Independent Travelling Woot!

OUR TRIP!!!

Over the course of 21 days, Mimansa, Megan, Amelia and I will be travelling to four different cities in Kenya. First we’ll travel from Nairobi to Kakamega, where we’ll stay in the Kakamega rainforest. [We’ll be travelling to Kisumu via bus, and then to Kakamega by matatu.]

We'll be staying in Udo’s Bandas, a small place which offers two-bed, thatched roof bandas. Mosquito nets are provided, and there is a small group kitchen area, where we will be cooking all of our food. We’ll be staying in Kakamega from Dec 18 – Dec 23. The rainforest itself is home to over 300 species of birds, and a bunch of primates – including BUSHBABIES, which are my newest favorite animal.

Look how cute they are!

I plan to capture one in the forest, domesticize it, and train it to sleep in my backpack so I can take one home with me. I’ll let you know how that goes.

On the 23^rd, we’ll be taking a matatu South to Kisumu, where Lillian (our resident director) lives.

She has graciously said that we can stay at her mother’s house with her and her family over Christmas. What fun! Kisumu is Kenya’s third largest town and lies on Lake Victoria. We’ll be staying with Lillian from the 23^rd until the 26^th.

On the 26^th, we’ll be travelling Southeast to Embu, to visit Roseanne and her family!

Roseanne has also said that we can stay at her place for a few days. We’re so lucky to have such giving teachers here. We’ll be staying in Embu with Roseanne until the 29^th.

Finally, on the 29^th, we’ll start out longest time period of pure travelling. We’ll first go Southwest back to Nairobi, then take an eight hour bus-ride Southeast to Mombasa, and then travel Northeast to Lamu.

Why are we making these seemingly crazy stops? Because travelling in Kenya is weird and there are no straight buses to Lamu, except through Mombasa. It’s going to be a crazy day or so. Finally we’ll get to Lamu on the 31^st, where we’ll celebrate New Years and then relax for a bit. We’ll be staying in Lamu until the 6^th of January, and then travelling home.

YAY! That’s all I have for now – I promise I’ll blog about (a)going on safari and (b)MOM AND DAD COMING TO SEE ME sometime soon. Before we leave.

-katie

Matatus

October 29, 2010

Something I realize I've never mentioned - but surely need to - is MATATUS. Matatus are a mode of transportation in Kenya (and a lot of Africa, I think). The Matatu is kind of like a bus, in that they follow a fixed path all day but unlike a bus in that there are no set stops or real schedule of any kind. For example, my friend Emily takes the same matatu (the #106) to and from town every day. But sometimes she waits half an hour for one, and sometimes (if she runs fast enough) she can catch one just as she leaves her house. And the driver doesn't stop unless it's picking someone up, or you tell him you need to get off.

Matatu drivers are RIDICULOUS in the driving arena. They completely ignore most traffic laws. At first this was scary, but then I realized that Nairobi drivers, as a whole, tend to drive wrecklessly - and they all know this, so they're good at creating little actual mayhem.

Anyways, there's this guy who's always in the matatu aside from the driver. He's called the "taut" although I don't know what his real title is. He's the guy who communicates to the driver when to stop and when to keep going: by hitting on the side of the matatu with some coins to make this "coin-on-metal" sound. He's also the one who collects your money. The taut mostly just sits in the matatu, but sometimes he's hanging out the door, which is open, while the matatu is driving, yelling at people to get them on the matatu. Sometimes when there's a big jam (traffic jam that is) he gets out of the matatu and scurries around looking for passengars.

The "taut"

Matatus are really cheap, generally. The rate generally goes anywhere from 20shillings to 60shillings I think - depending on where you're going.** (Although I don't take matatus to get into town, so I'm not sure how much that is.) To pick up a matatu you kind of just flag them down and then get on, but sometimes traffic is stopped and you just kind of hop on one. The music in matatus is always SUPER LOUD. I've heard a lot of reggae and a lot of hip hop. But Megan said she had a matatu driver who sang along to A Whole New World one time - so the genre really could be anything, ha-ha.

That's all I can think of to say about them. And - Mom. Dad. We will be taking matatus. Get ready!! (If only to ride one for fun because it's kind of a cool experience.)

**Note: It's good to memorize how much it costs for you to go from point A to point B, if you do that trip a lot because drivers will try to cheap you out on the occasion.

Birthday...PART DEUX!!

Friday October 22, 2010

Tonight was the night we decided to get the whole group out for the first time. We were all looking forward to it. So at about 5pm, Emily and and I set out to walk from school to my house (she was spending the night). It had been POURING for the last hour or so, but if we didn't walk home soon it would be dark and then unsafe to walk. Needless to say we got SOAKED. It was absolutely insane. The water was so high in the roads that it was pouring up over the curb. We didn't even try to stay dry. On our walk home we passed a schoolbus full of children, who were all saying "how are you? how are you?!" as they often do - it's one of the first English sentences they learn. We turned to them and said "mzuri sana!" which means "very good!" and they laughed and laughed. We definitely made their day - - two crazy white people walking around in the rain.

We all met at Timers - a restaurant/bar that's pretty near my house, just past the city park. From there we went to Mwendas and then to Changes - two other clubs we frequent in Nairobi.

Nothing too exciting happened - I took a flaming shot, which was quite exciting and tasted DISGUSTING. But it was a birthday gift and it was actually kind of fun. Here's some pictures from the night:

Emily, Mimansa, Amelia and Saskia

Me and Mims

Saskia, Zach and Emily

Emily and Katie

Happy Birthday Me!!

October 19, 2010

Today is my birthday!! Of course I'd been reminding my friends for the last two weeks or so they had some surprises planned! I was supposed to have Gender and Development from 9-11 and then Politics from 11-1, but Professor Wanyande was sick, so Politics was cancelled! (The first birthday gift.)

I made Roseanne take a picture with me. :)

We all met for lunch at around 11:30 at Pizza Inn, a lunch which my friends payed for so nicely! Emily came with bags of random birthday stuff, including some silver and blue tinsel which I was required to wear, noise-makers and a little piece of cake from a bakery with a few candles on top!

Zach and Emily

Mimansa and Amelia

Amelia and Meeee

MY CAKE!

The group (minus me)

Then they presented me with two gifts! Emily and Zach were the leaders in the gift-buying expedition, and I gave them both huge hugs. They found a canvas painting of a little African boy with TWO GOATS. (Backstory: I've become slightly obsessed with farm animals. When you're driving outside of the city, there are goats and cows everywhere! Literally, everywhere. Once we had to stop in the middle of the road because a herd of cows were blocking our way. And the goats are so cute - especially the little ones. Zach and I like to ask Rosie if we can get a goat for the Kalamazoo room. We told her we'd even get a little box for it to do it's business in! She still says no.) I laughed SO hard when I got the painting and then proceeded to hug each and every one of them. How nice. Emily got me this funny little graduation picture and a frame, because it had a cute little saying on it. And they all sang for me after we ate. It was so nice. I was worried I would get lonely on my birthday, missing home and such. I did a little bit, but I'm really glad my friends came through - they made my day.

The group plus me! And my goat picture haha.

After school I went home and took a long birthday nap. Amelia and I had plans to go out that night with her sister, Michelle, who's in town from Germany, so I knew I needed my sleep. Wednesday we didn't have classes because it's a national holiday - once entitled Kenyatta Day, after their first president, but now called Heros Day. Amelia and Michelle came over to my house around 8:30 and we waited with Kevin to Abby, Gavin and Arnold to show up.

Me and my host brother, Kevin

We went out to a couple clubs, blah blah blah, then went home.

I'll have to finish this post later because I forgot some other pictures from another night. :)

Safari kwa Kisumu!! - Journey to Kisumu!!

OCTOBER 11 - 15

Kisumu was a great mix of both incredibly boring and extremely exciting and life-changing. I'll try to do a day-by-day update, although I'm not guaranteeing that I won't leave things out.

MONDAY, September 11

The drive to Kisumu was just about as long as it was to get to Mombasa – we left Nairobi at around 8:30am, made a couple of stops and got there around 5:00pm. We also stopped at a beautiful viewpoint just an hour or so out of Nairobi to take some pictures.

Isn't that a beautiful view?

TUESDAY, September 12

Today we went to visit TEMAK (Teenage Mothers of Kenya - don't ask me how the abbreviation works). It's this center that was started by a woman in ______. It provides training for teenage women who have children in different fields such as textiles, beauty and hair, and computer training. It has a cafeteria and a place where their children can go to school while they're at work. This facility also has a medical center, where treatment is free to women in the program, and a "cafeteria," where the food is prepared by different women each day - kind of like living in a little co-op. It's a really great NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) in Kenya, which helps a lot of women. Here are some pictures from that morning:

Mims (Mimansa), Amelia and some little kid at TEMAK

Bleak look at the medical center at TEMAK

Megan, Amelia and Mimansa

The center itself

In the afternoon we went to a FISH MARKET on Lake Victoria. It was very smelly but I kind of loved it. There we learned all about the process fishermen go through to get the fish, and then what the women do to cook them. Honestly I didn't really pay that much attention; I was too occupied by all the awesome things going on around me! I've always been a visual person - so listening to some guy talk about fishing wasn't a top priority. First we went to a table with a bunch of dead fish on it.

Smelly fish

THEN he pulled out this monstrous fish that was STILL ALIVE and can live outside of water for two weeks. It was absolutely huge. And it has these huge nasty looking teeth inside its mouth. He would poke at its face until it opened its mouth and snapped it shut, trying to grab a piece of man-meat. It was pretty freaky. I wish I had've thout to get a video of this fish - it was unbelievable.

Then we walked around and were told how the women gutted the fish and got them prepared for eating.

Stray dog that was hanging around - stray animals are all over the place! There's a street in Nairobi where they sell PUPPIES and BABY BUNNIES. (Mom and Dad - if I buy one for myself for my birthday, will you let me keep it?)

Woman gutting a fish

People mining coal, which is imported from Uganda.

Emily and Amelia

Really friendly guy who wanted his picture taken...and then wanted us to pay him for it. He may or may not have been a little intoxicated. (He was.)

FINALLY we got to take a boat ride! The boat was super janky and we actually crashed into another boat and Emily and Mimansa almost got impaled by a giant metal rod. But we all survived. And after that little mishap we sailed along Lake Victoria. It was really awesome. I'm glad we didn't get eaten by crocodiles.

Megan and I - Ready for the boat adventure!

Saskia and Zach make funny faces while we're on Lake Victoria

Then we went home and went to bed.

WEDNESDAY, September 13

Wednesday morning we went to the YWCA of Kisumu. It wasn’t really interesting, but we learned a lot.

Lillian and I wore our pretty dresses today! I bought mine from a store TEMAK owns and runs, which means all the profit goes directly to their cause, which I thought was cool. And it's TYE DYE

In the afternoon we went and met the YWCA Theatre Group of Kisumu. They performed a little for us and then made us do a short made-up skit which was simultaneously humiliating and super fun. We met this group at a church, which was absolutely beautiful.

After that we went to visit Mama Sarah!!! Obama’s paternal grandmother!! She lives about an hour and a half outside of Kisumu in this tiny little village. We talked with her for a while, and then pet her cow who was very friendly, unlike most cows I’ve met in the city.

"Obama's Cow"

Then we went home and went to bed.

THURSDAY, September 14

Today was a “work-day” for us. We went to the Agwara School and helped them build a foundation for a new classroom. As soon as we got out of the van we were pummeled by a large group of school-children! They were so excited to see us and we felt the same. First we watched a couple different groups of kids do dances/songs for us. It was super awesome!

Secondary School Kids dance and sing for us

Primary aged girls do a dance while wearing beautiful kangas

Then we moved a bunch of rocks and dirt into this little squared off area. It was very tiring, but very fun as well. And it was awesome and amazing to get to hang out with all these kids for so long! One of then, named Maro, only spoke Luo. She looked about five or six and so hadn’t started learning Kiswahili yet. But she told Lillian that she wanted to come to America with Mimansa…tonight. Lillian asked how her mom felt about it, and Maro lied and said that her mom was fine with it. She was the absolute cutest! We all wanted to take her home. It was a great day and it was hard to leave!!

They loved us!!

Zach and I were playing "Mom and Dad." We've decided to live in Kenya, and adopt these children as our own. Sorry, Mom.

Dorkus and I! She was so sweet. (And is Maro's sister!)

Me and Maro!! I love her so much.

The cutest child in all of Kenya.

Goodbye hug...

And a goodbye swing!!

FRIDAY, September 15

Today we got up at 7:30, ate breakfast and went home. It was a very long week, but very fun and enriching in every way!

Love you all!!