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

Late and overdue post

well it's about two months into the kenyan side, i thought i'd stay consistently inconsistent and write another post. I'll keep it brief and that will motivate me to write more later since i'll be feeling so internally guilty about not writing much the first time round (haha yeah right).

Well one exciting thing is that my hair IS long enough to chop off now! I have to put it in pig tails since a single ponytail isn't long enough, but hopefully they'll take pigtails, they're both about 8.5 inches right now, which means about 9 inches when i chop it. And then i'll shave my head! At mt.a, if that's still happening.

I wash my clothes by hand, and the laundry detergent gives my knuckles an allergic reaction, which is lots of fun. All our meals are cooked over a fire, and i often go to bed around 10 pm. We have a curfew of 7 pm, so i find things to do at home to kill time. This includes watching tv (all the host families have electricity and a tv, though that's about it as far as electrical appliances go), reading, playing cards or board games, and chatting with Joseph or my host family. Oh yeah and i guess now blogging to you losers.

So far i've seen giraffes, zebras, baboons, eagles, wilderbeasts, antelopes and lots and lots of chameleons. I even kissed one of the giraffes i saw at a giraffe center near nairobi (not really but you can feed them these little food pellets, and if you put it in your mouth they'll stick out their ridiculously long tongues and take it from you). Also, Kenyans are super scared of chameleons, and white people love picking them up, so it creates an interesting scene when you combine the two. Sometimes you find them on the road, run over by a donkey cart or car. Their flattened bodies remind me of Rango. Oh! And i even found a lizard of sorts in my bed one night, harmless but scary nonetheless.

Mid project is this weekend, at a campground built by past participants, called osutwa. It'll be nice to have a weekend off with the team, most weekends are quite packed and it's rare that the whole group chills together.

Ok i'll add photos and post more later, hopefully.

long awaited pics

 
 
 
 

 

there's no real chronological order to all this. the last two are the warehouse and joseph and i. it's a fuzzy pic cause it's actually a picture of a picture; we were made the team members of the month, and this is a certificate we were given. he tells me we were both awarded heroes of the year as well, though i'm not sure exactly what that meant. mural painting, including aboriginally influenced artwork, is extremely popular in winnipeg. the man with the white cup between us is moray, the man who had us all out in the sticks for dinner and sledding. awesome guy. the other two guys are felix and stefan, good friends we've made while here.

Man, good times!

5 More Days

it's coming to the nostalgic stage in preparing to leave. i've finished my work placement and have monday tuesday and wednesday to be with the group and talk about feelings and whatnot. thursday is downtime day, maybe go skating with joseph, go out for dinner with steve and matt, keep a low profile and relax.

this weekend was a busy one, volunteering all day on friday, from 9-4 and then again from 5-1. we were volunteering for a world aids day event, which included speeches and food and then a party at a queer bar called Gio's downtown. that's why we were volunteering so late. it was a lot of fun, though i think some of the kenyans may have had a different perspective on our night there (you go to jail for being gay in kenya).many people left around 12:30, and others slowly teetered off until eventually it was sylvan camille and i. we stayed until quarter to two, and then walked home. i realized halfway home that i hadn't brought a key - joseph and i had agreed to just bring his pair, though he'd gone home early. so i ended up getting home around three thirty and having matt unlock the door for me.

the next morning we woke up at 10 and joseph and i went shopping for electronic-related objects and suitcases. at 2 we headed over to kalton and naomi's for a chirstmas get together, and then to a jamburi day celebration - the kenyan independence day. it's actually on the twelvth of december but the kenyan association of manitoba hosted it early this year for us. there was a buffet, music and speeches. a great representation of what life will be like soon enough.

and today was the "Whitetop Carnival" at the church we've been attending. bouncy castles, photos by the manger, and road hockey in the parking lot, with many other activities as well. joseph sylvan camille kenny and i ended up playing hockey for a solid two hours, slipping around on the patches of pavement not covered in gravel.

and this evening joseph and i attended the winnipeg harvest's christmas dinner. it was really fun, but also sad to say goodbye to so many close friends we'd made. we'll probably go to dinner with a few people on tuesday night, though it's tentative plans since there's so many things left to do before we leave.

because of the fact that joseph now has a computer i'm able to upload a few photos to the blog.
it's ironic that i've had the most access to the internet when i've had the least interesting things to say :P

as far as gossip goes, the group is not much better off conflict-wise. i addressed it bluntly and openly on wednesday, and i think that may open some doors to further conversation, but it's dissapointing that people are unable to be honest. there's so much miscommunication and suppressed frustration, upset or anger. obviously in a group of 18 people there will be disagreements, i don't know why we've felt the need to pretend that everything's good. it's too much bullshit, and enough is enough!

dont get me wrong i'm super happy with this group and have had an amazing experience so far, but some things must change.

anywho, hope you enjoy the photos posted.