Back to School

Jack and I are at a school that is owned my a man named John Marsden. It's a massive plot of land and there's lots to do wwoofing wise. They have horses, sheep, a pig and a cow, goats, chickens (or at least until the foxes ate them...) and lots more. Jack and I have learned to use the chainsaw, I can now drive the truck and ATV here, though learning to drive standard for the truck is definitely a process not yet complete.

Although it is a school there is lots of maintenance to do and also things that teachers need done. It's great place because there's so much to do and it changes from day to day. Next week I'm going on a four day hiking trip with the year 9s and 10s, and Jack will be helping out with a soccer tournament. We've been doing some woodworking of sorts, and of course, getting ripped. Jokes. But we have become better cooks- we have to cook all our dinners so we've been doing lots of experimenting. Already we've made some delicious meals, might I say, such as lasagna, chilli, a potato soup and even tempura. Yes, we're living with a guy named Yuki, from Japan, who's an amazing cook. We haven't yet made sushi with him, though we did get to try that a few weeks ago with some of Jack's relatives.

In my time off I watch tv, play soccer or ultimate frisbee with Jack and the students, go for hikes, listen to music on the super retro record player with at least 200 records on hand, or just relax. It's getting into the winter season here (aka rain) so some days there's not much to do, but it's all good. We're pretty sure there's no place better than here that we could wwoof at and even if there was we're happy enough here not to go looking.

Overall travelling thus far has been awesome, but it'll be great to return home too!

Oz Post #1

So it's been two weeks in and it's hard to describe all the awesome stuff that we've gotten up to so far. In chunks, the two past weeks could be divided by Sydney, Bondi Beach, and Byron Bay. Arriving in Sydney, i quickly found a shuttle and drove into Sydney, and in minutes Jack and i were reunited! the most epic of hugs, and for a day or two later, jack would interject that he still couldn't believe I was now in Australia with him. I got to see the Sydney Opera house, beautiful as can be, and toured around Sydney only half awake with Jack guiding me this way and that. After spending a couple of days in Sydney, where we also went for walks by the harbour, and visited the 2nd largest fish market in the world - where we also tried a free sample of cheese priced at 120$/kg!!, we bussed out to Bondi beach, one of the most famous beaches in Australia. Staying at hostels has been interesting, lots of people from all over the world. At bondi we spent some time with a couple of Swedes, Canadians, Americans and Irish people, having simple meals of pasta and bathing in the sun on the beautiful beaches.

Our unstructured day to day life doesn't end there though. Jack made a friend volunteering in Mozambique from Australia and so we took a 12 hour overnight bus ride to bryon bay, the hippie center of Oz. the only fast food spot there is a subway, and big protests are currently happening against the consideration of letting a KFC start up there. We stayed at his friend's parents' place, a macedamia nut farm 30 min. from the beach. throughout the week we tried surfing, did some walks through rainforest - type terrain, and relaxed on the farm.

Sadly we had to say goodbye, though now we've arrived at our next destination, some of Jack's relatives are having us for the next two weeks. In the plans are some hikes, seeing the sights of Canberra - the capital of Australia, maybe doing a bit of babysitting, and beach bumming.

life is good, we start woofing at the end of april. what lies ahead, read on to find out!

9 days left

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(written feb. 19)

this weekend we slaughtered a sheep, which was an almost surreal experience. Four of us held down the legs and body of the sheep, and one guy took a knife and cut deep into the throat until after seconds of shaking the sheep finally died. We quickly proceeded to skin and gut it, and then cooked the parts. We had to wash a lot of the organs, especially those connected to the digestive track. Someone didn't clean out one of the intestines well enough, and not until after eating some of the fried intestines did i find out that there was still a bit of shit inside. Yum.

On saturday i went to nairobi, and we went to an elephant orphanage in the morning. The elephants were super cute, and it was cool to hear about their rehabilitation stories. Most of them were found by dead mothers, who'd been poached for their tusks. Ivory poaching is a major issue here in Kenya, and most of the ivory stories come out of Mombassa, where there exists a major shipping port for Eastern Africa. Some of the babies also fell down wells in remote communities, and the herd of elephants, unable to retrieve the baby, moved on and abandoned the baby.

On sunday our group went to spend the day at our kenyan supervisor Kenny's house. It was really beautiful, and he grew lots of fruits and vegetables on his land, including a fruit i'd never tried before called wild passionfruit.

It's super hot now, and i can't really deal with having facial hair at all, so i've been shaving more frequently. Hopefully i'll be able to adjust to the temperature shift when i return to Canada soon.

Krissa, an aboriginal girl from Saskatchewan, taught us how to make bannock. I didn't really see the process since i had a wicked headache and came late, but it's been really cool having her on the team. She brings a very different perspective to the team. For example, it's very upsetting for her to be called an Mzungu – white person – here, since, much like Kenyans, the aboriginals were also colonized. So for her to be clumped with us is a big pill to swallow. I'd never considered that, but in many ways she can sympathize the state of Kenyan society more than I would be able to.

I had a frustrating experience at work today. In the two months of working at the church, the supervisor has not bothered to learn any of our names. The fact that he provides us with little work to do, sometimes doesn't show up, and communicates very rarely is one thing. But i've let it slide for the most part, because we've been happy chilling at the church, playing music reading books and having tea and bread. But today he came up to me and said “mthogo, where's the file?” Mthogo is kikuyu for mzungu, and apparently i was the one who lost the file that sharpens pangas and slashers. The last time i'd used it was more than a week ago, and i'm sure i've seen it since. It's pretty sad that after two months of working with me, and many years of hosting Canadian volunteers at that location, he was still ignorant enough to call me whiteman. I told him where i would have left it and walked off, and luckily there's only one more day of work placement, but wow was i angry. It's tiring sometimes, being called whiteman, and especially disappointing hearing it from old men and women.

However, with only ten days left, i will definitely miss it here, and don't want to let my last few days be consumed of thoughts of home. More than ever i just want to put behind me challenges and frustrations and enjoy my time here.

Wednesday

this week has been very relaxing. on tuesday and wednesday i went home after work, listened to music, did laundry, read and basked in the sun. we had a picnic yesterday, watched I,Robot and played checkers out on the lawn. tomorrow we're having a birthday party / sleepover at our house, which most of us are very excited about. we'll be slaughtering a goat, which anne-marie bought at an auction for us. lots of music, spaghetti, tea and games will be present. it'll be nice because there are very few opportunities to spend time with the group after dark in this phase, due to the 7pm curfew. we'll probably be packing three people to a bed because of the limitted sleeping space, possibly four in some.

saturday we're going to nairobi, i hope to see some elephants being fed in the morning, and there's a free exhibition of photographs related to the 2007-2008 post election violence. the gallery is supposed to be very cool, and since it's free everyone in the group would probably be interested.

i forget if i wrote this in the last post, but i'll write it again just in case - i'm very excited about it. last saturday i rode a camel! it wasn't for very long, and i paid more than i should have, but i doubt i'll have another opportunity to do so again in the near future.

today anne-marie's boss is visiting the groups in africa. she landed in nairobi yesterday, and after seeing our team and the other team not far from here, she'll be heading down to tanzania.

on monday night kenya had its first presidential candidate debate in the history of kenya. it was very interesting to watch, and i was forced to watch it due to a safari ant invasion which consumed our bedroom. safari ants are called that because thousands of them all travel in a single line, both directions, and bite you if they get on you. nasty buggers. we had no supplies such as salt water or rubber to burn, so we just had to sleep through the night with them - i dreamt of them attacking me all night. it was kind of brutal.

not much time left, thinking of home lots, but still trying to really squeeze every second out of my time here in kenya

Three weeks left!

this week i've been up to some fun stuff. On tuesday me and two other guys from the group went to play with the kimende fc soccer team. It was lots and lots of fun, and it's possible that they were mocking me and the other white guy, but they seem really cool and we've returned a few times since then to play again. Either way, it's worth the enjoyment we get out of playing soccer to be mocked in a language we can't understand. And i'd say we match and even surpass the skills of some – though some of the guys we played with were ridiculous. And kenyans can RUN!

The week before we had a controversial learning day on gender equality. Some very interesting discussions took place, and in some ways i feel i can better understand what life may have been like during the 50s in canada. All the men in the team from kenya believe that women cannot be equal or above men. The opinions of some may have offended the feelings of others. Hopefully no long lasting conflicts emerge from the emotional day.

Work has been good, simple and maybe not as productive as it could be, but it keeps us busy and i'm still very happy with my choice of people to work with. Working with three mature, generally openminded kenyan men with a sense of humor has been really awesome, and i am getting very interesting perspectives on topics such as the elections, women, careers, education, and much more.

On sunday sylvan and i went for a hike and sat down in a clearing near a wooded area, and after about half an hour of lying in the sun i saw a branch move up in the trees. It was too large to have been a bird landing, and sure enough! It was a monkey! My first monkey sighting in kimende (i saw some baboons like the ones in the cartoon movie tarzan when jane is drawing the baby baboon and then the whole colony chases her) since i've arrived! And then after seeing the first one, more followed. It was really amazing. And after about fifteen minutes of gawking up in the trees some kids wandered by with three adorable puppies. It was such an awesome little moment in the woods.

Life at home is good too. The host family is really cool, i have a host brother who's 16 and loves messing with me. He even claimed he was the one who put the lizard in my sheets a month or so ago. I mess with him too. Last night i washed my hands and wiped the water on his face when i came into the house, and told him it was urine. Great reaction. For those judging me, he deserved it. And i'm sure he'll just get me back anyways.

So there's only three full weeks left, it's sad to think of leaving but i'm excited to come home too. In the next few weeks i plan to organize a few more poker games with the group, play soccer more often, and read at least one more book. Next monday me and patrice are going to plan a mini olympics for the group, including potato sack racing and three legged racing. It'll be good times i think :)

that's all folks!

Halfway point

ok it seems as though photos aren't gonna be something i can upload, but i'll just write a quick post.

it's actually a bit past halfway, there's only about 5 weeks left. stuff in kenya is still great. the work placement is about half an hour from my home, and i work with three kenyan guys from the group. sometimes it can be difficult to push yourself to interact with people from the opposite country, but this way i have no choice :P it's good because there's definitely a bit of a divide, which is natural but still not ideal. i try and make a conscious effort to bridge the gap, but once in a while i have to whip out a lion king dvd or something (which you buy illegally in town, bootlegged for the equivalent of about 1.25$). at work we do a lot of cutting bushes and grass. they have a really interesting tool called a slasher, which looks a bit like a hockey stick. its a long flat metal rod with a bent end, sharpened at the edges. at first i thought it seems impractical, but it's super useful. the other tool we use is a panga, or machete. it's crazy, they use the panga for litterally everything. if they made mini pangas i'm sure they'd even use them to cut their nails. i prefer the slasher, which has a large range, though lately since we haven't had a file - i think our supervisor lent it out to someone - we haven't really been able to use either.

my host family is awesome. it consists of mama and baba kuria, and then also a bunch of host brothers and sisters. there's vinny and hannah, each 16 years old (yeah it's weird but they all have these christian/baptist names), and then about 5 other kids ranging from the age of 5 to 12. not to mention the fact that that's just my immediate host family, my host father has three other brothers, each with about the same amount of kids, that live on the same small compound. i think i'm going to start teaching them some camp games that they can play even when i leave. and they've started a tree nursery on the compound, something i hope to start up in halifax later on.

so life is good, simple and quickly passing by. i hope to fill these next few weeks with lots of good stuff. and for those who haven't emailed me in a while but still consider me their friends... i expect an email.

ok that's all for now!

Photos of Kenya

wow so it took about an hour to load the one photo, i dunno if this is the best one i could chose but here it is. often i let my host brothers and sisters, of which there are a ridiculous amount, take my camera and take lots and lots of pictures. sometimes i come out and play with them, they get so excited. here's me with some of the kids that live around me. they're crazy, but awesome haha