Memory 4 Life

I cooked for Thanksgiving and it actually turned out to be absolutely wonderful and delicious. Even got to skype the family after their dinner, which was fantastic cause I sure miss them :).

From Kenya Part 2

However, we passed out early in order to make it to our 9:30AM bus in town to go to Uganda for the weekend! Oh, 14 hour bus rides. WHAT JOY YOU ARE. It was awesome to get a new stamp in my baby passport, though! (Less awesome that as soon as we crossed the border, it cost 10x as much to call the US than it does in Kenya. That was a burden. But we finally got to our hostel at about 2AM in Kampala, after riding around in a cab for 45 minutes because our driver had no idea where we were going. Immediately went to sleep and got up at 6 to be ready for our 645AM pick up time to go rafting. Another fun matatu ride this time, I slept most of the ride (oh, carcolepsy...). We got there, met our new rafting friends, had some breakfast, and we were on our way to the Nile, eek!

From Kenya Part 2

It was quite a terrifying/exhilarating day. We flipped a few times, which was absolutely horrible. The third flip, we actually made it through the rough rapid and thought we were good to go, and then this wave came out of nowhere and just slaughtered us. You can see our excitement in the photo...oh how fleeting it was. haha. My favorite moment of the day was lunch when we sat back, ate pineapple on the nile, and went swimming. SO MUCH FUN.

From Kenya Part 2

From Kenya Part 2

After our exhausting day, we headed back to our Jinja hostel (which was totally awesome and included in our rafting price, along with meals!) to compare brutal sunburns and take cold showers. Then it was time to try some of Uganda's famous "Nile Special" beer, which was good, but doesn't hold a flame to Kenya's Tusker. I spent the next few hours into the night chatting with our new British friends who were doing development/education work in Kampala and around Uganda. It was an awesome night, discussing politics, education, how everyone in the UK stayed up to watch our 2008 election results (WHO KNEW?!) because it had such important repercussions for the world, Kenya, Uganda, and tons and tons of other things. It just made me so grateful to be abroad in general, to be having these experiences which I otherwise would never have had. It was a little strange to be around so many white people though. There were some serious hotties (hello: accents, spend their days rafting the nile, wearing plaid) but Courtney told me I had on my Kenya goggles-which I think it BS-but I chose not to pursue anyway.
The next day we headed back to Kampala, spent about 20 minutes there before having things stolen and then just took a cab back to our hostel to take a 4 hour nap and get some food. Another 14 hour bus ride followed on Monday, as did some unexpected costs at the border which made us really frustrated. But we made it back in one piece and with almost all of our stuff, after enduring a bus ride where a 5 year old hit me constantly until I forced his mother to take him back.
We had mixed emotions getting back to Nairobi. On one hand, it was nice to be home. On the other, we want to be for real HOME and are kind of done with Nairobi. But all in all, as cool as rafting was, it is nice to be back in Kenya and to have the comfort of living here and not being a mzungu (white person) tourist, which was rough. Have a ton of homework this week and then finals next week and then a week on the coast in Mombasa! And then, hopefully, I end my trip with a safari in Amboseli, need to do some research for realsies though. I'm happy I went on this weekend trip, though, cause how many people can say they rafted the freaking NILE?! :)

From Kenya Part 2

Boondocks

So I just got back from a week in rural, western Kenya (Bunyore/Luanda area and specifically the Esibakala village).

From Kenya

I've been postponing this blog post for a few days, because I'm not really sure how to put my experience into words. It was, hands down, one of the best weeks of my life. When I was struggling a few weeks ago with homesickness and everything, my program director told me rural week was a huge turning point for people on the program in the past. That was such an understatement for me. The experience made me remember why I was here and even went so far as to refocus my understanding of development and create this enormous interest in rural development. Who knew that the city girl who couldn't even be in New Hampshire for more than 2 hours because of the trees and lack of cell phone signal would fall in love with the beauty and the people of Western Kenya. I mean, I had to pee in a hole and had no electricity. We are talking SERIOUS roughing-it. And I loved every moment of it. I had a really embarrassingly hard time leaving and cried a lot and was super stressed about coming back to Nairobi.

From Kenya

My favorite thing was the quiet. Just the silence I could have, from outside stressors and even from inside myself. I quieted all of my worries and concerns while there and it was beautiful, and poetic, and cliche and all of that jazz. I wrote so much in my journal and detailed everything I was thinking, feeling, and doing. I can't wait to go back in March or something and read it all.
I guess it didn't help that there were also hordes of wonderful, adorable children that loved me and played with me all of the time. I definitely picked favorites, and this one was mine (also PLEASE check out my picasa for more pictures):

From Kenya

And here is my mama, and two of my little sisters:

From Kenya

I know that I only have less than 2 months here to get everything done that I want and I just need to stay positive and use this week to "enrich my experience" or whatever- use it to refocus myself and make friends here and enjoy myself and just fall in love with a place that I just wanted to leave 2 weeks ago.
And now I'm sitting in the westernized coffee place we frequent, drinking an iced tea and eating a chicken pesto panini while they play David Bowie through the speakers. And it occurs to me that, though I found my happiness in Esibakala, it's still with me and I just need to focus on it all of the time, even when Nairobi can be a rough place to be.

Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

Quite a busy few days to recap here.
Friday after class, some girlies and I went to the StoryMoja festival where we heard Micaela Wrong (author of It's Our Turn to Eat- which we are reading this semester) speak. It was super interesting and a great way to see how festivals and things operate here. Definitely different to an extent, but similar to festivals of the same nature in the US. As we left, I decided the clouds were just breathtaking and had to be really obnoxious and take pictures. Something about the clouds here just blow my mind.

Saturday was our grant proposal workshop. Which was super boring and exhausting but also very informative and helped me start formulating some ideas, which was definitely necessary.
Sunday we went on another excursion to Kitengela Glass Factory which really isn't that far from city center, but 100% got us out of the city. We went on the most ridiculous "nature hike" of my entire life- jumping across rocks and scaling walls. It was intense to say the least. My camera pooped out on me at this time, so I got absolutely no pictures of the factory which was really unfortunate. It was like it knew the exertion it was under and decided it just wanted to rest for a bit. The factory was absolutely fantastic. I don't think we learned anything about development, but it was beautiful and I got some awesome presents to attempt to bring home with me. The biggest thing for me, though, was the suspension bridge made of wire and glass that we had to use to cross a river to get the the factory and back across. I'm not particularly a fan of heights. To the point where as I was debating coming on this trip, the idea of that bridge held me back a little bit and made me pretty nervous. NO JOKE FRIENDS. So I crossed it, with tears in my eyes and gripping the edges like my life depended on it (which is obviously did)- but I did it, damnit. Quite an accomplishment.
It was insanity, basically. Afterwards, we hit up the Maasai Safari Lodge for some dinner. It was kind of a weird place- kind of a country club vibe with a pool, lots of drinking, and mediocre food. We did see a crazy food stealing monkey, a wild boar, some adorable birds, rock hyraxes, and TONS of baboons so that was all cool. It was nice and exhausting. And then I came home and got to skype with lots of people and that was super great! It made me miss home a little bit/ a lot bit, but it was worth it to see some shining faces on the computer.

Goodnight, Travel Well

TRAVELING: SUNDAY/MONDAY

I left Dulles at about 6pm on Sunday night. I stupidly left my cell with momma so I couldn’t call her or text anyone or get on the computer, etc. the entire time I was waiting at the gate for my flight to take off. I tried to figure out a pay phone but it was so complicated, I honestly had NO idea how to work it, hahaha. UGH. So anyway, I started the trip nervous about not making contact and everything and then I got on my United flight which and it was kind of miserable. There was very little room, I didn’t sleep more than an hour off and on, and the TV options were super bad. By the end of the flight, I was so nauseous I had to get up 2 times during landing (seatbelt time) cause I thought I was totally gonna vom. Managed to get it together though and landed in Amsterdam alone at about 730 AM. Walking through the airport there was hella intimidating—my first time in an international airport, ya know?—but I managed to find my gate and 3 people were already there, which was super comforting. But then I freaked out about calling my mom to tell her I was there and AGAIN couldn’t figure out the phones. I finally had to call the customer service number from the payphone, give them my credit card number, and then call. SO TECHNOLOGY INCOMPETENT. A bunch more peeps met up with us at the airport and 9 of us were on the flight to Nairobi. The KLM flight was sooooo nice, TONS of food and I finally got to see Avatar. It was aight and I definitely got more sleep that flight.
Finally got to Nairobi and was super intimidated by everything. Going through immigration was INTENSE and I definitely thought I wasn’t gonna be let in the country ha. Mainly I think I was just nervous since it was my first passport stamp!
Once in the airport, I was pretty much in a state of shock and awe. Then we met everyone else and got room assignments and it was sweet. But then, we went outside to put our bags in the bus and it hit me that I was in fucking Kenya and who the fuck did I think I was? So the excitement was quickly replaced with WHAT DA FUCK feelings and being just straight up terrified. We made it home to the apartments to no power on and had to try to move in stuff in the dark which was super fun. But we managed with cell phones and flash lights. As soon as we were in, I called mom and just cried. It hit me immediately that I was nuts for doing this and not knowing anyone and OMG OMG basically. But I'm glad I had those feelings to begin with, since I hope it means I won't flip like 3 weeks in with culture shock. We'll see.