because you have to go down a poorly lit alley to get to the front entrance - I have had no problems so far though! I am hoping to keep it that way! However they do warn you about not taking any valuables with you anywhere because muggings do occur commonly in that area. The rooms cost 20,000 shillings for a single with a fan (12-14 CND) and I will be here until Sunday, so for 4 nights! This concludes my write up for now, I will write about my first few days in Dar in another post!
Cheers for now! :)
Monday, 9 May 2011
Times a Flyin'.....and so am I.
It is currently 1:09am Manitoba time on May 10th, 2011. To comprehend that May 10th has actually arrived, is extremely mind boggling - as after months of planning the day to start the adventures is here. I am all packed, and will hopefully make the weight and size restrictions. (My bag is weighing in at around 44 pounds!) As well as a full back pack and small purse for my carry-on. Here are the pictures of my bag from the night before take-off....
This is also funny....
My dearest dog Sheba must have seperation anxiety and gets quite anxious whenever we clean the house majorly, or pack, or change things around. She has been far from helpful in the packing process as she liked to conveniently be in the way all the time, or lay on my stuff laid out to pack. As in this picture where she was laying down about 4 feet away - got up and laid her self down again with her paw on some of the clothes I was just about to put in my bag. She is too funny, and will be extremely missed! :(
5 hours from now I will be waking up from the comfort of my own bed for one last time before I become accustomed to sleeping in/on: airplane seats, airport benches, hostels, bunk beds in a room with 5 other people, cots in mud huts, many more hostels and lots and lots of African ground! The thought of that absolutely enthralls me, and is still way too surreal! The idea that I am really flying to Africa for 137 days by myself is still a little hard to comprehend myself....and certainly comes with many many mixtures of emotions: Excitement, anxiousness, stress, fright, happiness, saddness, pride, and much anticipation to name just a few.
Many of you who might be reading this will be extremely missed, and it was not an easy thing to say my goodbye for nows and see ya laters! I never have been really good with goodbye. Though with every goodbye and good luck and stay safe I got, I felt extreme pride in the company I keep who have all been nothing but supportive and fantastic! I have always been told I was a girl with a lot of determination and drive to achieve nearly any goal I set in front of myself - though none of that would be possible without the encouragment from all of you lovely people...especially my mamma! :)
If you want to get in touch with me, I will do my best to get to an internet source as often as I can, and you can email me at..... kateleask@hotmail.com ......though for me it is just easier if it is on here, regardless I'd love to hear from you all!
Though I have a solid 29 hours of travel ahead of me, so I'm off to get some shut-eye before I have to get up again! Much love and best wishes to all! Stay in touch!
Kate
oxox
This is also funny....
My dearest dog Sheba must have seperation anxiety and gets quite anxious whenever we clean the house majorly, or pack, or change things around. She has been far from helpful in the packing process as she liked to conveniently be in the way all the time, or lay on my stuff laid out to pack. As in this picture where she was laying down about 4 feet away - got up and laid her self down again with her paw on some of the clothes I was just about to put in my bag. She is too funny, and will be extremely missed! :(
5 hours from now I will be waking up from the comfort of my own bed for one last time before I become accustomed to sleeping in/on: airplane seats, airport benches, hostels, bunk beds in a room with 5 other people, cots in mud huts, many more hostels and lots and lots of African ground! The thought of that absolutely enthralls me, and is still way too surreal! The idea that I am really flying to Africa for 137 days by myself is still a little hard to comprehend myself....and certainly comes with many many mixtures of emotions: Excitement, anxiousness, stress, fright, happiness, saddness, pride, and much anticipation to name just a few.
Many of you who might be reading this will be extremely missed, and it was not an easy thing to say my goodbye for nows and see ya laters! I never have been really good with goodbye. Though with every goodbye and good luck and stay safe I got, I felt extreme pride in the company I keep who have all been nothing but supportive and fantastic! I have always been told I was a girl with a lot of determination and drive to achieve nearly any goal I set in front of myself - though none of that would be possible without the encouragment from all of you lovely people...especially my mamma! :)
If you want to get in touch with me, I will do my best to get to an internet source as often as I can, and you can email me at..... kateleask@hotmail.com ......though for me it is just easier if it is on here, regardless I'd love to hear from you all!
Though I have a solid 29 hours of travel ahead of me, so I'm off to get some shut-eye before I have to get up again! Much love and best wishes to all! Stay in touch!
Kate
oxox
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