Trains, planes, and matatus

I know I know, its been forever since I made a post.  At this point, I probably have lost all of my 10 readers with the exception of my mom and my friends who hate their jobs and spend all day online reading whatever they can find.  I like to think that I will be able to post more frequently this term and maybe gain some new readers.

Almost the entire month of August I was on the road praying not to die in a matatu.  Here is a recap of the month’s travels:

The first week of August I attended a training workshop about permaculture which in short is about sustainable farming and agriculture related things.  I really just signed up for it because it was a way to stay in a nice hotel, eat some free food and catch up with other volunteers.  It was a small group of volunteers and I was the only one from the deaf education sector.  It was a great opportunity to get to know some other volunteers.  The actual workshop was surprisingly interesting.  I wouldn’t mind making my own garden but I’m sure my favorite little neighbor (Nestor) would find some way to destroy it.  After the workshop I briefly went back to my site for a few days before heading to Loitokitok to visit my host family.

The journey from Maua to Loitokitok is a long one.  I had to change vehicles many times.  The whole trip took about 12 hours.  But it was great to get down there and see the family.  Almost immediately my little brothers started a pillow fight.  It was great.  All they wanted to do was play, play, play and after three days I was exhausted.  While it was nice to see the family, it was weird going back to Loitokitok in the sense that all of my volunteer friends weren’t there.  It was similar to the feeling you get when you make your first visit home after leaving for college.  Additionally, Loitokitok is suffering from substantial drought.  It has not rained since my training group was there ten months ago.  All of the plants were dead and there was so much dust.  It was almost like stepping in brown snow.

I left Loitokitok EARLY on the 14th with my momma.  She was going to Nakuru to see her family so we traveled to Nairobi together.  I was going to Nairobi to get on the train and head to Mombasa.  I was not looking forward to riding the train as Loitokitok is between Nairobi and Mombasa and I had to back track to Nairobi only to wait around all day to take the train that night when I could have been in Mombasa that afternoon.  But I had already told my friend I would and she had already bought the tickets.

The train wasn’t that bad at all.  It was actually quite charming.  We traveled first class which consisted of a small room with a closet, a sink and two beds.  We passed the time by staring out the window in the darkness surrounding one of the slums of Nairobi.  At 8 the dinner bell rang and we headed to the restaurant car.  We sat down next to two individuals who worked in Nairobi.  One girl was from Greece and she worked for an NGO.  I can’t remember her name but she gave us a newspaper that was created by school children.  The guy was from Germany and his name was Gustav.  He owns his own business in Nairobi.  We talked about German food and I told him how Wisconsin has a pretty rich German heritage and we talked about Oktoberfest USA which to my surprise he actually knows about.  The next morning we sat next to a couple from the California that was traveling all over Africa.  They were also on their way to Zanzibar and we later ran into them three more times.

The train was supposed to arrive in Mombasa in the morning but due to an accident with the cargo train in front of us, our arrival was delayed until late afternoon.  It really wasn’t a big deal because I’m used to this sort of thing happening in Africa.  I just went to back to the restaurant car, read my book and had a beer to pass the time.  It was entertaining for us to watch the other people on the train complain.  Many of them were tourists who were in a hurry and were not quite used to African time just yet.  It just reminded me of how impatient most people are where I from and chuckled to myself because I used to be that impatient also.  As they said during training, you’ll learn to have “pockets full of patience.”

In Mombasa we met up with our dear friends Erin, Paul and Charlotte and we left for Zanzibar early the next morning.

Zanzibar was beautiful.  Zanzibar is an island off the Tanzanian coast.  It is a hot spot for many tourists from Europe.  There were many different places to eat.  We ate out almost every night.  We went to the beach doing the day, walked around the town, and took a spice tour.  Zanzibar is well known as a trading post for spices.  The last day I managed to find a place to rent sailboats like hobie cats and lasers (I’m assuming only my dad knows what I am talking about) but unfortunately they would only take cash in USD.  Many places only accepted dollars and not the Tanzanian schillings, which obviously was weird.

Every night the local fishermen would sell and cook their catch in the park.  It was seafood heaven.  They had everything from lobsters and crab, to squid and octopus and all sorts of different fish.  Paul is a big fan of octopus so he let me try some, not bad at all.

After Zanzibar I headed back to Kenya to attend more training in Embu.  On the flight into Nairobi, I could easily see Mount Kilimanjaro standing out of the clouds.  What a sight to see.

Embu wasn’t anything special except for catching up with some more volunteers that I haven’t seen in a while.  The focus of the training was on AIDS/HIV and how we can introduce more education about the disease into our communities.  The highlight of the week was visiting a home for children with AIDS/HIV.  I don’t have any pictures from that day, but I’m hoping to track some down.

All in all, I traveled on buses, matatus, trains, and planes.  I stayed in four different hotels.  By far the best part of my travels was being able to catch up with friends as well as meeting some interesting new people along the way.  It was great to catch up with friends that I have not seen in a while, Erin, Paul and Charlotte and it was just as nice to get to know some other volunteers and make new friends.

The students show up Wednesday so I’ve got some time to kill.  So far I’ve spent my first few days back at site washing clothes and cleaning up my dusty house and getting ready for the new term.  I’ve also spent a lot of time trying to figure out if I can somehow download NFL games as I can’t wait to listen to Aaron Rodgers and the Packers this year.  I’ll let you know what I come up with.

Here are some links to Charlotte’s and Paul’s blogs.  They both have pictures from the trip:

http://superkeen.com/peacecorpsweblog/2009/08/24/zanzibar

http://zlotte.blogspot.com/2009/08/blog-post.html