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!