Safari [journey]

After long matatu ride through the country with three transfers, Amy and I arrived in Kisumu!  We checked in at the "Sooper Guest House" at about 1PM, and were amazed that our room had not only running water and electricity, but a television as well!!!  Kenyan soap operas tonight?  Heck yes!!  And then things just got even more mind-blowing when we discovered that the restaurant we ate lunch at had....LIGHTS AND CEILING FANS!! WOOOWWWW!!!

After lunch we went to Hippo Point for a hippo safari boat ride.  It was just the two of us on a boat, with the guide and a driver...A nice personal safari!  The guide was 'sooper' informative and pointed out all the different birds and plants.  As we cruised past the mangroves, we even caught a glimpse of an antelope!  Oh and how could I forget about the hippos?  There were about twenty of them in all, and the took turns submerging and resurfacing, and even threw in a couple yawns for us. Ohhh hippos...


The boat ride turned sour when we got into a minor quarrel with some local fishermen...but that's a story for another time!


The scenery on Lake Victoria was amazing!  Once again, I hope you guys have good imaginations because yep, you guessed it: my camera is back in the Sooper Guest House.  But once I'm back in Eshibanze, I'll put some up.

Now we're killing time at the cyber before dinner, and then tomorrow we'll hit up the local markets before heading back to the village!!

Kuku [chicken]

After my trip to Uganda, I jumped right back into working in the village.  Wednesday I spent the morning working on budget reports for the school, and then in the afternoon, I attended the Tumaini CBO meeting.  I must say, the meeting went fantastically!  We are on the verge of starting an HIV/AIDS support group in the community, and also beginning a brick-making business as a way to fund resources for the support group as well as AIDS education in the area.  After this meeting, I feel like the CBO definitely shows some real promise for the future, and I'm super excited to get more involved with these projects! 

Thursday, Amy and I got busy with some manual labor:  we spent the day mudding Anerico's chicken house!  Mudding was super fun -- you get to pick up handfuls of mud and throw it as hard as you can at the wall!  Sometimes, you could see worms squirming around on the wall...Mmmm!  We had an audience too.  Anerico's neighbors thought it was pretty amusing that he had mzungus mudding for him.  I guess it was quite a sight!  We were pretty messy!  Or, I was anyways.  Every time I threw mud, it would splatter back at me.  By the end of the day, I was covered head to toe in mud.  After about four hours, we were pretty tired out, so we stopped to eat lunch.  Anerico cooked us some ugali (a cornmeal-based doughy creation) and sukuma wiki (kale).  The only problem was that ugali is traditionally eaten with your fingers!  So after mudding all day, our lunch had quite an earthy taste...but it was still delicious anyways! :)

I pinky promise that pictures of mudding will be up soon!  My hands were waaayyy too messy for photography, but somehow Amy was purrrdy clean...so all the photos are on her camera.  I'll steal them from her ASAP!

Uganda!!!

I was not so good at taking pictures in Uganda...oops!  But reading is fun too, right??  I thought I'd give you the full adventure here, since my last entry was not so informative.

Day 1:  Stacey and I arrived in Jinja around 4PM, after a seemingly endless and uncomfortable matatu ride.  We checked into the hostel, and then went out to find lunch/dinner (it was an odd time for a meal).  We ate at a restaurant that had mzungu food!  Crazy!!  I'm talkin pizzas, burgers, lasagna...the whole works!  I had a veggie burger and boy, it was fantastic!  And then to top it off, we bought some ice cream at the supermarket and ate it while exploring Main Street.  We spent the night in a tent because there were no dorm rooms left, but it was probably for the best, because we were at a party hostel and most of the guests had just returned from a booze cruise.  The tent was superduper comfy though!

Jinja has a lot of splended advertisements like the one above.

Day 2:  Shopping in Jinja!  Stacey, Sabrina, Juli and I went shopping in all the craft stores.  By the end, I basically perfected my bargaining skills.  A parade passed us while we were shopping!  Something to do with elections...

We tried to go to the Nile Gardens, but the pikipiki drivers took us to the Nile Garden Hotel instead...which was nice I guess, but probably not a real tourist attraction.  So then we decided to go see the source of the Nile, where the river flows out of Lake Victoria.  When we got there, we realized there were visitors fees.  So we decided just to go home, since we'd be up close and personal with the Nile the next day anyways. 

That night after dinner in the hostel, we were going to go to a concert with some of our new Ugandan friends. The concert was supposed to be two of Uganda's most popular musicians, but when we got there, it was cancelled!!! Bummer! So we went to a bar instead. Ugandan nightlife sure is...interesting.

Day 3:  RAFTING DAYYYY!!!  I don't even know how to describe our adventures!  It felt like we were in the water more than on the raft.  Yeah, that's right -- I went swimming in the Nile River!!  The rapids were crazy and really only scary when I was stuck under the boat, but it was sooo much fun!!!  I'll try to put up pictures soon so you can see just how crazy it was!

Day 4:  A long journey back to Kenya.  We went grocery shopping for cookies and chocolate to use up all our remaining Ugandan shillings before crossing the border.  Finally being back in the village feels good!  I missed those familiar sounds of unseen children yelling, "Hi! How are you?!"

Maji [water]

Ahhh I don't have too much time today, but I wanted to let y'all know that I'm still alive!  I was not eaten by crocodiles while rafting in the Nile, even though I'm pretty sure we spent more time in the water than actually on the raft...

Uganda was AMAZING and it was great having showers with running water, but I sure am glad to get back to village life!

Mbu [mosquito]

Ayyyy everyone!  This post is going to be dedicated to creepy crawlies and other magical critters!  That being said, it will be continuously updated for the rest of my stay here in Kenya...Awesome possum, right?

Let me start by introducing you to everyone's favorite friend!

This is our beloved dog, Maximus.  Max was rescued by Stacey a few months ago when he was only a wee little pup, and now he lives in and out of our house.  He frequently likes to sit by the jiko for warmth.  Ain't he a cutie?  The other day, he came for a run with us!

 This little guy joined us for dinner one night.

This is a really gross wormy-caterpillar thingy.

 

 BABY COWWWWWWW!

This is an action shot of Rose saving the day by killing not one, not two, but THREE GIANT SPIDERS! 

UNICORN TURKEY!!!!  Need I say more?


And believe me, there will be much more to come!

Nakupenda Kenya! [I love you Kenya!]

Hey everyone!  It's been quite a while!  I can't believe I've already been in Africa for 15 days... that's 25% of my journey completed already!  Wowzers!

I thought it might be time to give you a nice little tour of my house here in Makadara (supposedly that's the name of my exact location...hmmm).

Let's start with my house.

Here it is!  Tucked behind some nice little trees, and surrounded on all sides with maize fields.  I'm surprised that there are no chickens or turkeys in this photo, because we always have huge flocks of poultry clucking about, including a nasty white turkey, who frequently likes to attack me! 

Anyways, the house is a cozy little place, with 4 rooms...one bedroom for Rose (the fantastic woman who cooks fantastic food for us!), one bedroom with 4 beds (where Juli, Sabrina, Amy and I sleep), and then the main room, which has our kitchen, table, chairs, a couch, and 2 more beds (one is for Stacey, the other is empty)...and then I guess there is one other mysterious room which exists although I have never seen it...

Above is a picture of my bedroom, or as we like to say "the Room of Life."  The bottom bunk belongs to moi!  As you can see, I'm just as messy in Kenya as I am at home!!  The dark thing on the left is the other bunk bed.  Fun stuff, eh?  I don't know why it looks like I don't have a mosquito net...I assure you, Mom, that I do!  Maybe it's just that blue thing in the middle...hmmmmf.  This picture was taken a while ago, so now the net is set up like a nice, spacious tent.  I've learned to really appreciate the net...it protects me from all the creepy crawlies...like the cockroach we saw one night that was AS BIG AS MY HEAD!  You think I'm exaggerating?  mmmmm....maybe.  But not by much.

Here comes the fun part!

 You guessed it!  That's our handydandy bathroom!  The door on the left is our shower, or rather a room with a slanted floor (to act as a drain).  We get about half a bucket of water each night, and surprisingly, it's plenty!  It makes me realize that I probably use superfluous amounts of water back home.  I shower at night, usually after dark, so I have to bring my headlamp and hang it on the door.  I've actually gotten quite used to the whole process.  The door on the right is our toilet.  I'll leave that up to your imagination...

Okay kiddies! That's it for now!  On Saturday I'll be travelling to Uganda for some white-water rafting down the Nile!   Can't wait to tell you all about it, assuming I am not eaten by crocodiles...

P.S.  I'm going to go through my past few entries and add some pictures, so be sure to check them out!

Jina langu ni Maria [My name is Maria]

Okay kiddies.  Please don't hate me for posting yet another entry without pictures.  This time I tried, I promise.  But I wrote everything yesterday, and then it started raining cats and alligators, so the power went out while my photos were uploading and everything got all ahfl;ajdslfkagkjlgkj.  Today, I just plain forgot to bring my camera cords (I didn't think I'd be going to the cyber, so I wasn't prepared).  They will come soon though, have no fear!!  I know that when I read blogs, I only look at the pictures, because I really don't know how to read...but I am trying my best! [JUST KIDDING FOLKS!  AS OF 6/15/2011, THERE ARE PICTURES!  HUZZAH!!!]

Yesterday I went to Tumaini for the first time (the school where I'll be volunteering.)  In the morning, I sung the alphabet song with the baby class, and read an awesome story about jungle animals.

This is the baby class...I assure you that most of the time we were there, the kids WERE actually smiling...here I think they were just confused by the camera.

Then Amy and I taught the kids how to play frisbee.

 

The children really enjoy playing with the new jump rope that we brought.

In the afternoon I sat in on a grade 3 science class, where I learned about planting maize and bean seeds, and then guess what?  I taught P.E.!!  Or rather, I taught a bunch of kids how to play "Duck, Duck, Goose!" and the teacher had to translate for me.  'Twas pretty fun though.  The kids really only know how to say, "Hi, how are you?" in English, but hopefully soon we'll be able to communicate better.

The day before yesterday, I went hiking in Kakamega Forest (Kenya's only rainforest) with Sabrina, Julie, and Stacey.  SOOOO MANY MONKEYS!! And butterflies, and medicinal plants, and other things that are less exciting than monkeys.

 

Here's a picture of me inside of a Strangler Tree.  I kind of look like a boy in this picture...but hey, I'm in Africa, so shuddup. 

 

There were tons of crazy trees like this one... I think this is the one that our tourguide said was over 600 years old, but I could be lying to you and you'd NEVER EVER EVER know!

The monkey pictures didn't come out so well because my camera couldn't zoom well, so let's pretend there are some in this photo. :)

After we left the forest, I tried my first Kenyan beer!

On the way home from the forest, it was pouring rain like CRAZY and my seat in the matatu happened to be the only one under a leak in the roof.  It was...interesting.  I'm also learning that pikipikis in the rain are not the most fun...They get stuck in the mud quite often.  Well actually, they are really SUPER fun, but maybe not the safest mode of transportation.  You would all be aghast at how terrible the roads get here everytime it rains.

Today we went to Bungoma to meet with ACE Africa, an organization that does a lot of work in the area revolving around AIDS/HIV.  Part of their work is creating gardens so that people living with AIDS, and their families, can have the proper nutrition for cheaper costs.  The meeting went really well, and we were able to set up a two day seminar where experts will come teach community members about organic farming.  Hopefully this will spark a lot of interest in Anerico's community garden!  I'm really looking forward to see how this progresses. 

P.S.  Soon I'll give you a tour of my house!  Last night there was a lizard in the shower!  Thankfully it was either gone by my turn or just too dark for me to see it.

P.P.S.  I have been trying to take pictures of all the creepy crawlies I see (it's tricky though, because sometimes they are just too creepy, and sometimes they are just too crawly).  So maybe soon I'll be able to dedicate a special post just to those! 

P.P.P.S.  I don't think I will be seeing anymore Walters :(

Tikiti maji [watermelon]

I am slowly conquering my fear of the creepy-crawlies.  After spending all day weeding Anrico's commmunity garden, and after my encounter with a huge creepy-crawly in the shower last night, they are maybe not so bad.  Even the ladybugs are not nearly as terrifying in Kenya as they are back in good ol' Marblehead.  (Also, the ladybugs here are opposite - black with red spots!)

Karibu! [Welcome!]

Today was my first full day in the village of Eshibanze!  First, let me tell you about our journey from Nairobi.  Daniel was supposed to be picking us up from the Wildebeest Camp at 6:30 AM, so we had planned on waking up with plenty of time for one last real shower, and maybe some breakfast.  But of course I didn't wake up until 6:33.  It's a good thing Daniel was late as well!

We took a matatu (a small shuttle bus, for about 9 passengers) to Bungoma.  The ride took about 6 or 7 hours, but we drove through the Rift Valley, so it was really enjoyable.  You would not believe how many cows and goats are wandering on the side of the road.  And my new favorite animal for the next two months: donkeys.  They were EVERYWHERE!!!

Arriving in Bungoma was sooo hectic, but thankfully Stacey, Julie, and Sabrina (the other volunteers) were there to greet us.  After a lunch of bread and beans (mmmmmm), we hopped on another matatu.  This time, there were 16 passengers, in a 9 passenger van, plus all of Amy's and my luggage.  But here comes the best part.  After that matatu ride, I hopped on the back of a piki piki (motorbike), with my luggage, in the rain, on muddy roads, and through a couple streams.  So ridiculous. 

But now we're safe and sound at the volunteer house.  Today Stacey showed me around and introduced me to some of the projects that I might be working on.  Tomorrow, we'll be helping Anrico with his community garden. 

And my final adventure of the day, Stacey and I went for a run with my new friend Hamza!  It's going to take a while to get used to the heat, but I'm no wimp!  Oh, and tomorrow is Sporty Sunday in the village!  And Wednesday is card club!  I think these two months are going to go by so quickly!

Sorry that there are no pictures today -- I'll try to put some up soon.... but I'm really lazy!  Plus its 6:30 and already dark in our house.  Maybe later I'll tell you how AWESOME our showers (read: small mud room)and toilet (read: hole in the ground surrouded by tons of flies) are!  No but really, it's not that bad at all!  And the food is great too!  I probably eat better here than I do at home. 

Hope all is well back in the homeland! :)

Hakuna haraka [no hurries]

I have officially survived an entire day in Kenya without being eaten by lions! Which is saying a lot, because Amy and I were actually watching lions at feeding time. It's a bummer that I left my fanny pack full of steak at home...Otherwise I would have been able to get you some closer pictures!

Our driver Daniel picked us up this morning to take us on errands around Nairobi (cell phones, internet connecty thingies, etc.). It was great having a local to show us around the city and help us get good deals on things.

This is Nairobi.

Notice the lovely grey sky. 

And this is a billboard for Simba Cement…the only cement worth buying, obviously.

After our errands, he brought us to the animal orphanage. This place was really neat - there were all the animals you could expect to see in any given scene of The Lion King… warthogs, baboons, ostriches, hyenas, and lions galore! And look! There was even a baby giraffe, only 3 weeks old! 
 

I named him Walter, of course.

We finished seeing all the animals a couple hours before feeding time, so we decided to hang out for a bit until all the excitement started. We went by the Swahili saying of “hakuna haraka.” (“No hurry“….please don’t try to look that up in a translation dictionary because I probably butchered the spelling) . Like Daniel was telling us yesterday, “here in Kenya, we have watches but we don’t have time.” So we hung out and talked to Daniel about his business ideas (Akeda Tours...I'll post the link when I'm not being lazy as a snaaaail) for a very long time, until it was time to watch the feeeeeast.

All in all it was a fantastic first day in Africa. Saw lots of neat things, met lots of great people, especially other people staying here at the Wildebeest Camp. This one guy, Jerry, has been travelling around Africa for three years now, just for kicks. He somehow wound up renting a national park in Malawi for a year. Then tonight we met this lady who is starting a social business about menstruation....interesting, eh? But I bet none of them stick out like a sore thumb as badly as I do here in Kenya...boy do I scream foreigner. Even Amy said she can spot me from all the way across the supermarket. But hey, at least I'm not as odd as this guy:

But I'm probably not as awesome either.

I also wanted to add in some info about the 24 hours of travel from Montreal, like how AWESOME airplane food is (despite all those people who say otherwise, and how sick it made me feel), and the man in Brussels Airport who convinced me to take a picture of him, and then was confused when I told him I was living in the 21st century with neither an email address nor a telephone number.  (He's this following mysterious creature.  Maybe if we all work together, we can turn him into an internet sensation!)

Oh, and I also wanted to tell you about how I surrupticiously managed to acquire not one, but TWO ice cream bars on the plane from Brussels to Nairobi!!! (but then I felt guilty and gave one back)

Off to bed now!  Gotta wake up at 6 tomorrow to start the journey to Bungoma!  Later Gators!