Struggles Near and Far

CURA

We are just back from two days at Cura, during which we had a few meetings, did some work on various projects, and of course played with the kids.

Among other things, Hayden met with all of the pen pal participants from the school to make sure they were happy with their pals in the US and to get more kids onboard with the project. It takes more than you would think to manage something as seemingly simple as a pen pal exchange, but the kids who participate love it. If you aren't writing letters to these kids, you should stop reading this right now and sit there quietly feeling guilty. Then you should send Hayden an email to sign on. I'll wait...




Aside from our meetings with various folks, I had no pressing work that had to get done, so I entertained myself and the kids by making a very detailed but inaccurate survey of the Cura compound. I paced off the perimeter, every building, and every notable feature (if you need to find a latrine, I can show you where they all are.) Of note: nothing in the village is on a right angle to anything, and many of the buildings are not square. Nor level. I am anxious to see what an official land survey looks like, since that is the next task in the coming construction of the secondary school.

An overhead view of Cura

I also sent the kids on litter patrol, and then realized they don't really understand the concept of litter. There is paper and plastic everywhere, but they simply don't see it as trash. Once I modeled the practice of picking up the rubbish, they of course took to it with abandon. So much so that several of them went into the home to find paper with which to fill up the plastic garbage bag I had given them. The goal wasn't to clean up. It was to fill up as many bags as possible (which I didn't really catch onto until Scola, the computer teacher, told me the kids were asking her for more paper to crumple up). Oh well. In the process, the compound did get cleaned up.

As happens with most of my plans, I didn't really think this one through. Now I have five full garbage bags and nowhere to take them, which explains the existence of the trash in the first place.

Thanks to our heroic driver Gilbert, that problem was solved. "I can do it. It will cost very little."

I trust Gilbert, but I hope those bags of trash didn't just find their way to one of the many roadside "dumps" outside Nairobi.

I meant well. And the kids had fun...

Much more on Cura to come, including as many pictures as I can post (once we get a hold of some free wifi and aren't paying by the bit for our internet connection...

TECHNOLOGY

Which reminds me to say this: for all of the things that trouble Kenya, they have a few things figured out. One, their cellular networks are outstanding. This is of course due to the fact that they didn't have seven companies fighting for market dominance. Two, the "pay-as-you-go" data packages are marvelous. No contracts, no expensive equipment. Just "top up" your phone when it gets low. You can buy airtime from major stores or from roadside vegetable markets. In Wangige yesterday I saw a woman sitting on a crate with a SafariCom sign on it. She was selling airtime.

For 4,000 shillings you can buy a USB modem for your computer. For 1,000 shillings you can buy enough airtime to last a week or more. At home, Comcast makes me bundle my internet with my cable with my phone with my cat litter with my gasoline. And I'm stuck with it.

Maybe SafariCom will catch on in the US...


IN THE NEWS

Not that news of East Africa reaches the states in much quality or quantity, but if you have been paying attention to the news of late, you know that a lot is going on.

Earlier this week we had dinner with Jeffrey and his wife on the eve of Jeffrey's journey to South Sudan to cover the official secession of the south from the north. The border region is hotly contested (and not coincidentally oil and resource-rich) and it will prove to be a volatile part of the globe for some time unless a diplomatic miracle takes place in the next few days. Or unless Clooney can charm the Sudanese into just getting along. Is there anything that man can't do?

South of here, the Tanzanian government is pushing ahead with plans for a superhighway across the Serengeti, which would slice the major wildlife migration corridor in half.

North of us, Somalia continues to devolve, as leader after leader fails to take hold of the UN-backed transitional government and pirates increase their grasp on the local economy.

In Kenya, food costs are sky-rocketing thanks to commodities price increases and grain local shortages. The Kenyan shilling is falling with little sign of relief, and inflation is pricing many locals out of even a subsistence lifestyle.

The Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga, publicly paid 4 million shillings in back taxes yesterday to set an example for the other government officials who refuse to do so themselves.

Two nights ago, a University of Nairobi student was killed in mysterious circumstances that may or may not have involved a government official and a cover-up.

This morning we were to have a meeting about the construction of a Cura Secondary School at a coffee house near the University of Nairobi, but the assumption the students will riot in response to the murder of one of their mates led us to seek out a new location for that meeting.

Last night, after returning from two days at Cura, we went for a meal at Tomombo, a restaurant with an African sounding name that apparently means nothing. Halfway through the evening, a scuffle that (apparently) involved a few hundred thousand shillings, a pimp, and plenty of alcohol turned into a full-on floor show that would put the Real Housewives franchise right out of business. When the woman involved ran out of men (armed and otherwise) to brandish her broken wine glass weapon toward, she started in on the decorations, at one point heroically wrestling a potted plant to the ground.

As entertaining as it was, the idea of being collateral damage in a bar fight in Nairobi doesn't appeal.

THE GREAT FLIGHT DEBATE

Our usual route to Kenya is a three flight ordeal that starts in Seattle. There is a short domestic flight (usually to Dallas, which is easily one of the worst airports in the country), a long flight to Europe (usually London Heathrow, easily one of the worst airports, period), and then a long flight to Nairobi (not a great airport but at least explained by the fact that it is in Kenya).  Usually one of the long flights is overnight.

I hate this itinerary mostly because the domestic leg sucks. Domestic flights are cramped and uncomfortable and the service is notoriously bad. A four-hour domestic flight takes eight hours once you navigate both airports. This doesn’t feel like progress to me. Once I suck it up and get on a plane, I’d rather not go through the hassle of changing. Once I’m in my seat, I would rather that seat just teleport me to wherever it is I am going.

This year we took a more direct route out of Los Angeles (easily one of the worst airports – see London, above). Virgin Atlantic flies direct from LA to London and from London to Nairobi. On paper, this appeals to me far more than the three-flight option.

So off we went. 10 hours to London with chatty young Brit behind us. Not a terrible flight. 5 hours navigating Heathrow. Some subpar conveyor belt sushi. An internet check-in. And eventually they announced our gate. Can someone explain to me why there are never any comfortable places to rest in airports? It’s not like people can loiter there. Eventually, everyone’s plane leaves, right? And presumably, everyone in the terminal is a ticketed passenger? What’s the harm of comfortable seating? Anyway…

The real debate here isn’t whether one flying experience is better than another, but the effect the flights have on us once we arrive. Jet lag and whatnot. Three years ago I suffered terrible jet lag after the first couple of days and it took me several days to shake it. Last year, I was fine from start to finish. This year, I had a pretty decent case of jet lag for the first few days we were here. I’m not convinced the flights have much at all to do with it. Basically I think it has more to do with how much rest I get in the days leading up to the flights and how much sleep I manage to piece together on the flights themselves.

I’m sure there is science behind understanding jet lag, but I don’t know what any of it is. I figure we just take the flights we get and see what happens…

A Brief Visit, A Run, Gypsy, and Bomb Drills at the UN.

Yesterday was our first of many trips out to Cura from our base here in Gigiri. After my directions got Gilbert lost a few times, we eventually got ourselves onto the right dirt road outside of Wangige and bounced our way up to the compound that houses the Cura Rotary Home. 

We had the obligatory meeting with Moses, the home manager, over tea and cakes and made plans for the rest of the week. We met the new vicar (the previous one having been sacked for several reasons, the most compelling being that he was "sometimes not drunk") who seems a good fit and has some energy that the community can definitely use. These meetings, often about an hour too long to be comfortable, are always interesting because we learn what the community leaders think are their most pressing needs, and we get a glimpse into how they view their work. 

What became very clear to me in the meeting is that the most pressing need Cura has at the moment is water. They HAVE water. Sometimes they have a lot of it. And there is water in the ground that they could access and use to irrigate their fields, feed the community, and generally improve the quality of life. But because of politics and financial woes that are far too tedious to explain here, they can’t access water that by all logic should be flowing to the fields and homes in the area. As Moses, Edwin (the vicar) and Stephen (a community leader) talked, I took note that included many doodles of rain drops and dollar signs.

This is as good a place as any to note that Kenya is being hit hard by the slow global economy and high food prices. There is a critical shortage of maize after two consecutive dry seasons, and imported maize from neighboring countries has yet to have any effect on local prices. Add to that a severely depressed shilling (when we were here last the Kenyan shilling was at 68-70 to the US dollar. Yesterday it was 90 shillings to the dollar. While this is “good” for us as tourists, it is making life for most Kenyans very expensive.

After our meeting and a surprise lunch with Moses (rice, beans, potato, and cabbage) we said hello to the few kids who had come home from school for lunch, checked out the sleeping quarters we will be in next week (not quite 5 star, but not as bad as the Wagon Wheel Inn in Baker City, Oregon), and made our way back to the city and the NYT office.

When we arrived, Jeffrey was in his office working on yet another story on Sudan, but he took a break long enough to give me a possible running route from the office. So like a moron, I laced up the shoes and took off into the neighborhoods around Gigiri.

“Like a moron” refers to the fact that I forgot we are over 5,000 feet above sea level here. And I’m a little jet lagged. So of course I took off at my normal pace. When my heart rate monitor reached “Hummingbird” I backed it off and settled in for a leisurely 5 mile cruise.

Gigiri is the part of Nairobi that houses the UN, the US Embassy, and most of the diplomatic residences. And the neighborhoods around here show the wealth and power of the people who live in diplomatic circles. If it weren’t for the razor wire topping the walled-in compounds, you could be convinced you were in a wealthy US suburb.

Last night we made our first foray over to Westlands and Gypsy Bar to meet Paul and Gerald (surprise, surprise!). I had forgotten that last year we took our 15 year old here for her first bar experience. Such quality parenting! More on Westlands and Gypsy in another post...

And now? The askari outside our window woke us at 6 am (as reliable as can be) and we are gearing up for a day of meetings here in Nairobi. We have to get rolling early because the UN compound across the street is having bomb drills today, and we don’t want to get swept up in that action.

Yep. Bomb drills. Good times.

Coming soon: pictures. As soon as I find my camera.

Back in Nairobi...

This year we took a slightly different approach to our flights to Kenya this year, first driving to Los Angeles and then flying direct to Heathrow rather than stopping domestically in a US hub like Dallas or Chicago.

The problem with this is that it meant two long overnight flights. 10 hours to London and 9 to Nairobi. Virgin Atlantic and their “you might get a seat” booking policy made the flights a little more chaotic than necessary, and the crowds and construction at Heathrow are always an adventure to navigate, but we arrived at Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi ahead of schedule at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.

I got zero sleep on the flights. Hayden did a little better. That girl can sleep anywhere, anytime, for any reason. It’s an enviable skill. From LA to London there was a twenty-something British kid in the seat behind us trying to impress the 20-something year old American girl. He tried for 10 straight hours. She was apparently impressed, since they were making out by the end of the flight. We were not impressed. The kid never stopped talking about himself, and it turns out he's not all that interesting.

From London to Nairobi it was a comedic trickle of missing passengers, lost seat assignments, crying babies, and confused first-time air travelers. 

I still like the idea of two flights rather than three, but we’ll see how this plays out in terms of adjusting to the time change.

Our driver, Gilbert met us at the airport and hustled us across town to the New York Times office in Gigiri, our home base for this trip. We stayed here three years ago thanks to the generosity of Jeffrey Gettleman, our friend and – coincidentally – the East Africa Bureau chief for the times. Jeffrey is a little busy these days trying to keep a handle on the issues in Sudan as they anticipate the pending separation of the south and the north into two nations in early July. If you haven’t read about the conflicts in the border region of Sudan, here is your urging to do so.

Traffic in Nairobi.

The midday traffic from the airport to Gigiri wasn’t bad, and the construction projects they were starting last year when we were here seem to be moving along. They are building a series of “fly-overs” (picture elevated freeway onramps) to bypass the gridlock inducing roundabouts of downtown Nairobi. So far only one of these projects has collapsed, and they seem to be moving along. Of interest is that the projects are funded by Kenyan taxes but being constructed by Chinese companies with a mix of Chinese, Kenyan, and immigrant African labor.

It is easy to see the chaos that is coming to Nairobi. There is almost zero long range planning for transit or transportation, and the burgeoning middle class is nabbing up cars as fast as they can buy them. Already it can take hours just to get across town, and it isn’t going to get any better. I could go on a rant about profit motive, private enterprise, and the path the US is on with the whole “let corporations decide what is best for the nation” plan we seem to be following, but I’ll save that for another time when I have a few more minutes.

Right now it is 7:00 a.m. on our first full day in country. The guards outside the office have switched shifts, it’s raining  out (of course…we brought it with us), the Nescafe is hot, and we are getting set to head out to Cura for the morning to meet with Moses and a few others and plan the rest of our visit.

More to come…

Last Day at Cura, Recycled Glass, and Kibera

Our time at Cura for this trip has come and gone. It seemed too short, of course, but we all had a great time and the visit was a success, I think.

We worked a bit in the classrooms, held a field day with the kids from the school, and spent a day working at the home itself and playing with the kids. While all of this was going on, Hayden and I did a lot of administrative work and politicking with the board members and the teachers. All in all I believe our trip was a success, and we already have a good head start on our next sets of projects and our next steps when we get home.

Of course we were regaled with song and dance the whole visit, and the ladies endured endless hair-braiding and decorating. I attempted to revisit my youth and served as a goal keeper (target) for the footballers. We did some art projects and took portraits of each child for their sponsors back home.

After watching the US lose a heart breaker to Ghana in the loving company of a few hundred Ghana* fans at Gypsy (of course), we took everyone to Kitengela Glass, one of our favorite stops here.

The artisans at Kitengela make amazing glassware and artwork from all recycled Kenyan products. We may or may not have made a large purchase while we were there. It may or may not be being custom made for us. And it may or may not be shipped to the states when it is complete. It may or may not look like this:

I think we are all ready to slow down a bit and head for the coast. I know I am ready to be out of the smog and traffic of Nairobi for a while, though I do have to say it is much easier to take this year than last. I guess maybe I’m just a little more used to it than I was before.

But before we hop a flight to Malindi, we have one last day here in the city. After I send this post, we will visit Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya and depending on who is doing the estimating, the second-largest in Africa behind Soweto in South Africa.

The population density in Kibera is approximately 750,000 people per square mile. That breaks down to about 30 square feet per person. Stand in your bedroom and ponder that.

It is worth reading and learning more about slum culture and the politic and social failures that lead to the proliferation of slums. As with all issues that plague the third world, the slums are a massively complex problem that will take a significant cultural shift, a hell of a lot of money, and a ton of political wherewithal to repair.

After Kibera we will enjoy a small game drive in Nairobi National Park, and in the morning we fly to the coast. Time to start the anti-Malaria medications!

*But before I cry too hard over the loss, I have to remind myself that it could be worse. Matthew had to watch England get absolutely crushed by Germany. Sorry England. But you looked even worse than the Yanks.

A Few More Pictures

Welcome Home

Hayden in full bloom after a visit to the Cura Hair Salon.

Guess Who! Another endless game.

The boys from the pitch after some rough and tumble football.

Some Photos. Words to Follow.

The whirlwind pace of traveling to Cura during the day and visiting friends in Nairobi at night hasn't left much time for writing. Things should slow down a bit soon. In the meantime, here are some photos to keep you occupied.

Linette went beyond this point. The entrance to Cura Rotary Homes.

Norman "Don't Call Me Lucy" the Cow. Norman is pregnant. Gender issues much? With Norman at the village, the home saves 3,000 Shillings a month on milk bills.

Evan at The Depot. Karibu, Evan!

This is true.

Much more to come. Very soon!

To Cura via the Depot. But First, World Cup.

Evan the Barfly

Wednesday night, being the good parental figures that we are, we took Evan to the Westlands area of Nairobi to Gypsy, a bar favored by Hayden's old University hooligan friends, Paul and Gerald. I'm fairly certain Paul is the mayor of Gypsy, and if he is, his fiefdom is an excellent one. In Nairobi's lovely rush hour traffic, the 15 km drive took only 1 hour.

It was a mob scene at Gypsy, with both the England and US football matches on and expatriate supporters jamming the bar. Vuvuzelas were in full force. (Truth be told, 99% of the televisions were tuned to the England match. The US supporters were relegated to a little corner of the bar with no tables. It was close to the restroom, though. It was us and a table of Algerians rooting cautiously for our respective teams. When the US scored the winning goal, the Algerians kindly gave us their table.

So Evan's first experience (we assume) at a bar was one to remember (we think.)

US 1 - Algeria 0. Next up on Saturday night: US v. Ghana. Should be epic around here.

In Nairobi there are large communities from just about every country you can imagine. So for World Cup action it isn't just the African nations being supported. Every nation is here, as evidenced by the embassies on every corner in town.

All The Depot Ladies Say "Oh Yeah"

Our driver, Malik, is expressly unhappy with our weird non-tourist destinations. He doesn't know any of our "crazy places" and would clearly rather be driving us on safari or to national parks. Sorry Malik, but you're stuck with us for pretty much the entire trip.

One "crazy" destination is The DEPOT. The DEPOT honors Dan Eldon's life by hosting a small museum of his artifacts and photographs and also conducting leadership training for local and international groups. Seeing Dan's work is always inspiring, and this trip to the DEPOT was no exception.

On to Cura

Our first day at Cura was to be an orientation for the new recruits and a bit of a work day for Hayden and myself. The anticipation in the car was high as we pulled through Wangige and turned onto the red dirt road that leads to Cura. For those who hadn't been there before, it was time to see how the real place lived up to their expectations.

Of course it did not. How could it? No pictures or descriptions can capture any place, but especially not a place like Cura. Cura is an experience more than a place, and you'll just have to come with us next year to understand what I mean.

In addition to our merry band of tourists, we had Matthew with us. Matt is an incoming long term volunteer for Cura, and he was about to get a bit of an education in rural Africa in general and in Cura specifically. The thesis of this lesson: shut up and listen. You have a lot to learn.

We had a very traditional meeting with the board of Cura. These meetings are an exercise in formality, politics, and hierarchy.

Much more on the Cura experience as I have time to reflect.

Useful Phrase of the Day

We love our Swahilli guidebooks. We especially love the "Useful Phrases" sections. So, for all you future Kenya travelers, here is what you say to the waiter when your prawns have run out:

• Kamba zi mekwisha. (Literally: Prawns, they are finished.)

Trivial Pursuit Question of the Day

To pass the time in our van between Nairobi and Wangige, I have a full box of Trivial Pursuit cards. Today's most interesting question:

• What Disneyland ride, in 1964, was responsible for the amusement park's first fatality?

Look it up.

Travel and Arrival

We are comfortably settled into our Nairobi digs for the week, so it's time for an update.

Airlines
Say what you will about the British, they know how to run an airline. After suffering through crabby flight attendants, lost meal requests, mysteriously wet seats, and a rather bumpy flight from Dallas to London on the aptly named American* Airlines, we navigated Heathrow Airport (still the same disaster as last year) and boarded our British Airways flight to Nairobi.

Here, from my journal, are some ways British Airways is better than American Airlines:

• British accents. Nothing more charming. I realize he isn't part of the airline, but even the security employee who searched me in Heathrow was polite, charming, and funny.
• Clean airplanes. Novel concept.
• Comfortable seats. Another novel concept.
• Decent food. When they lost our vegetarian meal request on the American flight, we were counseled in how to complain. When they lost it at British, they actually solved the problem and - gasp - apologized.
• They're British. Let's face it, Americans have taken a bunch of cool things from the British and totally screwed them up. When everything else goes sideways, at least the British can fall back on basic human civility. We'll have Sarah Palin and Glen Beck.

Fly British. It will cost a little more, perhaps, but it is worth it. The flight from Seattle to Nairobi is roughly 24 hours in the air, and the only part of it I dread is the 4 hour domestic leg between Seattle and whatever our launch pad in the states happens to be.

And the thing is, what truly sets them apart doesn't cost any money. The US airlines can complain about costs and charge for bags and blankets all they like and no one would care if the service were decent. Case in point: the in-flight entertainment on our British flight was broken, and because they were polite about it and kept us informed, no one really seemed to care.

In other news, our flight from London to Nairobi was deemed some sort of special flight, and we were supposed to be honored that some celebrities were onboard for a ComicRelief trip to Kenya. Call me a cynic, but these huge, expensive, high-profile "aid" events sure seem disingenuous. They raise a lot of money, no doubt, but they spend a lot to do so. I couldn't help but look around at all of the "Flying Start" and "Comic Relief" branding on the airplane and wonder about the cost of doing this humanitarian business. I'll have to ponder this. I'm sure some economist can point out to me the costs involved with my own personal philanthropic work...Also, I have no idea who the "celebrities" on our flight were, but the people in front of us sure wanted their autographs. Can someone explain to me the appeal of having someone you don't know sign something for you if it isn't a check? I digress.

But enough about that. We're here and we don't have to worry about American Airlines for 3 weeks.

Meanwhile, in Kenya
This year Hayden and I are here with a small group of folks, and since last year was a fact-finding trip to help us plan this one, we are visiting many of the same places again. On our first day - after our now traditional Tusker and crisps arrival dinner and a good night's sleep - we took the gang to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the Giraffe Center, and the Karen Blixen Museum. Evan and Linette made out with some twigas at the Giraffe Center, and we learned which items in Karen Blixen's house were original and which ones we "not original but were used in the film Out of Africa."

We capped the day of tourism and settling in with a light meal and a cocktail or two at the Fairview hotel next door to our more spartan accommodations. Rolling blackouts be damned, we're having a gin and tonic.

After a day of provisioning at the local mall on our second day (Tuesday) we will be making daily trips out to Cura to work with the teachers and staff and most importantly see the kids!


Some Things We Have Learned

• "There's virtually no line at the other security checkpoint" is the airline equivalent of "the check is in the mail." It's a lie. (Seattle, WA)
• Elephant farts are loud. (Nairobi, Kenya)
• The sushi is in the basement and the wine cellar is upstairs. (Fairview Hotel, Kenya)
• The road is open. Don't let the metal barrier or the armed guard fool you.
• Talisman Restaurant isn't open on Mondays.
• All journalists just lie to make you believe things. (This from our fearless driver, Malik)
• "We have run out of prawns" is apparently an important Swahilli phrase to know.
• "Tamambo," while it looks and sounds vaguely African, is not a word. In Swahilli or any other language we can find. It is, however, the name of a restaurant in Karen that caters to white people. Shocking. Good food though.

More to come! We're off to Gigiri today for some shopping and a bit of cocktail luxury at Tribe Hotel. Then to Carnivore Restaurant tonight, the vegetarian heaven. Err...

Pictures to follow. Right now I have to finish my coffee. Which is excellent, by the way. You should try it. Just follow the sign.


-g

*If American means "purely profit-driven, short-sighted, selfish, and obscenely arrogant"

Watch This Space!

We are headed back to Kenya here in a few days, so it's time to dust off this blog and get ready to share our adventures with all of you.

This year we are traveling with Hayden's oldest daughter, Evan. Also coming with us is Hayden's sister-in-law Linette and two former EdCC students Tammy and Tesha.

More soon, but for the moment we need to pack!

-g

An Update! Believe it.

I know we're not in Kenya anymore. Not in body anyway. I think we are both still there at least a little bit in spirit, and as the weather in Seattle gets steadily colder and the nights get longer, I know we're both missing life near the Equator more each day.

I wanted to post an update just to let everyone know where we stand with the work we started while we were in Africa and what our current plans are.

Teaching
One of the major moves for us this year is co-teaching a research writing course with an East Africa theme. Our 27 students are reading and researching issues that effect the region of East Africa and working toward a major paper that synthesize their research. It is early (we are only in the third week of classes) but already the students are learning a lot about a part of the world most of them knew nothing about on the first day of school. The class is also involved in some service-learning projects, including managing a Kiva loan to an East African entrepreneur .

Speaking
Since we returned to campus, there has been a lot of interest in our trip. We have give a couple of talks to small groups of faculty and plan to do a larger slide show and talk once we have a better idea how the next year will look for us in terms of returning to Kenya with students on a study abroad plan.

Planning
We are currently slated to meet with the people from International Student Services, the department on campus that awarded us a grant to help offset costs for our last trip to Kenya, to go over the logistics of a trip that includes students. Our goal is to take up to 10 students back as soon as June of 2010, and we aren't giving that goal up without a fight! But an interesting new wrinkle has presented itself since we've been home, and we are also investigating the feasibility of doing an initial trip with faculty. Several colleagues have already told us that if we set it up, they will go. Maybe this will turn into a hybrid plan in which we take a few students and a few teachers. At this point, we are open to many options.

Serving
We (mostly Hayden, let's be honest) are still working closely with Creative Visions and the people in Cura on a variety of projects. But it is so hard to do anything tangible from a distance. The time difference and the complications of communication make it hard to make quick work of even the simplest task. Being in Kenya makes getting actual work done so much easier that the travel time and costs seem increasingly worth it.

Dreaming
When we got home in July we were ready to head back. So we will both admit to spending a fair amount of our daydreaming time thinking about how to get back to Kenya and how soon we can do it. If anyone has some neglected frequent flier miles sitting around, let us know.

-g

A Humbling Experience

I came on this trip ready for pretty much anything, open to any experience, and hoping to learn something about a part of the world I had only read about and seen through the lens of popular culture. It has been an amazing, busy, and rewarding trip to be sure. I had a lot of fun and saw some amazing things, but as we prepare to make the trek to the airport to fly back to the states (where the real work of planning the program for the college begins), mostly I am humbled.

I am humbled by the kids at Cura and the people who work so hard to make their lives as good as they are. Nothing in the world could have prepared me for my time with those children, and when we left the village on our last day there, I felt a little helpless. All of the ways that we in the west imagine we can help - sending money, sponsoring a child, collecting books, donating to charities - seem almost ridiculous when you are here. When I was out playing "OK, Who Took My Hat This Time?" with the kids, it made me feel like there would never be enough we could do. So I guess we just do what we can.

I am humbled by the generosity of all of the people I have met along the way. So many people went to such effort to welcome us and make us comfortable here that I can't actually imagine what it would have been like if we were merely hopping from hotel to hotel like an average tourist. Everywhere we have gone we have been met by old friends of Hayden's or we have met knew friends who have worked hard to get us what we need when we need it. Jeff, Courtney, Paul, Gerald, Rose, Ole Kina, Lucy...thank you all so much for opening your worlds to me. I only hope that someday I have the chance to return the generosity.



I am humbled by the country and its challenges. I'm no expert in third world politics, but I can see that the rapid globalization of western culture has already made a radical imprint on this country in some very troubling ways. In Nairobi especially it is apparent that growth and consumption are outpacing infrastructure at a dangerous clip. Add a glacially measured government decision-making machine and the near future doesn't promise to get much better. The city is sprawling and growing vertically while the roads and systems are being patched together. And still? The people here are wonderfully optimistic, hopeful, and proud of Kenya. If you studied the issues and problems of Kenya on paper only, you might write it off as another hopeless third world country, but when you talk to people about their country, you can't help buy into their hopefulness. Things will get better here in part because the people want things to get better. In that way, I think Kenya has a better long-term shot than the US. The people here are tapped in, they know what is going on, they read the newspapers, and they actually engage in meaningful discourse about current events. So it might be slow and it won't look like it would in the west, but Kenya will figure some things out. I just hope they do it by importing less Hannah Montana and WWE and creating more of their own popular culture standards. But maybe that's asking a bit much.


I am humbled by the environment. Our safari in the Maasai Mara was an experience I will never forget. At one point I compared the mechanisms of it to the whale watching enterprises in Puget Sound (the game drivers communicate on radio to tell one another where the animals are, for example, just like captains of whale watching boats do) but from there the comparisons simply crumble away. I don't know what I was expecting, exactly, but it wasn't the nonstop game viewing that we had. In the promotional materials sent to us by the tour operator, it was mentioned that we would not be able to walk from our tent to the main camp without an askari to guide us. I thought this was at least partly for show: have the Maasai tribesman make the wazungu feel safer and give them a photo op. The lions just outside of our tent on the first night convinced me.

From there to the island village of Lamu was a radical change of venue, but Lamu was no less amazing. An island with no roads, a town where donkeys are the primary form of transportation, and a living, celebrated history that goes back to the 1500s. I wasn't tempted, but I can see how westerners would show up in Lamu and never want to leave (anyone thinking about it should get a good look at the managers of the Peponi hotel to see what the long term effects of living there really are...yikes).

But places are nothing without the people. And as I get ready to pack up, it is the people that are on my mind: kind, generous, interesting, successful, strong people. Thanks to everyone for making this such a wonderful trip.


But mostly thanks H, for sharing this part of your world with me.

-g

Back in Nairobi, by the way

Just for clarification...

We're back in Nairobi now, after an uneventful flight back from Malindi and a quick stop, for old time's sake, at Carnivore. We've been struggling with internet connections and mourning the loss of MJ, of course, but otherwise all is well!

We head to the airport tonight (mid-day your time) to start the trek home. Back in touch then, of course!

News (Finally) from Hapa

What have we been up to since my last post?? Well...


We flew from Nairobi to the Maasai Mara on 28 June, where we were met at the airport by James, our charming and able guide for our two-night stay. On the drive from the Ol Kiombo airstrip to the Kicheche Bush Camp, James spotted three snoozing cheetahs… which felt like a very good game-viewing omen for the upcoming two more days! We felt even better when I spotted four more and James declared me "at least half-Maasai." Mmm hmmm. I was actually more excited about spotting a rock-shaped, rock-colored tortoise in the road and about the familiar music of bells on the cattle grazing in the distance.

Our tented camp was luxurious and largely unoccupied, so we got royal treatment! Larry and Francie, the New Zealand couple who shared the camp with us, were good company, and the nearby lions entertained all of us throughout the night with their impressively raucous mating.
Our early morning drives resulted in all kinds of game sightings, including, on the last day, lions over a fresh kill. We also saw herds of elephants, water buffalo, zebras, giraffes, hyenas, jackals, hippos, all manner of antelope-looking beasts, countless birds… I’m missing a lot on this list, I know. But even absent James’s excellent tracking skills, it would have been worth it just for the lushness of the landscape: the grasses were door-high to our vehicle, and the golds and greens and blues all around us were breath-taking.

Our "sundowner" cocktails were pretty good, too…

















Two days was enough, though.


So we moved on to Lamu! We flew back to Nairobi to change planes, then had a somewhat bumpy ride out to the coast, on a much larger plane than I remember ever making the same trip on before… The Manda airstrip was unmistakable and familiar, though, as was the choppy crossing from Manda to Lamu on a low-slung wooden boat (which, by the way, had the same motor as the one in OUR new/old boat, making conversation impossible at anything but a shout).


















We stayed at a gorgeous old house in Shela called "Fatuma’s Tower," named for a Swahili woman who lived there alone some centuries ago, but now owned by a lucky Italian couple that now also makes Shela home. The place is set at the back of the village, so the dunes and the accompanying trees were our view out the back windows, but the top of the "tower" afforded views of the whole village, out to the water. The whole place had an open-door and open-window policy, so the breezes kept us cool and we lived large, Fatuma-style. We had private breakfasts and dinners each night, prepared and served by the immensely talented Saidi---and I succumbed to the temptation to decorate my feet, old school.
















We walked to Lamu town, of course, and I had incessant sensory-memory flashbacks of making that trek several times a day… We dropped in at the post-office, where the telephone booths I once used to call my parents (collect) now constitute a communications graveyard in the front walkway. Sigh. We strolled through town, visited the donkey sanctuary, marveled at the Hapa Hapa’s enduring presence at the waterfront, and were generally kept busy responding to all of the cheerful greetings and inquiries about how we were enjoying our stay.


We had to also, of course, hit up the beach near Shela---which is radically changed since I was last here! The view across the channel, for one thing, is now populated with enormous foreigner-built mansions, and the worst of it was right around the bend: apparently some Italian with more money than taste has built a private residence, right on the point of the dunes, designed to look like a monstrous sand castle. Argh!

Fortunately, I was able to drown my sorrows at the deck at Peponi, which opened for the season on 1 July. Perfect timing! Oh, and of course, we adjusted our cocktailing location according to the weather---blistering sun? Right out in the open. Torrential rain? Under the awning. Repeat.


















We left Lamu on 2 July and headed to Malindi. I never spent a lot of time in Malindi back in the way back, but I was looking forward to seeing one of its most prominent residents again: Ole Kina!



















He met us at the airport (where we entertained ourselves during our wait by counting the mangoes on the tree in the parking lot: 65!) and escorted us to the resort he and his wife own: the Seaview. We haven’t really left the resort since, actually--at least not to explore town on our own. We’ve been lounging by the pool most of the time (boring, we know) and occasionally making the trek into town to take advantage of the Book Café’s internet access and computers. Greg’s gone on a couple of runs (in this humidity? Insane.) and we’ve strolled down the VERY windy beach where bands of teenage boys play pick-up soccer that somehow incorporate the gusts into their game plans.

Otherwise, we’ve mostly just spent time with Ole Kina, his lovely wife Lucy, and their three children, Nareiyan, Shorua and Santoni. They are incredibly busy and productive people, with holding and activities all over town.

Ole Kina treated us to a visit to his favorite place: their property at Sabaki River, where he’s taken it as his personal challenge to, before he dies, "plant more trees than have ever been cut down for his life’s comfort." They’ve already managed over 100 thousand mangroves and 50 thousand or so others… so I’d say he’s well on his way.

The property stretches from the river, to the dunes, to the beach, and we got a tour of it all in the company of Ben, the very man who was reported in the BBC for being dragged up a tree by what must have been a very ambitious, very enormous and very buff python.

It is the morning of 7 July now, and the power is out at the hotel, where we’re now having coffee on our patio and watching the millipede I stepped on yesterday (my Facebook status update shortchanged the creature by many hundreds of legs---my apologies!) make its way across a beam, back toward the room. Awesome! At some point, we’ll wander back into town so I can get this posted and we can check in on our Blackboard classrooms. We’re "teaching" this summer, after all…

Trying desperately to maintain objectivity

I spent some time today doing administrative work at the Cura Home... tracking details like birthdates and spelling and photo records and whatnot. And the process was emotionally grueling. The applications for the children to be accepted at the home were humbling to say the least: the most challenging were the barely literate expressions of such pleas for help as "She is orphan. Please help." The waiting list file was almost too much to bear.



We distributed the collages Quinn's class created today, and there was one collage for every two children in the home. They now have the art work hanging in their rooms, and they created their own reciprocal art project involving tracing and coloring their hands. One girl, Grace, colored the tracing of MY hand and spent the day interested in my veins, my ring, my tattoo... She took this photo.



The girls were more interested in stories and songs and showing me the pre-primary school (where English-to-Swahili translations were written on the insides of corn meal bags and hung on the walls---which is more than the primary school classrooms have by way of visual aides)----but the boys kept Greg very active on the football pitch and playing separate-the-bald-guy-from-his-hat!

We had a lovely dinner with Jeff, Courtenay and Apollo at the end of the day (checked out Nairobi's swankiest new hotel---Tribe---too). Loved that--but nothing beats Cura. Can't wait to get back.

We fly to the Mara tomorrow morning and will be out of touch for at least four days after that... more when we get wired again!

The City

We're getting close to the end of our first stint in Nairobi on this trip. After some safari and ocean time, we'll be back here for a couple of days to wrap things up.

Before the trip I was prepared to be the new guy while Hayden seamlessly rejoined Kenyan life in a familiar place. But aside from the people she knew when she was here before, nothing is the same. Not even her beloved Norfolk Hotel downtown, which is still beautiful and colonial and somewhat exclusive, but has been corporatized by Fairfield Hotels. So in a way, Hayden has been experiencing Nairobi for the first time as well. At least the massively built-up, congested, sprawling Nairobi that we have come across.





Nairobi is a bit of a mess. It's wonderful in a chaotic third world city sort of way, but there are a lot of issues to solve, not the least of which is the traffic. Most of the people we know here never go to the city at all. They live and work in the outskirt communities like Westlands, and they never have cause to go downtown. And why would they? A 10km drive can take an hour or more. So the communities around Nairobi are poised to become their own stand alone cities. It makes me wonder what will happen to the downtown core as the suburban flight continues.

Other uplifting topics of conversation: tribal violence, a rampant Somali financial grab of Kenyan properties (driving up real estate prices). drought, climate change (bringing, among other things, malarial mosquitoes to an area previously untouched by the epidemic), pollution...the list is long.


And yet, it is absolutey beautiful here. Nairobi National Park is right at the edge of town, and villages and communities along the red dirt roads are wonderful.

As I write this we are getting ready to head to Cura for a day with the kids. Tomorrow we fly to the Mara for some serious tourist safari action and then off to some other places that Hayden knew but that are probably unrecognizable: Lamu and Malindi.

I know Hayden is hoping that whatever is causing my narcoleptic behavior in the evenings will go away, but not nearly as much as I am. About midweek I just started getting tired in the early evenings and couldn't fight it. Here's hoping it's just a little jetlag hangover.

While Hayden has happily sampled the cooked flesh on this trip, I have avoided it so far. Last time I ate meat it made me pretty ill, so I'm not keen on trying it here. But I have to say the Chicken and Chips sound pretty damn good...

-g

Jet Lag, Rescued Animals and Me, the Lapsed Vegetarian

Greg has been stricken with late-onset jet lag, an afflication from which I've been mercifully spared so far. So he's asleep... and I'm NOT. Seems like as good a time as any to blog, then!

Today we left right at 9:30am to make sure we arrived at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Karen well before 11am. That's when things get exciting there---and we had a full day of up-close time with rescued animals.




Here's one.







Here are some others... They say that there has been a dramatic uptick in numbers of abandoned, injured and in-need baby elephants lately, so the people at the Trust have been very busy! There was a pretty large crowd of people there today, too, including several classes of Kenyan school children---so I tried to listen carefully to the lecture they were receiving in Swahili. The 6 year olds were definitely understanding more than I was.


On our way out, we were invited to take a peek at Max, the blind rhino. Nobody knew how he was blinded, but the keepers definitely have a sweet spot for this little fella. They spoke gently to him, and he responded by coming over to the fence and letting us rub his hide and horn. Not particularly cuddly, as you might imagine.

After our lunch -- delicious, at Talisman -- we went over to the Giraffe Center. We wished we could have afforded the $700 per night rooms at Giraffe Manor (where giraffes are encouraged to poke their heads through the upstairs windows, into the guests' rooms), but we settled for feeding the two that were out schmoozing with the riff raff like us. Giraffes are much softer than rhinos and elephants... but they've got their nasty habits: mostly sticking their long, slimy tongues into their nostrils in between nibbles of tourist-pellets. Ewwwwww!

We stopped for coffee at Rose's house on our way back to town, and I added a beef samosa at her house to the list of violations I've made against vegetarianianism since I've been here. The roast meat last night was definitely worth it. We'll see what else the future holds in that regard...

We had one more visit with Paul and Gerald tonight, before we headed back to the Bureau to get some rest (Greg) and prep for tomorrow and triage email (Hayden). It's another day at Cura tomorrow, and we've got lots to do! Looking forward to it, of course...

Recycling

Yesterday's mini-road trip involved asking our driver, Jeremiah, to take his lovingly detailed Toyota over unpaved roads circling Nairobi National Park... to end up at my former safari-friend's mum's place: Kitengela Glass. The compound is a wacky, surreal place filled with improvised art---and the business is to take recycled materials and create something beautiful. There were lots of busy people---making stained glass, goblets, beads, pottery, etc---and lots to look at!




AND there was a new feature to the compound: a wire suspension bridge over a ravine that is far deeper than these photos can convey! Greg was eager to cross, but I confess that my heart rate definitely increased its pace while I considered joining him...







Do I LOOK anxious?








Good thing I decided to cross, though---my daredevil daughters were apparently flying sailplanes this week, so I can't let them show me up! :)






Greg, of course, had no trouble with this swaying, improbably constructed thing.








On our way back to Nairobi, I practiced my Swahili by naming the animals we saw: punda, punda milia, ngombe... And once we arrived, we made a beeline to the Norfolk Hotel (now called The Fairmont Norfolk, what with corporate take overs and all) for a gin and tonic at the Lord Delamere Terrace, just for old times' sake. The old dark wood bar is gone, and the facade is brightened up, and the little phone cubicle where I used to make my collect calls to the States is now a business center... but otherwise I felt right at home.

Later, we met back up with Paul and Gerald for some Nairobi nightlife that included exclusive guest lists and the most sought-after Nairobi poolside party band.

Today? Karen. For the elephant orphanage, the giraffe center and who knows what else...

Not all work...

We're heading out for the day in 5 minutes, but here are photos of the people we've been visiting...

Jeff, Courtenay, baby Apollo, Jeff's parents (and the two dogs). For dinner on Monday night, but also yesterday for lunch at the Muthaiga Club.




My first roommate at University of Nairobi, Rose Weru---for coffee at Yaya Centre. We got stopped by a security guard for piga-ing this picha!







My University of Nairobi buddy, Gerald Okotch---always the life of the party---for cocktails at Gypsy in Westlands.

And my BEST UoN friend, Paul Wambua (also at Gypsy).... Just like no time has passed at all.

I'm not sure we're coming home... :)

H