My New Favorite Place

Okay, clearly I’m not good at this and it’s been way too long since I last wrote anything. Since Shirazi we spent about five days in Mombasa, came back to Nairobi and had fun adventures for two weeks, then I spent the past four days in Kisumu. It’s been a whirlwind and the program is flying by! I only have about five whole days left in Nairobi total, crazy! Anyways…here’s my attempt to catch you all up on things I’ve done that seem like they happened a long time in the past now.

Post-Shirazi village living we had a great few days in Mombasa. We had health lectures while there and also got to visit a center for children with Cerebral Palsy and a hospital for physically disabled people and treatment center for kids with Spina Bifida. All really interesting programs for populations that are greatly underserved here. While in Mombasa we also got to have dinner at our academic director Jamal’s house one night and his Uncle’s house another night. Literally best two meals I’ve had in Kenya…the food was to die for! Just to give you an idea: chapatti and mandazi and somosas and rice bread and sweet balls. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

I’ve actually been really trying to enjoy my time back in Nairobi as well. The first weekend back a group of us took a matatu out to Nairobi National Park to go to the elephant orphanage! Unfortunately, the matatu dropped us off at the main entrance to the park, and upon asking we found out that the elephant orphanage was about a 20min drive back the other direction. Other problem, the orphanage is only open for 1 hour every day and at this point we were already late. We ended up paying a park taxi driver to let all 9 of us pile into his tiny car to drive us there…and even though we were half an hour late it was absolutely worth it! We got to watch a group of adorable baby elephants bathe in the mud and play with a soccer ball while their keepers told us all of their sob stories about how they were orphaned by poachers.

When we got back from the orphanage we actually went to a “classical-fusion” music concert at an open field pretty close to the Kibera area. A bunch of SIT kids went and we all brought food and had a picnic lunch. The pretty famous South African acapella group Ladysmith Black Mombazo was there for their first time in Kenya and they owned the stage. Also got to watch all the girls in the audience drool over Sauti Sol, a young Kenyan acoustic pop group who are actually pretty talented. They ended up closing out the day with a rendition of Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes and I felt like I was right back at a Middlebury acapella concert!

Other fun things: had development lectures all last week, which were actually really interesting even though I’m not an econ-type person. Watched Friends with Benefits during lunch in the SIT office because someone’s homestay sister bought it at one of the knock-off stands here for 50shillings. Side-note, you can literally get any American movie here in knock-off form for 50cents on the side of the road. Had liver for dinner one night- not my favorite. But mama made up for it by making pilau. Also went out for two friends’ birthdays and got spinach ravioli- delicious!

Then the next Saturday I hiked a volcano!! It was by far my favorite activity I’ve done in Kenya so far. 11 of us went so we rented the Jazz Quartet (best bus ever) for the day and it drove us out to Longonot National Park so we could hike Mt. Longonot. The drive was worth it in and of itself, as we got to drive along a ridge overlooking the beginning of the Great Rift Valley. Geology friends (you know who you are) I spend the whole time thinking about how much you would have loved this adventure. Then at the beginning of the hike we saw a herd of giraffes walking around the bottom of the volcano. After 6 hours of hiking, with a nice long lunch break, and a weird number of Kenyans running the length of the trail up this volcano past us, we piled back into the JQ to go home, covered in dust but incredibly happy.

This picture makes it look pathetic, but it wasn't, I promise.

The next day was Fatuma’s “Kitchen Party” which Susanna and I concluded is kind of like a bridal shower and a bachelorette party all combined into one. This was probably the most interesting Kenyan cultural experience I’ve had so far. It was supposed to start at 2 (which is when we got there because mama had to make her entrance and help with the setup since we’re basically family with the bride) but in typical Kenyan fashion the party started a little after 4. Basically, in short, the purpose of a kitchen party, for Nubian Muslim’s, is to have a sex teacher come and teach the bride-to-be how to properly please her husband in the bedroom. So Fatuma sat at the front of the room facing an audience full of mostly middle-aged women (probably the entire Kibera Nubian population turned out for the event) and watched some woman show her how to properly shake her hips and crawl across the floor seductively like a tiger. Unfortunately it was all in Swahili but there was enough demonstration that Susanna and I got the gist. The teacher also cited the examples of Beyonce and Shakira to explain sexy hip action. Basically the day was a sex-talk free for all, where hundreds of middle-aged Nubian women got to get together for one day and release all of their sexual energy because other than on special days like that, sex is never discussed. The best part of the party may have been when a fairly large older woman got up in front of the room during one of the numerous dance breaks, bent over with her behind facing the crowd, and shook it like her life depended on it. This prompted about five women to jump up and stick money in the dancing woman’s dress—almost like a bachelorette party minus any alcohol because they’re all Muslim. By far the funniest thing I’ve seen in Nairobi and also a fascinating day in a culture where sex is not discussed at all.

Sex teacher in action

Not too exciting after that. I spent all last week living in my aunt’s house in a nearby neighborhood because my mom had to go to Uganda for some family matters. It was a nice change of pace since this house had a lot more activity. I lived with my aunt, two house help girls, and a two year old son of the house help but we also had a lot of visitors coming in and out of the house all the time. The two-year old, Ampakata, cried every time he saw me for the first night I was there but we bonded after I played soccer with him one night. I did eventually figure out, thought, that this family called me “HiHowAreYou” instead of Sarah. They would be talking to the little boy and say, “Ampakata, onyesha HiHowAreYou.” I guess that’s a nice new nickname to add to the list. We also religiously watched the Spanish soap opera (with fabulously well-done English voice-overs) Triumph of Love every night, and I hate to admit I actually got caught up in the plot-line. I’m going to miss watching it now that I’m back to my normal house.

For school we also visited the Gikomba Market, the largest second-hand clothing market in Kenya and I think in Africa (someone fact-check me on that). It was really interesting to learn about the informal sector of the economy here. There’s incredibly high unemployment, and the informal sector, including the massively large industry of selling all the clothes you’ve donated to the Salvation Army and other such charities, ends up providing a lot of jobs to people. You can buy incredibly cheap second hand clothes on the side of the road anywhere here. We also visited the Kenya headquarters of the Peace Corps and met the Kenya country director, Steve, who was incredibly nice and welcoming and answered a lot of our questions. Their office is also in the swanky neighborhood of Nairobi so that was a nice outing for the day.

Last but certainly not least I took a bus this past Saturday to Kisumu, a city in Western Kenya, to try to figure stuff out for my ISP. The bus ride was stellar, we saw zebras on the side of the road on the way there. Drove through the Great Rift Valley and past lots of tea plantations. Gorgeous all around.

In Kisumu ended up spending most of my time out at our academic director’s house there in Usoma Village. It was far and away my favorite place in Kenya so far…like my own little slice of Vermont only way hotter. It’s right on Lake Victoria with mountains surrounding it all in the distance. Our director’s two sons, Onek and Isaac, are living there right now and they cooked for us and showed us around and had movie nights with us while we were there. We had screenings of Jurassic Park and then the much more intense Blood Diamond. Their house was incredibly relaxing and if I could bottle up the whole house, with Onek and Isaac inside, and carry it around with me to break it out when I needed it I would.

The bench swing under this tree might be one of my new favorite places in the world (you can't tell but Lake Victoria is about 100 meters behind it)!

Also started to figure out my life a little bit in terms of ISP. I had a meeting with the Fisheries Ministry office while I was there and got the phone numbers of lots of contacts on various beaches in the area to see if I could study women’s economic opportunities in the beach communities around Kisumu. Still have to figure out exactly what that will be able to entail but I’m excited to be there!

Now we’re back in Nairobi just until Sunday when we leave for Tanzania for 10 days and then come back to Nairobi just to finalize things for our ISP and then I’ll head back to Kisumu for the month of November to do all my research for ISP! Crazy how time flies, the program is going to be over before I know it!

Also, you will never guess what I’m eating while I post this…that’s right fro-yo baby. I have found YogurtLand in Nairobi!!! I am actually not kidding at all…it is the closest replica I’ve found to yogurtland…self-serve with pink and green spoons. Only in Nairobi…who would have thought Nairobi would be the next place to pick up on the fro-yo trend. Most magical place in Nairobi? I think so. Don't worry, I have photographic evidence, I'll put it up soon.