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. 

Malindi + Mombasa

The view from my tent

What a nice change of pace it has been to get to the coast. At Mpala I was beginning to feel as though we were seeing the same, beautiful nonetheless, but largely the same, scenes over and over: scorched earth with pale green thorny vegetation and intense, dry heat. As soon as we neared the coast the vegetation switched to palm trees lazily swaying in the wind, growing out of the sand-covered ground. The palm trees all have pseudo-ladders hacked into them so that palm wine tappers can climb up and tap their wine. In Malindi we camped on a private beach and would fall asleep listening to the waves of the Indian Ocean crashing into the beach. It was absolutely surreal. The beach was owned by a German man and his family. His home was there and he had a restaurant and bar on the premises too. The beach is perfect white coral sand and the ocean water is the temperature of bath water and the colour of perfect turquoise. The variation between high tide and low tide is quite dramatic as well with low tide retreating far out into sea and high tide threatening to drench our tents and producing amazing waves that we’d spend our afternoons body surfing on. Besides playing in the water, during our time at Malindi we did assignments, had lectures by the beach, and visited locals farms and had lectures by the farmers. My favourite part of this class is that my prof always buys samples of traditional African fruits and vegetables for us to sample. The best one we’ve tried is baobab fruit from the baobab tree also known as Rafiki’s house.

Map of the sacred forest in relation to Mombasa

After four days in Malindi we drove to Mombasa. On the drive there my class stopped in Kaya Rabai forest. This is one of a collection of forests that are considered sacred to the Mijikenda people who live on the coast of Kenya. The dress for a male Mijikenda is limited to a blueish-green sarong tied around his waist. We were greeted by an elder Mijikenda who escorted us through the forest. Rules of the forest: no shoes or socks (to ensure proper contact with the sandy forest floor which has healing and cleansing properties) and no running (so as not to disturb the ancestors and so as to prolong your foot’s contact with the healing, cleansing sand). Keep in mind that our visit took place at 1:30 in the afternoon under the hot midday sun. I don’t think we’ve ever experienced so much pain. Our feet were numb for hours after. It was absolutely scorching. The elder was so sweet and said we did a great job and thanked us for not complaining at all. He said that it’s OK to leap around a little bit. I would argue that “a little bit” is a gross understatement- we were jumping around in between patches of shade and speed walking through the tour. In all though, the forest was beautiful and I appreciate that we were allowed to visit given that only recently people other than the Mijikenda have been allowed to enter the forests. It was fascinating to hear about their beliefs and traditions. The Mijikenda are also very special because they’ve been especially successful at maintaining their traditional lifestyle and practices, no doubt in some part due to the fact that they and their forests are protected under UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

We arrived at our Presbyterian (a.k.a. dry) hotel in Mombasa in the afternoon and spent the night working on projects and essays. The next morning we said goodbye to our beloved Bunduz staff and trucks at the Mombasa airport and boarded our flight to Zanzibar. 

Welcome to Camping Paradise + Voi

The most incredible hot sauce I've ever had!

Mpala Research Centre, to the North of Nairobi with Mt. Kenya not far off in the distance, was described to us a few weeks ago as camping paradise/heaven. I tried not to let my imagination get ahead of me and build it up in my head so as not to be disappointed when we finally arrived there. But it’s hard to be disappointed by anything that Mpala has to offer. The tents were huge canvas tents with real beds inside- think Meryl Streep and Robert Redford’s tents in Out of Africa. My roommate Brianna and I would often open up the front doors so that we had a view of the river in front of our tents. The river was a beautiful sound to fall asleep to- it reminded me of being home by the mighty Mississippi. Each morning before we woke up, the staff at the site would come around with warm water and filled two buckets outside our rooms so that we could wash our faces with warm water as soon as we woke up. There was a FREE laundry service included in our stay which was a total treat because I am woefully inept at hand washing my clothes- they never get quite clean again. The food at Mpala was absolutely sublime. I should mention that the centre is where Princeton academics come to do research in East Africa. This means that it is completely funded by Princeton alum. While we lowly McGillians were absolutely blown away by the food, the Princeton students there had been keeping a comment book that had suggested improvements to all of the meals. My favourite meal there was a dish of excellent beans, a delicious veggie rice pilaf, and a beef stew. Dessert was perfect pineapple slices. The crowning glory was an amazing hot sauce that I think was simply ground up chilies. There were also jugs of cold water on all of the tables at every meal (cold water is unheard of here) and tea, consisting of a coffee cake and biscuits, was served everyday mid-morning. Another great thing about the site was a bonfire pit ringed with a bench with oversized colourful pillows. Amazing. Mpala is close to Laikipia National Reserve meaning it has a very high density of wildlife. During our stay we saw hippos and giraffes, as well as heard hippos. There were hippos right outside our tent one night which might sound cool but is actually pretty scary considering hippos can be just as dangerous as lions.

While at Mpala we continued with our classes. We did lectures in the airy library at the station and went on trips into the field with local guides. We looked at different plants and learned about the many multifarious ways in which people here utilize their plants.

After a luxurious five-day stay in Mpala we loaded up the trucks and embarked on a thirteen and a half hour (!!!) bus ride to Voi- a town in between Tsavo East National Park and Tsavo West. Google Map it- we went from Laikipia National Reserve (north of Mt. Kenya) to Voi in one day which means we travelled across half of Kenya in one day. We arrived at a beautiful lodge run by a lovely German proprietress with dinner ready for us. The lodge had a bar and a pool so we unwound from our dusty bumpy ride in the pool under the stars. It was perfect. I’m writing this as we drive away from Voi eastward toward the coast. We’re all very excited to get to the Indian Ocean, although our excitement is a bit tainted because the coast means that the end of the program is imminent. I’m trying not to think about that too much though and am still loving every minute of this adventure. Love you all! Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!      

Nairobi, Take two!

James and I in Kibera

Back in the organized chaos that is Nairobi and it’s good to be back! Our first day back was comprised of winding up session two projects and doing final exams and then for a treat they took us “out on the town” for dinner. Because of the strict risk management rules we aren’t allowed to do much on our own. So in order to give us some free time they took us to a huge country club-esque compound that had five restaurants, pools, karaoke bars, and dance clubs. I am fairly certain that we were the only people there except for a few white families out for dinner. A night out, indeed. In any case, it was a very fun night out given that we had no school work to worry about.  I split a delicious thin crust pizza and the cheapest bottle of red with the beautiful Anne Jeffery J We had the next day off and so they let us loose in a mall called “Westgate”. We spent the day shopping for a few necessities that we’d run out of, as well as souvenirs and ice cream! It was a bit surreal coming being in this bustling, air-conditioned mall after weeks of camping away from civilization.

The next day the real stuff started- we spent the next two days back in Kibera slum working with a few NGOs and CBOs doing very informal work and research. This visit was much better than the first one at the very beginning of the trip. I think it’s important to think of these communities simply as you would any other community instead of over-thinking it and defining it as some horrible, desolate place. I went in with that mindset and really enjoyed our visit this time. That may also have been due to the fact that I made a friend named James one day who walked around with us as we walked around Kibera. We visited the sanitation blocks in the neighbourhood of Soweto East- the neighbourhood that is acting as a test tube for slum upgrading projects that will be scaled up to the rest of the neighbourhoods in Kibera.

After this two day Urban Module we started classes for third session. This is the class that I am most excited for, the one I’ve been eagerly anticipating for the entire trip. It’s called Nutrition and Society, an enthobotany nutrition class taught by Professor Tim Johns. Tim reminds me exactly of Sean Connery except that he is exceedingly knowledgeable about plants and always has a laugh right below the surface ready to come out. The course looks at nutrition and also traditional African knowledge about nutrition and wild plants. It is right up my alley because it is at once a tough science class and a revealing anthropology class about the people in the communities that we visit. I appreciate its holistic look at nutrition and food security- studying either of these issues in a straight science OR arts way is extremely limited in use. 

Elangata Wuas

Our last camping site for the next little while is called Elangata Wuas. It’s in the Great Rift Valley, just like Nguruman was, but because the valley is narrower at this point, the escarpment walls act like a wind tunnel at night as the air cools and falls down the sides of the escarpment. We stayed at Elangata Wuas for five amazing days and did things like listen to lectures by local Maasai people about land issues in the area, had a “gender discussion” in which the girls (33) and boys (5) on our trip split up and talked to a group of Maasai women (or men in the case of the boys) about specific gender issues. That was probably the highlight of my stay in Elangata Wuas- it was especially interesting to hear their questions for us. They asked us about when people get married in Canada, when they have kids, and other more personal things which I’ll leave out to spare any men reading this post. Another highlight was when we visited a school and played soccer against the school’s soccer teams. Although we had a lot of work to do it was so nice to take a break and exercise. And it was such an amazing way to interact with the kids here. 

On our first morning in Elangata Wuas we hiked up the escarpment- another highlight of our time here.

 On the third night of our stay here in Elangata Wuas, we split into groups of three and were shipped off to homesteads in the region to stay the night. I stayed in a Maasai family’s compound which housed the grandfather, his two wives, all of his wives’ children (unless they were married women, in which case they move to their new husband’s community to live), and their spouses, and then all of their children. We slept in a house made out of cow dung, mud, and sticks and a bed of a cow hide stretched over sticks. Again, my McKenna sleeping skills came in handy- I slept through the night while other people in our group couldn’t sleep at all. While at their home we attempted to help them milk their cows and chopped veggies for dinner. Mostly though, we just played with the kids in the family and relaxed and chatted with the family members. The homestay was an amazing experience and it was kind of nice to be away from the group for one low-key night, but it was very nice to get picked up in the morning by one of our drivers, John (who greeted us all with big hugs and kisses on the cheek and saying, “I missed you guys so much!!”), head back to camp and have a hot shower and more familiar food. 

Speaking of food- on our second last night in Elangata Wuas the kitchen staff secured a whole live goat for us to have a goat roast. The meat was incredibly delicious- perfectly barbecued. I have no pictures of it though, it was consumed far too quickly!

Sam, Andrew, and Miranda studying on the lookout overlooking our campsite.

 After 17 days of “camping” (it’s hard to call it camping when there’s hot showers and running water and delicious hot food cooked for you!) we are heading back to Nairobi for about a week. It will be sad to say goodbye to the camping staff but we’ll be meeting up with them again when we camp on the beach (!!) in Malindi in a few weeks. That’s all for now! Hope everything is great at home and Happy Birthday Andre! 

Maddogs and Englishmen

The title of this post is, in retrospect, a total misnomer because in Nguruman the extreme heat isn’t restricted to midday. Nguruman is, as promised, extremely hot. It is about 40 degrees in during the day and drops to about 25 at night. We arrived in Nguruman after a long, hot, dusty drive in our trucks and quickly set up our tents in the fading sunlight. Despite the fact that we arrived at six a night the sun was still oppressively hot. Because we’re so close to the equator, the sun rises and falls very quickly and is very intense and high in the sky all day. It sets so quickly, though, that you can literally see it setting before your eyes. There is little refuge from the heat as the greenery is extremely sparse. What greenery there is is extremely thorny. To top it all off there are scorpions here! What a lovely place, eh? It is all bad though, actually. The escarpment walls of the rift valley make for absolutely breath-taking vistas. 

Courtney enjoying a delicious, fresh passionfruit given to us at Steven's farm!

 

 

 

Bluth and Steven at his farm

 Our activities in Nguruman include writing our midterm essay, listening to lectures by Maasai elders, our prof and also David Western- the revered wildlife conservation biologist and former head of the Kenyan Wildlife Service. He was quite inspirational to listen too- a nice break from many of the lectures which can tend to be quite pessimistic and gloomy. We also visited a collection of farms near the base of the Nguruman escarpment. In stark contrast to our campsite, the farm was beautiful and lush due to an ingenious irrigation system that utilizes stream that flow from the escarpment, even during the dry season. This system supplies water to 600 farms. The farmer we met, Steven, could have been a Bruce Springsteen song. His cautious, nervous smile and honest, open way of speaking coupled with his formidable farm- a product solely of his own inexhaustible work ethic were enough to make you weep. He spoke to us in a calm yet angry voice about the injustices that food-exporting companies subject farmers like him too- including forming cartels to force the price of their produce well below the market price. He was one of the first speakers who we spoke to who didn’t mince words and spoke in a straightforward way about the problems both with the Kenyan farmers, and the foreign companies. I really appreciated this and enjoyed our visit to the farm immensely.