- Esther is speaking Swahili to her dolls
- Max is enjoying swimming naked at the pool
- My work at the Orphanage Internet café is mostly completed
- I hope to blog more often now
- Kayla is in Geneva for a week
- We are still sorting through stuff from our container
- Our second car ‘should’ be in Mombassa by now
26 June 2006
Bits & Pieces
09 June 2006
Amazing...
My life here at the four month mark is far richer than I had ever thought possible. All week I have been working at an orphanage during my spare time. Eighty children live in what I would normally consider condemned buildings. The word rubble comes to mind. But they lucked out. A CDC family here has taken extraordinary interest in them and are having a huge impact. They have even gone so far as to set up a non-profit fund to raise money for them. That, in turn, has attracted the attention of a man whose family owns Overstock.com and this guys has decided to travel the world building schools for needy people. Is that not the coolest job? He has dropped a bunch of money to build a school here AND money to set up an internet café (very big in Africa) so they can generate some income. They are just breaking ground with the school building but are at the final stages of setting up their internet café. That’s where I’ve come in. I’ve been wiring the place, setting up networking. It’s been great fun getting to know these folks; they are warm and very appreciative. What little Swahili I’ve learned has started coming in handy too.
As I was leaving, headed to my car tonight, out from the school building came five Masai warriors. All in their mid to late twenties. They are a tough, confident and surprisingly friendly lot. Apparently there are about fifteen of them taking English and Swahili classes at the orphanage. They wanted to do their ‘dancing’ for everybody.
Masai in Kisumu are mostly employed as guards. They wear their cloth ‘skirts’ and some jewelry, a blanket, carry their weapons which consists of a special stick and a long knife and you DON’T want to get on the bad side of one of these guys. When a boy Masai comes of age he is sent out in the bush, alone, to kill a lion. When they do, they come back with the hind leg and tail of the lion to prove it and they get a special marking on their arm (some of the guys I met today had three such markings, three lions!) now would you want to mess with a guy who can kill a lion with a stick and a knife?
I digress. So they ‘danced’ for us. Now they sing this amazing song, rhythmic, hypnotic and each of them in turn would ‘dance’ which is basically jumping in place. They try to see which of them can jump the highest. They jump with their arms straight at their sides and straight up and down. Have you tried this? It ain’t as easy as it sounds and they jump high and many times before giving up the stage to the next guy. Apparently this is what they do if they come after you; they jump up like a rabbit and come down on you with their weapons. Anyway I was told that I should come back on Monday when all fifteen of these guys would love to show off their dancing for me. I’m bringing my video camera!
As I was leaving, headed to my car tonight, out from the school building came five Masai warriors. All in their mid to late twenties. They are a tough, confident and surprisingly friendly lot. Apparently there are about fifteen of them taking English and Swahili classes at the orphanage. They wanted to do their ‘dancing’ for everybody.
Masai in Kisumu are mostly employed as guards. They wear their cloth ‘skirts’ and some jewelry, a blanket, carry their weapons which consists of a special stick and a long knife and you DON’T want to get on the bad side of one of these guys. When a boy Masai comes of age he is sent out in the bush, alone, to kill a lion. When they do, they come back with the hind leg and tail of the lion to prove it and they get a special marking on their arm (some of the guys I met today had three such markings, three lions!) now would you want to mess with a guy who can kill a lion with a stick and a knife?
I digress. So they ‘danced’ for us. Now they sing this amazing song, rhythmic, hypnotic and each of them in turn would ‘dance’ which is basically jumping in place. They try to see which of them can jump the highest. They jump with their arms straight at their sides and straight up and down. Have you tried this? It ain’t as easy as it sounds and they jump high and many times before giving up the stage to the next guy. Apparently this is what they do if they come after you; they jump up like a rabbit and come down on you with their weapons. Anyway I was told that I should come back on Monday when all fifteen of these guys would love to show off their dancing for me. I’m bringing my video camera!
Baringo Bay Field Trip
Whew, I have to stop fiddling with all the boxes of stuff and tell you about our trip to Baringo Bay. It was the annual school camping trip except we couldn’t camp because our stuff still hadn’t arrived. We stayed in a hotel adjacent to the camp grounds though. The more of the landscape in Kenya I see the more amazed I am. So much variation in such a small area. So prehistoric looking to me, it seems only natural that archeologist would find so much here.
The drive was incredible. Going from hot Kisumu up to cool climates where you see hillsides of tea growing like vineyards in California wine country, down huge escarpments to desert terrain, back up huge escarpments (all in second gear) to lush greenery and finally to some of the most amazing desolate landscape I have ever seen. Sorry to say I haven’t been able to upload images to the gallery since the internet here is mucked up.
The kids had a great time. Although you don’t swim in Lake Baringo because of the crocodiles and
hippos [the hotel had a nice pool] you could take boat rides which we did to visit the crocks and hippos and birds. Kenya, and especially this area, is famous for it’s diverse bird population. I’ve never been much of a birder but you just can’t help being interested here. Some of these birds are spectacular. There was storytelling around campfires at night and in the mornings we woke to find hippo foot prints right at the entrance to our room. (gulp!) And as we would walk the path to the dinning room usually we’d see camel grazing on the lawn. Huge termite mounds everywhere [see photo], we went on many nature walks [one of the dad’s is an entomologist so we learned a lot] even climbing to the top of one of the escarpments, what a view!! There is hot springs to visit, which we didn’t see but can go to when you come to visit ;-)
The drive was incredible. Going from hot Kisumu up to cool climates where you see hillsides of tea growing like vineyards in California wine country, down huge escarpments to desert terrain, back up huge escarpments (all in second gear) to lush greenery and finally to some of the most amazing desolate landscape I have ever seen. Sorry to say I haven’t been able to upload images to the gallery since the internet here is mucked up.
The kids had a great time. Although you don’t swim in Lake Baringo because of the crocodiles and
hippos [the hotel had a nice pool] you could take boat rides which we did to visit the crocks and hippos and birds. Kenya, and especially this area, is famous for it’s diverse bird population. I’ve never been much of a birder but you just can’t help being interested here. Some of these birds are spectacular. There was storytelling around campfires at night and in the mornings we woke to find hippo foot prints right at the entrance to our room. (gulp!) And as we would walk the path to the dinning room usually we’d see camel grazing on the lawn. Huge termite mounds everywhere [see photo], we went on many nature walks [one of the dad’s is an entomologist so we learned a lot] even climbing to the top of one of the escarpments, what a view!! There is hot springs to visit, which we didn’t see but can go to when you come to visit ;-)
06 June 2006
IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!
Being a stranger in a strange land for four months and then suddenly being exposed to remnants of my former life in the US and ‘home’ gave me such a bitter sweet feeling. It’s a funny thing, I didn’t anticipate this reaction, but when our container finally arrived yesterday and they started unloading and unpacking things I got a little choked up. On one hand I was of course happy things had finally arrived and it was good to see homey familiar things around me again, on the other hand it made me miss some things of what seems a distant life in the US.
The container arrived just as Kayla is about to spend the week in Argentina (I have just heard from her. She has arrived safe and sound. After a drive for 4 hours from Baringo Bay to Nairobi, then the plane to South Africa and stay overnight, then to Brazil, then to Argentina and another 5 hour bus ride to the conference site!) so I am on my own with this stuff. They delivered it in a huge tractor trailer truck. When they were trying to back the thing through our gate there were at least 6 guys in front of the driver help to direct him, but no one was paying attention to the tree he was next to… there was a loud crack as one of the huge main branches gave way. The tree is across the street on the Nyanza Country Club property. Talk about Keystone Cops! Well, there was a discussion with the club manager and some money changed hands and all was right in the world again.
What I want to know is how on earth we were living among so many toys in that little house in Atlanta! It’s hard to believe all these toys fit in that house. It’s amazing what you can get used to. Max has forgotten what some of these toys are, like the cleaning cart thing which he loved. He did remember about his tent which we had to promptly setup in his bed room (yes it fits in his bedroom with space to spare thank you) and he insisted on sleeping in it last night too. Everything is unpacked, took two days, they did a great job, now to sort it all out. Guess that’s my job for the week, or more.
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