Last Post

Wow. What an amazing time it has been. I am so glad that I decided to do this blog not only to share everything with whoever reads this, but also as something for me to look back on later and be reminded of everything I’ve experienced. I have had the most incredible experience, but am totally ready to come home. I have never been away from home or family or friends this long and there’s so much to look forward to at home! I won’t actually be home for another week though- I will be in Europe for six days until I come home and I’m so excited about that too!

This last post will be about things that I have come to love about Nairobi:

1- The Canadian second-hand clothing that I see on a daily basis. Did you know that Canada’s second most important industry in Kenya and East Africa in general is second-hand clothing? Not a day has gone by where I haven’t seen a Timbits jersey on a grown man, or a Vancouver Canucks t-shirt, or a Hockey Canada vest, or a tacky Niagra Falls, ON shirt on the backs of a fellow Nairobian. These are such sweet little reminders of home and I still get excited every time I see a Kenyan unknowingly wearing a maple leaf.    


2- My coworkers at Maji.- My internship at Maji has been so enjoyable and I credit this to the fun atmosphere that is constant at the Maji offices and on trips to the field. All of the employees are so wonderful and helpful to us interns, but they also treat each other with so much respect and fondness. There is no noticeable hierarchy at the organization. Everyone, from the executive director, to the driver is treated with equal respect. The employees at Maji are so competent at what they do but also o much fun. I, like everyone else in the office, laugh all the time at work. Despite the fun atmosphere, Maji also does incredible work. They really are a leader in their field and it has been wonderful to work for such an important organization. I don’t want to bore you with a bunch of development talk but once I get home I can talk your ear off about why Maji is doing development so right. The Director of Maji, Janet, is an incredible woman; she is an amazing leader who fosters a great work atmosphere. At staff meetings she is incredible at including everyone and getting great insights out of everyone. I really admire her and will miss working with her and all of the Maji employees.    

     3- The Vision Sisters- you might remember that this is the women’s group from Kibera that I work closely with. I will miss attending their weekly meetings and chatting with their members. They are an inspirational group of ladies and I have high hopes for the future of their group and their Women in Crisis Centre. I wish I could stay longer to see construction of the centre finish and the implementation of the centre’s programs. On our last Wednesday meeting, one of the ladies’ grandsons presented us with a present: beaded bracelets with Kenyan and Canadian flags on them. The lady, Mary, had been talking to him about us for the past six weeks so he made them for us as a thank you.

I will also miss the organized chaos that is Nairobi, how friendly Nairobians are, and discovering new things about Nairobi and its surroundings every weekend. On Thursday, we drove past the Nairobi National Park on our way back from a workshop with local youth groups. We went to the NNP on the first day in Nairobi with the program. Seeing the park made me think back on the past four months and think about how much I’ve seen and experienced, and how much I’ve learned and changed. Thanks for sharing everything with me! 

Mount Suswa

Reuben! He switched into his Maasai garb and out of his
school uniform as soon as we got to his family's home.

They thought our tiny tents were so funny! Meriepe couldn't even fit!

For my last weekend in Nairobi, and in East Africa in general, my friends Courtney, Anna, and I ventured outside the city to hike Mount Suswa, a very interesting volcano just west of the city.  We heard about the mountain through our guidebooks and did a little hunting on the internet to find out what we could about it given how little information the Lonely Planet had to offer. We read an Australian guy’s blog entry about his hike on Suswa and at the end he gave his guide’s name (Reuben) and his phone number. We gave it a shot and called up Reuben. Reuben is a high school student who goes to boarding school in Nairobi. His family lives on Mount Suswa and he said that he would escort us to Suswa and guide us for the weekend.

Not knowing what to expect, we boarded the first of two matatus and headed off to Suswa. After a two hour nail-biting ride on a road clinging to the escarpment wall of the Rift Valley we arrived in Suswa Town and then embarked on a three hour hike to our campsite.

On our way to the site we stopped at Reuben’s home. Reuben is one of 42 children born to one man who has 6 wives. We were invited into his brother Daniel’s boma and offered chai (boiled milk, fresh from the cow, with tea leaves, sugar, and herbs) and a plate of rice and meat. It was so special to be invited into his home, to meet Reuben’s brothers and father, and play with his nieces and nephews. I even held his other brother, Meriepe’s, two-and-a-half month old son Simirin. He was the sweetest little baby, so calm and inquisitive-looking and giggly. He looked so precious all wrapped up in a Maasai shuka. The sense of family and the way all of the family members related to each other was so endearing. The elders talk to the children so gently and the kids are so calm. Even the infants don’t fuss and calm down as soon as someone speaks to them softly. Even the men were so tender with their children. It was very sweet.

After visiting with the family, we hiked a bit more to our campsite on the edge on the inner crater. A note about Suswa’s geological make-up: Suswa is a collapsed volcano that collapsed twice producing two craters: one larger and one smaller within it. You can see the overhead shot here although that still doesn't really do it justice. Reuben’s family lives in the valley in between the two crater rims. We camped on the edge of the inner crater rim and then hiked along this rim the next morning to one of Suswa’s two summits. In the centre of the inner crater is the “Lost Island”. My pictures don’t do it justice but let me assure you it was one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever seen. I felt really good about hiking Suswa instead of one of the more established mountains in the area because the money went directly to Reuben’s sweet family and to the kid’s school fees. The family was so genuine, hard-working, and warm- an experience that I never would have had at a more popular mountain. If anyone you know is going to Kenya that would be interested in hiking please pass along my contact info so that I can recommend Reuben. We are planning on helping them to set up a simple website and contacting guidebooks for them to help them get the word out about the amazing trips they have to offer.

It was so great to get out of the city and breath non-polluted, fresh air and to be in the sun! It was great to get some exercise too! In total we walked about 35 kilometres, with some very steep uphill parts going at a very brisk pace. For our Maasai guides, having grown up in the mountain spending all of their time walking these hills, the hike way child’s play. They would run down the steep hills as we slipped and rolled on the loose volcanic rocks. They hopped and bounded up the cliffs as we huffed and puffed our way up. And they would stand on rocks precariously perched on the edge of the rim, hovering over a vertical drop into the crater laughing as we gasped in fright.

This is the kind of thing that I will miss most about Kenya and East Africa: the friendly, fascinating, special people that you meet and the amazing things that you are lucky enough to witness. 

Arusha, Tanzania

Painting the new fence!

Lunch time!

On Friday, Kelly and I went to visit our friend from the program, Lauren, in Arusha, Tanzania. We took off the afternoon on Friday and took a seven-and-a-half hour (supposed to be 5 hour) 14-seater bus from Nairobi to Arusha. The drive was absolutely stunning, especially once we crossed into Tanzania. I am always struck by the sharp change in landscape that occurs as soon as you cross the political border. The terrain became lush and green and mountainous as soon as we crossed into Tanzania. We arrived in Arusha late at night and got a cab to Lauren’s homestay where dinner was waiting for us. We caught up with Lauren over a bottle of wine and it was really a lovely night.

The kids didn't leave a speck of food on
their once overflowing plates

The next morning we went to the orphanage that Lauren has been working at for the past three years. We took two dala-dalas (public transport a la Tanzania, think rickety 14-seater bus that they cram at least 25 people into) to the base of Mount Meru and then walked 45 minutes part way up the mountain to get to the orphanage. The walk was a bit of a workout but was very peaceful and beautiful which was welcome after the hectic and stressful dala-dala rides. We found that people in Arusha, and especially those encountered on the dala-dala were very aggressive and rude. It made me realize how well people treat us in Nairobi. I’ve never felt stressed or threatened in Nairobi and I’ve never been touched or grabbed by a matatu caller (matatu=Kenyan equivalent of a dala-dala). Arusha was a completely different story so I thanked my lucky stars that I chose to do my internship in Nairobi.

The beautiful Rosie :)

But the dala-dalas were the only bad part of our experience in Arusha. Everyone else we met were lovely. This was especially so for the people at Lauren’s orphanage. So after a walk up the mountain we arrived at Lauren’s orphanage. We played with the kids for a bit and then got to work on painting the new fence. Lauren fundraises when she’s home in Canada for the orphanage and puts the money she raises towards any projects that need to be done around the orphanage. There are 19 kids at Lauren’s orphanage and they were the sweetest, most well-behaved and well-adjusted, kind, calm children I’ve ever encountered. The whole place was buzzing with such positive yet relaxed energy. After we finished the second coat we played with the kids a bit more, had some delicious lunch and then headed back down the mountain standing in the back of a pickup truck (you can take the girl out of Carleton Place…) We took a dala-dala back to Arusha, had a gelato in “wazungu square” (named as such because of the profusion of shops that would appeal to wazungu, i.e. white people) and then went back to Lauren’s homestay. We had a delicious rice pilaf for dinner and then went to a bar and danced the night away with a break-dancing team from Nairobi. 

All in all it was a fantastic weekend and I am so thrilled that I got to see what a wonderful place Lauren works at. That being said, we got off of the bus after dark in Nairobi and were greeted by a swarm of taxi drivers. No one grabbed us or acted in any way aggressive or vulgar. We engaged in a light-hearted banter while negotiating the price back to Lenana Palace. We had the drivers roaring with laughter as we walked over to the lucky driver’s cab, and it felt  good to be back home.
 

Good Times at Lenana Palace

We are now three weeks into our internship working with Maji na Ufanisi and Vision Sisters. The job has been exciting, boring, frustrating, and rewarding depending on the moment. It has been consistently instructive though, and has given me a great glimpse into development work. I'm sure it will be very influential in directing my future education and career paths.

My days at work usually consist of attending meetings with other women's organizations so that the Vision Sisters can develop partnerships, establish good working relationships, and avoid replicating services for women in Kibera. This has been very useful, I think, and I've really enjoyed attending these business meetings with great organizations. We also attend the Vision Sisters' weekly meetings and contribute to them. We have visited the site of the WICC a few times for ceremonies like the groundbreaking and the official handing over of power to the contractor. In the upcoming weeks I will be at the site a lot and occasionally doing some construction work, if necessary.

Some kids at the site of the WICC

The amazing Vincenza at the
groundbreaking for the WICC

Maji is so well-organized and well established that the work I’m doing with them is mostly for my own learning experience. I probably haven’t done anything earth-shattering for Maji but it has been an excellent and instructive experience for me. It’s so interesting to see how development organizations work in practice. My work for Vision Sisters, on the other hand, has had some tangible outcomes. Vision Sisters, you may recall, is a women’s group based in the slum Kibera (2^nd biggest slum in Africa) that has reached a critical point in establishing a Women in Crisis Centre to serve the women of Kibera. Some construction has started although we’ve run into some issues with what I suspect is corruption and severe pocket-lining on the part of the contractor that we’re working with. I wish I knew a reputable Kenyan version of the McKenna Bros. who could come and do this simple construction job for the Vision Sisters for a fair price. The problem too, is that land tenure in Kibera is non-existant. You cannot own a plot of land there but rather you own the structure that you construct on the land. This means that until we construct the centre, we could lose the plot of land. Overall, these three weeks have been excellent and I look forward to the next three.

Besides work, we’ve done a lot in our free time too. My favourite thing about having this swanky apartment in Nairobi is that everyone from the program who is still travelling/working in East Africa has dropped by for a sleepover or two. We’ve had 12 people from the program dropping by for different durations of stays and it’s been great! We’ve spent some time getting to know Nairobi, going to the parks, walking around the downtown and spending an unfortunate amount of time at the malls. The mall visits have subsided rapidly since the first week where we visited them regularly stocking the apartment with a variety of necessities, and yet the nightmare of malls haunts me to this day. We’ve also gone out and experienced a bit of Nairobi nightlife, which was awesome! Montreal has nothing on Nairobi.

Biking in Hell's Gate!

The Gorge

For Easter, six of us packed up an overnight bag, went to the Nakumatt (think African Wal-Mart) and bought some $15 tents and some food, and hitched a ride to Hell’s Gate National Park, about two hours southwest of Nairobi. Hell’s Gate (supposedly) doesn’t have any predators, a.k.a. dangerous, lethal animals in it, so it is the only park in Kenya where you can walk or bike inside it as opposed to being in a truck or car. We elected to rent some bikes at the gate and biked around the park for the next two days. It was stunning!! Hell’s Gate had some of the most beautiful landscapes that I’ve seen during this entire trip. Our campsite, for example, was on the top of an escarpment wall, which made for a difficult ride home after a day of biking but paid off in a breathtaking view of the valley. One of the highlights of the park was a two-hour tour of “The Gorge”- basically a small river at the bottom of a steep rock crevice. The gorge is difficult to describe- it was so beautiful and had such dramatic features that my words wouldn’t do it justice. I have a video of us walking through it, which is pretty funny given that some of the paths we’re nearly impossible to traverse. I will try to upload it but if not I will show it to you when I’m back in Canada. I mentioned before that Hell’s Gate is supposed to have no dangerous animals in it. This ended up being false because besides all of the many zebras, giraffes, gazelles, and warthogs we saw, we also came across a massive herd of African buffalo. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this already, but as part of the program I had to do a project on the buffalo. Because of this I was fully aware of how exceedingly dangerous they are! They rival lions in terms of most dangerous animals in Africa. They’ve been known to be intentionally vicious to humans. Needless to say we were totally freaked out but luckily we got a car to escort us past the herd.

We worked yesterday, on Saturday (last minute meeting with the contractor) and so today we went to Karen, a swanky ex-pat suburb of Nairobi. It’s an absolutely beautiful community with gorgeous colonial-era manors and lovely, manicured green landscapes. It’s beautiful in Karen but also a striking example of the inequality in Nairobi, and in Kenya. The white population continues to live in the most beautiful and safe areas. While in Karen we visited the Giraffe Orphanage where they breed and care for Rothschild giraffes (the most endangered type of giraffe) before setting them out into the wild.  We also visited the Karen Blixen museum (Karen Blixen wrote Out of Africa), which is housed in her lovely stone house at the bottom of the breathtaking Ngong Hills.

Myself, Kelly, Brianna and Andrew
at the Giraffe Centre

Look at that tongue!!

That’s all for now! Looking forward to hearing about the Canadian election tomorrow! Tomorrow is Labour Day in Kenya so hopefully that is a good omen for the most Labour-minded party in Canada. We’re all crossing our fingers for change here at Lenana Palace.

Nairobi, take three!

Lenana Palace

Maya and Kelly on mine and Kelly's king sized bed

So we flew back to Nairobi via Zanzibar International Airport, an airport with security so lax my passport didn’t get looked at once, and landed once again in the bustling metropolis of Nairobi. This time I’m here for a little over six weeks for an internship with an organization that we connected with through the program, Maji na Ufanisi. I am really excited to settle down in one place after travel so much over the past three months. It will be nice to get settled in a place and really get to know the city of Nairobi.

First order of business was to get an apartment. Based out of the lovely, but small Milimani Backpacker’s Hostel, we spent a few days calling landlords, meeting with agents, and seeing apartments until finally by some stroke of luck we met the beautiful, glam landlord “Nana” who allowed us to rent one of her apartments for the duration of our internship. The apartment is now affectionately known as “The Lenana Palace” named as such for its opulence that none of us have ever come close to experiencing in Montreal and also in honour of our landlord and because we live off of Lenana road. On top of all this it’s in a very safe and secure neighbourhood a two-minute walk from the office.



Steve trying out a fluffy bathrobe that came with the place!



Master bathroom, out of picture is our shower that has eight nozzles! 



Bri in our kitchen

We’ve now been at Maji for a week and it’s been a great first week at the internship. So far I’ve helped facilitate a workshop at which youth groups from all of the slums of Nairobi are trying to form a network to strengthen their bargaining power against the government. Maji is all about participatory development meaning that it seeks to empower people to find their own solutions to their development problems. It’s role is limited to facilitation and coordination. It was really interesting to see the “participatory development model” in action, to see it work really well at motivating the participants and getting them excited, and then to see it, when everyone was hungry and losing patience, to completely fall apart and morph into the “authoritarian development model”.  Also, this week we’ve helped to organize and then finally attend the groundbreaking ceremony for a sanitation block to be built in Kibera slum. The sanitation block is to be built on a piece of land that is entitled another group that we’re working with called Vision Sisters. The Vision Sisters will use the sanitation block as an income-generating endeavor. Vision Sisters is a women’s group comprised of women, mostly over 70, who live in Kibera and want to open a Women in Crisis Centre to serve women who live in Kibera. The WICC will eventually be attached to the sanitation block. It is exciting that the groundbreaking has finally happened given that Maji and Vision Sisters have been working towards this point for almost five years but I am hesitant to be too excited since there are many impediments that this project will inevitably run into. These include chauvinistic male politicians with too much power and too little respect for the need for the WICC, lack of funding, problems with contractors, etc. We’ll see what happens- the sanitation block should be completed in two months.

Not much else to report right now. Other than working, we’ve been spending an unfortunate amount of time at malls, mostly out of necessity. I look forward to getting outside and seeing the city of Nairobi more. Talk soon!! 

Andrew and Courtney hard at work

Kendwa Rocks!

Haji, one of our scuba instructors

The program ended amid a whirlwind of activity and to avoid too much shock many of us decided to head north on the island to a beach called Kendwa. Actually, of the 38 people on the program, at one point, 29 of us were at Kendwa which is pretty special- never have so many people from the program ever stayed together after the program. It’s been a nice gradual transition from the program since it has meant only saying bye to a few people per day instead of everyone at once. Not wanting to go directly from being hyper-busy with school work to doing nothing, at Kendwa a bunch of us decided to get our PADI diving certification. We scored a pretty good deal with a company called Scuba Doo since it's low season and we were such a big group. I have been bitten by the diving bug and am now addicted to it. I love being underwater for that long and seeing so many amazing creatures. It is amazingly calming to be in that kind of environment- although that could be attributed to the perfect, warm, clear water and the white coral sand ocean floor. The day we completed our course we chartered a catamaran (again, we got a wicked deal given the time of year and our group’s size) and took it to Mnemba Island, an island off the east coast of Zanzibar. Those who did the course went diving while the rest of the group snorkeled. We spent the rest of the day cruising around on the catamaran, swimming, and relaxing. To top it off we saw two huge groups of dolphins swimming and jumping not too far from our boat. It was a perfect day.

Kelly and me on the catamaran!

After a week or so of being beach bums we got a car back to Stone Town and spent three more days meandering around Stone Town, shopping for souvenirs, and eating delicious food. Then, on April 7^th, the remaining six of us made our way to the airport and flew back to Nairobi.  

Stone Town, Zanzibar

The last stretch of the program will encompass a week in Stone Town, the “soul” of Zanzibar Town which is the capital of the semi-autonomous (from Tanzania) island off the coast of Tanzania. Stone Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site and rightly so. It is an amazing mix of Arab, Swahili, and Indian cultures which is evidenced in the architecture as well as the inhabitants of the city. The call for prayer sounds five times daily from a mosque that neighbours an incredible Indian restaurant while merchants holler at you in Swahili from their shops. I absolutely adore Stone Town. It actually has a very European feel with thin winding alleyways and cobblestone streets.

I wish you could smell the smells of this market!

The inimitable Tim Johns shows our class around the market on a field trip

Our time in Stone Town has been extremely busy. Besides lectures we went on a few field trips, most notably to a spice plantation not far from Stone Town. The Spice tour was fantastic, we got to see how cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, nutmeg, turmeric, and many other spices and fruits are harvested and processed for sale. It was a very interactive tour, we had an excellent guide who would let us taste, touch, and smell everything we saw. My notes from the day are excellent- I rubbed cinnamon bark on the page when we saw our first cinnamon tree and even weeks later it still smells, and rubbed a cut turmeric root all over the page, dying it yellow after our guide let us dig up a root. Another great field trip was a walk through one of Stone Town’s markets. I love how lively the visit was; people are yelling at you, there’s music, everyone bumps into everyone indiscriminately. There’s fresh fruits and vegetables like okra, tomatoes, cabbage, and pears, as well as less recognizable traditional African varieties. There are spices and spice products, dried fish and octopus, and woven baskets and mats.

We are also very busy wrapping up our classes with final essays and exams, finishing final research projects and presenting them and also getting ready to separate from one another. For a mental break, the program took us out on boats to an island 45 minutes off the coast of Stone Town to snorkel for half the day. The water is crystal clear turquoise blue and extremely warm and it was so nice to spend time in the boats and in the water before heading back for more work.

Stone Town, being quite the tourist hub has some great restaurants. I’ve eaten very well this week. Probably the most memorable meal for me was one that I ate at Mercury’s- named after Freddie Mercury (did you know he was born in Zanzibar?) It was a plate of fish tacos: perfectly spiced fish in a perfect warm and crispy tortilla served with mango salsa with the perfect amount of green chilies and lovely guacamole.