bye bye africa

for those of you keeping track, you'll know that i'm coming home next week. I left Nairobi on Wednesday night and am now in London visiting my friends Reesa and Ben for the week. Also for those of you keeping track and actually checking to see if I've posted anything you can tell I'm not too inspired to sit in front of a computer sending updates. The past few weeks have been good, wierd, long and short all at the same time and now it all feels a bit like a dream.

London is tons of fun, lots to do and see. I went on the Jack the Ripper London walk this evening and we're headed out to Bath tomorrow morning.

See you all soon!

the end of my holidays

My day in Kenya are numbered, I guess they always have been but now it's starting to feel a little ominous. I got back yesterday from almost a week and a half of holidays, only a little bit of work somewhere in there and now i've only got a week and a half left till I get on a plane to London! I know it's not really home, but right now it feels like leaving Kenya means going home.

So to recap my holidays, the 12th I went on a 3 day safari to the Masai mara, probably the most famous game park in Kenya. I was trying to do it as cheap as possible so we were roughing it a bit, staying in tents with wooden beds and really thin mattresses. Our safari vehicle was a Nissan minibus with a pop-up roof. Most safaris are in vehicles like that so it didn't bother me, you have to have a lot of money to spend to get a nice safari jeep, but the roads into the park and even inside are a little rough so it made for some adventure including helping push the one driving in front of us out of the ditch after it went off the road. The group I was supposed to join missed their train from Mombasa so they put me with a young couple originally from Pretoria, South Africa but living in the UK right now. They were fun, but sick which put a damper on things. I ended up spending the next days all day drive on my own. On saturday I joined yet another group to get back to Nairobi after our morning game drive because the couple was staying longer than me. My new group was a bit of an interesting group, a retired lady from Slovenia who'd been volunteering in Uganda, a couple from Moscow, an American and an Italian. The whole trip was loads of fun, the park is beautiful and there were lots of animals. (Janelle, I had a moment of silence for you when we came across a mama cheetah and her two cubs)

After washing clothes for at least two hours on saturday night after getting home, Sunday I did a little work so I could send some things to Bridget before she left for South Africa for the week, packed my bags again and watched some football...soccer for you North Americans. By monday afternoon I was landing on Manda Island and taking the ferry across to Lamu town just off the north coast of Kenya. It's part of an archipelago that used to be a collection of city states and are a mixture of Arab and Swahili culture. The town is small but a maze of narrow streets while surprises...and a donkey... around every corner. That an there are lots of little shops to look at. And of course there's the miles of beach to relax and swim at...which is a necessity because the place is like a constant sauna. Whether it was cloudy, raining, or sunny the humidity and heat was constant. Every room you stay in has a fan which make sleeping a little more of a reality except when the power is out...which is often. The 'power station' for the town billows black smoke and looks like it could explode at any moment. Our theory was that the power outages happened when the guys watching over the place for got to switch the barrels of oil when one got empty. I went on my own but met lots of cool people. Between exploring the town, getting out to the beach and a dhow (boat) trip it was a great week and I didn't want to leave on Friday.

Now that I'm back in Nairobi it's back to work for a week and half...time is literally flying by. Some one here told me time doesn't go, it comes and right now its coming faster than ever!

Easter pictures

Here are the pictures I was talking about. As you can see in addition to celebrating easter Annie's birthday is on the 12th but she's going to be at a refugee camp in Tanzania so we had an early party.

Happy Easter!

If you're looking for some crazy cross cultural Easter experience I've got no stories for you. Easter was/is pretty low key here. I went to church on Friday with Taryn, Annie, Chris, Mark and Brad. Had Java for lunch with some good apple pie and ice cream...not as good as grandma's but it did the trick. Nothing of importance happened yesterday but I got to sleep in! The night before we did go bowling and out to eat afterwards. I counted the first game as warm up, 10 pin should be easier right? After a pitiful 64 I scored 126 on the second game and felt much better about myself. Today after church we had our own version of Easter dinner with a bunch of friends potluck style. No mashed potatoes, hard for me I know, but we did have some great homemade burgers, potato salad and some brownies for dessert.

I hope you all had some good quality family time or relaxing time in whatever combination you were hoping for. Good luck to all you poor people writing exams, I can't say I envy you in the least!

I have some pics but they're still on my camera so stay tuned!

Rwanda Round Two

I'm back again from Rwanda. We went for a consultation of Quaker Peace Network, basically a conference for quaker organizations working in Africa. It was a lot of fun other than the exhaution from being the one taking notes during all the sessions, i've now got 98 pages of text to sort through!

The best part other than the interesting people I met was the place the conference was at. It was in Kibuye, Rwanda (for those of you in the family with the big world atlas you can find it on the map) which is on Lake Kivu. It is absolutely beautiful there and you can see the volcano in Goma in the distance. Jessica, one of the people at the conference from the Quaker UN office in New York named it Mordor because at night it glows red.

At 140km/hour who needs shoes?

So I'm back again from Western Kenya. I have to say first that traveling by bus is exhausting. After 7 hours getting to Kisumu I got into a matatu to go to the ARO center, about an hour's drive. The person that met me at the bus station helped me find the right one and told the conductor where I wanted to go...he even wrote the stop on his hand. Obviously that wasn't enough because they drove right past and I had to bang on the roof to get his attention so he'd get the driver to stop and let me off. We hadn't gone to far and he joked that he was just making sure I got my exercise. It would've been totally fine except that in getting out of the back seat of the matatu, my sandal broke! I guess Old Navy sells them at $4 for a reason. So there I am, walking down the highway with one sandal on, my back pack and bag...I got a few funny looks, the ladies selling vegetables at the turn off to the center had a good laugh. One of the guys from the center met me just down the road though and put my bags on his bike while we walked back so it wasn't too much trouble. I ended up borrowing a pair of sandals until the friday evening when one of the ladies presented my fixed sandals.

Otherwise it was a fairly uneventful trip. On Thursday I was with a group from the Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN that was visiting some project sites and then hung out at the center for some meetings on Friday. On Saturday I decided that 140km/hour is never safe. We made the drive from ARO to Kisumu in record time...which only meant I had to wait longer at the bus station. There are speed limits here but they don't apply to private vehicles...they should!

Cinnamon scrambled eggs?

After the excitement of my two weeks of travelling there hasn't been to much to write home about. Our auditors came at the beginning of last week to start our year end audit of last year so the time between my travelling and then has been mostly running around trying to get ready for them to come, and then fixing the things they want us to fix. Now that that is over I've started working on stories for our newletter which I need to finish before I leave. I know that seems like a long ways away but tomorrow I'm travelling until Saturday, I'm home for 3 days and then away for a week and then its April already! I'm planning on taking some time of to travel for a week or so to the coast so that doesn't leave much time.

Otherwise I've just been spending time with friends, and watching football (soccer). Its a big deal in our house. Elizabeth's daughters support different teams, Chelsea and Man U, so there are a few heated debates. Saturdays and Sundays have been my breakfast making days. I made crepes one Saturday which tasted sooooo good, almost as good as at home. A week or so ago I made french toast for breakfast since I had come into the kitchen just as the puddle of oil was about to be poured into the frying pan and said I'd make my own breakfast. None of them wanted to try any, thinking it looked a little strange. I know think I know part of why they thought it was a little strange. I had mixed cinnamon in with the eggs before dipping the bread in, normal for making french toast. Then this Saturday I walked into the kitchen to find Elizabeth mixing cinnamon into my eggs only instead of then dipping bread into it to make french toast she proceed as usual to fry the eggs in a puddle of oil!!! I kept myself from laughing but I had been thinking that my eggs had been tasting a little different all week and now I knew the reason why! So the egg saga continues.

Kabobs and hungry hippos

So now continues my trip in Burundi, with only six days to go. We’ve now reached the 25th of February. It was a Sunday so went to a nice long service in Kirundi. It was translated into French for Bridget and I, English for Gunhild, Erik and Johannes which was nice but tiring because you have to be constantly concentrating and you lose something in the translation I think. Being Bujumbura it was also really hot and the guy translating would kind of lean in to be heard while trying not to talk to loudly which just made the heat worse. Being close to too many people is the last thing you want when its that hot out.

Anyway, we left church to eat and check out of our hotel before being picked up and taken 2 hours east into the hills to Gitega where we would be staying for the rest of the trip. One of the main purposes of the trip was the ‘Strategic Peacebuilding Seminar’ we were having in Gitega for our main country partners, Rwanda, Burundi, and North and South Kivu in DR Congo. We had Erik Cleven come from Norway to facilitate the three day seminar. We were being hosted by MiParec (Ministry and Reconciliation under the Cross?) one of our two partners in Burundi. They started around 1998 out of a group that had formed a peace committee in a nearby community. During the height of the crisis in 1995, MCC had a peace presence team in that community and out of it formed a peace committee that eventually became MiParec. On Monday we went to Mutaho to visit this first peace committee to hear more about what they’ve been doing and because Erik works in the post-conflict situations in the Balkans and was interested in how things were progressing in Burundi. They’ve actually become quite a model of peacebuilding in the country. With their success in mediating and reconciling different segments of the population in Burundi, demobilized, internally displaced, refugees, returnees and ex-prisoners, people in neighboring communities are now coming to them for help with their own issues. After meeting with members of the peace committee we got some lunch in the village, if you look closely at the picture you can take a guess at what we ate!

Tuesday was the start of the seminar and that’s basically what we did for the next 3 days. It was basically on how to develop a strategic plan for your vision and within the mandate you’ve chosen and then how to measure your success. Nothing too exciting happened other than near torrential rains a couple of the days which puts things on hold when you’ve got corrugated aluminium (I think) roofs and it becomes so loud you can’t hear the person talking next to you. It was also the first time I’ve felt cold since leaving home…I know that isn’t saying much and none of you feel the least bit sorry for me…to the point where I was wearing pants and a sweater most of the day.

The only thing notable about Friday, the day we left Burundi was the speed at which we got from Gitega to Bujumbura. The number of people travelling with us grew to the point where the vehicle we were supposed to use wasn’t big enough and in organizing for a second vehicle we were a little late leaving. Not late for our flight but late for Dieudonne who had to catch the bus to Kigali from a town half way between Gitega and Burundi. I won’t say how fast we were going, only that for that first hour I played a ridiculous game on my phone and sent a couple text messages to distract myself. The second hour was much more relaxed and we all made it safely.

After a 45 minute stop over in Kigali we got to Nairobi late in the afternoon. After two weeks of travelling it felt good to be back home, my African home that is. But my feeling of home only lasted for the night and by 8:00 the next morning I was in the back of a safari van headed to Lake Nakuru National Park with Erik and his son Johannes (14 years old…sorry for those of you who may have had other ideas) for the weekend. About two hours from Nairobi it’s one of a few salt water lakes in the country, formed (I think) when an earthquake millions of years ago tried to rip Africa in two and created the Rift Valley, part of the scar you can see running from Ethiopia to Mozambique. It was a nice and relaxing day and a half. We went on a game drive in the afternoon/evening and again the next morning before starting to head back. On the way we stopped at Lake Naivasha, a fresh water lake, where we took a one hour boat ‘safari’ to see some hippos. There’s also a small island with a bunch of animals that they used to film part of the movie ‘Out of Africa’. Being at eye level with the animals is quite the experience, especially when you get between a hippo and the open water he’d like to swim in. You’d think hippos are slow given how huge they are, but believe me they can move!

We got back to Nairobi in time to eat dinner at Carnivore with Bridget and her roommate Tina who organized the safari for us before Erik and Johannes had to catch their plane. Mmmm ostrich meatballs!

Here ends the excitement, now I need to sleep.

Cow brides and banana beer

So now for the second instalment (if you did read the last post scroll down and read it first), our next stop was Goma, DRCongo. Its about an hour long bus ride from Ruhengeri which we took on a bus with no suspension and we were sitting in the back seat. Needless to say it was a bumpy ride. Once we arrived in Gisenyi, the town on the Rwandan side of the border we got on the back of motorbike taxis for five minutes until we reached the border. Border crossings here require forms to leave the country you’re in, walk across aThe next stop on our journey (if you haven’t read the last post scroll down and read it first) was Goma, DR Congo. It was about an hour bus ride from Ruhengeri in Rwanda on a bus with zero suspension and we were sitting in the back so it was a bit of a sort of ‘no man’s land, and then to get in to Congo you have to get a permission to travel form and pay $40 to get in. Travelling here costs a lot of money. Rwandan visas are $60 and officially Canadians need one but unofficially they stamp your passport and let you through. Once in Congo one of the project coordinators, Levi, took us to the program coordinator Papa Jeremy’s house where we had something to drink before heading to our guest house. It was really a guest house for priests in transit or escaping the conflict farther north but Bridget stays there all the time when she’s in Goma. You quickly discover some differences between the Catholics and the Quakers we are working with. In most of Africa, tea is the drink of choice after dinner though I think its more like sweetened milk with a little tea, but instead the priests eating dinner in the room offered us banana beer! I don’t quite know how they make it but I think they cook bananas until they’re like liquid and then let the stuff ferment. However they do it, its got a serious alcohol content and the after taste was as if I had eaten a whole lot of bread dough and the yeast was now rising in my stomach.

The next day was much like our first day in Kigali with Bridget working on accounting and Gunhild and I visiting project coordinators and also the women’s workshop in town where 20 women at a time are taught tailoring and receive teaching on conflict reconciliation. In the afternoon Bridget headed back to Kigali to finish up some work there while Gunhild and I were taken up to see the lava flows just above the city. In 2002 the volcano, which is still active, erupted cover a large portion of the city. The eruption was unexpected and didn’t come from the mouth of the volcano but from underground right on the edge of the city. The lava moved slow enough that people were able to escape but it destroyed many homes. Instead of reasoning that living in the shadow of an active volcano that will most certainly erupt again, people have rebuilt their homes right back where they think they were before. Their houses are made of wood but their yards and ‘fences’ are made of hardened rocks of lava. It makes for an interesting landscape.


Gunhild and I got back on the bus the to Kigali the next morning, arriving at lunch time. We spent the afternoon visiting two churches that were sites of massacres during the genocide in Nyamitaba. It was a bit of an out of body experience. I found it hard to connect what I was seeing with my eyes with any feeling. Being in a place where people have committed such unexplainable acts of violence in some cases against their friendsThe next day Gunhild and I got on a bus back to Kigali in the and neighbours. Even more unbelievable to me was that our guides in both places were from the area and at one of the churches was a survivor of the very events they were explaining.

The next day was Friday and we got on a plane for our 30 minute flight to Bujumbura, Burundi. We were picked up from the airport by friends of Bridget and went back to their house for lunch before heading to hotel to get ready to go to a dowry ceremony Bridget had been invited to. The idea of dowry doesn’t quite exist at home but it is very important here and is a bit of a curious thing. The bride is hidden away in some room in the house while the father’s make speeches. First the bride’s father asks why the groom’s family has travelled all this way and asks whether they plan on stealing their cows since they come from a tribe that’s know for that activity. The groom’s father responds saying no they aren’t here to steal but to buy a cow, a very special cow. But we have many cows the brides father will say and will get a response something like but this cow is a specific and very special one. The bride’s father will ask how much they are willing to pay for this special cow, the groom’s father will make an offer, the bride’s family will discuss it and then if they agree out comes the bride! I don’t think I know any bride to be who wants do be discussed as livestock! The dowry given used to be cows of food, but more often now is a monetary amount. After all this has taken place, about 2 hours later, we all get to eat and then go home to sleep because they had five wedding ceremonies the next day. First a civil ceremony, then a parade type thing through town to a reception. Then there is a lifting of the veil ceremony and finally a dinner for just the family and maybe a few friends. Bridget was invited to all that but Gunhild and I decided we’d pass. Erik and his son who were arriving from Norway to do the seminar the next week arrived around lunch time that day and while Bridget sat in the multiple wedding ceremonies we went to the beach.

Bujumbura is the hottest place I’ve been so far. You feel like you’re sweating after 5 minutes of standing outside. The city has a couple resort type hotels with pools right on the beach. It was the most relaxing afternoon we’d had in a week. It did however feel like you’d been transported out of Africa though. It’s a place for tourists, expats and UN and other officials or NGO workers moving in and out of the country. On the other hand it was the most ‘normal’ we’d felt in over a week. No longer being the only white people and away from the staring and calls of “mzungu” I didn’t feel so much like a foreigner anymore. I had the thought that some of the places I feel most normal are also the places the people of the country I’m in will most likely never experience.

I hope this is still interesting, one more week of travelling to go!

Land of a thousand hills

So after travelling around for two weeks I’ve been back in Nairobi for a few days and it feels really good to be in a familiar place again. It feels a bit like coming home…but not. Consider this the first instalment since none of you would read the whole thing at once even if you wanted to but mostly because it was a really busy trip and there is a lot to write about. We started in Rwanda, ‘we’ referring to myself, Bridget and Gunhild who came from the office in Norway, landing in Kigali on Sunday afternoon. With Sunday being Gacaca day (I’ll explain that later) and Gunhild having taken the overnight flight from Oslo after sitting in a board meeting all day we spent the rest of the day relaxing at the house we were staying at. The house belongs to a Rwanda pastor and his wife. Rachel, the wife, works with us part time and their family built the house as a transit house for people like Bridget who come and go almost every month to 6 weeks. Rwanda is a tiny country with 9 million people. They say it might be the most densely populated country in Africa and it shows. It is also a country built on hills and instead of being organized into villages, or neighbourhoods, people here organize themselves based on which hill they come from and every hill has people either in the city or with small farming plots all over the countryside. Open space with nothing happening on it is hard to come by.

The next day we went up the hill to Friends Peace House, our partner organization in Rwanda. Gunhild and I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon interviewing project coordinators since we’re both in the process of writing newsletters. For the rest of the afternoon we went into downtown Kigali to buy our plane tickets to Bujumbura later in the week and then we went to the Genocide Memorial Museum. It reminded me of the Apartheid Museum in South Africa but smaller. Still, it is a pretty powerful place. It takes you through the history of Rwanda from colonial times to the events leading up to the genocide and then the genocide and its aftermath. The upstairs has one section dedicated to children who were killed, stolen futures I think it was called. Each room has stories and pictures of children who were killed with small plaques telling you their name and then a combination of different things about them like their favourite food, best friend or last words and also how they died.

Tuesday morning we went west from Kigali to visit one of the peace committees that Friends Peace House supports in the region of Ruhengeri. We went with the program coordinator of FPH, Sizeli, to see what initiatives they’ve been trying to implement and also just to see how they work. Ruhengeri is a district that is about an hours drive from the Congolese border and it’s the area where many say the planners and instigators of the genocide came from. It was really interesting to see. We predictably caused a big disturbance when we arrived since the place we were meeting was right beside a primary school, especially when Gunhild got the video camera out. What was really impressive about this peace committee is that they seem to be taking initiative on their own, not waiting for funding or help from the outside. They’ve begun a couple income generation projects on their own. One is an orchard I guess where they’re growing something called ‘punes de japon’ which literally translated means Japanese prunes, however they aren’t like any prune that I’ve ever seen. They’ve also been distributing sheep in the community. They started out with the members of the peace committee each contributing 500 Rwandan Francs per month for 18 months when they bought 12 sheep. Through raising and breeding these 12 sheep there are now over 60 families in the community to have received sheep. By the time we finished there is was time for lunch so we went into Ruhengeri town. Gunhild and I ordered rice, chips (fries) and chicken. It all came out looking the way it should and the piece of chicken was a decent size. The problem however was that it was truly the toughest piece of chicken, or any other kind of meat for that matter, that I’ve ever tried to each in my whole life. It was as if someone had cook this chicken for a few hours and left it out to dry until the time when two unsuspecting customers ordered chicken and they threw it back on the fire. Trying to eat with a fork and knife was completely impossible and after about 5 minutes Sizeli got our waiter to bring by a bucket of water so we could wash our hands and leave the cutlery behind. It seemed like a good idea but I thought I was going to lose a tooth in the process. The only other conclusion I could come to was that we were the unfortunate recipients of a starved chicken that consisted of bones and tendons with no meat to speak of. The chicken stayed on the plate and we said a small apology to this chicken that lost its life for no good reason. I also think we provided a good deal of entertainment for all the Rwandese in the restaurant watching to white girls try to eat chicken.

Our next journey was an hour on a bus to Goma in Eastern Congo but you’ll have to wait until next time. Besides I’m sure you need a break now too.

Out collecting passport stamps

This is more of an informational note for those of you who I know might view an extended period o silence as worrisome...you know who you are. I'm heading to Rwanda tomorrow and will be travelling between there, Burundi and Eastern Congo for the next two weeks and internet will most likely be either non-existent or difficult to find so don't be expecting much. I'm positive I'll have adventures to talk about when I get back.

Home fry Heaven

After a month of eating super greasy eggs for breakfast my experience of eating eggs in Kenya has now been redeemed...until such time my stomach decides to once again to stage a revolt. Java House, my sanctuary of normal, very tasty, relatively cheap food, has come to the rescue. This happened on Sunday but I'm writing about it now since the greasy egg has reared its ugly head and I'm wishing for Home fry Heaven again. After church, Taryn, Annie, Dave and I went to Java for breakfast. My meal of choice...home fry heaven...not french fries but hashbrowns seasoned with I don't know what but it was good topped with tomatoes, onions, guacamole and scrambled eggs...and yes it is like being in heaven...egg heaven. Alas the weekend is over and greasy eggs are back, made bearable only because I also had a mango for breakfast.

Anyone up for being selfish?

I've never thought of myself as a particularly selfish person but a couple of events over the past few days makes me wonder whether other people may beg to differ.

Episode number one... its Sunday afternoon and I've gone to Yaya Center (shopping mall) for a few reasons, one being that the Masai Market is there all day Sunday. I was really only looking for one thing, a scarf/wrap for the mornings and evening when it gets a little cool for a t-shirt or the dress I was wearing on Sunday when it started to pour in the middle of the afternoon. I had what I came for and was heading inside to this amazing book store but had to walk through the mass of vendors to get to the door. I was walking by one lady who asked me if I was wanting to buy anything and when I said no not to day she said well how about you trade your bag for something? I told her I wasn't looking to trade my bag to which she responded, well how about your dress then...thinking that she hadn't really thought that option through (she wasn't selling any clothes) I said thanks but I'll be keeping my dress and moved on. There are a lot of nice things at the market and you are sometimes made to feel like you should at least buy something as you obviously have money to spend.

Episode number two...having left the shopping mall to go to Nakumatt, Kenya's Superstore, I got into a matatu because its too far to walk. Taking a matatu in the afternoon shouldn't be more than 20 shillings. I gave the guy 100 and waited for my change. He proceeded to give me 60 back and when I asked where the other 20 was he showed it to me and said "You'll buy me a soda?" I said no, he asked why so I told him I don't have to pay more just because I'm a mzungu (white person). He said "you aren't paying more, you're buying me a soda!" I again said no, and this is when I started asking myself this question, and he asked me whether it was because I was selfish...at this point we were at the stop I wanted, he gave me my 20 shillings and I got off.

So I’m left wondering what people think when they see me walking down the street. I’m definitely not the only white person in Nairobi but I’m definitely a minority. Some people think I’m rich which you could argue I am especially relative to the majority of people here. As a result some people also see me as some one they can get something from…like a trip to Canada for example which may or may not include getting married. When I was doing microfinance research a street boy asked me whether I could take him to Canada. I said I couldn’t and he said oh its because I’m a black African…which I told him had absolutely nothing to do with it, but he will think what he likes. I do like it here but there are times when it feels like being at home would be much less complicated.

So am I selfish? I want to keep my bag and my dress, I didn’t buy the guy soda, and I told the street boy I couldn’t afford to take him to Canada...which is the truth, but when have you given enough? How much is too much, too much money, too much stuff? Where is the point where you look at what you’ve got and say I’m selfish…?

In only an instant...

In an instant (or so) you can get on a bus and wake up halfway across a county, the colts can win the super bowl, cows can appear at your doorstep and life can hang in the balance.

That pretty much sums up the last week for me. Starting with the superbowl we started by ordering pizza which seems normal...sitting in the living room eating pizza watching football? It actually looked more like sitting in the living room eating pizza watching soccer, ruby, and the movie 'the island', waiting for the game to start. Once it did we were all looked like zombies but were awake after the action packed first few minutes. I watched with 3 americans and 2 guys from Denmark. One of the Danish guys walked in wearing a tom brady jersey and a new england patriots hat so I wasn't alone in my cheering from the bears. Staying up made for a fairly uneventful monday since I slept most of the day (which sounds like a pretty good way to spend a monday).

Tuesday I was up at 5:30 am to catch the bus Bridget and I were taking to Kakamega in the Western province of Kenya. Nairobi and Western province are about as different as say Toronto and the Okanagan. Nairobi is a big, polluted city and Western is like a massive garden just without mountains, they've got hills instead. We stayed in a guest house for two nights and had some meetings with partners we used to work with and are hoping to work with if our civic election education campaign gets funding. Then we went up to someones house for dinner, up in the hills that is. The guest house was really nice, it was the first shower where the hot water comes out of the shower head instead of a bucket in almost a month. They also have an environmentally friendly method of cutting the grass...cows. Yup, I came back from breakfast to find 5 cows in front of the door. The other thing about being in smaller towns is the transportation. Since moving across town isn't really worth driving they have boda bodas (spelling ?) They've attached padded seats to the back of their bikes where you'd put a mud flap or something. Anyway they're everywhere and cheap and a fun way to get around. They are fast enough that you get places fairly quickly but slow enough that you can take in everything around you. It was a little awkward with our bags but we managed.

Thursday morning we took a matatu to Kisumu, Kenya's third possibly second biggest city, and then got a ride up to a center about an hour into the hills. Its run by ARC-Aid a Norwegian organization I think. The main activity there is a 6 month development training course and we were there to visit 5 Congolese we had sponsored to do the training. We were only there over night, but got to sit in on some training, learn about some of their other projects and eat amazing food! They've started baking their own whole wheat bread and they had made it fresh when we arrived and we ate it for snack, lunch, and breakfast. Part of their plan is to start mass producing it and selling it locally because of the health problems people in the area are encountering. One problem, much like in Canada is that white wonder bread is the cheapest but also so refined that its unhealthy so people are starting to get adult onset diabetes. The other reason is that they are hoping to start putting a grain they call amarathas into the bread. The grain has been shown to be very good for the immune system, so they are hoping they can prevent diabetes as well as strengthen the immune systems of people with HIV/AIDS. The other thing about being in the rural areas is that white people are still a novelty, especially with the kids. In the city they'll look at you and say hi, but in the countryside you can cause quite a stir when they discover you and then whisper and giggle to each other about the mzungu (white person). I made a just few friends the day we spent at the center...sorry no pictures, I left my camera cord at home.

Friday morning we headed back to Nairobi which required a matatu to Kisumu and then the 8 hour bus ride to Nairobi. Matatu drivers tend to have a bad reputation for somewhat reckless driving compared to the rest of population, and the roads in that part of Kenya are narrow and winding their way through the hills and friday was not our day. We were two thirds of the way to Kisumu, close enough that we could see Lake Victoria when we were at the top of a hill when all of a sudden our matatu hit the breaks and swerved to the side as we heard a thud. A lady had gone to run across the road and didn't see us coming. She ended up lying face down in the middle of the road with her little girl running to her screaming and trying to lift her up. After a few minutes, while we were sure she hadn't made it she pulled herself into a sitting position but in very bad shape. Medical services aren't quite what they are at home and you can wait for a long time for help to come but almost a soon as she sat up an ambulance who happened to be transporting a sick patient to Kisumu pulled up and was able to take her. As you might expect no one in our vehicle was injured since the car usually wins in those situations but I don't know if we'll ever know if she made it. A few minutes later we were put into a different matatu and we went to catch our bus. The walk from the matatu station to the bus station took a little while but neither of us felt like getting on a boda boda in the traffic of Kisumu. The rest of the day was uneventful other than the power going out as soon as I walked into the door when we got home at 7:30 pm but the day was a reminder of how fragile life can be, you never know what tomorrow might bring.

Sorry to end on a bit of a sobering note but that's how my week ended. I had hoped to go home and watch a light hearted movie but when I put it into the dvd player it told me that the dvd wasn't formatted for that machine...ahh Africa. Tonight I'm going to see 'the pursuit of happyness' and going out for dinner and tomorrow I'm going to the Masai market after church so it should be a good weekend.

I'm also expecting to get a few less bitter e-mails about the weather this week since its reading week and I know at least some of you are headed south! Oh and as you've probably guessed, the picture at the top is me feeding a giraffe, giraffe kiss optional.

GO BEARS!

For those of you concerned about the absence of NFL in africa and my withdrawal symptoms fear no more my friend Taryn has somehow managed to get a satellite feed or something because we're pulling an all nighter to watch it...which is why I'm posting today not tomorrow because tomorrow what I write may be uncomprehendable. Due to the eight hour time difference we'll be watching the kickoff at 2:30 am monday morning...don't you wish you were here?

Anyway, to more interesting things for the rest of the population who could care less about football...kerianne this is for you...I just finished my first project proposal. Its kind of scary that this project is based on most of my research but oh well! Bridget will still look it over and submit the final copy but I am responsible for a lot of what's written in it. So the next big thing is a trip out of the smoggy city! I think my lungs must have a pound of exhaust fumes in them by now. We're going to Western province, near Lake Victoria, to help with some mediation training and check up on how things are going there.

Last week was mostly research, but I did get to visit Kibera. Most people now say that it's the biggest slum in Africa, maybe the world but I've had people give me varying numbers on its size. I think it's around 1 million people. Anyway, there's a pretty big microfinance bank called Jamii Bora that has a branch there so I was visiting some of the businesses of their clients. We went to a "hospital" that had a blood testing lab. Pretty basic looking but they offer the tests at half cost. Then there was a lady who bough a maize grinder which was busy working the whole time I was there since the staple food here is pretty much maize flour and water cooked into something that looks like mashed potatoes but definitely isn't. The last place we went to was a restaurant where I was fed what looked like green mashed potatoes and maize. Really they add some green vegetable to mashed potatoes and maize flour and it actually tasted pretty good but not as good as actually eating mashed potatoes. What I saw puts to rest any thought someone might have that the poor aren't willing to work or don't want to work. No one wants to live in Kibera or any other slum in Nairobi for that matter. Given even a small amount people are willing to work. The first loans Jamii Bora will give out are capped at 10,000 shillings or $160 CDN but you have to have at least half that amount in a savings account. Its pretty hard to get ahead here, walking through only a small part of the market in Kibera you see dozens of people selling the same thing and really low prices. It makes you wonder how much people can actually make from their business selling vegetables or used clothes. But lots of people are optimistic and still have hope. If they can somehow get their kids through primary school with good grades maybe they'll get a bursary for secondary school. The main thing is keeping kids busy so that they don't get involved with crime which is a huge problem here, like any city I guess.

That's all for now, I'm off to watch some football (not soccer)!

My home

Here are some pictures of my room and wonderful bathroom facility. Also I figured out how to change my blog settings so you can post comments without having to have an account, and if you don't want to post comments for everyone else to see feel free to send an e-mail!

What exactly does working mean? Let me tell you

So you might be wondering what exactly it is that I am doing here, other than seeing giraffes that is. My “job” is somewhat hard to nail down as I don’t really do the same thing everyday. The most simple way to put it is that I do the things that no one else has time for. The first two weeks I mostly sorted through the boxes of things they moved over from their old office, books and files and such. The thing is that a soon as our new, bigger office is finished we’re moving again but at least then we won’t be all crammed into a small space. I should explain what exactly the “office” is because I’m sure what I’ll explain is not what most people would expect. Because a lot of our major partners are Quaker churches the office is on the same lot as two churches and a couple projects. There’s a nursery school and a refugee tailoring project as well as a fine arts college that rents a building on the lot. Our office is off to one side of the property. It’s a bright blue shipping container that’s been converted into an office with some shelving and a couple desks. It works except that at any given time there could be four of us there, even five, and then if people come for meetings things get a little interesting. They also want to hire another person just before I leave to pick up where I will leave off. Our new office will also be a container, but much bigger with two rooms and a patio/sitting area out front. We may also keep the one we’re in now for meetings but we’re not sure yet.

But back to my “job”, Change Agents for Peace International (CAPI) works a little bit in Kenya but mostly in Rwanda, Burundi, and Eastern Congo so I don’t directly in one of their projects. At this point I’m working on collecting resources and looking into microcredit programs because we’re being offered a grant to develop some programs in Rwanda and Burundi. So this week I’m going to be going around to different projects in the city to find out how they are set up and then put together a bit of a proposal. In February I’m only going to be in Nairobi from the 1st – 5th and then from the 10th – 16th because Bridget and I are going to go and visit and work with the projects in Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo and then attend a Strategic Peacebuilding Seminar in Gitega, Burundi before coming back on March 2nd. Hopefully that gives you somewhat of a picture, not the most exciting to read about I’m sure, but now you know.

Is that a social life I see?

So for the past few weeks, since I got here I guess the only people I've been meeting have been through work stuff which is fine but doesn't make for exciting weekends. Thursday was the closing ceremony for the World Social Forum, I went on my own and ended up running into Allison and the group later on but near the beginning I had gotten up from my spot on the grass to get closer for a picture. Another girl nearby had done the same thing and in the process of taking pictures let me take her spot to get a better shot and then she left and I thought nothing of it. About an hour later all of a sudden I saw her again and she came up and we started talking, turns out she's living in nairobi as well, pretty close to where I work so we traded cell numbers and on saturday I went out to a movie with her and some of her friends. We saw Blood Diamond...I'd definitely recommend it, its slightly disturbing at times but so powerful. We were all kind of speechless walking out of the theatre. It was a lot of fun and we went to the market together on Sunday after church as well.

On a different note, I was out for dinner last night at the home of an Ethiopian couple Bridget (who I work with) is friends with. I've met the husband a few times in my adventures trying to locate my bags because he's a taxi driver but hadn't met his wife. They've got a little girl who is 9 months old an so adorable. So I got an authentic Ethiopian meal for dinner. We didn't have dessert but we did have coffee. She roasted the coffee beans right there in the living room over a burner, then ground and brewed the coffee, it smelled amazing and tasted even better.

Apologies to the vegetarians

With the world social forum now officially over I can go back to normal life. For the past five days I’ve been leaving the house before the sun comes up and getting back after dark. Most of the events were being held on the other side of Nairobi so I’d get on a bus to downtown at 6:30, meet up with Allison and the four people she was with at their hotel and then get a ride to the Moi International Sports Center to get there around 8:30 when the first sessions were scheduled to start. We’d attend sessions and events until around 5 and then catch a ride to downtown where I’d get in line to take a bus home usually arriving around 7 totally exhausted. In the evening I'd basically crash on the couch and watch the news until we eat around 8 and then around 9 head to bed to do it all over again.

The World Social Forum was quite an experience. Uhuru Park where the opening and closing ceremonies took place is just downtown and is used for things like graduations, and presidential inaugurations. Desmond Tutu helped open the forum along with some speeches by other “important” people with lots of musical and cultural performances in between. The closing ceremonies were similar with lots of music and speeches by Danny Glover and Wangari Maathai, a famous environmentalist.

My dad would describe the people attending the forum as a bunch of anti-capitalist hippies and there probably were a group of those but people were there from all over, discussing a huge range of issues. Being on the more revolutionary side of things meant that there was no shortage of controversy and there were a few protests that caused some excitement. First were the protests over charging 50 shillings at the gate to Kenyan’s to attend for the day which resulted in them allowing them in for free. The protesters would tell you that they had to charge the gate en masse to force their way in. There were also protests over the price of food within the sports center. Wilson Hotel was given to prime spots within the gates while a “food court” was set up under tents just outside but there were no signs and few people really knew it was there. Not only was the food at Wilson’s beyond the reach of most Kenyans (about 400 shillings or $6.50) it is owned by the minister of internal security, a person associated with the repressive colonial government. On the last day of workshops a protest was staged by a bunch of kids and youth as well as some adults demanding free food. The people working there started giving free food to the kids, but the adults started helping themselves, even to the food of other customers until the place was cleaned out. As for the sessions and workshops, I went to three two and a half hour sessions today and I’m still processing the tone of information. In general a lot of great ideas were put forward but as usual unless they are put to some use all the talk is useless. This year’s forum did add a fourth day of sessions that brought together groups working on similar issues to create actions plans in an effort to ensure that the forum isn’t just about theorizing but time will tell whether it was successful.

Now for where my earlier apology comes in. Allison and the rest of the delegation she was with from the American Friends Service Committee ended up kind of adopting me into their group so on Wednesday night when they planned a group dinner they invited me along. Carnivore is a must go restaurant for many people coming to Nairobi and as you’ve probably guessed from the name they specialize in meat. You pay something between 25-30 dollars which includes soup, salad, dinner, and dessert and coffee ortea. First we had cream of spinach soup, then salad and then they bring out hot cast iron plates and the feasting begins. Everyone gets a baked potato and then servers come around with skewers of every kind of meat you could want and keep coming until you surrender by lowering the white flag in the middle of the table. Beef, lamb, lamb chops, pork roast, pork ribs, turkey, chicken, chicken wings, chicken liver, crocodile, and ostrich meatballs to name a few. We barely had room for dessert and coffee and I needed very little to eat for breakfast the next morning. Not that that ended up being a bad thing, I’m not really into spam and bread.

Laundry day!

About once a week the taps at my house actually work which means everyone gets busy filling all the containers of water we have and then try to get all the washing done because you never know when it will get turned off. Not that we can't do laundry without the water running but washing uses a lot so what ever can hold off till the water comes back on does. Its all hand washing though and I guess I don't have the right callouses on my hands yet because they're feeling a little raw from all the washing, kind of pruny too. Oh well, hurray for clean clothes!

steph

Somethings are easier to avoid than others...but not standing in long lines

Now that i've been here for more than a few days I've discovered a couple new places. Starting with one I will certainly avoid is WIMPY! It seems to be Africa's McDonalds and I've never heard a negative word about it from an African but I can tell you that I'm not sure their burgers are anything close to beef. South Africa had them everywhere and today I discovered one in downtown Nairobi. The other which will take a little more self control is a place called java, only a 10 minute walk from the office but on the way from my house. Anyway, I was taking an American who had just arrived for the World Social Forum around and Bridget suggested the place for a caffeine fix as Allison had only arrived the night before and was feeling jet lagged. Allison had an iced mochacino and I had an iced hazelnut latte and both were amazing...better and bigger than any starbucks drink and cheaper. I will definitely be going back.

On a completely different note, everyone seems to want to know about the weather so here you have it. During the day the temperature is between +25 and +30. In the mornings and evenings it does cool off because of the altitude but I still don't think its actually cold. Closer to the end of my trip the rainy season starts and the nights do get cold they tell me and by then I'll probably have aclimatized enough that I'll feel its cold as well.

My other adventure for the week has been registering for the world social forum. Allison and I went in to town yesterday so that she could confirm her registration and so that I could register. After being sent to a few wrong lines I got to where I had to pay. The way you paid was by buying celtel minutes (my phone provider is safaricom) which meant I to switch my phone, buy 7300 shillings worth of credits and then send that by text message so that I could get my pin number which they use to register you into the program. After waiting almost an hour I left to keep trying to send the message on my own because their line was busy, but it never went to I went back today, waited another hour and then finally was registered...nothing is as easy as it should be here. Yesterday after I had hoped to register Allison and I were going to go up to the top of the registration building, the second highest in East Africa to see the city but just wanted to get out of there after waiting so long so instead we went to a giraffe park which was much more fun. We got to feed them and walk around a bit. I'll try to post some pictures once I get them off my camera.

That's all the excitement I have to report for now. I'm feeling more adjusted now which is nice, I'm feeling a little tired of being somewhat dependent on others for basic things. The only thing is that routine is constantly changing here but somethings I'm hoping will stay the same.

stephanie

Settling in...only slightly wet

So my luggage saga continues. I got one bag on Saturday and so I moved my things into my new home. Here they call them servant’s quarters or an SQ which is probably a more accurate description. Then Bridget got a text message in the middle of the night on Sunday saying my other bag had arrived so I tried calling on Monday but no one would pick up until about 4 in the afternoon. I told them to drop it at Bridget’s house which is much easier to give directions to, but no one came until yesterday morning. After finally getting all my things in to the SQ I thought…great now I can get myself organized…so I opened the bag to unpack it and what did I find? Well all my things which is good since sometimes things go missing, but everything except for my slippers and one sweater were all wet…if only bags could talk.

Getting back to the weekend, on Sunday I went to church with Elizabeth (the lady I’m staying with) since I haven’t quite gotten the transportation thing figured out. The service started at 10:30 and ended three hours later…by the time we got home it was after 2pm. Those of you who have gone to an African church service you’ll understand this next bit, the rest of you just keep reading. We’re in a small room with concrete walls so everything echos, African’s, especially women feel the need to sing at the top of their lungs almost all the time no matter how off key they might be, and the sound system is kind of old and turned up way to high which amplifies the sound and the echoing. Kind of like being in a tin can. Once you get past all that, and standing for at least half of the 3 hours it was pretty good.

For the record, and to the disappointment of my dad I have not eaten or seen anything like monkey meat. Lunch at the office is whatever we find, pizza from the place around the corner once a week or someone walks next door to the grocery store to buy sandwich stuff. There is also a really good smoothie place just down the road that makes you feel like you’ve eaten a whole meal. At home however it’s a different story. The family I’m staying with is Congolese. Their food is similar to traditional Kenyan food but a little different. Omletes…really just eggs and onions…and bread has been breakfast since Sunday until today when no one had eggs to buy. Instead there was bread, peanut butter, and some canned, super oily fish which I passed on. Tea is also usually made but it’s a malted drink that tastes more like drinking hot chocolate. Not that I don’t like hot chocolate, but not at 7:30 in the morning, so yesterday I went and bought something that is more like what the rest of the world calls tea. Yesterday I also got a gas burner thing, not really a hot plate, more like a small propane tank with a burner that screws into the top and then a round metal piece on top that serves an the element I guess. Having it means I can heat my own water in the morning for my “shower”. Shower in quotation marks because I fill a tub, not a bath tub but a round plastic one that takes up most of the room in a normal sized shower, and then use a bucket to wash. It was a little awkward to start but I’m getting the hang of it. Using my own shower this morning was nice because I don’t have to leave the SQ until I feel like communicating with the rest of the world.

Anyway I should get back to real work now…which I’ll try to write about next time.

My own clothes...if only

Its now day number 5 since I left home and I still have 9 pairs of clean underwear but only because my bags are still in London, England...British Airways is hopeful that it will come tonight but that's been the line since I got here.

So from the beginning, I got on my plane at 8:45 am, exhausted and ready to sleep all the way to Montreal only to discover and 85 year old Irish lady sitting in my window seat so I did my good deed for the day, mostly because I was too tired to argue, and took the aisle and got no sleep. Getting to Montreal at 12:30 I discovered a second wind in anticipation of settling in at some sports bar to watch the Patriots demolish the Jets (which the did) but found nothing. Only 7 hours later I was once again on a plane trying to get some sleep. British Airways my favorite airline after spending a flight on Jazz had these great headrests with sides that come down so your head doesn't flop around when you fall asleep. After switching flights, I got on my flight to Nairobi at the furthest possible gate for my 8 hour flight to Nairobi where British Airways became my least favourite airline when my bags never appeared. But my ride was there waiting, with a sign with my name on it that they'd been holding for almost an hour while I waited for my bags and then filed my missing baggage papers. We went back to Bridget's appartment where I went to bed after she found me some pj's and then slept until noon.

The next day we went to the office...a small remodeled shipping container...where I met Elizabeth and Jacinta, both are really nice. Later on we went to Elizabeth's where I'll be living. My space is a U-shaped building. One one side is a bed and coffee table, on the other side is a couch and a closet space for my clothes, and of course the bathroom which is like a tiny closet where the shower drain doubles as a toilet. Thankfully I think I'll be using the shower in the main house...sorry to disappoint you. I haven't moved in yet because it needs a couple things which should be there now and of course my things so I can't really say how things will be yet.

There was a luggage false alarm when I called the airport and they said they had one bag, but when I got there this morning it wasn't...due to a small error both bags were still in London.

Well after that small essay you can now decide to put up with potentially long winded posts or talk to me when I get home but I can't tell you I'll remember them all.