Been in Limuru since Sunday, July 21st for our second round of classes at St. Paul's University. Let me tell you, it is FREEZING. Low 60s all week. I sleep with a million blankets each night curled in a ball.
Anyways, now about class. This week has been even better than the week of classes in May. We are much more comfortable with each other so there is more discussion. Great discussion.
On Monday we talked about our 8 week placements in our various organizations. Shared all about Lea Toto and the work that I have been doing all summer. Also shared about my one-woman battle against stigma in the informal settlements. Still haven't completely decided whether to continue with that course of study in the future, but I might.
Tuesday we had lectures/discussions on relationships between organizations, the role of global missions in East Africa, Christianity and Islam, and sexuality. Very interesting topics and very interesting answers. It has been clear in my 8 weeks living in Kenya that all these topics are pressing and visible here.
Wednesday we split of into groups and discussed our organizational assessments from our 8 week work placement. Leslie and I talked about Lea Toto and our research done there on stigma and the role of male CHWs in the community.
Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning we were split into groups again and were handed case studies to be presented on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. My group's case study was on how to make the Comprehension Care Center (CCC) model sustainable after international aid ceases funding the groups. It was difficult to come up with a solution to this problem and in the end we were very radical in our proposed solution.
After our presentations on Friday morning we sang a song together and prayed before taking lunch. Lunch was special today since C.B. Peter made Indian food and we had a dessert! Chocolate has never tasted so amazing in my life!
We are going back to the hotel to relax before being picked up at 9am tomorrow morning to begin our long, arduous trek across Kenya to MOMBASA! So excited about laying on the beach all day for a week. Maybe not everyday because we have some things we want to do before we leave. For example, horseback riding on the beach, touring old ruins, eating, shopping, and generally taking pictures of everything.
Onwards! Be back to the US on August 6th!
Friday, July 26, 2013
Monday, July 15, 2013
Maasai Mara Safari
Just returned from a 3-day safari on the Maasai Mara. So amazing! Cannot even express it in words, but I shall try.
Day 1:
Picked up around 11am for a LONG drive out to the national park. We stopped and had a traditional Kenyan lunch in Narok. Should also mention this: the 'road' was HORRENDOUS. Leslie took a video of a part of the drive down there to show how ridiculously bad it was. I will never, never, never complain about potholes in the US. Americans don't know the meaning of 'pothole.' Anyways, we got to the park gates around 4pm and began our first game drive! Within 30 seconds of entering the park we saw gazelles, zebrahs, and wildebeast. -Sidenote: This is the best time to go to the Maasai Mara because of the great migration. The wildebeast come down through the Great Rift Valley of Kenya into Tanzania. Millions of wildebeast moving.- If you are having trouble picturing a wildebeast either Google it or think of Mufasa's death in The Lion King. Mufasa was trampled by the wildebeast migration. Knowing that I was already prone to not liking wildebeast, but I ended up liking them a bit.
Picked up around 11am for a LONG drive out to the national park. We stopped and had a traditional Kenyan lunch in Narok. Should also mention this: the 'road' was HORRENDOUS. Leslie took a video of a part of the drive down there to show how ridiculously bad it was. I will never, never, never complain about potholes in the US. Americans don't know the meaning of 'pothole.' Anyways, we got to the park gates around 4pm and began our first game drive! Within 30 seconds of entering the park we saw gazelles, zebrahs, and wildebeast. -Sidenote: This is the best time to go to the Maasai Mara because of the great migration. The wildebeast come down through the Great Rift Valley of Kenya into Tanzania. Millions of wildebeast moving.- If you are having trouble picturing a wildebeast either Google it or think of Mufasa's death in The Lion King. Mufasa was trampled by the wildebeast migration. Knowing that I was already prone to not liking wildebeast, but I ended up liking them a bit.
After driving through zebrah and wildebeast for awhile we saw a bunch of tourist white vans clumped around a rock formation. Of course we drove over there to see what they saw and it was a lioness! She was up on this rock right next to the sunset and I got some amazing pictures. It was amazing. I thought this might be the crowning moment of the trip, but alas it was not. The park closes at 6:30pm so we exited and made our way to our tented camp. Roomed with Leslie and Emily in a 3-bed tent thingy. Hard to describe- the 'tent' part is where the beds are and then the back is the shower, sink, and toilet, which is stone. We discovered that we had a 4th roommate when we went into the bathroom. A HUGE spider. Not joking. I have never seen a spider this big. It was tarantula size. About the size of my fist. Big. I tried to squash it but it saw me coming and moved into a position I could not get to. Smart spider. Thankfully, we had mosquito nets above our beds so we tucked into those at night and hoped the spider wouldn't come crawling over.
Day 2:
Next morning, spider was gone. Not knowing where it was made me even more nervous. Left the our tented around 7:30am for our second game drive. We were told that we were going all the way to the Tanzanian border, which is a good 5-6 hour drive, without stopping and taking pictures. We saw a ton of gazelles, zebrahs, and wildebeast. We saw some elephants and giraffes. But on to a GREAT story about cheetahs: We were drive 'off road' and saw a couple lime green jeeps parked in the middle of nowhere. We drove up to them and realized that they were looking at two cheetahs lounging around. Jill, one of the girls in our car, was talking about how whenever something goes bad on a trip it always happens to people around her. Very comforting to here. All of a sudden the cheetahs start to get up and start walking towards us. One jeep ahead of us starting moving to get a better view. One cheetah had the same idea. The cheetah jumped on top of the jeep in front of us! (Picture this: these jeeps have a moveable ceiling so that you can stand up and put your head and shoulder outside to get better pictures. All safari jeeps/vans have them and they are ALWAYS up.) The cheetah was sitting on the back of the jeep about a foot away from these people. We heard a bunch of screams for about .5 seconds and then shushed so that the cheetah wouldn't jump down INTO the jeep. The other cheetah decided that this was a great idea and jumped on top with the other one. Our van started to move closer to get a better view, which our view was great anyways. Jill almost shit a brick because we were all terrified that the cheetah would decide that our van looked better and move over. They finally got off after the driver of the jeep starting to inch slowly away. Pretty awesome, but no danger :) Some amazing pictures!
Next morning, spider was gone. Not knowing where it was made me even more nervous. Left the our tented around 7:30am for our second game drive. We were told that we were going all the way to the Tanzanian border, which is a good 5-6 hour drive, without stopping and taking pictures. We saw a ton of gazelles, zebrahs, and wildebeast. We saw some elephants and giraffes. But on to a GREAT story about cheetahs: We were drive 'off road' and saw a couple lime green jeeps parked in the middle of nowhere. We drove up to them and realized that they were looking at two cheetahs lounging around. Jill, one of the girls in our car, was talking about how whenever something goes bad on a trip it always happens to people around her. Very comforting to here. All of a sudden the cheetahs start to get up and start walking towards us. One jeep ahead of us starting moving to get a better view. One cheetah had the same idea. The cheetah jumped on top of the jeep in front of us! (Picture this: these jeeps have a moveable ceiling so that you can stand up and put your head and shoulder outside to get better pictures. All safari jeeps/vans have them and they are ALWAYS up.) The cheetah was sitting on the back of the jeep about a foot away from these people. We heard a bunch of screams for about .5 seconds and then shushed so that the cheetah wouldn't jump down INTO the jeep. The other cheetah decided that this was a great idea and jumped on top with the other one. Our van started to move closer to get a better view, which our view was great anyways. Jill almost shit a brick because we were all terrified that the cheetah would decide that our van looked better and move over. They finally got off after the driver of the jeep starting to inch slowly away. Pretty awesome, but no danger :) Some amazing pictures!
We finally made it to the end of the Kenyan border and had lunch. As soon as we sit down we are surrounded my monkeys. One stole my apple out of my lunch box!! They were so brave. They even tried to get into our van to get to our food in there. After lunch we followed a park ranger (with a rifle) to go see some crocadiles and hippos on the river. FYI hippos are mean and will kill you if you get too close. Thankfully we were on the other side of the river.
Day 3:
We woke up at 5:30am to be gone by 6am so that we could see the sunrise in the park. Did not quite work out since the park doesn't open until 6:30am. But still pretty great. The only animal we had not seen was a leopard and a rhino. The guide said that we would probably not see any rhinos since they are very endangered and the park is very big. We went on a leopard hunt 'off road' because we saw a carcass in a tree. (Leopards are nocturnal. They hunt at night and sleep all day) We did not see a leopard but others did so it is safe to say that we were in the vicinity of a leopard. I was completely ok with that since they are ferocious.
We woke up at 5:30am to be gone by 6am so that we could see the sunrise in the park. Did not quite work out since the park doesn't open until 6:30am. But still pretty great. The only animal we had not seen was a leopard and a rhino. The guide said that we would probably not see any rhinos since they are very endangered and the park is very big. We went on a leopard hunt 'off road' because we saw a carcass in a tree. (Leopards are nocturnal. They hunt at night and sleep all day) We did not see a leopard but others did so it is safe to say that we were in the vicinity of a leopard. I was completely ok with that since they are ferocious.
On our way we stopped by the place we saw some lions on Day 2. The lions were still there and this time they had dinner! The pups were nawing on a carcass while the mama slept near them. We drove a little bit and discovered the whole pride! Two male lions were napping in some trees with their lionesses and pups. Got some amazing pictures.
The second most amazing thing (cheetahs were first) is the rhino!! We were driving down a dirt road with nothing of interest on it when our driver spoke to another driver. Totally speaking swahili so no one had any idea what was happening. We came upon another jeep with tourists snapping pictures off to the left. We stop behind then and see a RHINO! No way. We are there for about 5 seconds when the rhino starts to CHARGE our JEEP. No kidding. Our driver heard our screams/saw the rhino and hit the gas. When the rhino stopped, we stopped and starting taking pictures again and laughing about how we almost died. Then the rhino started charging AGAIN. No way. The driver hits the gas again until the rhino stops. He finally loses interest in us so we back up and start snapping pictures again. Not sure how wise that situation was, but it was pretty epic.
We started back to Nairobi around 11am and made it home around 4pm. Pretty amazing weekend. Lots of great videos and pictures to be shared on Facebook!
Until next time...
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Kitengela
Just realized that I haven't posted anything in a really really long time. So here's to catch everyone up!
Last week Leslie and I finished our tour of all eight Lea Toto centers and did all of our interviews. I ended up with 17 interviews of social workers and counselors. I have been transcribing some each day. Each interview is between 15-30 minutes long so it is not that bad. Transcribing still takes me about 1-1.5 hours each one. I have scheduled it so that I will be done on Thursday and can start coding and analyzing the data I have. I am taking Thursday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday to analyze because next Wednesday we are meeting with all the center coordinators and some social workers and counselors to share our results. I can't really work this weekend because Leslie, Emily, and I are leaving on Friday morning for safari on the Maasai Mara! Really excited for that.
This past weekend was loaded with fun. The girls staying in Nyumbani Village down near Kitui came to Nairobi so that we could celebrate some birthdays. Meghan, Amihan, Carrilea and a couple of their new friends came to Nairobi on Thursday and stayed until Sunday. We all went out to a bar/club about a block away from our apartment and had a grand ole time. Seriously, great times were had that night/early morn.
Saturday Emily, Sara, Leslie, and I traveled by bus about an hour southeast of Nairobi to Kitengela. One of our fellow students, Edward, at St. Paul's University invited us for a visit to his church. The service started at 7:30am so we all decided that going a day early and sleeping over would be the best course of action. We arrived around 4pm and were picked up and taken straight to the church to meet up with everyone. Some of the youth were there preparing mandazi for the next day. The best way to describe mandazi is like an unsweetened sopapilla. You prepare the dough, roll it out, cut it into squares, and then drop them into a boiling pot of oil to fry. Kenyans eat them with tea, which they take after church on Sundays. The youth were going to sell them to the church goers to raise money for a P.A. system for music. We all had so much fun watching/helping them make mandazi.
Afterwards Edward divided us into two groups for our overnight stay. Emily and I were team 1 and Sara and Leslie were team 2. Team 1 went back to stay with one of the youths and spent all night cooking chapati and ugali. They were complaining the next morning about how difficult it was to make both foods. But totally worth it. Emily and I stayed with the Theo family. They prepared for us beef stew, cabbage, chapati, pineapple, and watermelon. A typical Kenyan dinner (minus rice). The family we stayed with was so accommodating and very sweet to us the entire time. We made some friends for life in Kitengela.
We got up early Sunday morning to attend the youth service at 7:30am. It was great! I loved singing the songs, even if some of them were in Swahili, and listening to the sermon. It is apparent to me now after attending 3 Kenyan churches that it is tradition to make the visitors stand with a microphone and say a few words in front of the whole congregation. Usually I would be happy to hunker down in my seat and pretend as if I always attend that church, but there is really no hiding here in Kenya. We stayed for the 9am English service so that we could introduce ourselves to the adult population. We left after the announcements and welcoming and joined the rest of the youth outside.
The night before the youth had set up a huge tent outside so that they could serve the tea on Sunday. They also had a ping pong table. I did not play ping pong because I am so bad but I did join about 10 others in a card game. They called it poker, but it just seemed like a crazy complicated game of group Uno, elimination style. I'm pretty sure that some of the rules were made up. But it was a lot of fun! We played one entire game of elimination and Leslie beat everyone. It was hilarious that the muzungu beat all the Kenyans!
We ate lunch at the church with some of the youth. We had beef stew, rice, and cabbage (see? typical), which was all delicious. After church Edward invited us to visit with him and his family at their apartment. We met their adorable twin babies. Technically not babies since they are 1.5 years old but totally adorable. The boy, Clive, only needed about 5 minutes to warm up to us. He was even flirting with Leslie by the end of our time. The girl was not amused with us at all. Sara held her for all of 30 seconds before she got upset and reached for her daddy again. She was very distrusting of these weirdly colored white people in her home. I totally understand her anxiety though.
We got back on the bus to Nairobi around 4pm and totally collapsed when we got home. Overall, it was a very successful weekend and memories that we will always cherish.
Last week Leslie and I finished our tour of all eight Lea Toto centers and did all of our interviews. I ended up with 17 interviews of social workers and counselors. I have been transcribing some each day. Each interview is between 15-30 minutes long so it is not that bad. Transcribing still takes me about 1-1.5 hours each one. I have scheduled it so that I will be done on Thursday and can start coding and analyzing the data I have. I am taking Thursday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday to analyze because next Wednesday we are meeting with all the center coordinators and some social workers and counselors to share our results. I can't really work this weekend because Leslie, Emily, and I are leaving on Friday morning for safari on the Maasai Mara! Really excited for that.
This past weekend was loaded with fun. The girls staying in Nyumbani Village down near Kitui came to Nairobi so that we could celebrate some birthdays. Meghan, Amihan, Carrilea and a couple of their new friends came to Nairobi on Thursday and stayed until Sunday. We all went out to a bar/club about a block away from our apartment and had a grand ole time. Seriously, great times were had that night/early morn.
Saturday Emily, Sara, Leslie, and I traveled by bus about an hour southeast of Nairobi to Kitengela. One of our fellow students, Edward, at St. Paul's University invited us for a visit to his church. The service started at 7:30am so we all decided that going a day early and sleeping over would be the best course of action. We arrived around 4pm and were picked up and taken straight to the church to meet up with everyone. Some of the youth were there preparing mandazi for the next day. The best way to describe mandazi is like an unsweetened sopapilla. You prepare the dough, roll it out, cut it into squares, and then drop them into a boiling pot of oil to fry. Kenyans eat them with tea, which they take after church on Sundays. The youth were going to sell them to the church goers to raise money for a P.A. system for music. We all had so much fun watching/helping them make mandazi.
Afterwards Edward divided us into two groups for our overnight stay. Emily and I were team 1 and Sara and Leslie were team 2. Team 1 went back to stay with one of the youths and spent all night cooking chapati and ugali. They were complaining the next morning about how difficult it was to make both foods. But totally worth it. Emily and I stayed with the Theo family. They prepared for us beef stew, cabbage, chapati, pineapple, and watermelon. A typical Kenyan dinner (minus rice). The family we stayed with was so accommodating and very sweet to us the entire time. We made some friends for life in Kitengela.
We got up early Sunday morning to attend the youth service at 7:30am. It was great! I loved singing the songs, even if some of them were in Swahili, and listening to the sermon. It is apparent to me now after attending 3 Kenyan churches that it is tradition to make the visitors stand with a microphone and say a few words in front of the whole congregation. Usually I would be happy to hunker down in my seat and pretend as if I always attend that church, but there is really no hiding here in Kenya. We stayed for the 9am English service so that we could introduce ourselves to the adult population. We left after the announcements and welcoming and joined the rest of the youth outside.
The night before the youth had set up a huge tent outside so that they could serve the tea on Sunday. They also had a ping pong table. I did not play ping pong because I am so bad but I did join about 10 others in a card game. They called it poker, but it just seemed like a crazy complicated game of group Uno, elimination style. I'm pretty sure that some of the rules were made up. But it was a lot of fun! We played one entire game of elimination and Leslie beat everyone. It was hilarious that the muzungu beat all the Kenyans!
We ate lunch at the church with some of the youth. We had beef stew, rice, and cabbage (see? typical), which was all delicious. After church Edward invited us to visit with him and his family at their apartment. We met their adorable twin babies. Technically not babies since they are 1.5 years old but totally adorable. The boy, Clive, only needed about 5 minutes to warm up to us. He was even flirting with Leslie by the end of our time. The girl was not amused with us at all. Sara held her for all of 30 seconds before she got upset and reached for her daddy again. She was very distrusting of these weirdly colored white people in her home. I totally understand her anxiety though.
We got back on the bus to Nairobi around 4pm and totally collapsed when we got home. Overall, it was a very successful weekend and memories that we will always cherish.
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