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 :(