The past 2 weeks or so have been average, but nice. School is going well: I'm starting to make friends with the faculty and I have a group of ladies I eat lunch with most days—and we do some serious laughing!
Last Monday and Tuesday I (last minute) took leave from school to go to Nakuru with John to see the IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps. Nearly 1,000 people live at the camp we visited. An average house is a tent, but not a triangular tent like the ones that come to mind—the tents are tarps, pieces of plastic, towels, anything that they can find, all suspended by cables in the shape of a box. It's hard to explain without pictures...it was unreal.
Volunteers who work at the IDP camps stay with host families and walk to the camp every day. During the day, the volunteers make their own work—they talk to the people to see what problems there are and decide how to best fix them. One girl I met, Julie, works at the hospital (she's a nurse) and is arranging hygiene classes to teach women how to keep their babies healthy (they're constantly sick). Another volunteer is building a fish pond so that the camp'll have a reliable source of food and income. To make your ideas come to life, you have to give a presentation to some board, have your idea approved, get money from them, hire your people, manage the site, and everything else you can think of. Sounds stressful, but sounds great.
Another volunteer based there, Shamarie, has come to Nairobi the past couple weekends. He's 22, from NY, and fun to be around. Last weekend we went dancing downtown and walked around Kibera slum next to my house (I have a million things to say about that btw), and this Saturday went to a Bob Marley concert to celebrate what would have been his 65th birthday. God it was fun, too...everybody was jammin' out, didn't matter what kind of dance you were doing or how you looked doing it. Whatever it was, it was cool. I was the only female and mzungu there for a while until others eventually showed. It's kinda cool to be one of a kind in a crowd though! Reggae is amazing.
Earlier on Saturday, also, was probably the coolest thing that's ever happened to me. Shamarie and I went to the Giraffe Center 30 minutes outside of Nairobi. We got to pet the giraffes, feed them, and make out with them! After getting enough pictures, we went across the street to the Bird Sanctuary thinking “alright, we'll see some birds, it'll be cool.”
We were walking around taking pictures of plants and things, when we see a sign that says Please Stay At Least 15m Away From Giraffes...and we're like....giraffes?!? We thought this was birds!!! After seeing that sign, we decided that we were not leaving until we saw one!
So we're walking around for around a half hour following footprints and droppings and all that, when OMG!! WE FOUND ONE!!!!! #%^&&#%&*@@#@#@^!! We were on her turf...no protective fences, no park professionals watching out for us, no idea how to act around a giraffe in the wild! We were able to get pretty close....moving veerrrryyyy ssssllllooooowwwwllllyyyy when all of a sudden this dude walked by holding a bundle of sticks (we think he lived back in the forest on the park) and the giraffe TORE away!! My god if it had run towards us, I don't even know what woulda happened!!! My heart jumped out of my chest, that's for sure. I mean, they're huge!! and they're high up—they aren't lookin at the ground to make sure they're not steppin on any tourists!
So basically, we almost died.
It was amazing, though. And later, we found out that there are 9 giraffes in the whole park. There's a 100 acre space where the giraffes sleep, and there're 40 acres where they spend time during the day with the tourists. There's 1 giraffe, though, who's camera shy and doesn't like making out with tourists, so she stays in the 100 acres by herself during the day while the rest go to the touristy 40 acres. AND WE FOUND HER.
On Feb. 16th John, Shamarie, the two Canadians, 3 other Americans (18,19 and 20), and I leave for our Safari!! We haven't decided where exactly we're gonna go---either to Massai Mara or Mt. Kenya---but I'm positive that it's going to be absolutely fantastic. If I thought seeing a giraffe in the wild was crazy, I can't wait to see a LION!!
I'll be updating more--sorry for the drop off. When I first got here, my blog was someone to cry to (yeah, sad but true) but now things have been looking up and I haven't needed such a constant outlet. I will update more though. Cross my heart! and tomorrow I'll upload a ton of pictures!! Until then, here are a few to appease your appetite :)
Jamuhuri National Road/Kibera Post Road = the street I live on.....see that blue gate? i live (when you're looking at the gate) just to the left of it
4 of my favorites
Lucy :)
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