Maseno Mission Hospital

So, for the last month of our program, we go off on our little adventures to do Independent Study Projects aka the ISP. It's kind of a big deal because we then have to write a very large paper and do a big presentation, and it's somewhat intimidating. Anyways, I as usual didn't have anything together for it until the week before we were leaving, and then I decided to completely change it. Originally, I was planning to go to Mombasa, but then another opportunity presented itself.

Needless to say, I pretty much just hopped on a bus to Maseno (which is in Western Kenya) in order to work at the Maseno Mission Hospital. I wasn't even quite sure of my topic until a little bit after I got here, but I have faith it will work out. The hospital was a great time, full of lots of things I would probably never get to see in the U.S. I'll spare the gory details.


Here's the hospital website if you want to look for yourself.

http://masenomissions.org/hospital.htm

The Rest of Tanzania...Finally

Ngorongoro

While in Tanzania, we finally got to go on a safari! We went to Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Basically, you drive to the top of this mountain and then go down on the other side into the middle of a 'crater.' The crater is filed with all types of animals. We saw water buffaloes, zebras, a leopard, rhino, lions, elephants, and hippos!

Our friends, the zebras

Our friend, the lion

Our friend, the elephant

It was pretty much everything I wanted to see in one place, and it was beautiful. We got to ride through in one of those cars that has the roof popped up and stick our heads out. At some points, we took the liberty of being our own tourguides with some nice "British" accents. However, the ride was bumpy, and I ended up with a large bruise on my side. The battle wound was worth it for the day.

Mt. Kilimanjaro!

 

 

Kili!

 We also got to climb a little bit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Although we didn't get to reach the peak of Africa in a day, we did have a nice day hike. We started from the base and went up to the first hut and a little further up to this crater rim. Since we had been stuck in a safari vehicle for a few days, it was nice to finally get out and explore something, even if it was just a couple hour hike.

Hunters & Gatherers

In case you were wondering, tribes that hunt and gather still exist. We called them the bushmen and got to track down and visit their tribe.

The way it works is that they can stay in an area anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months, but pretty much move on after that. They use bow and arrows to kill prey. They then use the meat, fur, and everything else to either eat or for decoration for clothing, bows, whatever else they need. The men primarily hunt while the women gather. However, we got to go exploring a little bit and shoot some bows and arrows.

Some archery...I'm a pro, obvi.

We also got to learn how to make fire from pure wood and sticks. I kind of thought it was actually impossible, but it's not! Fun fact. See it for yourselves

Caitlin making fire

I'm somewhat surprised gathering works because the lands are generally pretty arid and empty during the dry season. However, they gather berries and whatnot in order to provide some nutrition for their tribesman.

They also apparently smoke "tobacco" about six times ago. However, it was the most interesting smell of tobacco I've ever come across. During the census, it is rumored that the bushmen were bribed to leave their hunting areas and fill out a census in return for some free "tobacco" product. Interesting, I know. The government is all over the place.

Maasai Land

Hello there! Sorry for the delay in posts. For the past week, i have been in Tanzania. It was absolutely beautiful, but I thought I would break up the excitement into a few different posts to keep me busy.

One of the places we visited and stayed when we were there was Maasai Land. The Maasai are one of the traditional tribes that still exist around Kenya and Tanzania. They are pretty easy to spot because of all the bright colored clothing they wear. The men usually carry canes, and they are known to herd their goats or cattle.

They live in arid areas in things called bomas. The boma is a little clearing that they build all of their huts in for their family. Many many people sleep in which one, which is pretty incredible. They are made out of cow dung, so they have to be rebuilt every once and a while. We actually got to stay in one, which was pretty neat. My friend Dana and I even made friends with the women that lived in it. One of the concerns with the homes are for women that cook because there is a lack of ventilation in the huts and all of the cooking is done in there with smoky fires. The area was all pretty dusty, so it was hard to imagine how they get their water during the dry season. I think they have to walk a few kilometers to get just one bucket, which is incredible.

A Boma.

One day while we were there, they thought it was a good idea to slaughter a goat. I was picked to go on the committee to gather the goat...it was more of a goat chase, literally. Three other people and I went around chasing this goat. The Maasai man just laughed at us, but no worries. We got him eventually! We named him Nibbles and took him back to home base. There, we saw the Maasai make some fire and set up his little sacrificial area. Once they were done, they suffocated the goat. I pretty much left after that because I didn't want to see the goat be sliced apart, but everybody else stayed. They preceded to skin and castrate the goat. They then ate its liver raw and roasted a lot of its meat. Some people even ate its blood. Let's just say I was glad I was not there. Poor Nibs.

The goat chase.

NIBBY!

One of the other things the Maasai are known for is their beadwork, so we got to bead with them. (Don't worry mom, I got you plenty). Woohoo! It was pretty neat to learn what all the different colors represented. Also, each different generation of men/ 'warrior group' picks a color for their group, and them and their wives all primarily wear that color. It was fun to see. They wear these huge things around their necks sometimes, and as part of their traditional dance routine, the women bounce it off their chests. I think it's some sort of pick-a-mate ritual. The men jump as high as they can and the women bounce the beadwork. I don't really understand, but it was interesting to watch nonetheless.

The huge neck things. I really wish I knew the name.

Beading.

Overall, the people were all really nice. It was interesting to see how people function in what seems like the middle of nowhere and learn a little about their ways of life. It's interesting because they make a lot of their money from the tourism industry, but from making that money, they are able to maintain their traditional lifestyles. Pretty cool, huh?
More to come later...

AMERICA!!

For the past five days, six of my friends and I have been living the Kenyan high life. We were on what is known as ISP Prep for our independent study projects that we will be beginning in about two weeks. For this, we decided it would be a great idea to live in a nice luxurious apartment with such amazing things as wi-fi, a TV, hot running water, and a kitchen in which we can cook what we want when we want it. This mostly means we went to the market and bought multiple huge bags of vegetables to consume incessantly for a few days.

What we were not ready for was the large amount of culture shock that would be put back into our lives whenever we left the building or the ‘wazungu zone’. Although the days were nice, the re-assimilation into homestay culture is a big joke. We were really smart about needing to re-assimilate ourselves. Sometimes I forget about the trash-covered dirt roads with ditches of crap on the outsides. No, really, I do love Kenya, but things get a little intense at times.

Needless to say, we, a group of pretty liberal beings with either impartial or negative feelings towards America, may have found our love for the country. On one particularly rough day involving one of my friends, Molly, stepping into an unforeseen pile of excrement and spending a while scrubbing it off her feet and shoes, we celebrated our allegiance to the beloved country we miss and call home. This celebration may have involved singing at the top of our lungs to any song that either says ‘America’ or which we associate with the country. There may have been some brief tears, exclamation of memories, and shouts of regret. All that was missing was a flag and some PBR.

However, we were continually snapped back into reality with the results of what we now call the ‘Nairobi Shuffle/Hustle”. It mostly revolves around the fact that Africa likes to really make its way through Americans. Just imagine: a white person hunched over, clenching his or her stomach while walking/slightly jogging down the street in hopes of making it back to the bathroom fast enough, with the other hand clutching whatever items the mzungu cherishes so as to avoid any attempts at mugging. Point two: during this alleged shuffle is probably when the mzungu will get hit on by the most Kenyan men. Who would have thunk it? Part C: This person may or may not also be looking for some bushes in case they vomit before they get anywhere.

Moral of the story: God Bless America. Kenya always has something new to throw at you. Embrace the Nairobi Shuffle.

This Weekend's Adventures

This weekend, four of my friends and I went on an adventure to Navaisha Lake and Hell’s Gate National Park. We had an amazing time, saw lots of animals, and really explored. Navaisha town is about 80 kilometers away from Nairobi, which means an hour and a half matatu ride. Woohoo! To start, we had to find the big matatu center in downtown Nairobi. We took a taxi, but we had to wait about thirty minutes to get a letter from our school saying we were students in Kenya that do not yet have pupil passes so that we could get discounts later on. That wasn’t a big deal. We just ended up starting a little later than expected.

Once we were on the matatu, we didn’t need to worry about much…until the matatu started to break down. We all suspected something was happening when there were a lot of beeps and suspicious noises coming from the driver’s area. I’m pretty positive we cruised downhill for about ten minutes in neutral before the driver got out by himself, Little Miss Sunshine style, and started trying to push the matatu uphill alone. At that point, it was pretty much hopeless for our little matatu. However, we were only about 2 kms outside of the town, and our group decided we would just walk the distance. About ten minutes later, we see our matatu drive by with everybody waving, being dragged by another matatu by a cable. I have no idea how they were expecting to stop but I guess that didn’t really matter. O and also, my friend fell down a hill when we started walking, which only added to the ridiculousness of the situation.

Not to worry…we reached Navaisha town. From there, we decided we would check out Crescent Island for the day, a place we thought was publicly part of a national park but is apparently privately owned. We took another matatu and found our way. It was a nice little hike up to the main owner’s house, and we ran into a TON of zebras and gazelles and whatnot. It was pretty awesome! Finally, when we reached the house, we found this really nice English woman, Linda. Her and her husband had apparently owned the place since the 70s or 80s. They were very friendly and helpful and gave us some advice on where to sleep for the night. Anyways, Crescent Island. It is the remains of an erupted volcano from way back in the day, so it is basically what it sounds like…an island in the shape of a crescent. From the top of the hill, you get a pretty good view of everything around there. Besides that, I don’t think any of us realized we were just going to be walking around with the animals, but that is what happened. On this island, there are just free-roaming giraffes, hippos, wildebeests, and some other animals. It was really cool because they weren’t in a cage or anything. You would see herds of them run by and I kind of felt like I was in the Lion King. It was the highlight of my weekend.

View from the hill

After we were done there, we went to a campsite. However, on the way to our campsite, we took a very epic matatu ride. For one, we split up into two groups, so my friends, Dana and Devin, and I ended up riding in this lime green matatu. Keep in mind that these buses are designed to hold 14 passengers, but there’s always room for one more! I would say we had about 28 people in this one, including 9 in the first two rows. It was pretty awesome because we had our big bags of stuff, as well as people basically sitting on us. I also had some random man breathing on my shoulder/in my hair. It opened a whole new world of matatu-riding for me.

Once we all made it to the campsite, we had an awesome time. It was really relaxing. There was a restaurant there, so we didn’t have to worry about dinner, as well as tents to rent. I set up my hammock for about the second time! The cords weren’t quite long enough, so we rigged this ridiculous looking thing together because tents were somewhat expensive to rent. The dinner was one of the best I’ve had here, and the lack of stress within the group was great. We pretty much just chilled out the rest of the night and went to bed.

BUT, when we were going to bed, we heard some noises coming from the water. We looked over and there was another group shining their lights on a hippo! It was super exciting because we wanted to see some earlier in the day and were not able to. Then, the hippo got angry and started charging towards us. Good thing there was an electric fence! The hippo got even more angry and ran into the water, but it was a good end to the night.

We woke up this morning, planning on going to Hell’s Gate, but when we got there, they told us it was going to be $25 a person. In Kenya, that’s extremely expensive, and I don’t think we had that much on us. So we left and started the extreme matatu-sitting in the aisle-riding home. Maybe we can go back another time…

Tuk Tuk Vs. Matatu

In case I haven't mentioned this yet, the roads here are possibly the scariest part of my experience. There are minimal traffic lights, basically no stop signs, and drivers that do whatever they want all the time. It basically makes me feel like I might die every time I enter a vehicle. The roads are somewhat paved, but usually have a ton of potholes. Flying around from all the bumps is pretty common. O and p.s. they drive on the wrong side of the road, so I almost get hit when I cross the street because I look the wrong way. It is an adventure.

Anyways, as far as public transportation goes, the basic modes are bus and taxi. However, in Nairobi and Mombasa there are these vehicles called matatus. They are pretty awesome because they are usually these pimped out vans about the size of a mini-van but maybe a little bit bigger. O but all the seats have been modified so that there are 14 seats...for 14 passengers, right? Wrong! Matatus are ridiculous because they fit as many people as they can, including on all the seats and in the aisles. When they drive down the street, the matatu guys who collect money ( I don't know what to call them) hang out the side of the van waving down people. They are kind of intimidating, but I am getting more and more used to them. However, we were strongly advised to make our backpacks 'frontpacks' because apparently people hang out in matatus waiting to pickpocket you. I promise it's not actually that big of an issue, though. At least not yet.

An example of the really classy stickers that get put on matatus...'Got Money' theme.

Besides matatus, while we were in Mombasa, I discovered the glory of a Tuk Tuk. It is possibly the most exciting vehicle ever. It's a 3-wheeled adventure with no windows and 3 people shoved in the back seat. They're really fun because they are little and can maneuver around everything, as well as being just as cheap as matatus if you bargain right. AND they take you straight to where you want to go. Although, I'm pretty sure half of the drivers are intoxicated in some way because ours seemed very confused every once and a while. Needless to say, we started paying more attention after it took us twenty minutes to get somewhere fairly close by. Moral of the story: I love tuk tuks, and they are just one more reason Mombasa is better than Nairobi.

My attempt to take a picture of a tuk tuk secretly while moving. Sorry...it kind of failed.

Shirazi!

For ten days out of the past two weeks, I was living in a rural village on the Southern coast called Shirazi. It was quite the adventure of a lifetime. Although some people didn’t enjoy their time there roughin’ it, I absolutely fell in love. It was a beautiful place full of some of the most selfless people I’ve ever met. On top of that, their daily pace was very relaxing and free. Besides taking Kiswahili every morning and playing dress-up with my mama’s clothes, I went on adventures every afternoon. I saw boys climb coconut trees, drank coconut water/milk, went to mamba (crocodile) land, learned how to cook a little bit, and visited some farms and surrounding villages.

My House in Shirazi

The side view/back yard

I lived with another host family there, who spoke very minimal English. However, I was astounded by how close you can become to a group of people through nonverbal communication. I had a mama, grandmas, dad, aunts, uncles, 4 sisters, and 3 brothers. The majority of the town is Muslim, so a lot of my family besides the people listed above were related to me because my dad had four fives. No big deal. Apparently that’s allowed. I had a ‘twin’ sister, Umi, who was also twenty. I spent a lot of my free time with her. She is an incredible person. She has a 9-year-old son, Alli, and even though she is only twenty, she was one of the most attentive and caring mothers I have ever seen. I couldn’t believe that she devoted so much of her life to her baby yet seemed to always be in a good mood. 

Umi carrying her baby Alli on her back in a khanga. I love that people carry their kids this way.

Most of the fam with henna!

My mama and me in one of my really hot outfits.

One of my favorite things to do with my family was hang out with them at night. For one, I would shower at night…and by shower, I mean stand outside with my bucket. I didn’t really mind it since I do it sometimes in Nairobi too, but it was really nice to stand outside and look up to see the stars in the sky while bathing. After that, I would wrap up in one of my khangas. Khangas are very common pieces of clothing that are made of beautiful fabrics. They usually have a phrase at the bottom, but I’m not completely sure what mine mean. Apparently some of them are offensive or dirty in some way, so hopefully that’s not the case.

Then, I would try to help cook dinner over a fire. When it was ready, we would all gather in the small living room on mats around one plate with all the food on it, wash our right hands, and eat. In case you’re looking for a challenge, eating really hot rice with one hand is really difficult. My family also is able to touch incredibly hot things, so they would have no problem grabbing steaming food while I thought I was going to burn my hand off most of the time. Regardless, I’m pretty glad I’m not a complete germaphobe because I may not have survived Shirazi.

Dinner by lantern. P.S.-There is no electricity there at all.

Best pilau ever!

I could probably go on about this for a long time, but moral of the story: it was incredible. I never wanted to leave, and if you ever get the chance to have such an experience, you should go for it.

FOOD

So, i realized that 1. I haven't updated this in a while and 2. I haven't discussed the food at all. There are a few dishes that are pretty prevalent, especially amongst families that don't have a large income. In general, a lot of what Kenyans eat are bread, vegetables, and meat. There is a lack of cheese and sweets, so sometimes I flock to Java (basically the American white restaurant) if I crave something a little different. I also appreciate my home stay because we don't eat a lot of meat, and I am into that.

Ugali: Ugali is a main staple dish within Kenyan society. It's made from corn meal, and is somewhat similar to grits except it lacks butter and/or cheese. The thing I like most about ugali is that it is eaten with your hands, usually with some type of vegetable. Sikuma wiki aka kale is what I have eaten with it the most. It's pretty delicious, but I wouldn't want to eat it every day.

Typical ugali with sikuma wiki and meat

Chapati: Chapati is probably the most delicious flatbread you'll ever eat. I really really like it. It is basically a thick crepe that is made in a lot of the local markets. Each chapati costs 10-15 shillings, and to put things into perspective one dollar=80 shillings-ish. It is really convenient for lunch to go to Toi Market and buy chapati, avocado, and tomato. DELICIOUS and only about 40 shillings! It's the way to go for lunch.

CHAPATI!

Wali na maharagwe: Rice with beans. Rice is pretty simple and normal to our live, but is around a lot. They can put all types of stuff in the beans and with the rice. Sometimes, there are lentils, which are pretty delicious.

I can't think of significant food right now. A lot of my dinners at my home stay are really good just because they're homecooked and made from fresh ingredients. Another aspect of food is the fruit. It is so incredibly delicious! I have a new love for passionfruit, and my mama now buys extras in the house because I like them so much. There are also a ton of papayas and pineapples and mangoes for cheap. The mangoes aren't in season yet, but they're coming. We are going to the coast for two weeks starting tomorrow, and because of the warmer weather, the mangoes should be ripe. I can't wait! Also, I'm not dead; I just won't have internet for two weeks. More to come later...kwa heri!

Slum Tourism

Yesterday, we had 'class'. Basically, we went on a field trip to MYSA, which is the Mathare Youth Sports Association in order to show us development in the slums. Nairobi has a few big slums, including Mathare and Kibera. We all live near Kibera, so in order to expose us to another slum, they took us to Mathare. The day started off pretty interesting because we got to walk around the facility and say hello to little kids. However, then they decided it would be awesome to give us a walking tour of Mathare.

Now, I'm all for looking around places I'm living in, but this was probably one of the most invasive feeling things I've done in a while. A large majority of the 22 people in my program are 1. white and 2. not remotely fluent in Kiswahili. Because of those two things, a majority of our tour was us walking on a white person parade with little local kids yelling "MZUNGU MZUNGU" (which means 'white person'; pronounced ma-zoon-goo). It's pretty awesome when you walk through the streets and people point at you and say it or just say it to your face. It's apparently not offensive; it mostly just makes me feel awkward. Anyways, besides that, the kids would come up and expect to picked up or hold our hands. They would also chant "How are you? How are you" because apparently Americans say that a lot, but if you responded in English they couldn't understand and if you responded in Swahili, they were confused.

On the other side, you could tell the older people were very upset. In case you aren't sure what a slum is here, it is basically a bunch of shafty very small buildings made out of tinnish material put very close together. It stretches for miles in the bigger slums, and the people are living very close together with not much clean water and ditches with very dirty water, possible human waste, in them on some of the sides of the roads. It's obviously where people in poverty live (in case you haven't picked up on that), and it felt like we were walking through in order to use the people living there as a museum instead of as people. It was just very awkward, especially since the older people were doing things such as working or laundry, and felt as though we were barging in on their already very limited space. I think that it would have been different if we were touring because we were going to be living near there or doing work to help the people living there in some way, but it was literally just to show us how people live. As important as it can be to be exposed to that sometimes, we had no say in the situation and slum tourism is not something a lot of us students are interested in being a part of.

Aside from that, the day livened up when we spent the rest of it learning some African dance and playing soccer with kids. I promise it wasn't a horrible experience, just something to be aware of, in case you ever find yourself touring a slum.

My First Bucket Shower

So for anybody who has previously read, I may have mentioned the fact that my homestay family luckily has warm running water. What I failed to mention or realize is that that's only true sometimes. When it's not the rainy season (like it is now), the water supply gets rationed certain days of the week. So, we have now not had running water since Thursday morning. I guess that's only 2 days, but it feels like a long time.

Regardless, last night I experienced for the first time what is called a bucket shower. Sooner or later my time was going to come, but I was expecting later rather than sooner. I was somewhat demoralized because my little sister asked me to help her bathe, and I had to tell her no because I don't know how those types of showers work. Keep in mind that she is 6 and I am 20. It was kind of embarassing. so, after this little situation with Malaika, I wanting until she went to bed to ask my mama about how I actually set up the bucket shower. I swear it's not actually that hard; it's just really new and I'm not used to it at all.

So, basically, there are these giant barrels around the house that water is stored in and that is what you use. However, that water is cold, so you go into the kitchen and boil some of the water. Then, I went into the bathroom and put some of the cold water in. And from there, it's moreso just figuring out what's going to actually get you clean and what's going to just leave soap on your body. To be honest, it was a very satisfying feeling when I was over and done. Can't wait for it to happen again!

Lessons learned: 1. Africans avoid long hair for a reason. It takes forever to clean.  2. Technology has tainted our view of the world sometimes. 3. Simplicity is nice sometimes.

Here is a picture of the water barrel and the bucket I showered with...just in case you were wondering.

The Local Norm

On Saturday, we were finally placed with our host families. Mine seems pretty awesome. Everybody in the program has all different types, but I have a mom (Mama Malaika), little sister (Malaika), auntie (Silho), and the house help (Grace). Mama Malaika is engaged, but I'm not quite sure how much her fiance is around because he travels a lot for work.
The financial status of families is interesting because pretty much everybody has a house that looks on the lower economic side according to American standards, but the insides are actually pretty nice. It's also interesting to talk to other kids because depending on the situation, some families don't have running or hot water. Luckily, I have both, so I get to take warm showers...for now. woohoo! Also, house help is a common thing for upper middle class to upper class families. Ours name is Grace, but she has been with the family for 3 years and is basically family. She wakes up super early and does a lot of chores, but is treated well within the family and everything.

Yesterday, along with being my first full day with the family, was Malaika's birthday. I don't know what I was expecting, but I think it was something along the lines of being drastically different from America...it wasn't. There were a few exceptions, such as the birthday song was a little bit longer and more parents were around, but it was pretty much the same thing as a 6-year-old American birthday party. O ignorant American. That is all for now.

Nyumbani

In one of the first few days we were here, we went on what was called the 'drop-off'. Basically, this consisted of them taking us to an unknown location that we only knew the name of and then leaving us there for the morning to talk to people and figure it out for ourselves.

I got dropped off at this place called Nyumbani, which is the Kiswahili word for 'home'. That's exactly what it was. The place ended up being an orphanage for abandoned HIV+ children ages 1-23. They had about 9 different locations and hosted about 112 children. We got a tour around the place, and it was pretty remarkable because it wasn't just some place for them to live, it became a home. Each group of kids lived in a house with a mother. They all went to school on a regular basis and lived life as usual, but they were able to live in a place that stabilized their medications and conditions. I thought it was pretty remarkable because I sometimes get the impression that nothing is moving forwards in terms of HIV/AIDS awareness, but to see these kids in healthy, stable conditions was really moving.

Karibu Kenya

Welcome to Kenya!
After about 26 hours of travel, I finally made it here. I've about caught up with the time change, and have had a few pretty great experiences in only a short week.

The first day we were here we went to a Giraffe reserve, where we got to feed the giraffes and learn all about them as animals in Kenya. It was a good initiation, a little touristy, but how often are you up close with giraffes? We did get to kiss them, and after getting over the giraffe slobber, it was a pretty cool experience.