Monday, September 20, 2010
Asante sana squashed banana
Hamjambo tena (hello again everybody)! I wanted to do a real post for once so you guys can actually have an idea of what I’m doing lol
So, this has been my trip thus far:
On August 27th I departed Denver with Lauren, another girl from DU on my program, and we arrived in Mombasa on the 29th. We stayed in Mombasa in rooms above the SIT (my program; it stands for School for International Training) office for about 5 days doing orientation and getting to know the staff. Our Academic Director is a man named Athman Lali Omar who is fascinating and has led a ridiculous awesome life. Ali Sharriff is Athman’s right hand man and is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. We went snorkeling and he stayed in the water for 10 minutes before he got scared lol. Reuben is our Swahili teacher and is fantastic and hilarious.
After the first days in Mombasa we took a matatu (in Kenya there are buses like we are familiar with but they are only between big cities; matatus are like vans that can legally hold up to 13 people, before the law passed it was like 22 but the thing should really only hold like 9, and they are the main and usually only public transportation in Kenyan cities) to a tiny village called Mgange in the Taita Hills region. Kenyans complain that Taita is insanely cold, and everyone there wears like fleeces during the day, but it was a lot like Washington and I loved it. They thought we were crazy for not being cold. It is nestled between beautiful rocky mountains with some of the most beautiful and, more significantly, extremely varied vegetation I have ever seen. We stayed in Taita for a little over a week with host families. I stayed with a single mother, Hilda, and her two kids Florence, 14, and Anton, 10. People in Taita are Swahili but primarily Catholic, which is why they have such Anglo names. In Taita we helped to build the foundation of a library at a one of the two primary schools, where I also got to teach a few times during the week which was amazing. We also climbed the neighboring mountain, from which, on a clear day, you can see Kilimanjaro, but unfortunately it was too foggy that day.
After Taita we drove to Tsavo park, which is the largest park in Kenya (roughly the size of Israel apparently) and did a safari for a day. We stayed in a beautiful game lodge (with baboons walking freely around the property) and stuffed our faces with the amazing food (every day I appreciate how much money I’m not spending by being on this program) and we saw elephants, lions, giraffes, antelope, dik diks (the cutest miniature deer thing in the world), warthogs, ostriches, a cheetah, water buffalo, the bird that Zazu is in the Lion King… And there was a watering hole in front of our lodge and an observation level that you could go down to and just watch the animals from like 10 feet away, and we saw probably 60 elephants, 4 herds, all come to the water at the same time and it was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. I didn’t have my camera on me, but couldn’t pull myself away, but everyone else took a million pictures so I will steal them lol
After Tsavo we drove to Milindi, a town on the coast north of Mombasa and stayed there for the night before flying to the island of Lamu a little more north. Lamu is a small island, probably 90% Muslim, donkeys everywhere (there are only 3 cars on the entire island and they are all government I think) that bray for like 10 minutes at a time, and all explode at every call to prayer during the day (the 5:30 call to prayer in the morning wakes everyone up every day except for me hahaha). We are doing intensive Swahili classes for the next three weeks here; we start at 7 in the morning, go till lunch, then meet with tutors in the evening. My tutor’s name is Husna; she is a Muslim mother of one plus three from her deceased brother, probably around 45 years old, who owns a shop and I think some property that she rents out. She is very nice and I learned that she used to be a teacher for nine years. A couple of days ago I cooked dinner with her and her daughters. Today she said my Kiswahili is improving a lot and I felt so much better because she always talks so fast and I can't follow what she is saying!
Ok now I will attempt to add pictures...I'm not sure how it will work with this slow internet connect but we'll see lol
Salama na mapenzi (peace and love)
R
Hamjambo tena (hello again everybody)! I wanted to do a real post for once so you guys can actually have an idea of what I’m doing lol
So, this has been my trip thus far:
On August 27th I departed Denver with Lauren, another girl from DU on my program, and we arrived in Mombasa on the 29th. We stayed in Mombasa in rooms above the SIT (my program; it stands for School for International Training) office for about 5 days doing orientation and getting to know the staff. Our Academic Director is a man named Athman Lali Omar who is fascinating and has led a ridiculous awesome life. Ali Sharriff is Athman’s right hand man and is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. We went snorkeling and he stayed in the water for 10 minutes before he got scared lol. Reuben is our Swahili teacher and is fantastic and hilarious.
After the first days in Mombasa we took a matatu (in Kenya there are buses like we are familiar with but they are only between big cities; matatus are like vans that can legally hold up to 13 people, before the law passed it was like 22 but the thing should really only hold like 9, and they are the main and usually only public transportation in Kenyan cities) to a tiny village called Mgange in the Taita Hills region. Kenyans complain that Taita is insanely cold, and everyone there wears like fleeces during the day, but it was a lot like Washington and I loved it. They thought we were crazy for not being cold. It is nestled between beautiful rocky mountains with some of the most beautiful and, more significantly, extremely varied vegetation I have ever seen. We stayed in Taita for a little over a week with host families. I stayed with a single mother, Hilda, and her two kids Florence, 14, and Anton, 10. People in Taita are Swahili but primarily Catholic, which is why they have such Anglo names. In Taita we helped to build the foundation of a library at a one of the two primary schools, where I also got to teach a few times during the week which was amazing. We also climbed the neighboring mountain, from which, on a clear day, you can see Kilimanjaro, but unfortunately it was too foggy that day.
After Taita we drove to Tsavo park, which is the largest park in Kenya (roughly the size of Israel apparently) and did a safari for a day. We stayed in a beautiful game lodge (with baboons walking freely around the property) and stuffed our faces with the amazing food (every day I appreciate how much money I’m not spending by being on this program) and we saw elephants, lions, giraffes, antelope, dik diks (the cutest miniature deer thing in the world), warthogs, ostriches, a cheetah, water buffalo, the bird that Zazu is in the Lion King… And there was a watering hole in front of our lodge and an observation level that you could go down to and just watch the animals from like 10 feet away, and we saw probably 60 elephants, 4 herds, all come to the water at the same time and it was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. I didn’t have my camera on me, but couldn’t pull myself away, but everyone else took a million pictures so I will steal them lol
After Tsavo we drove to Milindi, a town on the coast north of Mombasa and stayed there for the night before flying to the island of Lamu a little more north. Lamu is a small island, probably 90% Muslim, donkeys everywhere (there are only 3 cars on the entire island and they are all government I think) that bray for like 10 minutes at a time, and all explode at every call to prayer during the day (the 5:30 call to prayer in the morning wakes everyone up every day except for me hahaha). We are doing intensive Swahili classes for the next three weeks here; we start at 7 in the morning, go till lunch, then meet with tutors in the evening. My tutor’s name is Husna; she is a Muslim mother of one plus three from her deceased brother, probably around 45 years old, who owns a shop and I think some property that she rents out. She is very nice and I learned that she used to be a teacher for nine years. A couple of days ago I cooked dinner with her and her daughters. Today she said my Kiswahili is improving a lot and I felt so much better because she always talks so fast and I can't follow what she is saying!
Ok now I will attempt to add pictures...I'm not sure how it will work with this slow internet connect but we'll see lol
Salama na mapenzi (peace and love)
R
Monday, August 30, 2010
africa
jambo family and friends!
well it took me three days (with zero sleep) to get here but i made it! unfortunately it was cloudy when we flew over north africa so i didn't get to see any landscape, but now i am in mombasa with the ocean and it's beautiful! the weather is actually pretty nice, sunny but not too hot, a little humid, but usually a little breezy too.it's the middle of ramadan right now so there are a lot more women out on the streets than normally, according to our director, athman, who is awesome. he's an african studies expert (a fulbright scholar from yale) and very sweet. our assistant director is named ali and is also SO sweet and adorable. we are currently living in the rooms above our program office, which is convenient for now, but we will only be here through friday, i think. none of us really know what is going on, africans are very relaxed, and when we asked our directs about plans and schedules they just say oh don't worry we'll get to that lol
so far all the food i've had is delicious, so great news for me! (great success!) lots of rice and meat and seafood, perfect. the exchange rate is about 10 kenyan shillings to one us cent, so everything is super cheap! which i am soooo happy about haha
we leave on friday for a rural homestay north of mombasa. the village is higher in elevation so i actually need to go buy some warm clothes (which our packing list failed to mention)
R
well it took me three days (with zero sleep) to get here but i made it! unfortunately it was cloudy when we flew over north africa so i didn't get to see any landscape, but now i am in mombasa with the ocean and it's beautiful! the weather is actually pretty nice, sunny but not too hot, a little humid, but usually a little breezy too.it's the middle of ramadan right now so there are a lot more women out on the streets than normally, according to our director, athman, who is awesome. he's an african studies expert (a fulbright scholar from yale) and very sweet. our assistant director is named ali and is also SO sweet and adorable. we are currently living in the rooms above our program office, which is convenient for now, but we will only be here through friday, i think. none of us really know what is going on, africans are very relaxed, and when we asked our directs about plans and schedules they just say oh don't worry we'll get to that lol
so far all the food i've had is delicious, so great news for me! (great success!) lots of rice and meat and seafood, perfect. the exchange rate is about 10 kenyan shillings to one us cent, so everything is super cheap! which i am soooo happy about haha
we leave on friday for a rural homestay north of mombasa. the village is higher in elevation so i actually need to go buy some warm clothes (which our packing list failed to mention)
R
Friday, August 27, 2010
Day of Departure
My August has probably been the most hectic month of my life. I finished working at Gymboree, which I totally miss. I saw Laura get married in Tahoe, I flew to Spokane, and this week I have been scrambling to get everything done because I leave TONIGHT for Kenya and I think I'm ready. This is the first time I've had internet all week so hopefully there wasn't anything else I had to do on it hahaha
Hopefully I'll update this soon! Wish me luck!
Hugs,
R
Hopefully I'll update this soon! Wish me luck!
Hugs,
R
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Hola!
This is my first post as the trekking kiwi. In a little less than a month I will be heading to Mombasa, Kenya, for 15 weeks, and I invite my friends and family to follow this and know what the hell is going on in my life. Enjoy!
"Spend the years of learning squandering courage for years of wandering."
Samuel Beckett
"Spend the years of learning squandering courage for years of wandering."
Samuel Beckett
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