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If anyone was planning to send mail/packages in the near future, don't send them yet. My address may be changing and I don't want to add to the post office's confusion!

Finally, the Mountain!

Today there was not a cloud in the sky. I brought my camera on my evening walk and finally got some pictures of Mt. Kenya. The people here say that the mountain is shy because it usually hides behind clouds, and even today, when the sky was clear, the light was all wrong and the mountain just barely shows up in my pictures.

I’ve been scoping scenic overlooks for viewing the mountain, so I knew exactly where to go today to get some pictures. It happened to be directly in front of a house where these kids had just arrived home from school. As soon as they saw my camera, they yelled “piga picha! Piga picha!” (literally: to beat a picture, meaning take pictures). So I took a few pictures of them, including this one with Mt Kenya in the background. The girl on the left really hammed it up for the camera, which was really funny because people here are generally very formal in pictures and rarely even smile for them.

And then as I was walking the final stretch home, I watched the sun set over the Aberdares (a mountain range west of town). Again, the pictures can’t capture the overwhelming beauty of the landscape and the moment, but they give you an idea.

Language Weekend

During our pre-service training we were told that we’d know we were really getting Kiswahili (the Swahili language—the official language of Kenya) when we started dreaming in it. Well it didn’t happen for me during training, but after three intensive days of studying with three other volunteers and a tutor, I had so much Kiswahili running through my head that I couldn’t sleep. And when I did manage to, I woke up with new sentences running through my head. The good news is that as of now, I am at the required level of language to get the PC off my back about it and will be able to start learning Kikuyu, the language spoken predominantly in my town. I just have to take the test one more time at training in April. Another result is that I’m having a more difficult time communicating in English, as may be evident in this post! Here are Daniel and Gavin studying hard.

And here I am, pretending I know what's going on.

I wasn’t sure what to expect for this language weekend, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well it went. Three other volunteers stayed in my house with me. They helped cook and washed dishes and gave me someone to talk to, so it was a welcome change from my usual solitary routine. I loved having someone else to wash dishes. And someone to make chai (tea) because for some reason I just can’t get the hang of making it; it never tastes as good as when someone else does it, so I gave up making it for myself. We had class as a group each morning with a language tutor (the same one I had for most of training, which was nice because he has a great style of teaching), then went to town for lunch, then we split into two groups (by level of language proficiency) and worked with our tutor separately. We went for walks in the evening which my town loved—instead of a one-mzungu parade they had a whole group! Most importantly, we made some pretty tasty food. Here is Pat cooking up some French toast.

As far as work goes, I’ve got some small projects lined up at the co-op that will help me see how I can be useful to the organization. I also have several books piling up to read and a house to clean (four people in a small space make it dirty a lot faster than one person!), so it looks like my schedule is pretty well filled for the next few weeks. I’m very happy to not be working two jobs and running around all the time, but I get antsy when there’s as little to do as there has been the past few weeks. I think one of the challenges of being a PC volunteer is finding a workable balance of too much and not enough activity. I guess that’s the trick any time, anywhere, and if I can learn it here, I’ll be doing well.

In other news, there’s a new kitten in the compound (well, she’s not exactly new, but she’s new to me). She strolls into the house occasionally looking for food and she’ll let me pet her, so I named her: chui. Ok, technically Jonathan named her, but either way, she has a name. Chui means leopard in Kiswahili.

Miss you all! Love me.

For Always Roaming

I’m reading a book called The Piano Tuner and it’s captivating. It contains an excerpt from the poem Ulysses:

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known—cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honor’d of them all,…

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’

Gleams that untravel’d world whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move. Alfred, Lord Tennyson

This quote captures a little aspect of why I love to travel. The more of this place I see, the more other places I want to see as well. One of my few life goals (I’m generally content to just go with what comes up rather than set up expectations for the future by setting goals) is to visit all seven continents. I have three left: South America, Antarctica, and Asia (if you count New Zealand as part of the Australian continent). Of the three, Asia is the one I’ve been least interested in visiting, so have had no idea where specifically to go. Lately, though, I’ve been considering Goa, India or Myanmar. Goa is emerging as a tourist destination and looks beautiful, and I’ve read two books now about Myanmar and am a little intrigued. I would love to see Mt Everest as well, so I guess I have some options. And plenty of time to decide, since funding these trips will take a little planning. Or I could just take Samantha Brown’s job and start a “Passport to Asia” series…

Also, I found a 20 shilling coin on the ground yesterday. A PC friend had just blogged about a time he found $5 on the ground back in the US, so I mentioned it when I talked to him later that day, and he said it was pretty much the same. While it’s not exactly, I started thinking about its purchasing power. Here in my town, 20 shillings will get me any of the following:

A roll of toilet paper

A cup of chai or an order of fries at a local restaurant

A large mango

2 ½ minutes on my cell or 7 text messages

A week’s supply of tomatoes

2 eggs

About 4 cups of fresh milk

A small bottle of nail polish

What’s odd about that is that in the US these things are not the same price. Just another reminder of how different it is here!

Cross That Off the List

This weekend two PC friends from the coast came to visit and we went on a game drive in Aberdare National Park, which is about a 45 minute trip from me. The animals we saw included a leopard and a black rhino. That plus the drive through Amboseli National Park on our way to Loitokitok—where I saw lions, elephants, and water buffalo—completes the “Big 5” safari animals to see in Africa. If I had a bucket list, seeing the Big 5 would be on it, and now I could cross it off. This weekend we also saw elephants, bushbuck, waterbuck, a monkey, a hyena, and about a million warthogs. The first animal we saw on our drive: a monkey.

Me in the safari car. It was a rough ride, so I spent most of it hanging onto the side rails and bracing myself. We took this picture when we were stopped.
Me, Jonathan, and Krystle on safari.
Me, Jonathan, and Krystle on safari. Me on safari again.
Looking out over the Aberdare Ranges. The whole sky filled up with huge storm clouds about halfway through the drive. I loved the way this sunbeam was still shining through.

We also ate really good food and I had more coffee in the two day weekend than I had in the entire first two months I was in Kenya. Of all the things I miss about the US, food is at the top of the list. I miss specific things like Sorrenti’s pizza and buffalo wings, bagels, and cheese, but I also miss the variety and availability of food. I miss being able to say “I’m in the mood for…” and being able to make it or buy it. Not that I have any right to complain; I have a comparatively good food situation at my site. While much of the country is experiencing famine or at least reduced food supply, my town market is always well stocked. With the same dozen vegetables, handful of fruits, and few starch staples. Even when I can get more exotic ingredients, either from the grocery store in the next town or Nairobi, I’m still pretty limited in how I can prepare them. Not having a real oven hinders the menu, as does only have one burner so that if I make spaghetti, I have to decide if I’d rather have cold pasta and hot sauce or hot pasta and cold sauce to determine which I cook first. This means I’m making a lot of stir fries and one dish creations with chopped up vegetables and a rotation of the herbs and spices I’ve acquired with either rice, pasta, or potatoes. I realize I talk about food kind of a lot in my blog, but it’s a big part of my life. (I even dream about it, but that could be the malaria meds!) It’s both a necessity and a time-consuming activity. I spend a significant amount of time planning what I’ll eat, budgeting for what I’ll eat, prepping and preparing what I’ll eat, and cleaning up after I eat. The eating itself is really a small part of my thinking about food.

Ok, back to the weekend. For my friends to get back to the coast they had to stay over one night in Nairobi, and since I had things to do for work in the city, I went with them. It was my first time being there without someone else who knew how to get around and I’m very proud of how well I managed. Without a map or bus schedule, I managed to get from the matatu stage to the hostel where we stayed, then to Sarit Center (an American-style mall) for pizza, then back to the hostel, then to the bank, PC office, and finally the matatu stage to go back to site without any snafus. You really have to experience Nairobi to understand why this feels like such an accomplishment. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s kind of a big deal!

This coming weekend will be our long-awaited language immersion weekend. I’m hoping that if I study and prepare this week, then by the time Friday rolls around I can take the test and pass it and then spend the rest of the weekend learning without the pressure of having to pass a test. Enough for now.

Miss you all! Love me.

525,600 Minutes

Exactly one year ago I was passed out in a dentist’s chair having my wisdom teeth removed because PC told me I had to. I had no idea where I would be going, what I would be doing, or if I would even go through with it. And now, one year later, I’m writing this from the middle of Kenya. A lot of times I think about my life as if it’s a movie, and how this would be portrayed as me typing this and then flash back to the dentist’s office in Hawaii a year ago, then flash through scenes throughout the past year…What song would be playing in the background, I wonder?

This is going to be a really lame post, because this was a really lame week. I haven’t been out of my town for two weeks straight. There’s still not much to do at work. Moving’s been put on hold indefinitely until the current tenant can find a new place to live. The language weekend that was cancelled last weekend is rescheduled for next weekend. I’m hoping that the weekend will give me enough practice to pass the LPI early and not have to stress about Kiswahili anymore. It’s not that I don’t know the language, it’s just that I don’t use it very often, which makes a conversation in a testing situation fairly difficult. Then it will be on to learning Kikuyu. Also, it was just announced that one of our PC Kenya staff is leaving to work with PC in another country next month, so we’ll be getting someone new to fill that position.

And March is still March. No matter where I go—despite climate, schedule, or circumstance—March drags on and on. Obviously in the Northeast it’s not exactly a pleasant month weather-wise, alternating between thawing and making mud everywhere and then snowing or wintry mixing all over everything just when we thought spring was coming. When I was in school, it was the thick of the semester when the end still wasn’t in sight and the work started piling up. In college it was midterms and registering for next semester and everyone getting sick. By the time I got to Hawaii, I thought it would be different, but though the weather was better, it was still a blah month. Here is proving to be no exception. After racing through February, I can’t believe we’re only halfway through March. Adding to that, since our seasons are switched on this side of the equator, we’re heading into the rainy season, not out of it. And after that it gets cold.

However, something that keeps amazing me (that I think I’ve mentioned before, so sorry for the repetition) is that time always passes. There’s no stopping it, reversing it, or changing it. No matter how excruciatingly slow or blindingly fast the minutes tick by, they never stop ticking. Despite our perception, they carry on in a steady, constant march forward. Just knowing that makes the tough times bearable and the good times that much more precious.

Miss you all! Love me

Old MacDonald

As the people on my compound get more used to me, so do the animals. In addition to the turkey I mentioned before and the baby turkey (which now may be turning out to be just a chicken), there are other chickens, other turkeys, two cats, and some cows. And the spider.

I’ve decided to name them:

Percy: The baby turkey/chicken that comes in my house

Rick: The big tom turkey that struts around the yard

Anita(s): The two female turkeys that I can’t tell apart

Mittens: The black cat with white front paws (yes, predictable and unimaginative, I know)

Kiwi: The all black cat (in honor of New Zealand’s rugby team the All Blacks)

Mr Pheeny: The rooster and my nemesis lately

Ollie: The (very large) spider that hangs out on the bathroom door under my towel

Brownie and Blackie: The brown and black milk cows (more descriptions than names, but they fit)

While I used to worry about getting attacked by Rick, now I watch out for Mr Pheeny, who follows me to the garbage pit every time I dump a bag of trash and poops on my steps when he’s not happy with the selection. He also stands outside my bedroom window to crow, not just at sunrise, but for a solid half hour, usually between 6:30 and 7am.

Also, update on Ollie: I have not seen him for a few days, which worries me. At least when I find him under my towel I know where he is. When he’s not there, I don’t put my hand on any part of my wall in the dark. I’ve gotten very accurate at finding light switches in pitch black.

Reminders #1-6

Well for the past few days I’ve really felt that I’m living in a foreign country. The day to day routine—things like using a choo instead of a toilet, cooking on a kerosene stove, not having a car, and washing clothes by hand—has become just that: routine. I generally don’t think about these differences very much because I’m used to them. But this week, enough out of the ordinary has happened that I can’t ignore the fact that I’m in Africa. Tuesday I went to the Central Coffee Auction in Nairobi to see how our coffee is sold. This meant that I had to be ready to go at 6:30, so we could ride a bus for 2 ½ hours to Nairobi then walk to the auction (reminder #1 I’m in a developing country). The process was interesting for about the first ½ hour, until I figured out how everything worked. And then it was just tedious. We only had a few lots of coffee for sale, and they didn’t come up until about three hours into the auction. Our coffee sold for the highest prices of the day (well over any other coffee that was bought), which was encouraging and livened things up a bit. After four hours of the auction, we called it a day and left to get lunch. Since neither the coworker I was with nor I know the city very well, we just picked a restaurant close to where our matatu stage was. After trying to order three things on the menu that they didn’t actually have (reminder #2), I finally settled for fried chicken and french fries, which was actually really decent. After lunch my coworker had some errands to run and then we were ready to head home. After rejecting several other options, my coworker picked the most cramped, hottest, smelliest, and overall most unpleasant matatu I’ve been on yet to get home. Though it was unpleasant, I still don’t feel like I can complain because we didn’t break down or get robbed, no one threw up on me, and I didn’t sit on gum or pee (all things that have happened to other volunteers) (reminder #3).

Wednesday we had some visitors to the co-op. Three buyers—from the US, Denmark, and Norway—came to tour the co-op. I like when people visit because I usually get information I need through listening to their conversations. It was a little strange, though, because it made the mzungu-to-Kenyan ratio equal instead of me being the only one (reminder #4).

As part of my ongoing Kiswahili learning, I had scheduled a “Language Immersion” workshop for the weekend. Three other volunteers and a language trainer had agreed to come stay at my site for the weekend so we could speak Kiswahili together. PC is really pushing for us to learn as much Kiswahili as possible, and they pay all the trainer’s costs so we can do this. They were supposed to arrive Thursday afternoon, so I had been spending the week making sure things were set for that. Thursday morning, after I had cleaned the kitchen and bathroom and scrubbed the floors I got a text message from our Safety and Security Officer about a scheduled demonstration by a Kenyan group called Mungiki that may interfere with public transportation. I live in a small town and the other volunteers that were coming live fairly close to me, so I didn’t expect this to be a problem. Wrong. Turns out this group shut down matatus and/or roads in every town the others needed to pass through to get to me, including my town. According to Wikipedia, Mungiki is sort of the Kenyan equivalent of the mob, and there’s a lot of tension between it and the police right now. They spent yesterday barricading roads with semi-trucks and flaming tires, as well as threatening matatu drivers to keep them from operating. This happened in and around Nairobi and throughout my area of Central Province, although I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary in my town except the lack of matatus running. This is apparently ongoing today and may last throughout the weekend. I wasn’t planning to go anywhere this weekend anyway, but just knowing that I can’t if I needed to makes me really antsy (BIG reminder #5). Also, we didn’t have power all day yesterday, so I couldn’t “monitor the news for developments” like we were advised (reminder #6).

Today, like yesterday, my boss is unable to get here, so we’ll have to delay our meeting about what I should be doing until next week. I came across one of my grad school papers from a strategic management class and decided I can at least do my own strategic audit of the co-op and maybe that will give me some avenues to pursue. While the visitors were here, they were accompanied by a representative from the coffee mill that we use who offered training in “cupping” coffee to anyone from our co-op that was willing to learn. Cupping is basically tasting coffee to determine its quality, and I said sign me up, so soon I will start learning!

And so I finish my eighth week at site. I have good days and bad days. I am motivated and I lack motivation. I’m content with my day to day and I look for new things to occupy me. Most of the time I feel like I’m on a roller coaster. Nothing is static and everything—especially my emotional state—is constantly different than it was just a minute ago. Welcome to the life of a PC volunteer!