Ryan:
Hells Gate National Park (Kenya) is located in the Rift Valley next to Lake Naivasha. The park is most famous for its two volcanic cores (50-150ft spires) that have remained over time after the more fragile surrounding rock has weathered. Much of the park trekking runs between the metamorphic cliff walls of a descending canyon. The basin of the canyon has been filled with the sediment of cliff erosion, compacted into sandstone rock layers, and then carved (by thousands of years of water flow) into a maze of winding gorges (not unlike those found in parts of Utah).
We were on foot for most of this trip, passing within feet of zebra, impala and warthogs as we moved along. Occasionally we needed to divert from the path to avoid a pair of malnourished buffalo that had strayed several miles from the rest of their group (these buffalo are big and they can become dangerously aggressive if you get to close). Upon first arrival at our camp site, we discovered a hungry resident baboon digging through the trash bin.
This being our first backpacking trip of the summer, it was not without its trials and tribulations.
Night 1 - Back in the states, I had removed the lighter from my pack in preparation for airport security. This item was never replaced (meaning no functioning camp stove) so we spent our first night in the sticks eating dry ramen noodles + flavoring out of a zip-lock bag.
Day 2 – Teizeen was determined to correct our stove situation. After eating an apple and a few raisins, we hiked 3k back to the ranger station to buy a lighter. While we were at the station, the desk attendant asked us if we had packed up our tent, “because the baboons could tear it apart looking for food.” As he was speaking, I was recalling/exaggerating (in my head) the size of the baboon we saw at our campsite and the determination with which it was sifting through the trash bin. In anticipation of possible animal problems, we had brought all food items along with us – but we had not packed the tent. In fact, I might have even left my toothpaste in the tent!
Our day already slipping by us, we decided to rent mountain bikes, race back to the camp site, pack/hide the tent, and continue the rest of our day trip on wheels.
Back at the campsite no damage to the tent – whew! But the baboon was right there – it was looking at us – and I knew it was thinking about causing trouble - I could see it on its chubby baboon face!
So we packed up everything.
Question to self: “Now that we have packed all our stuff, where do we hide it so that the baboon won’t run off with it?” Well the obvious answer was to hang/lock our packs inside the filthy smelly pit latrine. Teizeen does not like this idea but reluctantly goes along with it.
Ryan: “Ok – problem solved – let’s get to the good stuff!”
Teizeen: “My bike has a flat tire”
Doh!
We take a second trip back to the ranger station &, after a brief disgruntled exchange with the rental folks, get a new bike for Teizeen. Finally, by around 12:00, we are off to the canyons.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Carnivorous Trees
Teizeen:
Carnivorous trees: trees that kill other trees – they grow around an existing tree, extending their root system like tentacles suffocating the older trees and eventually enveloping the whole tree with new bark. Meanwhile, the older tree slowly withers and dies, leaving a hollow interior inside the new tree, which flourishes. The whole process can take more than 100 years. Kakamega Forest is famous for these carnivorous trees, along with Colobus monkeys and hundreds of bird species.
Carnivorous trees: trees that kill other trees – they grow around an existing tree, extending their root system like tentacles suffocating the older trees and eventually enveloping the whole tree with new bark. Meanwhile, the older tree slowly withers and dies, leaving a hollow interior inside the new tree, which flourishes. The whole process can take more than 100 years. Kakamega Forest is famous for these carnivorous trees, along with Colobus monkeys and hundreds of bird species.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Moving On
Teizeen:Tomorrow is our last day volunteering with SANA International, after which Ryan and I have a number of things planned. What this also means is that we probably will not be able to upload any more photos since we won’t have the good internet connection. But we’ll be posting blogs as we can.
We were going to go backpacking to Kakamega Forest, not to far from here for 2 nights this weekend. However, we asked about the park fees local Kenya Wildlife Service office and it costs $20 per person per day to enter the park and another $15 per person per day to camp the night – that racks up to $140 for the two of us for 2 nights! They have student rates, but they only apply if you’re traveling in an organized student group. Unfortunately, Ryan and I, both students, don’t constitute an organized group. My expired Kenyan passport might get me resident rates, but that didn’t work in Masai Mara. So, we’ll see. We’ll pack for 2 nights but probably just stay one if we can’t get lower rates.
Next: paint the outside of the Kiwanis Nursery School (which Rachelle runs). That is, if they approve the design that I sketched out. The nursery school shares space with a church, so the church has to approve the design before we can paint, and then we have to get some paint donated. We only have next week left, so if things move along fast enough, this might happen.
After this, we have a combination of things planned after returning to Nairobi: Lake Naivasha, camping at Hell’s Gate National Park (this is supposed to be a spectacular place with gorges, two extinct volcanoes and hot springs), meeting up with my old friend Libby from high school who I haven’t seen in 9 years, return to Mombasa, go to Lamu (island that has just one emergency vehicle and otherwise only donkeys and bicycles), swim in the Indian Ocean, and spent some more time with my family.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Muzungu!
Teizeen:Yesterday, we were on our way to visit a school for a technical assessment in a rural area about 1.5 hours drive from Kisumu. Before we got there, however, we had to stop at another school to drop something off.
As soon as the school children saw our truck rolling into their compound, they spotted Ryan’s white face and ran in a big group to his side of the car, swarming around it, pointing at us, and shouting, “Muzungu! Muzungu!” (Which is the term used for a white person). It was almost as if the young African school kids were the tourists and Ryan was the prime sightseeing attraction.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Swimming orphans
Teizeen:
Yesterday, I joined my friend Rachelle and her friend Elizabeth for a swim at Kiboko Bay Resort. This is a fancy local hang-out place with expensive food, two small swimming pools, and a view of Lake Victoria. It is frequented mostly by expatriates, visiting tourists, Indian families and generally, the richer local population.
Elizabeth works at a local orphanage and she had a wonderful idea: to take all 20 or so of the orphans, ranging from 2 years to 14 years in age, swimming at Kiboko Bay Resort (in the pool, not the lake). I offered to help out in the pool. The whole platoon of kids was quite a sight. They were absolutely excited about swimming, and scrambled out of their clothes into all assortments of swimming gear ranging from actual swimsuits, to underwear, to other clothes. One of the kids, Sylvester, had recently had surgery on his foot and he got to dip one of his feet in the water while the other hung outside the pool, wrapped in a plastic bag. Sylvester played catch with a ball for over a half hour in that position, with the other kids who were in the pool, the smile from his face never fading.
One of the staff tapped Elizabeth on the shoulder and asked her, “Are they all swimming? How many are there? There is a fee, you know.” Elizabeth assured him that she had talked to the manager about bringing all the kids over and was well aware of the fee, and would count the kids and tell him how many there were.
Almost everyone in the resort, lounging in chairs around the pool, stared at us and the kids splashing and screaming in the pool, having the time of their life. We pretty much took over the pool space. But the kids had no idea that people were staring. They simply had a blast. They even got soda pops.
Yesterday, I joined my friend Rachelle and her friend Elizabeth for a swim at Kiboko Bay Resort. This is a fancy local hang-out place with expensive food, two small swimming pools, and a view of Lake Victoria. It is frequented mostly by expatriates, visiting tourists, Indian families and generally, the richer local population.
Elizabeth works at a local orphanage and she had a wonderful idea: to take all 20 or so of the orphans, ranging from 2 years to 14 years in age, swimming at Kiboko Bay Resort (in the pool, not the lake). I offered to help out in the pool. The whole platoon of kids was quite a sight. They were absolutely excited about swimming, and scrambled out of their clothes into all assortments of swimming gear ranging from actual swimsuits, to underwear, to other clothes. One of the kids, Sylvester, had recently had surgery on his foot and he got to dip one of his feet in the water while the other hung outside the pool, wrapped in a plastic bag. Sylvester played catch with a ball for over a half hour in that position, with the other kids who were in the pool, the smile from his face never fading.
One of the staff tapped Elizabeth on the shoulder and asked her, “Are they all swimming? How many are there? There is a fee, you know.” Elizabeth assured him that she had talked to the manager about bringing all the kids over and was well aware of the fee, and would count the kids and tell him how many there were.
Almost everyone in the resort, lounging in chairs around the pool, stared at us and the kids splashing and screaming in the pool, having the time of their life. We pretty much took over the pool space. But the kids had no idea that people were staring. They simply had a blast. They even got soda pops.
Monday, July 27, 2009
School Days
Teizeen:As Ryan and I walk across the school compound, the younger ones pipe out, “Hi, how are yuuuu? Hi, how are yuuuu?” gleefully polishing their English vocabulary on us. They giggle when we respond to their question and giggle more when we ask them in return, “and how are you?”
They swarm around us as soon as we remove our camera – and when we show them photo or video we just took of them, they let out excited shouts and comments to each other, laughing now, crowding around so that everyone can get a peek.
Ryan and I are helping SANA International (SANA = Sustainable Aid iN Africa) perform technical assessments in five primary schools to outfit them with new toilets and as well as rain water catchment systems and tanks to capture and store rainfall. None of the schools have running water, and most of them have simple and dilapidated pit latrines. Leaves are used as toilet paper.
The teacher’s say that diarrhea and other water-borne diseases are somewhat common among the students. Half of the primary school children don’t have shoes. Most of them walk more than a kilometer a day in the early mornings (before school) to fetch water from the nearest source to bring to school. The students are responsible for cleaning the school toilets and fetching water for themselves and for the teachers for use during the day. So yes, there is a lack of access to water. But honestly, the lack of a decent place to relieve one self seems to me, a more immediate threat to health and dignity.
Prawns!
Ryan:
Though all 4 of Teizeen’s grandparents resided in Kenya for most of their lives, her grandfather (on her mom’s side) was part of a particularly expansive and noteworthy family unit consisting of 13 brothers and sisters. They grew up and married in Kenya, had many more kids each who grew up, married and themselves had many more kids in Kenya (Teizeen’s generation), some of whom already have kids of their own (though not exclusively in Kenya anymore). Whether you were able to follow that or not, the point is that Teizeen’s family, especially on her grandfather’s side, is gigantic.
To that point we recently met a more distant strand of the family that resides in Kisumu - a pair of middle aged brothers, with white and graying beards respectively, named Shafiq and Maad. Teizeen herself is not even sure how they are related to each other, but she assures me that they are.
The two brothers run a cotton ginnery and live together, with their spouses and children, in a flat on top of the tallest building in Kisumu (which is 5 stories tall). Living on the top flat they have access to the rooftop where one can look over the entire city and beyond to Lake Victoria and an expanding panorama of dry flanking farmlands and brown boulder pocked mountainscapes. Yesterday, Shafiq and Maad had us over for a rooftop cookout where we ate prawns in perfectly mild t-shirt weather until 1:00 in the morning.
Shafique was doing the cooking and the equipment consisted of the following:
(1) Propane tank: similar in size and shape to those used on BBQ’s in the US
(2) Burner attachment & grill: reminiscent of the old oversized Coleman camp stoves
(3) Cooking pan: a giant (at least 24” in diameter) “wok” shaped steel tilling blade that Shafiq removed from one of his tractors - this is where the magic happened.
Shafiq’s shrimp cooking procedure:
(1) Pour enough oil into the pan to fill a cereal bowl
(2) add chopped onions & cook until clear
(3) slide onions out of oil to the edge of ginormous wok when done
(4) repeat steps 2 & 3 with a bunch of chopped garlic
(5) add lots of beef bacon & repeat step 3 when done
(6) add more oil, then add prawns
(7) mix in bacon, garlic, and onions from the edges and stir
(8) when the women aren’t looking, drop in 2-3 sticks of butter and hide it under the prawns
(9) Aggressively serve timid eaters first
This prawn cooking took place in two separate sessions, each taking about 45 minutes to complete. Sooooooooo bad for you yet sooooooooooo goooooooood! We ate chicken curry and drank sodas between sessions, so that, by the completion of the second round of prawns, we were totally stuffed and wondering how our bowels were going handle the next day. Then Shafiq started a new pan of oil and proceeded to describe the differences between the previous prawns and the ones he was going to cook in the next rounds (round’s 3)! Good lord! I can barely walk today!
Though all 4 of Teizeen’s grandparents resided in Kenya for most of their lives, her grandfather (on her mom’s side) was part of a particularly expansive and noteworthy family unit consisting of 13 brothers and sisters. They grew up and married in Kenya, had many more kids each who grew up, married and themselves had many more kids in Kenya (Teizeen’s generation), some of whom already have kids of their own (though not exclusively in Kenya anymore). Whether you were able to follow that or not, the point is that Teizeen’s family, especially on her grandfather’s side, is gigantic.
To that point we recently met a more distant strand of the family that resides in Kisumu - a pair of middle aged brothers, with white and graying beards respectively, named Shafiq and Maad. Teizeen herself is not even sure how they are related to each other, but she assures me that they are.
The two brothers run a cotton ginnery and live together, with their spouses and children, in a flat on top of the tallest building in Kisumu (which is 5 stories tall). Living on the top flat they have access to the rooftop where one can look over the entire city and beyond to Lake Victoria and an expanding panorama of dry flanking farmlands and brown boulder pocked mountainscapes. Yesterday, Shafiq and Maad had us over for a rooftop cookout where we ate prawns in perfectly mild t-shirt weather until 1:00 in the morning.
Shafique was doing the cooking and the equipment consisted of the following:
(1) Propane tank: similar in size and shape to those used on BBQ’s in the US
(2) Burner attachment & grill: reminiscent of the old oversized Coleman camp stoves
(3) Cooking pan: a giant (at least 24” in diameter) “wok” shaped steel tilling blade that Shafiq removed from one of his tractors - this is where the magic happened.
Shafiq’s shrimp cooking procedure:
(1) Pour enough oil into the pan to fill a cereal bowl
(2) add chopped onions & cook until clear
(3) slide onions out of oil to the edge of ginormous wok when done
(4) repeat steps 2 & 3 with a bunch of chopped garlic
(5) add lots of beef bacon & repeat step 3 when done
(6) add more oil, then add prawns
(7) mix in bacon, garlic, and onions from the edges and stir
(8) when the women aren’t looking, drop in 2-3 sticks of butter and hide it under the prawns
(9) Aggressively serve timid eaters first
This prawn cooking took place in two separate sessions, each taking about 45 minutes to complete. Sooooooooo bad for you yet sooooooooooo goooooooood! We ate chicken curry and drank sodas between sessions, so that, by the completion of the second round of prawns, we were totally stuffed and wondering how our bowels were going handle the next day. Then Shafiq started a new pan of oil and proceeded to describe the differences between the previous prawns and the ones he was going to cook in the next rounds (round’s 3)! Good lord! I can barely walk today!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Photos, finally!
Teizeen:
So, we finally managed to post some photos from SANA's office. They are from our first week in Mombasa. Just click on the link under "Photo Links" on the left - more links will appear as we post more photos in the next week or two...
So, we finally managed to post some photos from SANA's office. They are from our first week in Mombasa. Just click on the link under "Photo Links" on the left - more links will appear as we post more photos in the next week or two...
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Slums
Yesterday, we visited one of SANA's projects, situated in Obunga, located in a per-urban slum. The area has poor drainage and limited to no sewerage conveyance. We met Wilfred, the ‘big chairman’, or the head of the community task force/neighborhood association. SANA has built communal latrines, and Wilfred mentioned how this has really helped the sanitation situation in Obunga. Just as he said that, a little girl, maybe about 6 years old, tromped out of the nearby hut, rolled up her skirt and peed in the courtyard near where we were sitting, and then tromped back in with a smile. Minutes later, a little girl, about 2 years old, walked barefoot over the same spot.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Volunteering begins
Teizeen:
This is our third day into our first official week of volunteering with SANA International, an NGO that does water and sanitation projects in western Kenya. The general set-up is that SANA provides the technical assistance, designs and constructs the infrastructure, trains and educates the community, who are then responsible for continued operation and maintenance of the water supply and/or sanitation system.
This week, we are being oriented to SANA’s different projects. There is on in a rural area, called Paga, where SANA has designed and constructed a water supply system designed to serve 20,000 people. There is an intake from Lake Victoria and a large underground sand filtration complex. A pump house then pumps water from the lake to an elevated tank about 3 km away, where it is doused with chlorine and then distributed to kiosks. Kiosks are open during the day, and sell water to customers for 1 shilling per 20-litre jerrican (75 Shillings = $1.00). This is a tremendous improvement in terms of water access – prior to the project, women would collect water from the lake, which is of low quality, and carry it back and forth. However, the system is currently not running: someone in the community sabotaged the electric cable that keeps the pump running, and 200 out of 270 of the laid pipes in the distribution system were stolen in the last month. There seems to be some antagonistic behavior within the community.
The system is supposed to be run by the community like a business (they sell water and revenues cover the operating and maintenance costs of the system). However, there seem to be some divisions (perhaps political ones) within the community and some who may be against the project. SANA is hoping to brainstorm ideas with Ryan and me to see how we can create a more sound management system with the correct checks and balances to make this run effectively. The idea is to hand all the management responsibilities back to SANA and then slowly phase the community back in.
We are also going to visit two schools tomorrow, where SANA has proposed to construct a rain catchment system to collect rainwater and having water available for the students on site. We may help in the technical assessment and design of this sytem while we are here.
This is our third day into our first official week of volunteering with SANA International, an NGO that does water and sanitation projects in western Kenya. The general set-up is that SANA provides the technical assistance, designs and constructs the infrastructure, trains and educates the community, who are then responsible for continued operation and maintenance of the water supply and/or sanitation system.
This week, we are being oriented to SANA’s different projects. There is on in a rural area, called Paga, where SANA has designed and constructed a water supply system designed to serve 20,000 people. There is an intake from Lake Victoria and a large underground sand filtration complex. A pump house then pumps water from the lake to an elevated tank about 3 km away, where it is doused with chlorine and then distributed to kiosks. Kiosks are open during the day, and sell water to customers for 1 shilling per 20-litre jerrican (75 Shillings = $1.00). This is a tremendous improvement in terms of water access – prior to the project, women would collect water from the lake, which is of low quality, and carry it back and forth. However, the system is currently not running: someone in the community sabotaged the electric cable that keeps the pump running, and 200 out of 270 of the laid pipes in the distribution system were stolen in the last month. There seems to be some antagonistic behavior within the community.
The system is supposed to be run by the community like a business (they sell water and revenues cover the operating and maintenance costs of the system). However, there seem to be some divisions (perhaps political ones) within the community and some who may be against the project. SANA is hoping to brainstorm ideas with Ryan and me to see how we can create a more sound management system with the correct checks and balances to make this run effectively. The idea is to hand all the management responsibilities back to SANA and then slowly phase the community back in.
We are also going to visit two schools tomorrow, where SANA has proposed to construct a rain catchment system to collect rainwater and having water available for the students on site. We may help in the technical assessment and design of this sytem while we are here.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The first two weeks
Teizeen:
Our first two weeks in Kenya have been a whirlwind of family visits with a little bit of touristy activities scattered in between. Our stay in Mombasa, where most of my family is, was a little brief since we wanted to go on a safari to Masai Mara (one of Kenya’s most famous national parks) – the rates go up in July, so we managed to squeeze in a 4-day trip to the park and are now in Nairobi.
My grandfather (mom’s dad) had 13 brothers and sisters, all of whom have their own families, so that makes for a large extended family. We received warm welcomes from everyone as well as lots of good food! I have been speaking more Gujarati in the last two weeks then I probably have all of this year so far, and it is good to feel that I haven’t totally lost fluency in it. However, this also means that a lot of the time, Ryan has been surrounded by Gujarati speakers and doesn’t have much of a clue about what is going on. However, he has learnt one important Gujarati phrase: Khabernathi = I don’t know. This has turned out to be a very useful phrase and has elicited some humorous laughs, especially when he says it with his hands turned outward, looking confused.
Masai Mara was an interesting experience. The African savannah is beautiful, with rolling grasslands peppered with broad trees. We were able to see the most of the big game: lions, cheetahs, wildebeest, elephants, giraffes, impalas, ostriches, rhinos, crocodiles and lots of other deer like species and birds. The two we missed were rhinos and leopards, which are a rare sight. We traveled in a safari van, which has a hatch on the top that lifts up so you can stand up and poke your head out. We were able to get within a couple feet of the cheetah’s and lions. It was a little disturbing to see how familiar the ‘wild’ animals have become to cars and people, allowing us to get so close.
We leave for Kisumu tomorrow by bus, which is our main destination where we are volunteering. Things are informally organized at the moment, so it will be interesting to see how things pan out.
Our first two weeks in Kenya have been a whirlwind of family visits with a little bit of touristy activities scattered in between. Our stay in Mombasa, where most of my family is, was a little brief since we wanted to go on a safari to Masai Mara (one of Kenya’s most famous national parks) – the rates go up in July, so we managed to squeeze in a 4-day trip to the park and are now in Nairobi.
My grandfather (mom’s dad) had 13 brothers and sisters, all of whom have their own families, so that makes for a large extended family. We received warm welcomes from everyone as well as lots of good food! I have been speaking more Gujarati in the last two weeks then I probably have all of this year so far, and it is good to feel that I haven’t totally lost fluency in it. However, this also means that a lot of the time, Ryan has been surrounded by Gujarati speakers and doesn’t have much of a clue about what is going on. However, he has learnt one important Gujarati phrase: Khabernathi = I don’t know. This has turned out to be a very useful phrase and has elicited some humorous laughs, especially when he says it with his hands turned outward, looking confused.
Masai Mara was an interesting experience. The African savannah is beautiful, with rolling grasslands peppered with broad trees. We were able to see the most of the big game: lions, cheetahs, wildebeest, elephants, giraffes, impalas, ostriches, rhinos, crocodiles and lots of other deer like species and birds. The two we missed were rhinos and leopards, which are a rare sight. We traveled in a safari van, which has a hatch on the top that lifts up so you can stand up and poke your head out. We were able to get within a couple feet of the cheetah’s and lions. It was a little disturbing to see how familiar the ‘wild’ animals have become to cars and people, allowing us to get so close.
We leave for Kisumu tomorrow by bus, which is our main destination where we are volunteering. Things are informally organized at the moment, so it will be interesting to see how things pan out.
Photos Urgh!
Hundreds of photos + sluggish internet connections = no photos online. I have asked around, but it seems like there are limited options in terms of speedier internet connections. I tried to upload just five photos the other day, and my patience didn’t last long enough to let it finish uploading. It could take hours to upload just 30 photos or so. In most cases, we are paying per minute for the internet, so the toll can add up fast.
So, apologies for no photos so far.
So, apologies for no photos so far.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
We're off!
Teizeen:
With more than 24 hours of travel ahead of us, including one stop in Atlanta and another in Dubai, we're almost in Kenya! We leave for Kenya tomorrow, June 19. We will start our trip in Mombasa on the east coast of Kenya, which is where most of my family is, and then make our way west to Kisumu (hopefully on a camping safari). Kisumu, located on the shores of Lake Victoria, is the 3rd largest city in Kenya, and it is where we plan to spend a good 6-7 weeks volunteering.
Check back in a week or two to see how our trip is going. We will be posting as frequently as we can, though probably not everyday, and will also be posting links to photos online.
With more than 24 hours of travel ahead of us, including one stop in Atlanta and another in Dubai, we're almost in Kenya! We leave for Kenya tomorrow, June 19. We will start our trip in Mombasa on the east coast of Kenya, which is where most of my family is, and then make our way west to Kisumu (hopefully on a camping safari). Kisumu, located on the shores of Lake Victoria, is the 3rd largest city in Kenya, and it is where we plan to spend a good 6-7 weeks volunteering.
Check back in a week or two to see how our trip is going. We will be posting as frequently as we can, though probably not everyday, and will also be posting links to photos online.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
