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.