Alicia's African Adventures

2006-07-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

~~So, Alicia, what is it like being back in Canada after 10 months in Africa, the last 4 of which have been on the road?

Well, let me tell you, people here sure are pale! And they dress so immodestly. I've never seen so much flesh...It's a bit disconcerting! And the grass, it's so green, lush, thick and long. And the streets are spotless! And the buses are so empty. And the toilet paper is so soft and thick. And the chocolate is so good! And the cyclists wear helmets! And the rain is so cold.

~~What were your last days in Kenya like?

Saying goodbye to the kids was hard, really hard, but fortunately I was able to maintain some control this time and not become nearly hysterical. The first time I left them was truly awful; this time was just very difficult. We had a great week together, and I got to take them swimming again--and no near drownings this time. The little ones all waited their turns for me to take them around, and I got to actually show some of the bigger ones how to kick and paddle etc. And of course, I sewed more buttons on shirts and uniforms, and we played lots of games and just held hands...It was a beautiful, warm, welcoming, loving visit.

And it was great to catch up with the people at Colobus Trust and see what had become of some of the monkeys. A small group of vervets were released into the home troop since I left with amusing yet predictable results--they barely leave the outskirts of the cage they were once housed in. Now they just sit on top of it and wait for the little ones inside to be fed; then they launch an all out attack on whatever poor volunteer happens to be on feeding duty that day...They are completely without fear of humans and invade the house regularly.

I also had a last lovely swim in the Indian Ocean and ate my last apple mango. I also saw the newborn twins of friends of mine there. How they'll manage is anyone's guess.

~~How was the Masai wedding you mentioned?

Long, very, very long. The bride's father is a preacher (or pastor) and the marriage of his daughter to a well-known and fairly prominent man in their community (my friend Moses) gave him free reign to wax on not so poetically. One of his "sermons" was about how a woman should shower daily so her husband would not come home and find her undesirable and so be tempted to turn to another woman! After about 6 hours of speeches, prayers, songs, hymns and more speeches, I left, along with the other 7 wzungu. (And we heard that the ceremony went on for another 2-3 hours after we left.) This was only after we each had to get up in front of the entire church full of people and introduce ourselves and say where we had come from and how we knew Moses etc. It was a little embarrassing. There were so many people; some were hanging through the windows.

~~What did you end up buying them as a wedding present?

When I realised bringing a cow would be impossible, I settled on a teapot and matching cups! My friend Alex, however, who I went with, did decide to bring a goat. And after we ruled out the possibilty of the poor critter sitting on my lap (even if we could figure out how to diaper the thing), we trussed it up and threw it on the back seat. It was not too happy. Probably realised it was about to become lunch.

~~And how was your flight home?

Thankfully, completely uneventful. Other than the fact that I forgot to remove my Swiss army knife from my hand luggage...I had one night in London where I stayed with a friend's sister and arrived back in Vancouver safe and sound. I must say though, it's pretty weird to be "home" without having an actual home to return to. I'm couch surfing and house sitting for the summer til I find a place. Interestingly, my old apartment that I was in for 10 years is being totally redone; it looks great. New everything. And it's empty...If it weren't for the crazy neighbour next door, I might consider going back.

~~So what now?

I have to re-acclimatize, find a place to live, get my stuff out of storage, reconnect with my friends, eat some crow and buy a mobile phone, get in touch with Revenue Canada, get checked for some tropical diseases, pay off my debt, think about what I'm going to teach in a few weeks, and hopefully enjoy the rest of a Vancouver summer--swimming, hiking, camping and whatnot.

~~Anything you'd like to say to your readers?

Definitely--thank you dear readers for all your encouragement, support, and comments. You made the rough going easier and the easier parts breezier. Thanks.

~~Any final thoughts?

Yeah, I think I'll have to go back. I'll spend the next year trying to figure out how I can make that happen and if it makes sense to do so. I want to make this last year count for something and not just fade into pleasant memory. It's hard to put into any kind of meaningful words what the last 10 months have been like; it's been so many things at once. Now I have to make a place for all of that here in Vancouver. And maybe continue to write a bit about it.

~~Well, thanks Alicia for an entertaining series of blog entries. Will you continue?

Maybe. I've nearly filled 2 journals in addition to writing these blog entries. I guess it's a question of finding the time and prioritising.

~~There you have it. The potentially final written thoughts of Alicia the adventurer in Africa. If you wish to reach her, you can email her at alicia.martin@lycos.com.
Thanks for reading.

2006-06-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

Entry 32

This will be less of an adventure and more of a reflection but here goes...

I'm back on familiar ground and enjoying the vague sense of homecoming immensely. (I wonder if this is presient of my real home return soon to come.) Despite the filth, stench, decay, overcrowded and chaotic streets that are Mombasa, it's a city I know fairly well and enjoy spending time in. I spent an extra day there rather than returning straight to Diani Beach and thoroughly enjoyed the sights and sounds and smells (!) of this colourful island. Here one can watch fruit sellers hawking their mangos, pawpaws (papayas), coconuts and pineapples; elderly blind parents being led around by their seeing children seeking a few shillings from passersby; Muslim women covered from head to toe in their black bui buis--faces covered too but still sporting fashionable sunglasses; young men selling mobile phones, talk time, cheap watches and rubber stamps; shoeless, dusty street kids begging for food and/or money from tourists; Masai warriors in their red shukas and beaded belts from which their spears and knives and clubs dangle alongside their phones; and street vendors trying to make a sale of their clothes, stoves, pots and pans, flip flops or cheap plastic items. It's a hectic yet somehow attractive cacophony of sensorial experiences.

From Mombasa, I came back to Diani where my adventures started nearly 10 months ago. I returned to say goodbye to Colobus Trust and wish its various primates (of both the human and nonhuman variety) some fond farewells. I'm here to swim in the Indian Ocean for the last time. I'm here to watch the palm trees sway and smell the frangipani and other tropical flowers once more. I'm here to let the starry skies mesmorise once again. And I'm here to reflect on what I've learned, gained, and/or contributed. (Apparently I'm also here to watch some of the World Cup on large screen TV's too!)

I'll share with you some of my thoughts as I laid them down in my journal recently.

In his book Dark Star Safari--From Cairo to Capetown, Paul Theroux writes about revisiting Africa where he lived and taught in the 60's and hadn't been since, as well as the long road journey he makes from Egypt to South Africa. Reading his book while travelling along sections of the very same journey he writes about has been a delight; I've ridden some of the same buses, sat on some of the same matatus and slept on some of the same trains. Many critics have dismissed his writing for being too heavy and pessimistic. After having spent a bit of time on this continent and seeing a wee bit of what Africa is, I'm inclined to agree with many of his keen observations and carefully thought out evaluations of Africa and her struggles.

Theroux describes seeing many decrepit, run-down, virtually empty schools, with bare classrooms, unpaid staff, crumbling buildings and bookless libraries. This (among several other experiences) leads him to the epiphany that it is Africans themselves who must "fix" Africa. All the donor aid & volunteers, ngo's & charitable organizations, and the like have been working here for some 40 years or so to help change/stop the poverty, hunger, thirst, disease, illiteracy and other challenges that have plagued African countries for decades. Equipment gets sent over from well-intentioned people and breaks down and rusts by the sides of roads. This leaves villagers and townfolk now dependent on non-functioning technology. Skills are lost, training is stopped and unemployment rises. Another problem arises when projects get started, changing communities and ways of life, and then the funding dries up or the work has been deemed a success or the volunteers go home, so the project is ended, leaving communities and individuals often only slightly better off than before.

There have been several books written about how entire economies are based on aid money. They discuss how governments and many ngo's themselves (and the ubiquitous UN projects) actually benefit from keeping the poor, the hungry, and the sick dependent on donor systems.

As I traveled around Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia, I saw first hand the benefits of water pumps brought into remote villages, community schools built for those too far/poor to attend regular schools, homes for orphans etc. Of course, these endeavors provide a better way of life, but how many people have I heard complain about how the money sent to staff those schools, maintain those water pumps and run those homes simply lines the pockets of corrupt officials and managers along the way? And for those organizations which manage to thwart corruption along the lines, how much money is lost to administrative, staffing and security costs?

It leaves me to wonder about the nature of charities, donations and volunteering in the "third world." I'm glad I chose to volunteer with projects initiated by Kenyans, but I'm not really sure if it was my money or my time and energy that was of greater import. And it makes me think that maybe the adages, "the lord provides for those who provide for themselves" and "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime" need to be retaught. Not that many of the ngo's aren't already in the business of teaching Africans how to fend for themselves, but maybe Africans have to take the full initiative themselves. There's surely a place for western aid, but not along many of the avenues where it currently resides.

To reiterate Theroux, maybe all the western doctors and teachers and engineers and so on should just up and leave, and then we'll all see what happens. If the local communities want to continue the work started by these generous souls, so be it. That or let them burn the clinics and schools to the ground and plant maize and beans instead and at least reclaim the land it as their own. Even cash crops aren't being supported by local governments, making it unviable for growers to be anything other than subsistance farmers.

It seems that Africa has been forced to figure out in a few short decades what the west had over a century to do. Maybe she has to learn by her own mistakes as did we in the "developed" world. It's like many African countries are in their teen years, and we all know/remember that teens have to make their own decisions and learn how to stand on their own 2 feet. We can only provide guidance and support and hope for the best.

When I see people throwing their plastic bottles and food wrappings outside the bus windows as we speed past villages, farmland, bush and even national parks, I cringe every time. But isn't concern for the environment the privelege of us in the west who aren't living from hand to mouth and can take care of our surroundings as well as our families? I guess it's a choice that Kenyans, Tanzanians, Zambians and Malawians need to make for themselves. Why so many don't seem to give a hoot is hard to my Canadian eyes, but some have, and it's not for me to judge.

Anyway, these are just a few of my thoughts. Forgive my wandering wonderings. And please disagree.

In the remaining couple weeks I have left here, I shall have the pleasure of attending a traditional Masai wedding, revisiting the giraffe centre and elephant orphanage in Nairobi, seeing a few friends and saying goodbye, and returning to Kakamega to see the kids at the orphanage there once more. (Not to mention catching a few more World Cup matches.) Farewell readers and soccer/football fans.

2006-06-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

Entry 31

Let me describe 3 adrenaline filled moments that I've had in the last little while that couldn't have been more different.

Victoria Falls is much like Niagra Falls in that there's a wealth of activities around the torrent of water to keep even the most adventurous happy and the most sedate content. All these options, of course, cost money, lots of money, so one has to pick and choose carefully.

One choice I opted for was a walking safari in Mosi-oa-Tunya (the local name for the falls -- meaning "the smoke that thunders") Park. This is the small national park that borders the falls. Unfortunately, nearly all the game had been hunted or poached out of there, but in recent years, giraffes, wildebeast, and rhinos among others have all been reintroduced with varying degrees of success.

The walk was really pleasant. The morning started off in a deep, cold fog (yes, you read that right), but it burned off fairly quickly, allowing us to see small herds of zebras and gnus (wildebeast) and larger herds of impala. (An aside--Did you know that a male impala has the dubious pleasure of being the sole "keeper" of a harem of females in his territory which may number over a hundred? The male spends all his time keeping his girls safe and fed and free of any other male interference so much so that he himself doesn't eat and soon ends up so exhausted and weak that he can only last a short time before some young buck comes and challenges him for dominance. Doesn't sound like the most efficient of Mother Nature's reproductive angles, does it?)

We, however, had a mission. We were on the search for the park's 2 remaining resident rhinos. We had been walking for several hours following a lead on where they were last seen, but instead we were left spotting bird life, medicinal plants, tracks and dung. We walked on and on until we missed the pick up point and time. We were just about to give up when one of our 2 guides (we were 2 tourists, 2 guides and an armed guard) picked up a trail. We separated briefly, so he could follow the tracks and then rejoined him a few minutes later.

And there they were. I was thinking--Wow! How cool to be only about 40 metres away from 2 such enormous, potentially dangerous creatures--and snapped a few shots. Then the rhinos apparently decided that the grass was indeed greener on the other side so came trotting along to within 5 metres of us! All that separated us was a log lying across the front of the 5 of us at waist level. It was incredible. I could hear them munching and breathing. I could look at their little, poorly sighted eyes and practically see my reflection! I was tempted to reach over and pat them. They are well-habituated to human presence (obviously) as they're constantly being monitored by rangers (an anti-poaching measure as much as a way to make sure the tourists get their money's worth). I've never been so close to a wild animal so huge and so mythical. It was a beautiful and thrilling moment.

My second (somewhat expensive) rush of adrenaline that week came when I boarded a microlight plane and spent 15 incredible minutes soaring in the air with nothing more than a seat belt keeping me from freefalling to the ground and my death some 300 metres below. Flying over the falls like that really gave me a sense of the geologic history that the falls have created and the force that they continue to be, and I could clearly see where the next set of falls will rush down from in the next millenium (or 2 or 3). The feeling of sitting behind a pilot using only a bar to steer, while in the open air under a small set of wings, flying above rainbows, mist, hippos, impala and one elephant which seemed to be mired in the muck was truly amazing. I want to fly!

The 3rd heart stopping moment was of a totally different kind. I was mugged--sort of. I was walking down Cairo Road in downtown Lusaka at midday with a Welsh/French woman I'd befriended at the hostel. She'd told me earlier that morning that a friend of hers had been mugged on that street the day before, and I replied that I'd walked down that road a dozen times and felt pretty safe. Then, there we were when 3 or 4 men swarmed me. One guy cut in front of me, blocking my way as if he was trying to get past me onto the street. Meanwhile, a crony or two started grabbing my bag while another started going through my pockets and running his hands over me to see where my hidden money was. I screamed at them, "Hey! What are you doing? Cut it out! Stop it! What do you think you're doing?" A large circle of people formed. They all just stopped and stared. I guess my yelling and my fuss was the right reaction because the guys just took off and unbelievably, they got nothing! My pocket had a small wallet in it with a fair bit of cash in it, but they didn't get it. Whew.

Needless to say, I was trembling and rather freaked out. I had to lean against a nearby building as I thought my shaking legs might give way. The woman I was with was in as much shock as I was and kept apologizing for not coming to my rescue. She was worried they might have a knife: a very valid concern. The thought never even crossed my mind. I just got angry. A kind man invited me into a nearby business to calm down and stayed and talked with us for awhile. Another man also approached to make sure I was ok. I was.

I heard from several people afterwards that the stretch of road we were on was notorious for pickpockets and muggers. Also that this gang is well-known to police and locals alike, but they just keep targeting tourists and are pretty unstoppable as their crimes are considered too petty (and too much of a bother and probable expense) to pursue in courts. And, of course, even if they were charged and jailed, they'd be back on the streets in very little time. It was scary, but I must say I was surprised and impressed/pleased by my own reaction (you never know how you'll react in such a situation until it happens). Perhaps it may have been a bit foolhardy, but clearly it worked to my advantage. I now walk as I did when I first landed in Nairobi, clutching my bag tightly and always being aware of everyone around me.

The day after the attempted mugging, I boarded a train back to Tanzania. I'm now in the hilly southern region known for its tea and rice and good trekking/hiking. I'll be here a few days before making my way back across the country to Kenya. It'll be exactly a month from today that I'll be travelling back to Vancouver. I find that I'm already looking at things here with a bit of a lamentful, nostalgic feeling.

Yes, I'm tired of being on the road and living out of a backpack. And yes, what I wouldn't give for a big glass of chocolate soy milk, some real cheese on a fresh baguette and a huge salad with lots of veggies, sunflower seeds, olives, feta and dressing. And yes, how I'll never take a washing machine for granted again. And yes, how riding a long distance bus with a matching number of seats and people will be a delight. And yes, how much I'll appreciate living somewhere where there are vehicle emission controls. And yes, the pleasure will be great to know that a set time means just that...But oh, my life of freedom, learning, adventure, eye-opening and mind- boggling experiences will soon end, and I'll return to routine and responsibiltiies with a mixture of feelings. But all good things must come to an end, so they say. That and Visa may soon ask for my first born child as payment.

A la prochaine.

2006-05-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

Entry 30

Guess it's been a couple weeks and one traumatic border crossing since I last wrote. Although I'm tempted to simply record all that I've seen since my last entry, I'll spare you the list and focus on a couple highlights.

First of all, let me tell you that I'm writing this from Livingstone, a few kilometres from the magnificent Victoria Falls. "The smoke that thunders" is worthy of its placement among the world's 7 greatest wonders. The falls are truly amazing, and to be here when the river level is at its highest is simply awesome. So much water! So many rainbows! So much mist! And best of all, so few tourists!

I spent one day just wandering around the trails and viewing spots near the falls and walked across the bridge that separates Zambia from Zimbabwe. Although the bungee jumping here did tempt me a bit, I opted to let others do the screaming for me. Because I didn't have the cash to cross over to "Zim" and back again, I only saw the falls from this one side. Some people say the Zim side is better as it's facing the falls from across the way whereas the Zambian view is from the same side. Well, I can't imagine being more impressed anyway, so seeing them from only one vantage point was quite alright.

Vic Falls ranks up there with Ngorongoro Crater and Olduvai Gorge in the list of places long dreamt of and those dreams being surpassed. And let me tell you, after the effort it took to get here, this is very good thing.

After spending nearly a day and a half in Lilongwe, Malawi, figuring out the details of how to get to Zambia, I finally left in the company of a young Dutch couple I met at the hostel there. We left at about 5 AM to catch the first mini bus going to near the border, from where we proceeded to immigration by taxi. After getting our exit stamps from the Malawi side, we crossed into the tiny Zambian office, handed over our passports and awaited our entry stamps.

The immigration official turned to both my Dutch companions and told them they had to pay 25$ U.S. each and then turned to me and said my visa would be 55$ U.S. I nearly choked. Nowhere had I read or been told that it was more for Canadians than other nationalities. I only had about 30 U.S. on me, and my new friends only had exactly what they needed too. My only alternative (other than returning to Lilongwe) was to find the black market money changing guys and change back the Zambian kwacha I had just changed from Malwai kwacha into American dollars. I knew I was going to get screwed on the exchange but had no choice. Fine, so after a bit of searching around, I found someone with American cash and got another 20$.

I went back to the desk and proffered my 2 20's and 2 10's. The kind man behind the counter informed me quite considerately that he wouldn't accept one of the 10's because it was an older bill with a small head, and he could only accept newer bills with bigger heads. I begged, pleaded, cajoled but to no avail. Ok. So I went back to the black market guys and tried to find someone to exchange bills with; of course, they too had a thing for big heads, so no go. At this point, you might imagine, I began to lose my temper a wee bit. My travel companions were waiting patiently, but I felt bad for holding them up; the bus we wanted to catch was still a 20 k. taxi ride away and leaving shortly; and the officer behind the counter seemed to be napping. It didn't help that I'd had very little sleep the night before and had had to wake so early, and my 1st stop of the morning was to an ATM that wouldn't accept my card --hence my lack of cash--and that the minibus ride here was one of the most uncomfortable I'd endured to date.

Alright. I borrowed cash from the Dutch guy, changed it into dollars (this time at an even worse rate) and went back once more. I now handed him 2 20$ bills with big heads, the one good 10 dollar note and 5 ones. Guess what? They don't accept one dollar bills at the border. It was about then that I began to really hate Africa, and seriously considered screaming a grand f-you to the nice offical and risking life in a Zambian jail. I was livid. I asked the man to help me; he ignored me.

WARNING FOUL LANGUAGE FOLLOWING: I stormed out of the office, back to the black marketeers once again and made a total arse out of myself. I stood there yelling at no one in particular "I'm fucked. Absolutely fcuked. Just fucked. Why are they fucking with me?" I think I scared a couple of the guys with my momentary craziness, but one of them ventured near enough to say he'd help me if I helped him. Oh oh.

So, I got another big headed 10, went back to immigration, handed him 60$ and was given a nice, crisp, big headed, 5 dollar note, and was welcomed to Zambia. Then I went back to the one black market guy who had been willing to help me despite my obvious insanity and handed him my remaining ones.

I can laugh now. I should have laughed then. But we made the bus, and the ticket guy even let me ride the whole 12 hours on the mere promise of payment once we reached Lusaka.

Now I'm here canoeing on the mighty Zambezi amid crocs and hippos and swimming elephants. I've been hanging out on a tiny sand island in the middle of the river where only an intrepid few dare to travel. And I'm loving it. Despite the fact that it's friggin cold here; it went down to 7 degrees the other night (that's celcius to my American friends)! And it's bloody expensive here too; the dollar is being devalued, and the kwacha is stronger than ever. Prices are ridiculous. But I'm "making do" and having a great time.

As is probably obvious, I was able to change my plane ticket home until mid July. I'm still unsure if I'll make it to Mozambique or not, but Africa is my oyster. And her treasures are vast. OK enough of the bad metaphors. More from who knows where...

2006-05-14T05:53:00.000-07:00

Entry 29

In Lake Malawi, there is a unique population of fish called cichlids. The females of this species are largely mouth breeders. That is that after being suitably impressed by some lucky male, a female will lay an egg and then promptly "swallow" it in her mouth. She does this repeatedly and keeps the fertilized eggs there until they hatch. Then when the babies are born, the mother continues to use her mouth as a safe haven for the babies to escape to should any danger arise. They're brightly coloured, beautiful looking fish, and there are some sub-species endemic only to certain parts of this lake. The lake is famous for its diving in large part because of these special fish. There may not be a coral reef, but the lake offers much to see nonetheless. It's also one of the cheapest places in the world to learn how to dive, so it was because of these reasons that I came here.

Diving has long been a draw for me, so I'm not really sure why it's taken me so long to try. I was going to do it in other countries on other trips, but problems always arose. Day 1 of the course essentially involved my reading a text book on topics like buoyancy, water pressure, decompression illness, currents etc. and doing some self evaluations. On day 2, we went over the material from the text, watched it all again on video (I got 100% on my quizzes!) and then put some of the skills into practice. This meant learning how to set up the equipment and gearing up and getting into the water, in this case a small swimming pool.

Those first few minutes of breathing underwater are indeed unforgettable: scary, surreal, unnerving...And for a technophobe like me, trusting my equipment to keep me breathing and afloat was a challenge I hadn't anticipated. Most students follow up their pool sessions with their first dive, but my anxiety level had me needing a bit more time with each skill than most others do, so we waited until the next day.

On day 3, we returned to the pool to practice the 2nd set of skills, but unfortunately, I just couldn't get used to filling my mask up with water, removing and replacing it, and then clearing it. I even had a bit of a panicked reaction, and so we decided to take a break until the afternoon. After lunch, we headed out to small Kande Island across the way from the beach for my first dive. This was meant to be just a fun dive--no skills to practice. But again, a problem struck. I couldn't equalise my ears, probably due to that flu I had 2 weeks ago. The discomfort increased with every metre we descended, so when the discomfort became pain at only 5 metres, we had to abort the dive. I was so disappointed. It was hard not to see it as some kind of failing on my part.

Day 4 I decided to give it one more go. After a relaxing morning, I headed into the pool once again. I concentrated on my breathing as if my life depended on it (ha!) and kept reminding myself that I didn't need a mask to breathe. With complete calm and focus, I completed the skill with barely a second's trouble. I'm sure the whole camp heard my cheer as I surfaced excitedly.

That afternoon I went out on my second dive attempt. I was quite nervous, but to my surprise (and that of my instructor I think) I made it to the bottom--10 metres down. I was a little too freaked out to actually enjoy this first underwater experience, but it was pretty cool nonetheless.

On the last day, I joined a small group of fellow students to complete the 3rd set of skils which we did about 5 metres down on the lake bottom. It was easy and fun, and I began to think I could definitely get the hang of this. I looked forward to our next dive with great anticpation. In the afternoon, we suited up once again (there is really no graceful or easy way to get into a wet suit!) and headed out to the island once more. I made it down the chain with nary a bit of hesitation and found myself actually enjoying doing the skills and looking around as I waited for the others to do theirs. We went on a bit of an exploratory dive around the island and saw a huge cat fish and many cichlids; we even saw a mother quickly swallow her brood as we approached. It was a fait accompli, and I'm now proud and pleased to say that I'm a certified scuba diver. I think this was one of the biggest challenges I've put myself through in a very long time.

If I'm successful tomorrow at the British Airways office and can change my plane ticket, I may head to Mozambique's highly regarded coast to put my new skills into practice. If not, I'll be home too soon.

2006-05-03T07:44:00.000-07:00

Entry 28

This will be fairly brief as internet access in Malawi, at least northern Malawi, is bloody expensive. The train ride from Dar to Mbeya near the border was supposed to be around 20 hours long. The 3 hour delay before we even boarded, plus the 6 hour delay in the middle of the night, along with another 6 hour delay the next afternoon meant we didn't arrive into Mbeya until 5 in the morning, about 16 hours late. I heard derailment, fuel problem, electrical problem and accident as all possible explanations. This wouldn't have been too much of a concern if my Tanzanian visa hadn't expired at midnight. Surprisingly and fortunately, the immigration official the next morning was quite understanding.

When I got off the train, tired, feverish, dizzy, and freaked out (because of the visa thing), 2 guys presented themselves as an answer to my problem. I wouldn't have to wait in the dark by myself at the train station or the bus depot. They'd take me straight to the bus which would leave in an hour to the border. From there, another bus would continue the journey south to whatver destination in Malawi I wanted.

I got into a taxi with them (stupid) and off we went to the bus. I got my seat, paid my fare and waited. And waited. Africa is a lesson in waiting. Waiting to use the ATM. Waiting to mail a letter. Waiting for a bus to leave. Waiting to get an answer. Waiting to make a phone call. It's an exercise in patience. And when feeling sick, I fear I come very close to failing that test.

Finally the bus left. We got to the Tanzanain border, and as I already wrote, my worry was unfounded (for once). I walked to the Malawi side and discovered, surprise, surprise, that I'd paid for a bus ticket for a bus that didn't exist. I was conned--again. I thought after all these months here, I'd be a bit smarter than that but apparently not. So I lost about 18$ CAD and had to take a mini bus. Which got pulled over by the cops for being overcrowded--hah! That's just a wee bit of an understatement.

Anyway, after a few days of feeling sick as a dog, I finally had the thought to look in my guide book under malaria. I matched many of the symptons, so I got myself off my butt and to the local clinic. It was closed. I was told it was a holiday, so the doctor was probably at home and given his address. Off I went. No doctor and apparently no one who spoke English or Swahili. Just some rather uncomfortable greetings in which various family members came in one by one, and got down on their knees to greet me, including a very eldery woman who had difficulty rising again. I didn't know if to offer an arm would be insult or not. I had no idea what the polite thing to do or say was and was quite startled by this "guest of honour" type treatment.

Eventually someone told me the doctor was still at the clinic and arranged for someone to take me back there. Fine. The doctor was very kind, but his lab technician was on vacation so no blood tests could be done. Of course.

So the next morning I took a bus to Mzuzu (where I am now) and went straight to the hospital. The test came up negative for parasites. This probably means I have no malaria, but it could mean the parasites are few and not showing up or I've developed a resistence. I'm pretty sure it means I have the flu.

I've decided to head to the lake for a few days to recuperate. More from somewhere where internet access is a bit more reasonably priced.

2006-04-11T06:56:00.000-07:00

2006-04-11T02:10:00.000-07:00

Entry 27

Some of you may recall a story of mine that took place in Sabah, Malaysia, on the island of Borneo a few years ago involving me, a mini bus, a windy road and a lawn chair in the aisle. At the time, I imagined the headlines describing my death would read: Canadian Tourist Killed in Lawn Chair Accident. The subheading would have read: How one westerner, in an effort to avoid falling into the lap of a Muslim man and causing great offense, was propelled up and down the bus aisle as she tried to lamely cling to the seat edge in front of her.

My bus ride from Kondoa, Tanzania, back to Arusha, recently also could have made headlines. At least back home it would have; here it was simply business as usual. The bus trip there took just under 5 hours; the return ride was about 9! Thanks to the heavy rains of the season, the mountain road, normally a windy, red dirt, bumpy route, turned into a treacherous route of thick, slippery mud.

When we first started sliding across the road, I thought it was good that the bus driver had slowed down, and I thought little more about it and continued taking pictures of the countryside. As our sliding became more frequent and with more time between hitting the brakes and actually stopping, I thought; I'm sure glad I'm not driving and continued looking at the villages we passed.

When the bus suddenly started sliding uncontrollably towards the edge of the road, leaning precariously to one side (my side) and heading to the the edge of the mountain towards the valley below, I gripped the side of the bus, closed the window to prevent my being thrown out, and imagined that I would soon be in a lot of pain or dead. The bus kept sliding. I didn't look at my guide next to me, but I could guess from the taut muscles in his arm above mine and the sudden silence around us that this was going to be very bad. Those few seconds were truly frightening. And then we came to a stop. The bus was tilted to the side, and the wheels were mired in mud. I followed my guide out on shaky legs, and we both breathed deep sighs of relief.

The next hours were spent watching passengers from the bus dig out the wheels, only to have the bus slide into the ditch again seconds after being freed. Digging out, sliding, digging out, sliding. Maybe 4 or 5 times. We walked up the road to the next village where we found some chai (tea) and waited patiently. Finally, the bus made it through, so we all got back on with no further problems. I must say that sitting in the front seat may not have been the smartest move; every time I could see a deeply muddy stretch of road ahead, I would anticipate another near death experience and tense up, so that by the time we finally reached Arusha, I had a raging headache.

One of the reasons I went to Kondoa/Kolo in the first place was to see some rock/cave paintings. Remniscent of Lascaux, France, these red and white drawings depicted animals being hunted, trapped, and skinned, people dancing and rituals being performed. Some were painted 3,000 years ago, while the most recent were done 600 years ago. Unlike the cave paintings in France which are naturally protected by the environments in which they were created, these artworks are exposed to rain and sun and of course, graffiti.

Another really neat thing I saw on this mini-trip was honey harvesting. Apiaries are made from hollowed-out logs hoisted up into the trees. The wild bees, yes, those are African, killer bees, then make their homes in them. When it's time to harvest the honey, the villagers go at night when the bees are supposedly less aggressive, and wearing their regular clothes--no protective netting or other gear--they climb up, send down the log to the men below, cut it open, and dig in. These guys are brave. The guy who climbed up to retrieve the log wore nothing more than a lesso (sarong). They didn't even use smoke or steam to passify the bees. Despite my being pursued twice, no one was stung. And the honey was the sweetest I've ever tasted.

The 3rd highlight of this cultural tourism trip was being the only guest at a performance of traditional dance. When I arrived, I was given a stool in the middle of a circle of dancing women, with the men playing drums behind them. A woman painted my face with some cool, white paint that dried into a crumbly paste. (I learned later it was cobra or python dung mixed with some herbs and other stuff!) The women danced tirelessly while blowing whistles and clapping their hands and moving their legs, hips and bums. It was delightful. They all were so pleased when I finally joined them and answered their howl-like calls with my own. It was a special evening indeed.

Upon my return to Arusha, I attended 2 sessions of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. This U.N. trial is in its 9th year, I believe, and is expected to go for another 2. I really don't know how to describe the feeling of being privy to the first hand witness testimonies of Rwandans who lived through the genocide. Their casual comments about blood, executions, murder, assault, theft, and race hit my very bones. To watch the lawyers prosecute and defend was to watch the world try to ammend for something so indescribably horrendous which we all but ignored. The weight of that experience will sit with me for a long time. Interestingly, the sessions are all being held trilingually: English, French and Kinyarwandan, and this seems to be creating no end of headaches, loopholes, misunderstandings and excuses.

After leaving Arusha, I spent a few days in the Usambara mountians hiking and exploring this gorgeous region known as the "Switzerland of Tanzania." I spent much of my time there eating, trekking and hanging out with 6 English medical school students, and I'm on my way back to the coast to visit 3 of them at a beach resort tomorrow. What a privileged life I lead.

2006-04-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

Entry 26

You know how it is when you spend your whole life dreaming of going somewhere and seeing something and then you finally get there and it doesn't live up to your expectations and you can't hide your disappointment? Well, that's totally NOT what happened when I went on my second safari, this time in Tanzania. My expectations were exceeded greatly, and the awestruck feelings I had while descending into Ngorongoro Crater, while driving across the vast Serengeti Plains and while gazing at Olduvai Gorge were better than I had imagined by far.

I had serious doubts about going on another safari as I am now living off my credit card and couldn't really justify such an expense, but then I reminded myself that this is why I'd come here and this is what I'd wanted to see for as long as I could remember... So the 100 $ USD entrance fee to the crater notwithstanding, gulp(!), I took a deep breath, laid out the cash, and off I went.

The first stop was the crater itself and being here at the start of the rainy season, i.e. the low tourist season, was a real bonus. Usually the crater is packed with safari vehicles all spilling out with tourists like me gawking at the same overphotographed animals, but we were virtually alone in the whole crater. We had the magnificent scenery and plethora of animals seemingly to ourselves, and it was simply wonderful. The flamings flapping their wings on the lake; the lion pride rolling and tumbling over each other; the gazelles fleetly footed jumping away for us; the hippos exhaling deeply... It was magical and breathtaking.

The clouds played with the light in such a way as to create pockets of cool, dark, soft light interspersed with bright, warm sunlight, and the green of the crater walls and floor was shaded into patchwork patterns remniscent of the 40 shades of Ireland's greens. We got caught in a brief rainshower but drove to the other side of the gorge where the sunlight shone invitingly. I could have spent days in there just going around and around like the grazers and browsers themselves.

That night, we camped at a small campground inside the conservation area and were warned--twice--not to bring any food into our tents as wild pigs would certainly rip open the canvas to get at any edibles inside. No problem, I've camped with bears before, right? In the middle of the night, I awoke to hear several large animals munching on what I assumed was grass just outside my tent. They were loud and sounded voracious! It turns out they were buffalo, one of the most dangerous animals in Africa (if approached). One of our group had to pee desperately but didn't dare venture outside so lay in pain instead all night!

From the crater, our next stop was the vast Serengeti. It was just like being in the middle of a National Geographic documentary. Enormous herds of wildebeast thundered across the plains. Huge herds of zebra stampeded to and from a small watering hole. Flocks of vultures fought over carcass remains. Lions mated and roared and devoured their kills in front of my eyes. Giraffes stared down at us from their great heights. A large male leopard (the 1st I've seen) crossed the road right in front of our vehicle. Hyenas stared back at us from shaded hideouts or cool mud baths. Enormous elands trotted away as soon as they saw us. It was amazing.

After spending 2 days in the Serengeti, and thereby seeing only a miniscule portion of it, we drove to another highlight of the trip, Olduvai Gorge. This is the "cradle of mankind" where in the late 70's, Mary Leakey discovered the skull of an early hominid, not to mention many other remains of primitive humans and animals. The gorge is rich in skeletal remains and early stone tools. It's also a short distance from the evocative Laetoli Footprints. This is where 3 sets of footprints of early humans much like Lucy, our remote ancestral grandmother, were laid in volcanic ash some 3.5 million years ago. To look down the gorge and its multiple layers of sediment is to look at our own history, evolution and life. It's evocative, mindboggling, riveting and marvelous.

The last 2 days were spent at 2 lovely parks, Lake Manyara, a small park surrounding a large soda lake that is home to flocks of flamingos and herd of hippos, and Tarangire, famous for its many herds of elephants. Both these parks are havens for birds, mammals, reptiles, trees (especially baobabs) and differing striking landscapes.

This was a mindblowing trip, (ok, so the campsites were filthy and noisy, but who needs perfection?). My travel companions were great; we were 8 people in 2 vehicles: a Swede, an Italian, 2 Austrians, an Aussie, an American and 2 Vancouverites(!). An internationally eclectic, funloving and appreciative mix. So was it worth it to add to my ever-increasing debtload? You bet!

2006-03-26T08:25:00.000-08:00

Entry 25

Today I spent wandering the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the "roof of Africa". The lower paths meander through small villages amid banana, avocado, mango & coffee plantations, and the rich, verdant earth was a stark contrast to some of the drought affected areas I've seen in the last weeks. (The number of dead cows starved to death on the sides of the roads was absolutely shocking.) But here, the rain came down in droves, typical rainy season monsoonal downpours, which we tried to duck out of whenever an awning presented itself, but mostly we just walked around getting drenched. I didn't mind in the least; it's been so long since I've "hiked" and been cool and wet.

There was one moment that seemed to me so quintessentially African; I just loved it. We had ducked under the small overhang of a mud house when the mama who lived there came home from her small shamba (farm). She invited us into her tiny 2 room home which housed her chickens as well. She had buckets of water under all the spots where the roof leaked, and the dark interior would have been postively dismal except for her warm welcoming. She then sat down to peel a bunch of potatoes she'd just picked. Abdul, my rastafarian/Muslim guide, asked if he could buy an avocado from her, and he peeled me half of this just picked, perfectly ripe piece of sunshine which we ate with great pleasure while watching the rain pour down outside. It was a beautiful thing.

So far, I've found nearly all the Tanzanians I've met to be incredibly warm and friendly. This is in spite of the fact that my first day here was a huge headache to say the least. When I came across the border, I was told that my visa was still valid for one more week left over from the one week trip I took here to Zanzibar over New Years. This meant that I could only be in the country for a week, and that it was impossible to renew or purchase a new visa. I was completely unprepared for this and had no idea what I was going to do here for only one week or where I'd go next or how I'd get there.

I then arrived in Tanga where the bus station was a swarm of touts/husslers/ "flycatchers" all wanting something from me. They poked at me, pushed me, tried to take my bags from me, pulled me and yelled at me to take their hotel/taxi/bus/whatever. Normally, I'd be prepared mentally for this kind of encounter, but because I was still feeling frazzled from my border problem, I got off the bus in a bit of a daze and was completly overwhelmed by their onslaught. I know that losing my temper is not the way to deal with this kind of situation, but I became very stressed very quickly, and when one guy poked me one time too many, I lost it and started poking him right back, hard and repetitively in the chest and shouted at him: Quit fucking poking me! The guy was a bit taken aback, and they all stopped for a second and just looked at me. One of the other touts around then tried to get the rest of the guys to back off a bit, but my cool was shot and bad feelings abounded. I found a cheap hotel room and sat sulking for a while til I relaxed and came up with a plan.

I decided to come to Moshi, where a Kenyan friend of mine was hanging out for a couple days. I figured he'd be able to help me, and I was right. He introduced me to someone here who is a well-connected, well-respected businessman around town, and with his help, immigration accepted my request for a visa extension, and now I can stay in this beautiful country for a month.

So I've spent much of the last few days gazing at the ephemeral mountain. That isn't to say that I've actually seen her other than a few fleeting moments one morning and for a few seconds this evening; she's almost always obscured by cloud. It looks like it snowed up there today; I feel sorry for any climbers freezing on her slopes. I've read/heard that half of the people who begin the 5/6 day climb to her summit don't make it. A sobering thought...I don't know how many have died, but I'm sure it's not an insignificant number.

Tomorrow I'll head to Arusha, a bigger city that also serves as a base for Kili climbers, but also for safari planning. I hope while I'm there to find some other travelers and then as a group to find a decent, cheap safari through the Serengetti and beyond. Ah, the life of a wanderer...

2006-03-11T01:22:00.000-08:00

Entry 24

Lamu is everything you've heard and more. The guide books all say that people come for a few days or a week and end up staying for several. I can see why. If it's a beach holiday you're after, Lamu has stunning, nearly empty beaches (with few beach boys), fresh seafood, a lovely seafront walk, and quaint little seaside shops. If it's a cultural/ historical holiday you want, Lamu has centuries old architecture (as far back as the 14th century!), narrow alleys down which the only mode of transport, donkeys, shuffle back and forth, and beautiful Swahili dress, language, food & traditions. I know I sound like a tourist brochure, but this place is truly magical.

Getting here is a bit of a journey, but it's well-worth the hot, overly crowded bus and concern about bandits, which I'm assured by many is not a huge worry anymore. Apparently, Somali bandits in droves made quite a name for themsleves by attacking buses and trucks travelling up this stretch of road, stripping the passengers and emptying out the bus of all luggage and personal effects, including the seats! But no one has heard of any attacks on buses in a couple years. Maybe this has something to do with the camouflaged clothed police escorts replete with AK47's who accompany every bus and car up this northern part of the coast. (Not that I needed any reassuring, but my host at dinner told me last night that if we were attacked, the 2 armed guards in the bus would surely run away if they came under attack from some 40 or so Somali bandits. You can be sure I chatted quite amicably with the soldier/police sitting in the seat next to me to make sure he thought of my well-being at the very least should anything happen!

The aforementioned dinner host last night is a bit of a Lamu icon and institution. He has been inviting tourists to his home for dinner pretty much nightly for the last 33 years! He has some guests who come back annually. Ali Hippy is of some renown among the people of Lamu and many of its visitors. He's even given mention in the bible, The Lonely Planet. Supper was delicious, and the evening culminated when his family all joined in a short concert of Taarub (a uniquely Swahili style of poetry, music and singing).

The Swahili culture here, the same as Zanzibar, is a beautiful mix of African, Indian, Portuguese and Middle Eastern influences. When the Saudi (and other Middle Eastern) traders came sailing here centuries ago, they had to follow the monsoonal winds, which meant they were essentially marooned here for half the year until the winds reversed direction, and they could sail their dhows home. This gave them adequate tme to intermarry and meld their culture with that of the locals. Throw in Vasco de Gama and several of his countrymen; add some Indian merchants and labourers brought in to make the railways; mix with some Omani rulers, and you have a rich mix of Swahili culture such is found all down the coast of East Africa.

The Christians and Muslims live side by side in this tiny town, attending the same schools and shopping at the same market but otherwise with little to do with each other as far as I can tell. The Muslim women are covered from head to toe in their black bui buis. How they recognize each other is a mystery. The men are covered in their long white kanzus and kofias (embroidered hats). Watching some of the young Muslim couples strolling around the sea wall last evening, I was struck by how Yin and Yang they looked together.

There are supposed to be 3 cars on the island. I saw one of them yesterday; it's the one used by the donkey sanctuary to transport some of their "retired," orphaned, or rescued donkeys. These beasts of burdens truly live up their monikers here; I've seen them carrying bags of bricks, cases of Tusker (Kenyan beer) and some pretty large people to boot. For those tourists who come here to party, the donkeys are the only means of getting home when one's own legs are unable to carry them.

Last night as I was watching the fruit bats fly out from their roost, I heard the muezzins calling their people to prayer from their loudspeakers and minarets. As several microphones could be heard at once, my attention turned to the one closest to me where they must have just installed a new sound system. I could hear him breathing into the mic, tapping it and giving his version of the "testing, testing" scenario. This struck me as so funny. Not the usual launch into unfamilar, somewhat whiny prayer I usually hear.

Across from the main island is the island of Manda. There I spent 2 days as a beach bum, swimming and reading and relaxing. The snorkling there is tremendous. Even though the water was a bit murkkey in parts, I saw more fish in one hour in one small pool than I'm sure I saw in all 3 times I snorkled in Diani. It was like being in the big tropical fish tank at the Vancover Aquarium, only better!

Lamu and its surroundings is a unique repository of great beauty. Just what I need to help get over my heartache of missing the kids in Kakamega.

Kwa Herini

2006-03-06T04:46:00.001-08:00

Jambo from Nairobi once again,

I left Kakamega several days ago amidst many tears and much sorrow. I knew leaving the kids would be difficult; I didn't realize how difficult. Many of them couldn't look at me as I bid them each farewell Friday morning as they approached the gate on their way to school. A couple of them went off in tears and then came back to say goodbye a second time. It was so sad, and knowing I was the cause of that sorrow wasn't easy. But I will try to return and spend time with them again.

Here in Nairobi, I've been spending time hanging with a Canadian family (and a Swedish woman and an English guy), and we visited the elephant and rhino orphange (Sheldrick Trust) where I had the pleasure of watching about 8 baby elephants pushing each other around, feeding from huge baby bottles, and twirling their trunks around curiously. Their keepers have to spend the nights with them, but they only stay one night in a row with each elephant lest the ellies get too attached. I found this particularly poigant.

The giraffe sanctuary was also a treat. Feeding these magnificent creatures by hand (and a few brave souls by mouth!) was really a treat. As was walking around the nature trail for an hour through muck and brush in search of Jock, the resident patriarch. You wouldn't think an animal so big could hide so easily, but hide he did. All 6 metres of him! Jock is probably one of the biggest and oldest giraffes in the world, and when he moved his legs to walk, it was like watching trees being uprooted. We all scampered pretty quickly out of his way as we watched small trees bend under and scratch his belly. The stride of his footprints was unbelievable!

We also visited the home of Karen Blixen AKA Isak Dinesan, after whom an entire neighbourhood has been named. I'll have to watch Out Of Africa again upon my return.

Tomorrow morning, I'm on my way to Mombassa and the North Coast, Lamu to be exact. I intend to spend a week there, then head down to Diani for a return trip for my last week in Kenya before my visa expires.

My biggest concern at the moment is figuring out how to do and more importantly, dry my laundry. The rainy season is here. Most days it rains. In Nairobi, this means chaos. Here and in Kakamega like in most places, it means thunder and lightning, and the light and sound show continues long after the wet has passed. The streets flood; the sidewalks and paths become rivers and the gutters overflow. It also means the internet goes down with all the power. It's a blessing though; farmers have been waiting for a chance to plant, and I can only hope the rest of the country is being as inundated as we are here.

So you've probably noticed the rhino photo. It took ages to get that one picture up. I may try again to put more pics up at some point soon. Don't hold your breath though. Oh yeah, you'll notice too that I added some links in the right hand corner. Check 'em out!

Kwa herini

2006-03-02T03:09:00.000-08:00

2006-02-22T02:08:00.000-08:00

Entry 22

I saw something quite funny today. One of the many free range chickens about the place was strutting his stuff around the front yard when he espied a reflection of himself in the shiny, silver bumper of a small truck. The rooster was quite taken with the handsome fellow in front of him and started dancing around, preening his fine looking self and ruffling his feathers. When the relected coq mimicked his every move, the real rooster became quite agitated and started throwing himself at the car feet first and wings flapping. He continued on like this for some minutes until he decided he'd had enough and began to peck away busily at the ground.

One of the other regular amusements here is walking by the prison. The prisoners are dressed in classic striped summer pj's and are often seen digging ditches in a chain gang along the side of the road. The prison guards accompanying them don't look too concerned and are often seen gazing into the distance or at whatever young woman (or mzungu) happens to walk by. Apparently, re-offending here is common. This is because the prisoners are guaranteed 3 square meals a day, meat at least 3 times a week, clothing, shelter and a few shillings for their work; this, of course, being a lot more than what many people on the outside have. The security seems a bit lax to say the least; whenever I pass by the place, the guard in the "tower" (a dilapidated tree house with corrugated tin walls and a wobbly staircase) can be seen relaxing comfortably with his arms bent back behind his head and his feet up on the ledge. I'm guessing it's a minimum security prison!

Another source of wonder here is the competing Sunday morning church services. With no exaggeration, depending on where in the orphanage building or on the compound I'm standing, I can hear up to 5 services at once. And they're all being given through loud speakers or microphones. So while one preacher/pastor is praising the lord, another is leading his congregation in song, during which a third is frightening his listeners with tales of fire and brimstone, as a fourth is delivering his sermon, and the fifth might be the oman from the local mosque calling the small Muslim population to prayer. It's not exactly the religious experience that you might think. And I'm sure I'm the only heathen not attending some kind of service on Sunday mornings...

Chuckling at and on the matatus is a regular feature of life here too. In big cities and everywhere else I've been, the matatus have names like Bullet, Bad Boy, Survivor and a favourite, Last Victim. But in Kakamega, (remember all the churches), they have names like Jesus Wept and El Shaddai (God). My favourite local one though is Arafat Kid!

The matatus have touts who lean out the doors or windows calling out the destination and trying to convince potential riders that they should be on their particular mini bus and not the one in front or in back or beside. Competition is fierce, and I've seen one poor woman nearly torn in 2 as opposing touts vied for her fare. Sometimes they'll grab your backpack or shopping bag right out of your hand, so that you'll have to follow them to their vehicle.

The owners of the vehicles set a minimum price that they take each day; then it's up to the driver and the tout to make as many fares as possible, so they can cover that expense plus the gas (not to mention any fines) and then make some kind of profit which they split. To that end, some of them drive at ridiculous speeds, so they can get more fares at either end and in between. They totally stress themselves out rushing from A to B as fast as possible. They'll practically run other matatus off the road to do this.

Sometimes, they don't even come to a full stop; passengers have to jump off moving matatus or run alongside them and hop on to get on! On top of that, the roads in Kenya are usually awful; full of potholes if paved at all with no shoulders nor medians. Drivers pass on corners on windy roads at full speed. The speed bumps and police checks do little to slow down traffic. This part of the country is notorious for its number of matatu accidents.

Speed is not the only way they try to make a few extra shillings. They often try to overcharge any mzungu and wait until the last possible moment to return any change in the hopes they'll forget or just say "forget it." Of course, they also will try to squeeze in as many people as possible so that people are sitting with their bums straddling the gaps between the seats and standing leaning over each other. The matatus typically have 5 rows of 3 seats (including the front seat with the driver) which means enough seats for 15 adult passengers plus a couple kids on laps. I've been in one where we reached 25 passengers! I guess Kenyans seem to have developed an appreciation or at least an immunity to B.O. that I, as of yet, haven't quite developed. An overcrowded, sweaty matatu is almost always a stinky affair; it's why I always try to sit near the window!

The other thing about relying on matatus that I love is that they don't always go where they're supposed to. If you get on in Kisumu, for example, and you're going to Kakamega, but everyone gets off beforehand in little towns and villages and intersections en route, then when the last 2 passengers other than yourself "alight" a half hour from your destination, the driver may decide there's no point in going all the way with only one person, so he'll turn around to return from whence he came. Fortunately, they will try to find you another matatu going in the right direction (in a surprising turn of camaraderie) and will probably even pay the difference in fare for you...

It's all about attitude, isn't it? Another illustration of this point is my reaction to the constant call of attention to my foreigness. Kakamega isn't as cosmopolitan as other places in the country and wzungu are still a bit of a novelty in some parts. Each and every time I leave the compound, I am baraged by people calling out "Hey, mzungu!" or "How are you, mzungu?" or "Come talk to me, mzungu." A favourite repeated by kids is "How are you? Give me money!"

Children laugh and point and call out, often encouraged by their older siblings or parents. Young guys on the side of the road look at me like I'm a circus act, and they make remarks and giggle until one of them becomes bold enough to say "Jambo" or "Habari?" (how are you). It's very rude not to answer, and it's even ruder not to answer with a positive repsonse.

I've had to learn to wave with my wrist or elbow from side to side, rather than with my fingers up and down as this means "come here" and has led to confusion on more than one occasion.

I try to imagine myself sitting at home in Vancouver or Montreal or Providence or Brisbane and greeting every black man or woman of colour who passes me by. I try to imagine encouraging my child to wave to the foreigner. Depending on my mood, I can be rather amused by all the attention; in fact, it's flattering in some weird way, all these strangers inquiring after my health, wanting to shake my hand and converse with me. But on other days, I just don't feel like being friendly, you know?! Occasionally, it's all I can do not to scream "I'm lousy. How are you?" or "Do you really care?" or "Hey, African!" or "Yeah, my skin has less pigment than yours. What of it?!"

Fortunately, I can keep it all in perspective most days and find humour in being the town entertainment. In fact, yesterday, I found myself standing in a large crowd of people watching some street performance. Not suprisingly, all attention turned from the 2 guys dressed as women to me. The performers somehow included me in their commentary (which I didn't understand). I made a quick exit, and chuckling to myself, my embarrasment was pretty short lived. So I've learned one thing here, if you like to be invisible, don't come to Africa!

One more cause of amusement (in a sick kind of way) is passing by the hospitals here, you can see a wealth of coffin makers on either side selling their wares. This is only as disturbing as the flock of marabou storks in the trees outside. Marabous, like vultures, are ugly, scavenging, carcass loving omnivores...

One of the many headshaking things about this place I've come to appreciate...

Kwa Herini

2006-02-16T02:43:00.000-08:00

Entry 21

So after sweet-talking and brown-nosing the manager of a local hotel (the Golf) that has a small swimming pool on its grounds, I finally convinced him that by reducing the price of admission, he would be doing me a great favour and giving 40 orphans an unforgettable treat. Most of the kids had never been anywhere near a pool; some had swum in creeks and rivers, but for all it had been ages since they were anywhere near a swimming spot.

A few days later, after much excitement and counting of the days and minutes, we all made our way to the pool. I was instructed not to let the girls and boys in together (I guess they're at an impressionable age; this was the case on the coast too when school groups would come to Colobus Trust), so first up were the girls. All 18 of them jumped in or made their way carefully down the ladder into the water, and much screaming and shouting and yelling and splashing and laughing ensued. The tiniest girl, Mercy, who couldn't reach the bottom of even the shallowest end, clung on to me for dear life. She was so light I could hold her with a couple fingers.

After 20 minutes, it was the boys' turn. Most of them jumped in a little more carelessly. The volume went up considerably as did the amount of water being splashed and kicked and thrown about. Michael, the smallest and youngest, jumped in fearlessly, despite not having a clue how to swim and immediately went under. Before I could reach him, 3 of his older/bigger brothers from the centre had him out of the pool and on solid ground. Michael, however, was undaunted and seconds later tried to jump in again! I insisted he only come in if he was in my arms. He seemed happy enough to oblige, and his adorable toothless smile was wide open for the rest of the time. I'm surprised he didn't swallow more water.

After the boy's time was up, the girls got to go in for another 10 minutes, and then the boys once again. Despite my concern that one of them would drown, much fun was had by all--including slightly stressed me! The kids have been asking me daily since then when we can go again.

A couple days later, the kids all went for their monthly head shaves; apparently one of the older boys usually does this for them all, but the razor was on the fritz, so it was off to the local barber. So now all 40 of them, girls and boys, are smooth headed. This isn't totally unusual; many girls and boys are similarly clean shaven.

I was trying to imagine how it would feel to be a 14 or 15 year old girl and be forced to have my head shaved. My hair was so important at that age (it still is as a recent horribly frightening haircut reminded me--I'll never again trust someone who says they can cut mzungu hair!). When I was that age, I was paying a ridiculous 40$ U.S for dyed, spiked fahionable punk haircuts...I would have absolutely fumed and protested if I were told how to wear my hair or to remove it completely! But these kids all went quietly and and without complaint...

Mind you, what was much more disturbing was the bit of blood I saw on one boy's head just after the razor had been used on someone else and just before being used on yet somebody else...

Moving on to other orphanage water experiences, let me tell you about doing laundry. First of all, you have to find a tap that has running water. Then you fill 2 basins: one for washing and one for rinsing. Then you soap up your clothes which is actually a bit of an art form as you need to keep the now wet and heavy item aloft and away from your body or your leather sandals with one hand while running a bar of soap evenly along it with the other. Considering how much red dirt and dust there is over everything, especially the seat of all pants and shorts, this may have to be done several times. Meanwhile, this is being done outside on the ground which means you're either squatting in front of the basin until your legs fall asleep or hovering bent over it until your back screams at you in discomfort.

As the soapy water leaves a film over everything it touches, rinsing is serious busines and repeated ad nauseum. Then you have to make room on the crowded clothing line and hang the items as they're done. This is why it took my nearly 2 hours yesterday to wash a few t-shirts, a couple pairs of shorts and my underwear. Pamela and Gertray (the house moms/matrons) can do it in a fraction of the time. Anyway, I was feeling fairly satisfied with my work and my sore back seemed earned, so off I went into town. Which was when it began to rain. Heavily. We had the biggest rainstorm I've ever seen here; replete with hail and very strong winds. When I got back, everything was soaked again and covered with bits of grit and grass, especially those pieces that had blown off the line and fallen to the ground. Time to start again.. This time though the kids were home from school and were laughing at me 'cause I'm so slow...

Actually the kids laugh at me a lot; when I try to talk in Swahili, when I try to chop firewood, when I attempt to play soccer with them, when I ask where stuff is that's in obvious spots, when I try certain foods and make funny faces becuae I don't like them...It's all good.

Kwa herini

2006-02-09T00:41:00.000-08:00

Entry 20

I'm still in Kakamega volunteering at the orphange. The kids are becoming more and more trusting of me, and we're enjoying each other's company thoroughly. It's me some of them are turning to when they're sick ot hurt, and I miss them when I'm away for a day or 2. Of course, there are a couple that I'm becoming particularly fond of, but I'm trying really hard not to let any favouritism become too obvious.

Let me describe for you a typical day. After a fitful sleep interrupted by yelping dogs, screaming preachers who apparently think that the louder they yell into the loudspeakers echoing across the night, the more souls they'll save, and children coming and going from their rooms across the hall from me, I arise at 7:30 or 8.

My room is on the middle floor of our 3 story building. I go downstairs to pee then back upstairs to get my towel and things. Then I go up to the 3rd floor to see if there's any water which there rarely is, so I go downstairs to the 1st floor again to try my luck there. There's usually enough to shower once or twice a week. The shower is directly over a sink toilet/squatter which means I have to watch my step very carefully. Particularly challenging when there's shampoo in my eyes and I have to rinse by standing with my heels precariously perched on the edge...

On the days when there isn't water, I go to the kitchen to get a jerry can of water (if one hasn't already thoughtfully been placed by the bathroom for me)and take it up to the 3rd floor where I bathe in a basin. All this toing and froing is why it takes me an hour to get ready in the mornings!

I then go back downstairs for breakfast, usually consisting of 2 cold, yolkless fried eggs and some stale white bread. Mind you, this is a feast compared to the porridge that the kids eat each morning... Once I've gotten that down, I help out with the sorting of the beans and washing up from breakfast.

I often then head into town (a half hour walk) to buy water or run other errands and check email. Sometimes I'm taken to visit different facilities in the area such as literacy centres, community schools, the local university or Canadian run NGO's. I often arrive home around midafternoon, just in time to hang out with the younger kids who only go to school half a day. We play Hide and Seek; Red Light/Green Light; Red Rover, Red Rover and other games, although the latter has temporarily been stopped since Amos dislocated his elbow the other day and Philip had the wind compLetely knocked out him. Sometimes we read stories, but mostly we just sit and hang out together. I spent several days sewing buttons for the kids, and this was of great interest to the little ones. The kids are also fascinated by the light on my watch and are constantly checking the time.

Usually all the children are home by 6pm just in time for dinner which they wolf down in minutes. They then clean up around the compound and chop wood and clean dishes etc. until dark (around 7PM). "Preps" or what we'd call homework is how they spend the rest of evening. I walk around helping out those who need it and have found myself helping with science, math, social studies and English....just about everything I'd do in the learning centres at home except for Swahili. At around 9, it's time for songs and prayers and then bed, which is a long drawn out ordeal in which the energy level rises to a fevered pitch before quieting down to a reasonable level eventually petering out into silence.

The kids sleep 4-6 to a room in 2 sets of bunk beds. Some of them are doubling up, but I think it's more ouT of their own desire than lack of space. Unfortunately, there are no mossie nets, and a couple of them have contracted malaria just in the 2 weeks I've been here. There also seems to be a disturbing case of small pox going around.

One of the girls was telling me yesterday about the free use of corporal punishment in her school. (The kids all go to the same school.) They are caned for all kinds of infractions including getting more than 2 answers wrong on a quiz, talking in class, wearing their flip flops to school (for many of them, it's all they have to wear, and you wouldn't believe how many times they've been repaired) and all sorts of minor crimes. All the teachers do so, and the kids get hit on their palms, calves, backs and bums depending on the severity of the crime and the prediliction of the teacher. When I asked Presca (the student) if she thought it was at all necessary, she said yes. And when I spoke to the house father about it, he too felt it was a necessary evil. Apparently the government is trying to outlaw it, but there's huge resistence from parents, teachers and headmasters.

Having said that, I met with the headmaster of their school last week to see if there were any kids with problems I could help with, and he spoke very highly of these orphans and the effort they make as a whole. Socialization and academics don't seem to suffer as a result of being parentless, and in fact, because of the emphasis on education that the centre places in each child, they're doing better than many of their peers.

Guess that's it for another installment,

Kwa Herini,

2006-01-30T01:03:00.000-08:00

Kakamega: Land of churches, schools and howling dogs. This is where I have been for the last week, doing a bit of volunteer work for a Quaker run orphanage that houses 40 beautiful children aged 7-17. I find myself already growing quite attached to many of them; Liz described it as fallling in love, and I'm inclined to agree.

Some of the kids have been here since the orphanage was started 2 1/2 years ago; others have been here just a few weeks. All the kids are in school, and many have been chosen over other siblings because of their potential to provide for younger brothers and sisters once they have an education.

Despite the fact that they have no parents (or in a few cases one parent unable to care for them), and despite the fact that visitors come and go for different periods of times (from days to weeks), many of these children are still so willing and wanting to create attachments. They are so open-hearted and innocent and affectionate and curious and respectful and playful...It's a sad and beautiful thing to see and be part of, knowing that I too will have to say goodbye and cause a bit of pain for some of them.

I love just hanging out with them, playing hide and seek and other games, reading stories, helping them with their homework, listening to their songs, watching them do their chores and giving them a bit of extra attention and affection.

The centre was started out of a feeding program that some Quaker women here were running to provide at least one decent meal a day to the impoverished kids going to school in the neighbourhood. They still feed 60 kids daily in addition to the kids living at the centre and are running another small feeding centre on the outskirts of town. The food is coming from a small number of sponsers in the U.S., but most of the food is simply donated by local church members who have an extra bag of beans, maize or rice to donate. The cook prepares 8 kilos of maize and another 8 kilos of beans every morning so the kids can have a hearty, hot lunch. Every morning, the ritual of sorting through the mounds of beans to find stones, twigs etc. takes an hour at least.

The centre and church also sponsers a small number of children who are still living at home with a grandparent, other relative or neigbour. As education is the priority, the board sees that these kids have the uniforms, shoes and supplies they need to go to school, and whatever little bit of money is left over feeds the child and his/her family. Likewise, they also provide a tiny bit of financial support to the many widows in the area, most of whom have taken in orphans belonging to their relatives or neighbours.

Liz and I visited several of these homes. The houses are made of bits of rock and clay or sand on wooden frames with either makuti (grass) roofs or sheets of coruggated tin. Usually, such houses need to be repaired after every rainy season and usually only have a lifespan of about 10 years. The families I visited are too poor to repair or move.

Most of the people in these homes have tiny plots of land in the back that may grow a few bananas or some maize or beans. With the drought this year being as severe as it is, the bit of food they usually can count on is even less than usual.

The dark interiors reveal one or 2 rooms which serve as bedrooms, kitchen, living room and chicken coop. The women, of course, have to walk great distances in many cases to fetch water, and any light comes from kerosene lanterns.

In local tradition, family members are buried in front of the house. The number of mounds facing some of these houses is shocking, AIDS being the usual culprit. We saw one home where the father of the family had his 2 parents, 2 sisters and 3 brothers all "resting in peace" before his house. He was looking after several of his nephews and nieces, despite being lame and out of work.

The children in these homes wear rags. Their bare feet and legs are covered in dirt. Snot runs down their faces. Many can't go to school because "free education" still means parents have to pay for books, supplies, shoes and unifoms.

Those who are lucky enough to be sponsered by the church barely make it through as there simply isn't enough light for them to study by in the evenings (kerosene being a luxury). The small stipend the church pays for school can't cover many of their most basic needs, not to mention those of the other children being cared for in their homes.

It's truly desperate poverty. Fortunately, some of the kids have been taken out of these homes and brought to the centre where they're fed, housed, clothed and loved. I love seeing how kind and affectionate they are with one another, and I am grateful for the chance to be a small part of their lives.

I'll share more about my experiences here in my next entry.

For now,

Kwa herini.

2006-01-21T00:26:00.000-08:00

Entry 18

Where to begin? There's no way I can possibly do justice to all that I saw and experienced on our one week safari. There's so much, I'd need pages and pages to recount it all. Let me start with a brief rundown and some highlights.

We were 8 in the Landrover, Liz and I and 2 Slovenian couples. Also there was our guide, a Maasai man named Moses who speaks Maasai, Swahili, English and a smatering of French and Slovenian, and our cook, a Luo man named Joshua, who really lived by the "Hakuna Matata" credo. We spent 2 nights each in 3 separate campsites and spent the days driving down really bad roads and watching Africa's wildlife reveal themselves to us.

We first headed for Lake Naivaisha where we camped for 2 extremely dusty days. The dust permeated our clothing and pores, not to mentione our ears and nostrils and mouths. Near Nasvaisha are 2 other lakes called Crater Lake and Lake Nakuru. Here we saw millions of flamingos, herds of buffalo, several rhino, many gazelles and other antelopes, vervets, colobus monkeys (not the same ones as in Diani) and some very feisty baboons. (They scared the crap out of a few unwary tourists who wrongly thought that the sandwiches they'd brought were only for themselves.)

Our next 2 days were spent in a small Maasai village called Magi Moto ("warm water" in Swahili), where hot springs fed the small population in the middle of this cactus filled landscape. The earth here had a lovely reddish hue, not because of iron in the ground but because of the rose quartz and other small crystals which crunched underfoot. We went on a small hike with a local guide whose Maasai name means "man of nature" and he truly was. He pointed out the different uses of the various plants and told us much about his culture and traditions and how they used the land and flora and fauna surrounding them. Here, we also visited a local primary school where the head master told us that only about 1/5th of the kids were currently attending because of the drought. The others had all left to help their families, move to places where the cattle had a chance, or dropped out because they couldn't afford the uniforms or were simply too hungry.

In this village, the 4 women of our group were "taught" to do beadwork by some of the local Maasai women. I use the word "taught" loosely; they mostly did all the work and once in awhile would deign to have our stumbling mzungo fingers stick on a few beads which they had carefully chosen. When I made the forward move of reaching for a bead from her lap on my own, the young woman who was my "teacher" slapped my hand and pushed it away.

Certainly the funniest moment here was when we all went to the hotsprings for an after dinner bath in the warm water. As some of you know, I'm already a little disinclined towards hotsprings/hot tubs and the like after an unfortunate trip to Olympia National Park a few years ago, so I was one of the last people to venture in the boiling hot, sulphur smelling water. After I'd finally stuck in my toes, it came to everyone's attention that there were a number of dead frogs floating in the water. As we looked around, we noticed more and more of the them lying on their backs with their little limbs straight out and back locked in rigor mortis. Fortunately, I hadn't gotten so far as to pour and splash and bathe in this frog soup unlike the others in our group. We laughed about this for days.

The last 2 days were spent in Maasai Mara, probably Kenya's most famous park. The abundance of wildlife was astounding. Lions, cheetahs, crocs, hippos, gnu, zebra, giraffe, gazelle, elephants and birdlife aplenty. Many others are worth mentioning, but listing them would seem no different than if I'd made a trip to a really big zoo...

We spent one entire day driving around witnessing these animals mating, eating, fighting, running and just lazing around. We saw one lioness gnawing away at the remaining half of a baby zebra; we were so close we could hear her jaws crunching on its bones. We saw another 2 lionesses pulling apart a freshly killed adult zebra. The one lion had her head completely inside the empty abdomen of the prey she had just disembowled. She was literally in and under the rib cage, and when she'd come up for air every once in awhile, she was completely covered in blood.

We also saw vultures feeding on a kill, a pair of mating lions getting a little testy with each other and letting out a roar that no documentary could ever adequately capture, and a croc move into position in front of a baby hippo which it sat watching hungrily (ok I'm guessing it here.)

In the Mara, we were priveleged to be rained on--heavily--both days. It hadn't rained here in months, so to see the black clouds hovering in the distance and to hear the thunder and lightning come closer and closer seemed somewhat miraculous. The sunsets over the vast plains with the contrasting black clouds and shining rays of sun light were startling.

Overall it was an unforgettable trip, a fascinating blend of people/culture and animals. And man, did we laugh. The Slovenians were a riot, and as we all bumped our way down the horrendous roads, bruising our ribs, we laughed the whole way.

Tonight, we're on the overnight train to Nairobi and then tomorrow, the overnight bus to Kakamega. More from the west.

Kwa Herini

2006-01-09T08:53:00.000-08:00

Entry 17

I want to share with you an intrinsically African moment. It is the type of experience that nearly every traveller here has at least once if not several times. I fell victim to my first scam. Is it too naive to hope that it will be my last con?

I was sitting on the bus in Dar an hour early waiting to begin what would be a 12 journey to Mombassa (with only one toilet stop I might add). This was not the same tourist bus company I'd come down on by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, when I bought the bus ticket, the seller seemed surprised to see my freckly, burnt face.

The few seats that had arm rests were permanently in recline mode. The upholstery was ripped and stained. The knobs on the windows were all missing. The filthy floor was scary. And the windows which could be opened and shut involved moving the entire frame. Fortunately, I knew not to expect air con or a toilet as there hadn't been either on the way down. And that was on the "luxury" coach.

A nicely dressed man with excellent English came up to me, introducing himself as the conductor. He asked me how I was, where I came from etc. and then proceeded to explain to me that there was an extra charge for large luggage items, i.e my backpack. I told him that when I had bought my ticket, no mention was made of any additional fees and that my bag was fine where it was in the space between the stairwell and the driver's seat. Ok, so it was a mild inconvenience to people trying to push through the doorway, but less so than those who eventually filled the aisle with their giant bags, boxes, suitcases and children.

He asked me how much I'd paid for my ticket and when I told him 11,000 TSH, he said that was a good, fair price, not a mzungu price. He then told me that I'd need to pay 5000 TSH to ensure that my bag was safely placed under the bus until we reached Mombassa. I laughed and told him that there was no way I was paying what was nearly half the fare for a piece of luggage. He asked me how much I wanted to pay. (This should have been a clue, but with everyone bargaining over everything here, who knew?!) I said I wanted to pay nothing, of course.

I asked him why he was only asking me, the mzungu, to pay. He insisted that he was asking everyone with large items. We gently argued for awhile and then agreed on a price of about half what he had originally said. I told him I wanted to accompany him down to the back of the bus to watch him put the bag there. He replied that the money had to be paid first and then the bag would be moved before we left. I begrudgingly parted with most of my remaining Tanzanian shillings while asking his name. He told me it was Mohammad. Oddly, he didn't look Muslim to me at all, and then he left the bus and that was the last I saw of him. He disappeared into thin air, and my bag stayed where it was with no one saying a word.

Live and learn , eh? I guess if that's the worst that happens to me while I'm here, I'll be doing great. I could laugh about it before the day was even over. This is partly due to my friend Liz's warning before I came here that whatever you budget for a journey in Africa, you have to budget a significant amount to scams, theft, cons, muggings etc.

By the way, 3000TSH is less than 4 dollars CAD.

Tomorrow, I leave for my safari. More from who knows where....

Kwa herini.

2006-01-04T05:33:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year!

Greetings from the island of Zanzibar, home to the maze like old city of Stone Town where one can wander for hours among the narrrow, windy streets and gaze at the famously decorated doorways. Home too to some stunningly beautiful beaches with turquoise waters peppered with dhows bringing in their catches while the local women in their colourful dress meet them to collect the fish and seaweed.

Our sunset cruise the other night was in an old dhow captained by a mzee (a term of respect for an old man) who was nearly deaf and spoke not a word of English and who kept yelling at his crewman because he couldn't hear what he was saying. This old man had been fishing for decades, but had grown to appreciate the quick, easy money the tourists could provide; much more reliable than fish and a lot less work...

We were three passengers: Kevin, me and a Dutch woman we'd become friendly with. We set sail about an hour before sunset and had head out quite far into the waning light when Kevin suggested we turn around as we'd be able to see the sun actually set on the return voyage. I think they were thinking we'd turn back only after the sun had set...

The crewman quickly changed the sail and nearly bopped our Dutch friend on the head narrowly missing the chance to throw her into the waves. The sunset was spectacular; the sun sank slowly down in a great flaming ball of orange leaving a heavenly light playing on the underside of the clouds that you wouldn't believe could be real unless you saw it with your own eyes. As if that weren't enough, flocks of pure white egrets flew past us to return to their nightly roosts and shortly thereafter, the bats began their short journey across the water from one of the smaller outlying islands. It was incredibly beautiful. Then it was dark, and we were still quite a distance from shore. It was a very Hemingway moment as we finally pulled into the dim lights of the small fishing village just on the edge of town.

Today we visited a small aquarium where a number of green and hawsbill turtles are kept in a large tidal affected pool. We fed the green ones some seaweed while the hawsbills went after handfulls of tiny fish. We could "pet" them as we fed them; they were so graceful, peaceful and beautiful...This aquarium works with the local community to fence off any nests of turtle eggs found on the beach. Then from every nest of 90 to 120 eggs, the aquarium takes 10, 9 of which are released once the hatchlings have a minute chance of survival. The 10th is kept for the aquarium, eventually to be released after sexual maturity at age 30 or so. An amazing program.

A glimpse into a different world...Sitting at a local eatery without a tourist in sight, Kevin and I devoured a feast of delicious, local dishes. The stained, greasy walls around the place were literally crumbling around us; but the owner had taken careful care to decorate with a few posters: 2 were of some Italian football teams, one was of American basketball stars Kobe Bryant and Shaq (Kev had to tell me who they were) and in the corner, a picture of Saddam Hussein! Talk about a clash of cultures...

I will now be on my own briefly until I meet my friend Liz in Nairobi in a couple days for a safari. It will be after I have marveled at giraffes, lions, elephants, antelopes, and flamingos (to name a few) that I write again.

Until then,

Kwa Herini

2005-12-27T22:39:00.000-08:00

Entry 15

My last blog from Kenya’s south coast. Despite my wanderlust, leaving home is never easy, is it? (Even if the packing is much easier than the last time.) And Diani Beach has been my home for these last 3 months. I have learned so much—about primates in general, about colobus in particular, about conservation, about Kenyans, about me…Although it has been a strange home in many ways, replete with challenges such as living in the same space I work in, witnessing first hand on a daily basis the pros and cons of a thriving tourist trade on the local people and their cultures, dealing with room mates with whom I have little in common, being unable to sleep anywhere near as much as I’d like or need, and being bombarded night after night (for at least the last 4 consecutive nights) by the incessant resonating bass of Kim 4 Love’s all night Xmas to New Year’s beach parties next door, I have come to appreciate what this unique home has offered me.

I have been lucky to get to know some wonderful people here, so I am loathe to leave these newly fomented relationships. I like the familiarity that comes with being in a small place for awhile. I think part of my hesitation in leaving stems too from the fact that as of Thursday, I am essentially homeless. I left my apartment in Vancouver going into the unknown, but it was an unknown with an address and a website. Now I am truly at the mercy of chance and the fates and my own ability to look after myself. I know I’ve done it before, but I’ve never done it in Africa. This is where the adventure really begins…Diani has been a good jumping off point, now I must catch a warm gust and see where I land.

To start the process, I’ll be on the road for much of the next month but with 2 friends from home. First, I’ll spend a week in Zanzibar and beyond with Kevin, a friend from high school; then I’ll be spending 3 weeks back in Kenya with Liz, a friend from Vancouver. It will be so good to be able to talk with people who not only know me well but who understand concepts like job satisfaction, reliable internet access, choosing not to marry and/or have kids and vegetarianism!

A brief note before signing off for the last time from Diani. Bruno asked me about the water situation. In a word, it’s bad. Drought has hit many areas of the country. People and their livestock are dying. Of course, desertification is a constant in the north. The rainy season, although favorable here on the coast, was much too brief if at all everywhere else, and people are suffering. Famine is a reality for some here already. The question is regularly asked: Why don’t the people living in the worst affected areas simply move? The answer is similarly given: Where should they move to?

There was talk of one government scheme whereby the people in the very dry north would sell their starving/thirsty cows to the govt. which would herd them somewhere more forgiving. Then when the rains returned to the area, the govt. would sell the cows back to them. There’s obviously a lot of controversy over this; not to mention the fact that even if everyone were in agreement, this is simply not a sustainable solution. Wells need to be dug; why they’re not is anyone’s guess.

The next time I write it’ll be from Tanzania. Until then, Kwa Herini

2005-12-24T05:16:00.000-08:00

Entry 14

Happy Solstice!

Well, you can call me E.T. if you’d like now. You see, my tourist visa, which is good for 3 months, expires tomorrow, so I had to go into Mombassa to the Immigration Office and renew it. In order to that, I had to first become an alien—replete with fingerprints, stern looking passport photos and a fee that I was told would be 100$ U.S. but ended up being around 36$ CAD!

What’s more, it could have been a disaster as early in the week as I was planning when to go and take care of this, I casually looked at the expiry date on my current visa expecting it to be around Dec. 25th give or take a day or two. Imagine my horror when I read that the expiry date was 3 months to the day that the visa was issued in Ottawa—which was on August 3rd! This would have made me 6 weeks past when I was supposed to depart or renew—6 weeks of being illegally in the country. Fortunately, immigration looked at the date of entry.

The process for actually getting the thing was very archaic, not a computer in sight. In fact, I think I dealt with 4 people at 4 different desks and 3 other people at teller type windows. I was passed back and forth several times, ordered to pick up one form here, fill it in there, submit it somewhere else, get my receipt in another location and then return to the 1st desk to find out where to go next. It really seemed like a rather inefficient way of doing things, but the whole thing was over and done with in less than an hour with smiles all around. Pretty impressive.

One of the odder sights in Mombassa was the Christmas decorations. Santa in a big, red, thick suit lined with fur in this kind of heat and humidity makes me want to pass out just thinking about it…And reindeer? How about antelope? And Evergreens? How about baobabs? Aside from the anomaly of northern hemispheric climatic symbols everywhere, Mombassa has a very strong and very visible Muslim culture. It’s pretty bizarre the juxtaposition.

A few minutes after arriving home just I was about to leave for the internet joint, a woman pulled up in her car and demanded that I come capture an injured monkey from her property. I politely informed her that I was in no position to do this on my own and that I’d need to contact the managers, but the phones were down (more on that later). She put her mobile in my hand and insisted that I call them. Okay.

“You must come get this monkey now,” she kept repeating. “Look I have my car; I can drive you.”

“That’s not the point,” I told her. “We have equipment to carry, protocols to follow etc”.

"This monkey cannot stay there. You must get him!"

I finally got ahold of one of the managers, and he arrive in a few minutes. Off we went to rescue the monkey. When we got there, we were greeted by a pack of dogs of all kinds of shapes and sizes including a St. Bernard I felt really sorry for in the heat. The woman began screaming for her gardner who she had asked to keep an eye on the monkey. She shouted his name repeatedly in a long, whiny cresendo that was rather painful to listen to. When the guy didn’t appear, she started yelling at any and all the other staff who were around, insisting they explain why the gardner had left. Of course, they didn’t answer. She started swearing at them and insulting and demeaning them. It was embarrassing to be standing there. When she started on about ...”these f’íng people,” I walked away.

Finally after several painful minutes of this, we spotted the monkey. Despite being high up in a palm, he was clearly in distress. Alex successfully darted it with the blow gun on the first shot which was lucky as the light was quickly leaving the sky at this point.

Roman and I waited underneath for the drugs to take effect and for the monkey to fall asleep and out of the tree. We waited below with a taut sheet to catch it. To all our relief, it fell rather straightforwardly into our waiting hands. The mass of dogs went into a barking frenzy, but the woman shut them up. She then actually offered to pay for our service, a first for me and a rarity in general.

When we got back to the vet clinic, we discovered the monkey had a massive, deep, sharp cut ¾ of the way around his neck, a number of broken fingers and toes, and several other small injuries. We euthanzised it quickly.

This may have been my last rescue; I'm only at Colobus Trust for another few days before I hit the road for several weeks. Have 3 months really gone by?

I have an old friend from high school meeting me in Dar in Tanzania next weekend. Until then, I'm enjoying my final days of swimming, being recognized by the matatu drivers and the touts as I walk down the street as they yell, "Hey Colobus!' , and watching the monkey antics. I'll try to write one more time before I become a traveller once again.

One last note. As I mentioned before, the phones haven’t been working. You may be amused and /or shocked to find out why. Apparently, some thieves stole several hundred metres of phone cable that were lying underground. Half of Diani is without phone service. As most people have mobile phones and not land lines, many don’t care. The phone company said the service may be delayed indefinitely as they have to order new cable from Nairobi, and it may not be available even there. Go figure, eh?!

Kwa Herini.

2005-12-17T02:27:00.000-08:00

Entry 13

By the time you read this I’ll be dancing naked in my room because I’ll have the place to myself. My room mate is going back to the UK tomorrow and the new housemate who arrived last week is in the other room. Oh to have a bit of privacy!

Being around people 24/7 has been a bit of a challenge, but not as bad as I thought it would be. I did try to prepare myself mentally for this before I came. Probably the hardest bit is the mornings when I get up and the house is full of volunteers, staff, managers and sometimes deliverers, and they all want to go through the intricate greetings that involve several backs and forths when all I want to do is ignore them all and go back to bed. I’m sure most of you reading this are well-aware that I’m not exactly known for being much of a morning person. I’ve gotten pretty good at avoiding everyone for at least half an hour; but those unfortunate enough to greet me before 8 get a grunt or a wave if I’m feeling generous!

Speaking of grouches, the male colobus who recently took over our home troop has killed one of the 2 babies, and I saw him attempt to kill the other. The mother went tumbling to the ground while the whole troop started screaming at each other and chasing each other across the tree tops. The baby only survived because an older sister (I think) was around and picked it up and ran away while the mother fought with the male. We’re watching and listening to them carefully now as we know it’ll be any day now.

One of the cutest things to see here are the 5 vervets we have in rehabilitation. They were all either orphaned or confiscated for being kept illegally as pets. A couple of them are still really young and they really depend on each other. When the baboons go by their cage and sometimes climb on top, the little vervets quickly climb into the corner of their sleeping box and hug each other so tightly it really looks like their clinging onto each other for dear life.

Unfortunately, my Swahili teacher has been ill for the past couple weeks so my learning has come to a bit of a stall. I can’t help wondering if part of it is because we started out as 3 students; then one quit, then the other, leaving just me. I’m not sure a private tutorial was what this guy had in mind especially since in our one solo lesson together I wasn't at my quickest so had to keep asking him to repeat stuff. Over and over and over again….

So I spend my evenings swimming until it gets dark, doing yoga twice a week at a local centre, reading whatever I can get my hands on, making porridge for the monkeys’ breakfast, and sweeping away gecko poo. There’s one gecko who I swear has it in for me personally as every single night my mossie net is covered in the stuff which falls through the holes covering my sheets. This would be funny if it happened to anyone else! As if being covered in reptile feces isn’t enough to make me want to change beds, there’s a number of small holes in the roof over my bed which during heavy rainfalls become like showerheads pouring rain onto my face! I’ve woken up in the middle of the night at least half a dozen times now because of the trickle that’s somewhere between a drip, drip and a torrent (slight exaggeration). The resident handyman has tried to fix the roof several times, and each time it does get a bit better, but not quite better enough! I pray for cloudless nights…

It’s another long weekend here; this means more monkey care duties but also lots more swimming-YAY!

Kwa Herini

2005-12-12T08:37:00.000-08:00

Don't you hate it when you take the time to write something witty and engaging and entertaining, put it on disk so you can save a few bob (Kenyan shillings) by not typing on internet time and then you bring the wrong disk?!

Then instead you have to think about what to write while on your feet which is especially hard when the bar next door kept you up all night with its pounding bass as it had as well the night before...Of course, the fact that the hotel on the other side of where you live had its annual beach party disco which only started at midnight and only compounded the noise didn't help.

Oh yeah, and the fact that the internet place closes in about 5 minutes so you don't know what you can possibly say that only takes a couple minutes to type because you have to spend so much time checking your typing for spelling mistakes because after all, you are an English teacher and all your fellow English teachers and a few others will notice if you make a typo.

Oh the pressure.

Back to our regular scheduled program soon.

2005-12-03T01:36:00.000-08:00

Entry 12

You might remember some weeks back I wrote about an adorable little vervet I named Stumpy. His leg likely had been caught in a snare and had to be amputated. He was brought in here about a month ago, and we kept hoping each week that we’d be able to release him back to his troop. Unfortunately, the leg (what was left of it) kept getting re-infected, and this week he really went downhill very quickly, so we had to euthanize. One of the volunteers administered the sedative while the manager held him, and I simply stroked his feet, hands and tail. His little body looked so small on the surgical table. To make things more difficult, he had a series of last gasps and paroxysms long after his little heart had stopped but which gave the illusion that he was still alive. It was quite disturbing and sad.

Speaking of other depressing things, yesterday was World AIDS Day. According to the Daily Nation, 1.5 million Kenyans are living with AIDS. Keep in mind that most people here do not have access to the drugs we do in Canada and elsewhere that allow them to live with this disease for very long. There were 80,000 or so people said to have been infected last year alone. In the nearby town of Ukunda where I email and shop, the rate is said to be as high as 80%! Having said that, there does appear to be a decline in adult infection rates and people are indeed talking about the disease… I should know a lot more about this topic in a couple months’ time when I go to volunteer at another project.

As for different volunteer projects here at Colobus Trust, I was able to take part in the erecting of a colobridge last week. These horizontally suspended ladder bridges are put up across the busy Diani Beach Road that bisects the local forest. There are about 25 of them serving as little monkey walkways stretching across this high traffic corridor currently. They are particularly needed for the colobus which are very awkward on the ground and can’t cross the road safely.

After loading a huge pole (the size of a telephone pole) onto the roof of the Landrover, we arrived at the chosen site where a hole had already been dug. As the driver ever so slowly backed up towards the hole, we hoisted the pole slowly into position. There was one person holding onto a small side rope, one person on the front end holding a counterbalancing rope, 2 people in the back of the vehicle trying to ease the pole into position, one person directing and 2 people holding onto the main rope.

I was one of the 2 people holding onto the main rope. It was that rope which kept the pole from leaning over too far in any direction or falling over completely which would have been disastrous. I held on with all my strength. The sweat stung my eyes as it rolled down my forehead. My arms and hands and legs and shoulders ached. I developed a temporary case of what tree planters call “the claw”—where I couldn’t straighten my fingers for some time. It was exhausting and exhilarating. And extremely hard work—a nice change from the desk work I’ve been doing as of late.

Mostly I've been working on writing and reseaching for the Colobus Update, a bi-annual newsletter. Also, I've been editing the website and working on a French translation of the tour script. Throw in a few baboon censuses, some painting, a few animal welfare cases, and that's my work life these days. It sure ain't teaching grammar!

One final note…I just finished reading an amazing book which I am compelled to recommend. It’s called A Primate’s Memoir by Robert Sapolsky. It’s written by an American researcher who first came to Kenya as a naïve young man in the 70’s to study baboons. He followed the same troop closely for 20 years getting to know them intimately. He also traveled the country and East Africa extensively. It’s funny, irreverent, touching, sad, informative, unbelievable in parts and riveting. Read it.

2005-11-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

Entry 11

So the orange side has won--sending a resounding message to Kibaki's government that they want a fair constitution for all. Nearly 60% voted no; about 1/3 of Kenyans voted in all--a pretty good turnout, I think, and without violence. Now starts a new page.

Last Friday, I was one of 4 teachers (one other with some actual teacher training) to take around a group of 60 primary school students. My group consisted of about 25 grade 2’s and 3’s. We started off with a little exercise in observation skills; they had to look around the forest and find things of different textures and colours. Then I took them on the forest walk, pointing out the different trees and monkeys found along the nature path. Fortunately, the sykes blessed us with their presence and even entertained us by weaving and bobbing in and around us to get a better look at us. I was sure every creature within the forest would take refuge as far away as possible from this mass of small, noisy humans.

Their regular teacher who accompanied us was a bit of a tyrant. She kept barking at them, “Are you listening? Can you hear her? Are you paying attention?” I’m not sure how they were supposed to listen to me when she was so busy yelling at them all the time! She even told the kids that if they made too much noise the monkeys would come and bite off their mouths!

The oddest moment of the day though was when I realized that some of these kids had never been so close to a mzungu (white person) before. Several of them pushed and pulled each other to be near me and to hold my hands. Those who couldn’t get ahold of at least a finger, held onto my arms and shirt. Two little girls kept stroking my left arm and even kissing it saying, “Such nice skin, such nice mzungo skin.” It was a little strange, a little funny, a little sad and a little embarrassing.

I am made aware of my skin colour almost daily. And not just because I’ve burned it or it’s peeling or I’m wondering how I can possibly fit another freckle! To many, when I walk down the beach, I’m a tourist and a dollar sign. I am constantly hit with a barrage of offers as soon as my feet hit the sand, “Come buy my art; come sail on my boat; come ride my camel; come look at my seashells…” Or simply, “Can I walk with you? I want to be your friend."

To many, I’m their ticket out of here. Two days ago a matatu driver proposed to me after I’d been in his vehicle all of 2 minutes. Although only partially serious, his desire to find a nice mzungu girlfriend to wine and dine him and eventually bring him home back to her country is not uncommon. Of course, this is as much the tourists’ faults as anyone’s. A lot of tourists are here flaunting absurd amounts of cash around and many are here for the sex trade. I can’t tell you how many older (usually overweight and unattractive) white men I see arm and in arm with beautiful, young black women. And vice versa. I suppose if both parties are consenting adults and both know what they’re getting out of it, it’s ok, but it still makes me furrow my brow.

This is part of what makes Diani a bit of a strange place; also it’s due to how absurdly more expensive it is here than nearly everywhere else in Kenya. There are many Kenyan men here without their families because this is where the work is, but no one can afford to have their families here with them nor would they want to. There are Muslim men and women sharing the beach and their buses and their businesses with people wearing tiny bikinis and Speedos. And this is all in one very small area.

Riding the matatus is always an experience, especially when you have a practically naked tourist sitting hip to hip (and often nose to armpit) with a fully covered Muslim woman--talk about a clash of cultures...

So that’s my sociological survey for the moment,
Kwa herini

2005-11-12T04:36:00.000-08:00

Entry 10

A Monkey Tale (tail?)

Way back on the evolutionary ladder, monkeys divided into 2 groups--old world and new world. The new world monkey are the ones found in Central and South America--they use their prehensile tails as 5th limbs of sorts. African monkeys are divided into 2 groups--cercopithecines (sp.?) and colobines. The colobus monkey is of the latter--they don't have cheek pouches as other monkeys do because they do not have to eat on the run so to speak. In other groups like baboons, a dominant monkey can chase off an inferior monkey from its food; the cheek pouches allow the lower ranking monkeys to stuff in some food and eat it later when not being harrrassed. Among colobus, there's plenty of leaves for all and competetion among them is less; they are small troops with only one mature male, unlike all the other monkeys in the area that have multimale groups.

The troop of colobus that lives on our property was a group of 10 until a week ago when the male was killed in a road traffic accident. He left behind 5 females, 4 juveniles and 2 infants. Within a couple days, new males were competing with each for the role of father and husband for the troop. We got an animal welfare call earlier in the week saying that a severely injured colobus was seen nursing his wounds next door. It would appear that he and another male had fought tooth and nail over the troop and this guy was clearly the loser.

I'd been told that colobus males were especially aggressive and dangerous--probably because they're used to being the solitary head honchos, so to speak. Anyway, we darted him, brought him in, stitched him up and watched him for 24 hours. The next day we decided to release him. I knew he was trouble from the way the staff gave him plenty of room, fed him by quickly throwing food at him and carried his cage only with bite gloves on.

We drove to a site that seemed appropriate and got set to let him go. I was given the honour of opening the cage and I must tell you, I was more than a little bit nervous. And with good reason. We placed the cage down and this monkey roared at us like a lion. How such a deep, loud sound can come from a creature that size is a marvel.

I stood on top of the cage, with staff behind me on either side and in back of the cage, and I leaned over to pull up the door. I got it up a couple inches and his hand shot out trying to grab what it could, so I got nervous and dropped the door. I lifted it a second time. He shot out of the cage in a milisecond, jumped as high as my thigh--remember I was standing on top of the cage--let out a threatening roar, thrust his full weight and size in my direction, and puffing out his fur and epaullettes, landed. He immediately jumped a second time, turned midair, glared at me and took off into the trees. My heart was pounding. I was sure in that first jump he would maul me--sink his teeth into me and never let go. When he disappeared into the bush, I let out a huge sigh of relief and discovered that my colleagues had run away! (Or were standing frozen in fear.) These are the guys that work with monkeys, particularly colobus, all the time! Amazing how one monkey could leave 5 humans quaking in their sandals. It took a few minutes before we could laugh but laugh we did-- a lot!

Now we are monitering the troop all day, every day to see if the male which won the fight will be accepted by the females. If he is, it is certain that he will kill the 2 babies (which are so cute) and maybe even the juveniles. Infanticide is the norm when a new male takes over so he can insure that all progeny are his and his alone. It's a cruel world for us primates.

Kwa herini

2005-11-06T17:05:00.000-08:00

Entry 9

Let's start with a bit of politics. It's an interesting time to be in Kenya. Later this month (I think the 21st) there will be a national referendum to vote on a new constitution. It seems that this has been wanted and needed for quite some time (15 years!), so a commission was formed which went around to the people of Kenya and conducted info gathering sessions and meetings across the country to find out what was needed for this new document.

For reasons that are unclear to me (and maybe many Kenyans), the current government then scrapped this draft (saying they hadn't) and rewote a new one. This new constitution is said to provide much clearer langauge on many, many issues and promises more rights for many "fringe" groups, that is women, homosexuals, workers, people with dual citizenship etc. However, critics say it gives the gov't more power and awards the president's tribe more land rights than other tribes.

The people of this country who support the govt's yes campaign are known as bananas; those who oppose the new constitution are known as oranges. The daily papers are full of banana vs. orange headlines, and in fact, the word "banana" is being synonomous with the word yes (ndiyo) while "orange" has come to mean no (hapana). Never were 2 innocuous sweet tasting foods so far apart in the fruitbowl of life!

Some of the campagning on both sides has erupted in violence (and even death) as people are very passionate about this. I've spoken to several people about this, and it's fascinating trying to understand it all. I may know nothing about what's going in the outside world (I've read one newspaper and heard one radio news programme the whole time I've been here) but at least I'll know a bit about Kenya's upcoming election.

And now for something completely different...

Last Sunday, I attended a goat derby. Colobus Trust was one of many local organizations set up at this annual fundraising event, and so we all made a trip to the local golf course where the goat race was held. It was kind of like going to the horse races, except the " jockeys" ran behind their animals as opposed to riding upon them. The goats were a bit relunctant to say the least, so the jockeys would chase them around the circle, gently hitting their bottoms (the goats that is) with switches. The goats were pretty vocal in their feelings about this, and several of them would come to a dead stop in the middle of a round or worse, turn around and go the other way. It was truly a hilarious site. The amusement of the whole event was only heightened when the "ladies" attending the event were invited to the field for a best outfit followed by best hat contest. It was all pretty funny.

Today I saw my first elephants. They were all bulls: huge, slowmoving, majestic, beautiful, virtually silent animals. I learned that male elephants have 3 basic calls while females have at least 7. How about that--the fairer sex are better communicators across the board! :)

I did a mini safari of sorts to a local sanctuary where elephants abound, in fact so much so that the trees in the park are seemingly all destroyed. One hundred and fifty of the herd have been recently moved to another reserve, and they hope to move another 250. I also saw buffalo and wart hogs and hammerkops--average, nondescript birds with enormous nests, in the v of huge branches.

Before I end today, I just wish to put out into the ether my thoughts for Doug's family and friends and band mates. Doug's blog was my inspiration.

Kwa Herini

2005-10-29T06:14:00.000-07:00

Entry 8

It's hot & steamy and apparently only getting hotter & steamier. My room mate (who has been here since April and is obviously well acclimatised) and I spend the nights waking up after each other turning the fan on (me) and off (her) and on and off.

OK, here's something really interesting (and a bit disconcerting). Mother baboons will carry their dead infants with them for up to 2 weeks! While doing a baboon census yesterday, we saw a mum carrying a very dead baby with her. Apparently the Trust gets calls when they start to smell a bit and the mothers continue to hang around the hotels...

Also while doing the census, I watched a female baboon grab a piece of broken mirror from the local garbage dump and sit staring at herself for quite some time. Who knew?!

On our way back through the bush to the road, John, my guide & expert monkey man, narrowly missed stepping on an extremely deadly green mamba. It scared the crap out of both of us!

As an addendum to my last post, I made a bit of an oversight in saying that there are only 3 volunteers. There's another volunteer: a young Massai student who I'm teaching to swim (and who's teaching me about Kenya) and who's become a good friend. If only he wasn't into drinking cow's blood...

I start Swahili lessons Monday (finally) so I'll be able to post in another language before too long.

Next time I'll tell you about the goat derby...

Kwa Herini

2005-10-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

Entry 7

Greetings!

Went snorkling again today; to my surprise, there were actually a fair number of fish and live corals, despite the fact that everyone was walking on the reef (locals and toursits) and stepping down wherever they wanted.

But instead of adventures, I thought I'd tell you a bit about my daily life here. The 2 bedroom house (which is also an office, classroom, tourist centre, library, souvenir stand, and nature house) is currently home to 3 of us volunteers; in the last week, 2 others have gone home. The 2 still here are both Brits, the 2 that went home were a German and an American. They're all women in their 20's, making me feel a bit old at times. In fact, I was asked on 2 separate occasions if I was Abby's mother...She's 27!

We have about 8 staff people who conduct tours, do marketing, maintain the grounds, look after us and the house, fix stuff, take care of the monkeys, do surveys and censuses(?) and other odds and ends.

We have a cook who does our food shopping, prepares our meals, serves us and cleans our dishes 2 times a day, 6 days a week. He seems to know about a dozen dishes and keeps repeating them in random order. The food is largely western with a couple African dishes in the mix and is nearly all carbohydrates. No problem for a vegetarian. However, he seems to have reversed/misunderstood the concept of the Atkins diet! I never thought I'd actually gain weight in Africa...

We also have a full time launderer/house cleaner/lawn maintenenance guy who speaks little English but who is a gem. He even maintains his sense of humour when the monkeys pull all his washing off the line, get tangled in the mossie nets, rip them and he has to sew and then wash them all again.

Several of the guys are Muslim. I don't know how they can work so hard in the hot sun without having anything to drink or eat. But they say they're used to it, and there's no problem (hakuna matata).

Our showers are cold and salty; everything is rusty or rusting. The kitchen is home to a number of critters: ants, roaches, mice, rats and geckos and the occasionl monkey. I've been startled on more than one occasion to walk in the kitchen and be greeted by something furry.

The constant heat and humidity means that things take forever to dry if they do at all, so I've just gotten used to feeling damp all the time. My clothes are constantly hanging in the sun. And I am forever battling looking like a poodle.

Of course, the climate being what it is means the mossies are a huge nuissance. Fortunately for me, (knock on wood) they seem to like my housemates more than me--their legs and arms and feet and hands are covered in huge, ugly bites; I just have a few. However, I seem to be regularly attacked by other insects and/or rash inducing plants which leave tiny, itchy bumps.

We currently have one adorable little vervet in our vet clinic who I've named Stumpy. His leg was amputed last week when it became obvious that the circulation in his leg was permanently cut off from when he had been caught in a trap. He tries to give me attitude when he's feeling well enough by raising his eyebrows, puckering his lips and jutting his jaw out at me; it's the cutest thing in the world. The poor guy is pretty scared & depressed though; he's never been away from his troop his whole life, and now he's in a cage with frightening humans all around. We hope to release him soon.

I'm paying a fortune to be here today as I had many emails to check...Ramadan ends next week, so hopefully I'll be able to write a bit more often...

2005-10-13T07:50:00.000-07:00

Entry 6

This will be a brief one--a snippet of my life currently.

I was working in the office on the French translation of a tour script yesterday. Suddenly someone came racing in saying there was a fire on our plot. I ran out after him and up the long driveway to the road. Sure enough, the entire road side embankment was in flames. I ran back down the l o n g driveway (really a short road) grabbed 2 buckets, filled them with water and half ran/ half stumbled my way back up the l o n g road. One of the other volunteers was already there and 2 of the workers.

The fire was spreading like, well, wildfire. We emptied our buckets as the 2 workers tried to stamp it out with their feet and branches. We ran back down, refilled and again, and bent doubled, carried more water up the l o n g road. Did I mention it was uphill? And I was in sandals? And it was freakin' hot? I ran back to the house to get more hands, filled 2 more buckets, tripped and stumbled and loped my way up again.

By this time, the sweat was rolling off me in rivulets. My legs and feet were black with soot. My back and arms and hands were killing me. If I were an African woman, I probably could have carried it on my head, but I'm still just a mzungu. The whole thing was crazy. After several more runs up the L O N G driveway, we finally got it out. And only 1 person was slightly burned.

Late last night, I awoke in the middle of the night to the smell of smoke. I was sure the fire had reignited and our plot was being engulfed. Thinking it was only minutes before the house and all other buildings would be aflame, I jumped out of bed and raced outside. All was calm. I grabbed the escari (night watch man/security guard) and tried to explain about the fire. He could smell it but didn't undertand why I was so worried. His English was better than my Swahili but not by much. So I got him to accompany me up the L O N G driveway, again. There we were, me in my pj's (sorta) and the escari, an old man carrying his requisite flashlight and bow and arrow(!). Thankfully, no flames. Someone nearby must have been burning stuff and the smoke got sent over in the wind.

So now I can add that I fight forest fires to my resume!
More soon,

Kwa herini
Alicia

2005-10-06T01:37:00.000-07:00

Entry 5

After awakening at 5:30 this morning (!) so we could catch the monkeys while still in their nesting trees, we finally left around 7:00. We were doing a census of colobus, sykes and vervets and taking counts as well as territory readings using a GPS. There we were, bush wacking through a local kaya (sacred forest), crawling at points because the brush was so think, and not a a single monkey to be found! I think we finally saw 5 of them all morning! All we have to show for our work are the 5 bee stings 2 of our group members got...Were they Killer Bees? It would appear not!

While we were cage painting yesterday, a mother vervet and her baby gave into their curiousity and crawled down onto the roof of the cage. It was kind of surreal and quite amusing to be the ones in the cage with these 2 on the outside observing us. Very Planet of the Apes...

Last night I discovered that bush babies like spaghetti as well as the usual fruits and nuts and seeds. Watching him try to scamper up the pole reaching to the roof while trying to clutch onto a big clump of spaghetti was really funny. He couldn't decide between safety and food, so he kept looking at the pole and then back at his full hands and then back at the pole etc. Eventually, he just inhaled as much of it as he could, and crawled up leaving a trail of strands of pasta behind. Our rescued stray cat leapt up to eat the remains. Who knew Italian food was so popular here!

I hope to be going into Mombassa this weekend and will try to write again then,

BTW Thanks to those of you leaving comments...

Kwa Herini

2005-10-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

Entry 4

Habari!

This may be one of very few postings for the next month as Ramadan starts tomorrow, and the owner of the internet cafe where I post my blog and check my email will be closing early, as many busineses along the coast.

I spent the past weekend on Wasini Island with a co-volunteer. Getting there in the Matatu was an adventure in of itself as these mini buses, the main means of transport in Kenya, are meant to seat about 12 people but manage to squeeze in twice that! It was a bit warm and crowded and smelly to say the least! Two hours with a stranger in your lap is a bit much!

We were the only guests at the lodging where we stayed, and we were treated extremely well. It even made up for the salty showers and the filthy, torn mosquito net. We snorkeld and wandered around this unique island with its coral gardens, endless mangroves and lovely people and small villages. The caves nearby once were used to hold slaves before being transported by Arabs to Tanzania. Now the cave is home to 2 kinds of bats and a couple shrines.

Today I led my first tour pointing out the fauna and flora along our nature trail. Unfortunately, I was so worried about not leaving anything out and including all the information at all the stops that when the monkeys finally appeared, I pratically ignored them because I was so caught up with explaining about the baobobs!

The school group were grade 7's, and they ranged in age from 13-17! I think they were more shy than usual being taught by a mzungu (white person) but they were nice, well-behaved kids who I eventually charmed into warming up to me. One boy wanted me to take him home to Canada--no parents apparently. Their teacher said that there are 70 of them in her classroom normally. I can't imagine. Of course, none of them had pencils or paper...

Well the journey continues, more soon

Kwa herini,

Alicia

2005-09-29T07:10:00.000-07:00

Entry 3

Well, at long last here I am writing you from Kenya. After a rather crazy 24 hours in Nairobi (where the security guard at the foreign exchange bureau was laughing outright at me for pulling my wads of Canadian cash out of my shoes--he suggested I place it in my bra. I told him there was no room!), am finally settled into what will be home for the next 3 months.

Colobus Trust, here in Diani on the coast south of Mombassa, has been saving local wildlife and their habitat for a number of years. The Trust is situated on a piece of beach front property between an all inclusive hotel where rich Europeans have their every need catered to and don't have to think about a thing (and in fact, rarely venture from their 2 pools onto the gorgeous beach) and a local hot spot popular among the locals called Kim 4 Love, named after its owner and lead singer/musican who fills the evenings with Bob Marley tunes and other reggae.

The office/vet clinic/rehab area/tourist centre/volunteer accommodation is constantly a flutter of activity during the day--as much from the staff and volunteers and tourists as the monkeys themselves. And oh those monkeys. Babbons, Vervets, Sykes, Bush Babies and of course, Colobus abound. Nearly every morning, I've awoken to them chattering/screeching/chirping and most amusing, flinging themselves onto the corrugated tin roof and running across at full speed before hurling themselved onto the next tree.

The sykes are the boldest and have snuck into our bedrooms a number of times making off with junkfood, toothpaste and shampoo. Nothing is safe. The fridge and cupboard and oven all have to be locked and "monkey proofed"--any food left outside where we eat all our meals is gone in seconds if left alone. Even if we're sitting right there! In fact, one person was holding a piece of toast in her hand while looking in the other direction talking to someone and a sykes ran across the porch, grabbed the toast and flew into a tree and was gone!

The baboons are a bit scarier but apparently no one on the coast has been attacked --yet. Because they've become habituated to human food and hang out at the local garbage dumps, these baboons are even bigger than usual, and for a creature as aggresive as a baboon, this could make a very dangerous combination. But I've been taught to avoid eye contact with the males, make small sucking noises with my lips when in proximity, and to go kind of limp or to casually scratch to look completely non-threatening.

These guys are so big there are patches of replaced tin on the roof where baboons have fallen through! Next week, we'll be "guarding" a group of campers who will be in prime baboon territory and need to be kept safe from these opportunistic /omivorous/highly intelligent monkeys.

At the moment the main projects we're all working on is the painting of a new cage as in a couple weeks there'll be a day of amnesty where owners of illegally kept pet monkeys can bring in their pets and not be charged. We're also building a "colobridge" --there are about 20 of them spanning the very busy Diani Beach Road. We're also trying to find the troop of one little vervet who was hit by a car but has recuperated just fine and is ready to be released.

The monkeys are really the main attraction here but I have to tell you, the beach is stunning. Only steps away from the house, I've been swimming every day in its clear turquoise waters which are shark free because of the coral reef just off shore. It's paradise--even with the beach boys who are supreme con artists and annoyances.

So there's a snippet of my African Adventure.

Kwa Herini

2005-09-21T01:40:00.000-07:00

Entry 2

I can't believe I'm actually going to Africa tomorrow! Well, by way of London anyway. This will be my last night in North America for a long time...

It's about 2:30 AM and I'm trying to download (upload?) (or is it "rip?") music onto my MP3 that I bought for my trip. At the same time, I'm cleaning my apt. as in a few short hours I say goodbye after a 10 year stint. (The longest I've lived anywhere.) I'm also trying to fit more stuff in my backpack and trying to organize the 2 dozen or so errands that have to be run tomorrow before I leave. My not infrequent nightmares of running to a plane or bus or train with my bags not fully packed and clothes hanging out the tops and sides while leaving behind important items seem to be coming true!

I feel I should say something profound on the eve of my departure, but I'm too damn tired. So I won't yet explain any of my reasons for leaving Vancouver with all my amazing friends and colleagues here or what I hope to accomplish, but I will say that when I next write, it'll be from Kenya!

BTW CHECK OUT THE 3 LINKS IN THE UPPER RIGHT HAND CORNER TO SEE WHERE I'LL BE AND WHAT I'LL BE DOING FROM NOW THRU DEC.

Entry one

2005-08-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

Jambo!

For those of you taking the time to read this; Thank you.

Despite the title of my blog, as I write this first entry, I am still very much in North America. I'm busy buying the equipment I'll need for my year away, packing up my apt., saying goodbye to family, friends and colleagues, planning some of the details of my trip, getting my shots and trying to deal with my fears and concerns .

Last week the big anxiety was anti malarials. Man, is there a lot of conflicting info and opinons about them! I think I've decided to stick with the doxycycline even though the first 10 days wreaked havoc on my insides and I got sunburnt in a couple minutes and the idea of being on antibiotics for a year freaks me out...

This week, my main anxiety is money. How do I access my money easily and headache free from a continent where interent access is spotty at best (when avalaible at all), phone calls are exhorbitant and banking seems to be out of the colonial age? ATM's are few and far betweeen; cashing travelers cheques can mean a high commision, using credit card cash advances means interest charges (not to mention limited access) and cash seems just stupid.

But all that aside, I can't wait to get there to make it all a reality. The planning stage has been going on for months, and I'm sure I could spend another year just preparing, but at this point, I just want the adventure to begin.

Peace Out