Para- Para- Paradise

I’ve spent the last three days in absolute paradise.  I’ll get to that later but I just had to get it out of the way.  I left less than three hours ago and I miss it already.  But first, there were more shenanigans to be had in the town of Jinja.  Last time I left you, I think I had just finished a “booze cruise” on the Nile River and Lake Victoria.  That was a great time, but the party carried on at the campsite which is little bit out of town, whereas I was staying at a hostel in town.  It was a nice place, but I had been planning to move out to the campsite where there were apparently meant to be more people and a better atmosphere.  So, the next day I packed up and headed out to the campsite for a little relocation.   It sits on a perch above what used to be the Bujagali falls on the Nile River.  However, the recently constructed dam has stopped the flow of water and killed the waterfalls there, and it is now nothing but a big pool of calm, slow-moving water.  This area of Uganda is actually one of the premier destinations in the world for white-water rafting and kayaking (who knew?) and there is a large kayaking culture here.  People from all over the world come to run the rapids of the White Nile, but the dam has ruined some of that.  There is still a very good rapid section, but I’m told that it’s nothing compared to what used to be here less than two months ago, before the dam ruined it.

But more on the rapids later, first the campsite. Now, I say ‘campsite’, which it kind of is, but it has a bar and internet and I was staying in a four-person dorm, so it’s more of just a hostel with optional camping.  It’s a cool place with lots of nice people and a gorgeous view of the sun setting over the Nile River (if I ever find internet at a decent speed again, I’ll upload some photos).  Like I said, the main thing to do in Jinja is raft and kayak the rapids, so there are lots of raft guides and kayakers from all over the world stationed here.  Another good feature of the place is that right outside the entrance gate, there is a stand that offers tasty chapatti meals at a low price.  It’s nothing but a little wooden hut with a couple of Ugandan guys sitting inside.  Their menu offers several different types of chapatti wraps, the most expensive one costing the equivalent of $1 US.  You can get one with egg, tomato, avocado etc. or one with banana and nutella (or peanut butter but umm…nutella) and several other varieties.  Typing this out, I’m beginning to realize that it may sound weird that I’m going into detail about this, but it seriously rules.  If you wanted to, you could live on $2.50 US per day for food.  All the backpakcers go there, and they’re open at 5 AM until 11 PM.  Oh and the best part: right beside it there is a piece of wood with this million dollar sentence written on it: “It’s like there’s a chapatti in your mouth and everyone’s invited.”  Now tell me that isn’t one of the greatest sentences ever.

Anyway, I suppose that’s enough rambling about chapatti. After doing not much for the first day or so at the campsite, I made friends with quite a few people, two of them being kayakers.  One is from India, his name is Bhupi (not Boobie), and he works for the company I rafted with as a raft guide.  The other is Chris, from England, and he is here to spend two months running the famous waves of the White Nile.  The two of them met while raft-guiding together in Norway, and have both come here for the legendary white-water of Uganda.  Also in our little clique were Trina from New York City, Mary from Montreal, and two Dutch guys name Mike and Enno.  I’ve been hanging out with this group for almost a week now and we’ve had some good times.  On one day, Trina, Mary, Enno and I had not much to do, so we hired out these two guys with a little fishing boat to take us on and hour-long tour of the section of the Nile that is right outside our campsite.  For the most part, it wasn’t overly interesting.  There were some monkeys that inhabit a little island in the middle of the river, but they weren’t anything to write home about.  Still, the four of us had a fun time being paddled around the former Bujagali falls for an hour or so.  The “interesting” part of the trip (for lack of a better word) happened as we rounded to corner on one of the islands in the river.  All of a sudden we were in plain view of two men bathing on the banks of said island, one stark naked and shaking his gigantic penis at us.  Trina turns to Mary and says something along the lines of “oh my god I just saw the biggest penis I’ve ever seen” and so, of course, we all had a nice little gander. (And to be fair, yes, it was a gigantic penis, easily the biggest of the hundreds I’ve seen…wait what?)  This attention excited the bather, and he began shaking his junk with even more force, until he had somewhat of a helicopter effect going on.  This caused Trina to loudly cheer at him, and he yelled back at us, and began motioning us over.  Unfortunately for him (and maybe Trina too) we were headed the other direction, and so a proper meeting did not take place.

Two Canadian girls that I had met while volunteering in Kenya, Kiersti and Rilla, were heading up to Jinja from Kampala, and we eventually met up at the campsite.  I was planning on going rafting again with them, but they were using a different company, and it was way cheaper for me to go a second time with the same company I had already used (it’s about half the price to go a second time).  So on Thursday, while Kiersti and Rilla took off to raft with Adrift (questionable name for a white-water rafting company), Enno, Trina, Mary and myself went rafting with Nile River Explorers.  Technically speaking, it was more or less the same as the first time that I went, so I won’t explain the fun again.  However, being that this time around I knew the people in my boat before-hand, it was much more fun.  Joining us four were two of Enno’s friends that were in Kampala, and they met us at the beginning of the trip that day.  One was a woman from Paris named Delphin (I may be spelling that wrong) who showed up for a day of getting tossed around by the Class 5 Nile rapids wearing high-heels, tight jeans, and a leather belt.  I don’t know how she survived the day, but it looked incredibly uncomfortable.  The other was a man from Barcelona named Jose (stereotypes for the win) and was simultaneously awesome and infuriating.  He was awesome because his English was terrible, he had a stereotypical Barcelona accent (Barthhhhelona), and said “oye-oye-oye” at least a couple dozen times throughout the day, and it came off like a catchphrase.  He was infuriating because our raft-guide would be shouting at us to paddle, and Jose would completely stop and turn around to continue carrying on his conversation.  Now, ok, being sociable is fine, 90% of the day was socializing, but when the guide tells you to paddle, you fucking paddle.  Regardless, it was an extremely fun day full of nasty spills and gigantic gulps of Nile water.  We finished it off by relaxing back at the campsite with beers.

And now on to the indescribable glory that was my last few days.  Near the take-out of the raft trip i.e. where you finish and get out of the water, there is a sizable island in the middle of the river which is inhabited by a small contingent of die-hard kayakers. I noticed their kayaks leaning on trees on the banks of this island the first time I went rafting and resolved to look into it.  A little research revealed that this was an island called the Hairy Lemon and it is legitimately one of the greatest places on Earth.  For $26 US a night ($22 for camping) you can stay on this little slice of heaven, everything included.  It is owned by a kayaker named Paul, and is inhabited because of its proximity to the world famous surfing wave known as The Nile Special (“surfing” meaning kayak surfing).  Kayakers from around the world gather here to spend months surfing and throwing tricks on this one wave on the Nile River, and staying at the Hairy Lemon puts you a ten-minute paddle from it.  The alternative is to stay in Jinja and follow the rafting-trips down the rapids, but this involved a lot of boring flat-water and so most people just end up staying on the island.  Trina, Bhupi, Chris, and I headed down to the island a few days ago, Trina, Bhupi, and I just for a couple nights, Chris for probably two months.  You have to get ferried the river to reach the island in a small wooden boat, and it wasn’t the sturdiest of boat-trips. I was staying in a dorm, but Chris had brought a gigantic tent for his two-month stay, and so we helped him set that up.  Most people on the island have pitched smallish personal tents, but Chris brought a friggin house with him.  It has three “rooms” and could probably sleep a dozen people.  It looks ridiculous compared to all the small tents on the island, but to be fair, he’s spending two months there and I think I agree with his decision to go all-out. 

After setting up Chris’s tent and a bit of (excellent) lunch, we were shown around the island.  It’s small in that it takes about five minutes to see the whole thing, but it is absolutely magnificent.  There is nothing to do but relax and enjoy the beautiful views of the Nile River from all sides of the island.  The owner has set up a Frisbee-golf course (frolf) and he kicks ass at it.  It is a nine-hole course, par 34, and the targets range from garbage cans to specific trees to sign posts.  I honestly haven’t had a better time in a long while just walking around the island throwing a Frisbee, enjoying the scenery, and hanging out with people from various walks of life.  The owner is really good, and in my short stay on the island, I honed my skills a bit too (though I was frustratingly stuck on a personal best round of 30.  I will break that when and if I go back though).  I was addicted to playing frolf while I stayed there, and why wouldn’t I be?  It was a half-hour of wandering around the beautiful island with friends, sipping beers (and sometimes smoking joints) and just chilling out.  Other than frolf, there are also several great swimming spots, a volleyball court in waist-deep water, and two “chill-out zones” with insanely comfortable pillows and hammocks.  I spent many hours doing nothing but relaxing in these areas, sometimes with a book or my iPod, and sometimes with nothing at all, for hours on end.  It may sound dull, but I shit you not, it was amazing.  There is nothing to do on the island, and I mean that in the best possible way.  The food is all included in the price, and three times a day, all the guests on the island would meet for a meal of superb food.  For the second time since starting to type out this post, I realize that it may seem weird that I’m ranting about something that sounds mundane at best.  Maybe it just needs to be experienced, but this place is absolutely magical.  I originally planned on only two nights, but extended it to three, and I strongly suspect that, if it works out, I will try to be back there for New Years and maybe four or five days.  Seriously you guys, this place rules.  I did nothing all day but relax, play frolf, swim in the Nile River, eat excellent food, drink beer, and smoke Ugandan pot.  If this doesn’t sound like enough for you, then you’re living your life with fucked up priorities.  The three of us that left today didn’t want to go at all, and Chris was beaming the whole time about the idea of spending the next two months there.

One of the most interesting aspects of the island is that there are constantly people coming and going (such as myself) and on our second day there, a group of twenty plus people arrived for a company retreat.  They were mainly Ugandans and were part of an initiative to get Uganda as a country to embrace the idea of organic farming, as well as several other goals.  While we were frolfing and relaxing, they were doing workshops and other pre-arranged activities.  We all ate meals together though, and dinner plus what followed was one of the greatest nights of my life.  It was a weird group that we had there on the island for that night: half of the guests were Ugandan locals, while the other half were assorted tourists/volunteers/drunken kayak enthusiasts from mainly the UK, Canada, Australia, and the US.  It was an awkward clash of cultures by one perspective, but on the other hand, it was the perfect storm for a party not to be soon forgotten.  Following yet another awesome meal, the alcohol began to flow and the good times were not far behind.  The Ugandans led a dance-party that I can only naively describe as “perfectly African” and it was so much fun.  At first, it was mainly just the locals joining in the fun, but after a while, the mzungus joined the action and started to shake our money makers.  We spent probably two hours dancing around the fire and attempting to imitate the Swahili that went with the dances (with hilariously disastrous results) before the mzungu “culture” started to gain a voice, and before long, we were all dancing together to a soundtrack that was 50% tribal African music, and 50% tacky white-people music.  I enjoyed the dance-party for a long while, before another activity caught my eye.  The owner of the island, Paul, is straight-up one of the weirdest dudes I’ve ever met.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s great fun, but he’s a little off.  He spends probably 95% of the day stoned, and on this night, he was wasted as well.  He brought out four sticks and attempted to teach James how to stick fight.  I should point out that this was Belgian James, as there were no less than five James on the island that night (no joke, we all thought they were just fucking with us at first).  James was too drunk to understand what was going on though, and after he was tired of getting beat to shit, I gave it a go.  Paul taught me the basics like how to block and where to strike, and before too long he was going at it with full force.  I was knackered in probably ten minutes, so we gave up in soon enough.  This was just in time for the fire-spinning though so Paul was not too let down that I didn’t give it a bigger effort.  There were three different people that had a go spinning fire.  First was Paul, who was pretty good, then it was someone else (I forget who it was, but I bet his name was James), and then it was a Polish guy whose name eludes me, and he was amazing.  I don’t know how to technically explain that he was awesome, but he put on quite the show and all the guests of the island were very impressed.  Later on in the night, after Paul had taken many more drinks, he gave the fire spinning another go.  It was going ok, and then he lit his hair on fire.  Instead of helping him, we all just laughed.  When it didn’t go out for a good ten seconds though, Rilla rushed over and put it out for him.  It was hilarious.

During the party, James (a kayaker from Australia) introduced us all to a shot known around these parts as the Bujagali Sunset, and it is the craziest drink I have ever.  You get poured a double shot of this blue alcohol called Zappa, and you then have to cover the drink with you hand and shake it so that you get some on your hand.  Then comes the fun: next, you light your hand on fire and “scrape” the flames into the drink, causing the alcohol to ignite.  You then hold the cup against your nipple (oh yeah, you need to be shirtless) and it suctions on to your body.  You then rip it from your chest and drink the shot, before finally holding the cup down on a counter and sucking the alcohol fumes out through a straw.  I know, sounds insanely weird, right?  After a couple of those, we all had burn marks on our chest.  Soon, we could take no more, and someone thought it was a good idea to go skinny dipping in the river, so for the second time in a week, I swam naked in the Nile River.

I fear that I have ranted for too long about this party/night of mayhem without really saying too much, but the more I attempt to write about my travels, the more I realize that words cannot do these sorts of experiences justice.  To anyone reading these inane ramblings and experiencing some sort of jealousy, I can’t recommend travel enough.  No matter where I go, I meet amazing people and have indescribable experiences.  You don’t need to have a plan at all or even that much money.  Hell, I had $6000 saved at the beginning of this trip and no clue what I would be doing in Africa.  Yet here I am, living the cheapest lifestyle possible (basically, this trip ends when I run out of money), yet randomly stumbling upon an amazingly unique place that I don’t want to leave.  This brings me to my final update for this year.  When I began writing this post yesterday, I was intending to head to Kampala for a few days and eventually into Rwanda for a bit.  However, this would mean that I would be god-knows-where for Christmas and likely alone.  I had always wanted to be somewhere that I enjoyed and knew for Christmas Day and possibly New Years, and I found that in the Hairy Lemon.  I don’t have to fly to South Africa to meet Hillary until January 11^th, so I have changed my plan to the following: I will head to The Hairy Lemon tomorrow and (assuming there is vacancy) stay there for the next two weeks approximately.  It is very slightly over my budget, but it’s only for two weeks and I feel that having a home away from home for the next little while will be worth it.  I plan on staying there until at least January 2^nd, which still leaves me over a week to explore Kampala, the southern bit of Uganda, and dip into the supposedly fascinating but expensive Rwanda for a few days, before returning to Entebbe to catch a flight to Cape Town. 

So, for those that care, it looks like this will be the last 8900 Miles post for 2011.  Have a safe and merry Christmas, and I will see you in the New Year.  I’m off to spend the next two weeks doing virtually nothing on a tiny little island in the middle of the White Nile, and I couldn’t be happier.

Just A Quick Message

This isn't a proper post, I just wanted to let those of you that may be following my travels (I don't think there are many of you) that I will most likely be without internet until the New Year, so there won't be anything added here for a while.  I have one big entry nearly completed which details the last week or so of my Ugandan adventure, but I may not get the time/internet connectivity to finish it and post it before I return to my little paradise for two weeks.  For those interested, there is a little island called The Hairy Lemon in the middle of the Nile River and it's amazing.  I spent a few days there but I think I will return to spend Christmas and maybe New Years there.  There is no electricity or internet so I will be off the grid for a little bit.  I may post my latest entry if I finish it by tonight and if my hostel's network gets back online, but if I don't, have a great Christmas and I'll see you in 2012.

Welcome to Uganda, You're Under Arrest! (Also You Have No Money)

I bought a bus ticket from Nairobi to Jinja, Uganda for last Friday night, leaving at 7:00 PM and taking approximately 13 hours.  My departure on Friday didn’t go as planned though.  I arranged for a taxi to pick me up at 5:00, thinking I was playing it safe.  However, Nairobi can potentially have absolutely horrendous traffic, and on Friday evening, the perfect storm took place.  Apparently there was a graduation ceremony taking place on Friday afternoon at the university, so the usually pretty bad Friday evening traffic was made even worse.  Also, it started to rain pretty much the second that I left Regina’s, which made the traffic even worse (because most of the roads are in pretty bad shape and impossible to navigate when it’s raining, and it was pouring down). Pretty much as soon as I left in my taxi, we hit gridlock traffic.  After a while it became clear that I was not going to make my bus, which means I had lost out on $23 (though I was later reimbursed for half the ticket price).  It was supposed to cost me $13 for the taxi to take me downtown, but I instead paid $30 to be stuck in traffic for two hours and return back to Regina’s for one more night.  I was really pissed off, but there was nothing I could do except plan better the next day.  I bought a ticket for the next night, Saturday, and this time arranged a taxi for 3:45PM.  On Saturday though, there was virtually no traffic.  I had arranged for my favourite taxi driver too, Ken, and he wasn’t really in much of a rush to get anywhere else for a little while, so I was able to spend some of the time before my bus left driving around downtown Nairobi in his car.  It was actually kind of nice because every time I had gone downtown before that I was dropped off at the bus stop, went directly to where I needed to go, then back to the bus stop and away from the city centre.  It’s not exactly recommended to wander around Nairobi unattended, so I hadn’t really seen the city properly.  Driving around in Ken’s taxi though, I got to see the city from an angle I hadn’t previously, and I grew to really appreciate it for what it was during that car ride.

When I got to the bus station, I still had about two hours to wait.  I didn’t know what to do with myself and it was really awkward.  Here I was, a very white mzungu, waiting in a bus station with a bunch of Africans, and I’m lugging around my gigantic backpack containing all my worldly possessions.  For two hours I was basically a zoo exhibit and I kept nervously checking my valuables.  7:00 came soon enough though and I was surprised that nothing went wrong.  I didn’t get anything stolen and the bus was actually (amazingly) on time.  It wasn’t the most luxurious bus in the world but I was definitely expecting worse.  I settled in for my 13-hour overnight journey and we were off.  The seat next to me was free for half the ride which was pretty nice.  I tried in vain to get some sleep but it wasn’t happening.  The seat was comfortable and all, but the roads in Kenya are pretty bumpy.  Every time I was getting close to dosing off, we hit a gigantic pothole or something, and I was jolted awake.  I was so tired but just couldn’t sleep.  It was stupid of me to expect that I’d be able to honestly, but so it goes.

We got to the border at about 5:30AM and I exited the bus with my passport, ready for a routine border-crossing.  What happened next was anything but.  When I gave them my passport, the person behind the glass put it to the side and said something to the other worker in Swahili.  I didn’t know what was going on but I figured they were just being diligent because I was the only non-Ugandan on the bus.  Well it turns out that it was more than that.  They asked me to come into the back room, and this was because I was being detained.  Apparently, I had only been given a one-month visa when I entered Kenya, and I had been there for 88 days.  I had always assumed that I was given a 90-day visa, that’s what it looked like and that is what is standard. Also, I had always planned on being in Kenya until December so I would have of course written “three months” on the custom form when coming in.  I told them all this, but they basically told me that they had to arrest me.  So think of that: it’s 5:30AM on the Kenya/Uganda border, I’m travelling all by myself, and two Kenyan border officials were threatening to arrest me for overstaying my visa.  I had been back there for about twenty minutes, trying to explain myself and why this was bullshit, when these two Ugandan nuns from the bus showed up at the window, wondering what the hold-up was.  There was some rapid-fire Swahili exchanged before they switched to English for my benefit.  I think that the border patrollers were looking for me to bribe them, but I had not nearly enough money on me and when the nuns showed up I think they abandoned that idea.  Eventually, the woman let me go with a warning, and warned me to not be so stupid in the future.  Really though, I think they were just trying to take advantage of me because I’m almost positive that I had been given a 90-day visa; that’s what everyone gets when they enter Kenya.  I’m really grateful that the nuns were there, because I think they guilted the border patrols into letting me go for no cost.  I then crossed the border, paid the entry fee into Uganda (another $50) and got back on the bus with all my stuff.  The rest of the passengers seemed pretty pissed off at me for holding the bus up for almost half an hour, but what could I do?  I was shaking from being nervous and spent the remaining hour and a half of the bus trip just trying to calm myself down (my plan to accomplish this was to listen to lots of BT and Bonobo, it worked pretty well).  I needed to gather my wits because I was about to show up to Jinja, a tiny town, hoping that a boda-boda driver (motorbike) would know where it is that I wanted to go, and wouldn’t rob me blind.  It’s really a sketchy experience travelling with all your stuff in a gigantic bag on your back, especially in a new and somewhat intimidating country.

Anyway, long story short, it was a traumatic overnight journey, but I arrived at my hostel at about 8:00AM, safe, unrobed, and un-arrested.  I slept off the trauma and when I woke I started planning for my time in Jinja.  It is a small town located right on the Nile River and Lake Victoria, and white-water rafting is the thing to do.  After I got settled, I headed into town to find a bank.  I was working with less than $10 cash in my pocket so I needed to find a place to withdraw Ugandan shillings.  I tried four different banks downtown, but none of them worked.  For a couple of them it was because my card was non-compatible, but the other two were just broken and weren’t working for anybody.  I was starting to get really stressed out (again) and had no idea what to do.  I asked a Ugandan woman what the deal with the ATM was and she told me that this happens all the time, which was hardly good news for me.  I needed to get money out somehow.  It turns out that this woman was actually married to a Canadian guy (from Vancouver, small world) and she called him up so that he could give me directions to the one reliable ATM in town (it was actually a little bit out of town).  I spoke to him on the phone and he told me where to go, then asked how I would be getting there.  I said boda-boda, he had expected that I had my own car.  He said it was really dangerous to get a boda-boda to take you to an ATM, so he drove to where I was to take me out there.  It was really a stroke of luck meeting his wife.  They were such nice couple and helped me around town to make sure I had my money situation sorted out.  They were actually missionaries (Jesus and co. were really on my side in Uganda so far) who spent most of their time in Uganda, but returned to Canada every once in a while.  At the ATM, I wasn’t able to withdraw very much money.  I had forgotten to move more into my chequeing account, which was no big deal, I just needed to get online back at my hostel and click some buttons.  The Canadian/Uganda couple very generously drove me back to where I was staying and we said goodbye.

I then signed on to online banking and my heart stopped for the second time in as many days.  I was missing $4000, which is nearly all the money I have saved for this trip. It said that it had been withdrawn on November 23^rd and I immediately feared the worst: that I had fallen victim to some scam while in Nairobi.  It was about 6:00AM back home, but I had no other option but to call home and get them to talk to my bank.  It was really tricky to sort out a way to call home from Uganda, especially with my phone having a Kenyan SIM-card and completely out of credit.  I paid the guy at reception to use his phone and called home, freaking out.  I woke my dad up and we had a twenty-minute conversation or so which basically amounted to “call my bank as soon as you can and let me know what is up.”  There was nothing that could be done right at that moment because it was so early in the morning, so we hung up and I nervously awaited a facebook message.  Anyway, long story short, my bank had moved $4000.00 into an account that wasn’t visible from online banking mistakenly and it was sorted out almost right away.  I was very relieved when it was all sorted, but that was only after another three or so hours of fearing that the worst had happened.  I had been in Uganda for less than two days and so far had been detained and almost arrested, and under the impression that nearly all of my money had been stolen.  Needless to say, it was a stressful couple of days.

But everything worked itself out, so on to the fun stuff.  I’m staying at a place called Nile River Explorers Backpackers Hostel, and they organize all the adventure activites in Jinja.  It’s really not that cheap considering that I’m in Uganda where an expensive meal comes to about $4, but it’s not every day that you get a chance to go Class 5 rafting on the Nile River, so I bit the bullet and signed up.  It was an all-day trip through eight sets of rapids on the Victoria Nile.  I had done rafting before (in Ecuador) but it was pretty tame and I didn’t even get to flip, so I was pleased that we flipped four times.  The other boat that was with us took the easy line on all the rapids, so they only flipped once, pansies.  There were stretches of sometimes thirty minutes or more between rapids where we would just leisurely float down the Nile, and our guides didn’t even make us paddle.  So myself and the three other mzunugus in the boat took the opportunities to tan away our pastiness in the hot Ugandan sun.  We were also served biscuits and pineapple during one stretch.  All-in-all it was immensely relaxing for a Class 5 rafting trip.  Going through the actual rapids was tonnes of fun. If I could afford to get into it back home, I would, but that shit’s expensive man.  Oh also, one of the guys in my boat looked exactly like Ben Kingsley, and his name was Ben too.  This Indian couple in the other boat was convinced that it was actually him, but it wasn’t (obviously).  At the end of the trip there was a smorgasbord waiting for us in this little hut on the riverbank, so we enjoyed the food and drinks as we processed the day of rafting fun.  There was someone taking pictures during the day, and the ones he got of our raft were actually really good.  They were charging $25 for a CD with the pictures, which is way too much, but I bought it anyway.  I don’t have a disc-drive on this little laptop, but eventually I’ll find a way to upload them so you can see shots of me hanging on for dear life.  It was a really fun day, and I wish it was cheap enough that I could afford to do it again, because I would.

Last night I went on what was essentially a booze-cruise on the Nile River, through the source, and into Lake Victoria.  It was a combo deal with the rafting, so it only cost me $15 for two plus hours of free food and alcohol.  (Don’t worry people, I made sure that I drank my money’s worth, and then some).  It left at about 5:00 PM and lasted until dark, so I got to relax with some beers on Lake Victoria while watching the sunset.  Basically, it ruled.  I met some pretty interesting people as well on the cruise, and the food was really nice too.

That was last night, so it looks like I’m finally all up to date here.  I haven’t been very detailed with this entry because there was a lot to talk about, and I’ve already been typing for far too long.  I’m hoping to head to Kampala in the next couple of days.  It’s supposed to be an absolutely crazy city, so I’m looking forward to that.  I have exactly a month until I have to be in South Africa, and I’m not exactly sure what I will be doing to fill the time, but I’m figuring it out as I go.  I think there is a chance I may check out Rwanda for a bit, but besides that I’m not sure what I’ll do.  I have no idea where I will be for Christmas, but I kind of want to be somewhere that there a plenty of like-minded people, so hopefully that works out.  Anyway, there’s my word-vomit for my week in Uganda so far, I hope you enjoyed.

Kwaheri Kenya

I’ve come to the end of my time in Kenya.  I had originally planned on being here until December 18^th, but things have slowed down at the school/orphanage (there is nothing to do) and there aren’t many new volunteers coming in, so it’s a little boring.  My sister Hillary and I will be doing some volunteering together in South Africa, but she won’t be there until January 11^th, so I have a month plus a week to kill.  I haven’t got all the money in the world so I can’t do anything too extreme (I had originally wanted to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro but the cheapest price I could find for that was over $1000, so that’s a no).  I’ve bought a bus ticket to Uganda and it leaves on Friday at 7PM.  It will take me approximately 13 hours and will deliver me to a little town called Jinja, which sits on the Nile River, right near Lake Victoria.  My plan is to stay there for a bit, at least a week, until I get bored and then fly to South Africa.  I’m going to meet up with a couple volunteers that I met here in Kenya, they’re currently in Durban, South Africa, and travel around with them for a while.  There is an outside chance that I will try to make it to South Africa by December 11^th because the people I want to meet up with are seeing Lil’ Wayne in Durban then (haha “Weezy”).  It would be about $100, and I don’t even like Lil’ Wayne, like, at all, but it’s been forever since I’ve seen a show and hey, it’s something to do.

But back to Kenya.  The last week or so since my last blog post has been pretty uneventful for the most part, but there are two major things to talk about.  Firstly, before Cheyenne and Kaylee left (two Americans that I got pretty close with over the past month or so) we did a walking tour of Kibera.  For those who don’t know what it is, well, words can hardly do justice.  Kibera is a city within a city.  To put it simply, it is a gigantic slum unlike any I’d seen yet.  The number of people living there is estimated at somewhere around 1.5 million people, but that’s a rough guess at best (in all likelihood there are many more people living there).  It is located in the middle of Nairobi, about a twenty minute walk from where I am staying. Currently, it is the largest slum in Africa and the second largest in the world (I think the largest is somewhere in India, makes sense).  Every Tuesday and Thursday, some of the volunteers lead an excursion into the heart of this fascinating place, but it’s not so that we can gawk at extreme poverty.  Fadhili runs a feeding program that attempts to help several families living in the slum.  There are currently seven (I think) families on the program, and the idea is to help them get self-sufficient.  It is not meant to be a permanent thing; the families are meant to let the food that we deliver help them through their financial struggles temporarily as they find their own feet.  After that, the families are weaned off of the program and more needy people are targeted.  The tour around Kibera consisted of going to the houses of said families (though calling them ‘houses’ is a huge stretch) and delivering food.  There is also a weekly questionnaire that they must answer (through a translator) so that we can monitor their progress, if there is any.  We ask them how they are feeling, health-wise, compared to the previous week, what they have done to earn income (again, if they did at all) and how successful they were, and so on. 

While the program is surely a good thing for those that receive the food, I couldn’t help but feel badly for the people we were interviewing.  Here we were, 5 mzungus (white-people, or more accurately, English-speaking people) walking around this dirty, winding mess of small, crowded huts, entering people’s homes and asking them extremely personal questions.  One woman, a very old woman who was attempting to put her grandchildren through school (a truly amazing individual) was crippled by osteoporosis and had trouble even leaving her home.  She relied on begging for money about twice a week, but it was very rarely successful (imagine trying to beg for money in a slum, who would give you anything?).  Furthermore, she was extremely embarrassed by this, and only answered the question reluctantly.  She looked around the room at each of us as the translator/tour guide/whatever he was told us that she went begging yesterday with no success, and it was clear to me that she was gauging our reactions.  She was so embarrassed to have to resort to something as shameful as begging, but she was elderly and in very poor physical condition; she had little other option.  I mean, she was letting us into her home, barely big enough to fit us all, and we were asking her how much money she made from begging in the past week.  Maybe I’m overdoing this, but I felt terrible for her; I wish I could have somehow communicated that there was nothing to be embarrassed about.  On the contrary, she was inspiring.  Her daughter had run away in hopes of a better life and left her mother with the children to take care of, and she was doing literally everything in her power to put them through school.  Another thing that worried me a little bit is the fact that once a week she had (comparatively) rich non-Africans wandering into her home.  Most people here are friendly, but there is a general dislike for anyone white, or rather anyone from Canada, USA, England, Australia etc. especially in a place of extreme poverty such as this.  In the back of my mind, I felt that as soon as we left, her neighbours would start to harass her.  “Why do you get two bags of flour and beans and not me?” I mean, it’s a good thing that we’re helping the people that we visit, but I just know that they put up with a lot of shit as a result, and in the end it’s probably only barely worth it.

We visited several other families, and that was more of the same for the most part, though the woman whose story I went over in the last paragraph was probably the one that sticks with me the most. We had also brought along some fabric to donate to a program that had been set up for young women.  It was a sewing program that attempted to give some of the residents of the slum some real life job skills by teaching them how to make dresses and other things.  They also sold the products of course, which helped bring in some income.  The people were exceedingly friendly and welcoming, and we stayed there for maybe twenty minutes to see how things worked (I had never seen a foot-operated sewing machine before, cool stuff).

Before we left Kibera, we walked up a hill to the “lookout point” for some tacky white-people photos.  It was while up there that I realized how truly massive this place really was.  We had been walking around for hours and were exhausted due to the extremely muddy and hard to navigate “roads”, but we had barely even dented the outskirts of Kibera.  Our feeding program was focussed on one particular area, which makes sense of course.  Standing up there, looking out over this gigantic mess of metal huts and winding streets was an absolutely surreal experience.  While I was essentially looking at the visual representation of some of the worst poverty in the world, it was quite beautiful in its own way.  Most of the people we talked to had been living in Kibera their whole lives, or close to it, sometimes upwards of 50 or 60 years, and it was home for them.  Sure it was dirty, crime-ridden, and massive, but it was their home, and it was beautiful in its own way.  Something struck me as we stood up there and took in the sights, and I was somehow inspired by what I was seeing.  Here were over a million people living their day-to-day lives in conditions that most of us would not be able to stomach for more than a few hours, and they were happy.  They didn’t need an Xbox when they had a stick and a tire, they didn’t need three meals a day, and they didn’t need insane amounts of money or material belongings.  They had their lives and each other, and that was plenty.  Sorry for the sappiness, but it was really something quite extraordinary to behold.  It’s a day I will never forget, for all the right reasons.

We had gotten a bus there but walked back.  It took us only twenty minutes to get back to Junciton (the shopping mall down the road from where I’m staying).  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to communicate what a mindfuck that was, but just think about it.  We walked from the largest slum in Africa, to a fucking shopping mall (with a KFC, Apple Store, etc.) in twenty minutes.  I bought lunch there; it came to 440 Ksh (around $4.50).  That’s more than the woman in the first house we visited makes in two weeks, and she feeds a family of six.  Twenty minutes from this gigantic slum lays the polar opposite of Kibera: a place where rich people can buy meaningless “stuff” and shove overpriced food down their throat-holes.  Again, I don’t think I’m doing a very good job describing how weird this was, but just try to picture it. 

So that was our day in Kibera, a bizarre but unique place.  Cheyenne and Kaylee both left that weekend and so I was temporarily left alone again.  But soon enough, three volunteers from Australia arrived and turned my boring day-to-day world upside down.  They were meant to be staying in Nakuru but their experience there had been very unpleasant, so they cut that short and came to spend their last five days or so at Regina’s house with me.  This brings me to the second “major thing” that I mentioned in the beginning of this post.  These girls like to party, which was fine by me because I have done virtually none of that during my time here.  On Friday night, we played some drinking games down in their room and had a great time.  After a while I went upstairs to get Njenga (the son of Regina, about 20 years old).  Actually I was sent up there on a drunken dare to act gay and try to convince him that I wanted to sex him right up (fucking drinking games man).  He realized (obviously) that we were drunk and rushed downstairs to join us. Njenga parties all the time, unbeknownst to his pastor parents, and jumped at the opportunity to party with some mzungus.  We gave him some vodka, played some shitty music, and got sloppy together; it was great fun.  That was fine. Friday was a great night.  But the real story came on Saturday night. Njenga attempted to recreate the exact same night that had occurred on Friday, but this time brought a friend with him (also named Njenga, he was “Ed” for the night).  Now I’ve hung out with this guy before and he seemed alright, but I had heard that Regina was not keen on his son hanging around with him at all.  He was supposed to be a bad influence or something.  Now, those of you that party will surely know that the best nights are a one-off kind of thing, hardly possible to recreate.  That’s what Friday was, and that’s what Njenga wanted Saturday to be.  The thing was that we (the volunteers) weren’t into it.  We weren’t drinking or playing King’s Cup like we were on Friday, it just wasn’t happening. But the two Njengas tried their best to make it happen and drank copious amounts of vodka.

There had been a little bit of chemistry between Njenga and one of the volunteers the night before (I lie, between Njenga and all three of the female volunteers: Njenga’s not hard on the eyes) which was undoubtedly fuelled by alcohol.  This night though, only Njenga was drunk, and belligerently so (very unattractive) and any chemistry had evaporated.  This didn’t stop him though. He climbed up on to one of the volunteer’s beds (after being forcefully rejected by another) and started, um, laying down the moves?  At first it was kind of funny, then it was kind of awkward but still funny, then it was just awkward, then it was closer to actual rape.  He had this girl pinned and was like slobbering all over her ear while the other Njenga (Ed) filmed it on someone’s phone (WTF?), the whole time saying “this is happening!”  He even turned off the lights at one point, but we raised hell and he turned them right back on.  It eventually got to the point where I had to physically intervene and pull Njenga off of this poor girl.  I’m not going to go into details, but it was gross.  The only reason we didn’t jump in earlier was because everyone was laughing (genuinely at first, awkwardly later) which somehow painted the situation as less intense then it was.  When it got to the point that he was actually preventing her from moving, the laughter faded quickly and we pulled him off.  He then passed out on the bunk above the one where I was sitting, and we temporarily forgot about it.  About ten minutes later, he fucking puked on me.  Yes, he puked on me.  At first I just thought he had spilled a drink but the smell was familiar, and when I realized that was because it smelled like the dinner I had eaten that night, I flipped out and ran to the shower.   It was gross, and that was basically the last straw.  There was puke all over one of the volunteer’s beds, and the other Njenga was starting to act really creepy.  We called it a night, let the two Njenga’s pass out in that room, and the three girls came to sleep in my room, with the door locked. 

After a bit of laughing at the weirdness of the night, we went to sleep.  About ten minutes later, I heard someone trying to open my door, and then begin to knock when it wasn’t moving.  I opened the door. It was the other Njenga (Ed). Njenga #1 had passed out, but Ed seemed very sober (we later realized he had been faking drunkenness).  His English was poor, and I don’t speak Swahili, so it was an awkward conversation.  The gist of it was that he thought we were still partying. He kept on asking me “what’s up?”  When I finally communicated that, no, we didn’t want to keep partying (we hadn’t even been drinking) he seemed upset and said something along the lines of ‘oh well I’ll just come hang out in here with you then.’  I shot that down right away of course, and basically told him ‘it’s over man, we’re in bed. You can sleep down here but not in this room, go to sleep.’

So that was that.  Except that it wasn’t.  We started talking again and the girls asked me if their stuff would be safe in their room.  I hadn’t even thought about that. I assumed that this guy was legitimate; I had hung out with him before.  I then mentioned that during our conversation he was holding a Fanta bottle, but we hadn’t heard him leave the house to go buy it.  At that point one of the girls went “shit ok so he went through my bag” and we went over to the other room to see what was up.  When I tried to open the door, he was holding it shut and wouldn’t let us in.  We barged our way in and quickly realized that the girls’ stuff was everywhere.  It wasn’t soon before one of them noticed $2000 Australian dollars was missing (most of it was later found hidden under some clothes).  We started to freak out and didn’t know what to do.  Our Njenga was passed-out (not even a bed falling on top of him woke him up) and Njenga #2, who had clearly just gone through their stuff, was pretending to sleep.  It was 3:00 AM and we had no other option.  We didn’t want to get Njenga in trouble because his mum doesn’t know that he drinks, he’s not exactly allowed to, but there was no other option at this point but to wake up Regina.  So that’s what we did.  Two of the girls went upstairs to get her while I tried to keep things in control downstairs.  Njenga #2 was playing stupid: “Oh what’s the problem? Oh no is something missing? Oh no what is it?” and our Njenga was still passed out with a bed on top of him.  Regina came downstairs to find her son passed out, nearly impossible to wake, and the four of us freaking out.  We had been smoking in the room (Njenga’s idea, he supplied the smoking materials) and were worried about the smell.  Long story short: both Njenga’s were up shit creek without a paddle.

When the dust settled and we woke up the next day, it felt like it had all been a dream.  Njenga #2 had been faking being drunk and was planning some weird shit.  While looking through his pockets for the missing money, we not only found that, but a box of condoms as well.  That grossed the girls out, understandably.  Njenga #1 felt terrible for letting this guy into his house after his mother’s repeated warnings that he was bad news, and has apparently cut off communication with him. He was also in a world of hurt with his mother, who had no idea that he drank at all, let alone would drink to the point of puking and passing out in the volunteer’s rooms downstairs.  Luckily for him, his dad, Pastor George, was in South Africa preaching, or else I’m certain we would have witnessed some serious ass-kicking.  In the end, we’re pretty sure that Njenga #2 didn’t get away with much money (though we think some was missing), but he had taken an expired ID (good one, you now have an unusable ID of a white female, how would that be useful?) and a bracelet.  Furthermore, he had eaten all of the food that the girls had in their room, and there were crumbs everywhere, including in a pile of laundry (underwear, specifically) on one of their beds, meaning he was either using the panties as a napkin, or he was sniffing them.  Each option is equally revolting.  Basically, it was a traumatizing experience for the girls, and I’m somehow grateful that I only got vomited on. Everything is sorted out now. Regina is finally talking to her son again and Njenga #2 will hopefully never be seen around here again.  Regina opted to not tell Pastor George what had happened when he got back a couple nights ago, which I’m thankful for, because even though he acted like an ass, I like Njenga and didn’t want him to get the shit beat out of him.

Oh and then on Monday Jnenga crashed his dad’s car, which he’s not allowed to drive.  Regina took the blame because he had been driving her to school on her own request, but regardless, I bet George was pissed.  Overall, it wasn’t a pleasant few days for Njenga.

So that’s what happened this last weekend, sounds like fun doesn’t it?  I’m now starting to try to get all my stuff together and trying to get in the mindset of being on the road again.  I’ve gotten comfortable here over the past two and a half months, but I need to remember that I’m travelling in one of the most dangerous places in the world with all my belongings on my back.  I have a thirteen hour bus ride to endure in a couple of days, during which I will have to cross the Kenya/Uganda border (in the middle of the night).  So it’s time to get my game face on.   I have had easy access to internet for the past two months, hence all my random facebook and sputnik posts, but that will end soon.  So to those I have been talking with, if you don’t see any action on my facebook for a few days, that’s fine; I probably haven’t been abducted and sold into slavery.  I have gotten used to being on the internet every day but it won’t be like that anymore.  I will still try to update this blog when I get the chance, and I hope I can upload photos soon (I took pictures of Kibera) but if not, so be it. 

It’s goodbye to Kenya and off to Uganda.  I hope you’ve enjoyed the mind-vomit that I have recorded here in an attempt to capture this place that I have grown so fond of.  Until next time, take it easy.

Back To The Grind

When we got back from Mombasa, we thought that our partying and drinking was behind us and that it would be time to return to the grind in Nairobi.  Well, this wasn’t the case.  We arrived home to the news that Jenga (Pastor Regina’s son) was planning a house party for the upcoming weekend because his parents would be visiting family in Nakuru.  He was keeping it a secret from his parents for obvious reasons (ahh, we’ve all been there…well actually I haven’t because my parents are cool as fuck and never cared if I had a party).  This was, co-incidentally, the weekend of Halloween.  People in Kenya don’t care about that “holiday” at all; I expect that most don’t even know what it is.  But the volunteers got excited for it and started thinking about costumes.  I was looking forward to the party, but the preparation was annoying for all of us living in the house.  Allow me to explain: Jenga would wait until Regina wasn’t there before testing out his sound system.  The week leading up to the party is only remembered by me for the whole house shaking with from Jenga’s obnoxiously loud music.  He only ever played the first 20 or so seconds of a song, which made it even more frustrating.  If he was going to rape our eardrums, he should have at least let the whole song play out.  And ok listen, I like loud music.  I like to “get down”, to “move it move it” as they say.  But he was playing music so loud that NO ONE was enjoying it.  The whole house was shaking.  I was actually worried a couple times that the windows in my room were going to break.  What made it worse was that his selection of party-music was nothing but the same generic reggae-pop that pollutes the airwaves here in Kenya.  I should have introduced him to some good dance music, like thrown on some Bar 9 or Noisia or something, but he was far too focussed on seeing how loud his speakers could go before they exploded.

The day of the party finally came (Saturday) and most of the other volunteers had costumes, sort of.  Sorry to be a party pooper or something but I didn’t exactly pack for my year-long Africa trip with Halloween in mind.  So, lame as it may be, I didn’t dress up. I fit in better that way though because, like I said, I don’t think Africans care/know about Halloween and honestly, I think most of Jenga’s guests were more confused than anything when they saw mzungu girls trying to be pirates.  The party itself was a little bit awkward to start.  There were six of us white people there compared to probably thirty Kenyans and when we first went into where all the action was, we just got stared at by everybody. It was awkward.  We retreated to a little corner and braved the glares while we played drinking games in an attempt to eventually decrease the awkwardness of the situation.  Not Paddy though, that guy is a trooper.  He circulated the room like a boss all night, introducing himself to strangers and making new friends.  It may have had something to do with his costume, which consisted of him wearing a pair of pantyhose on head and cutting out eye and mouth-holes.  They probably didn’t even know he was white!  Jenga had the loud, obnoxious, generic music blaring even louder than it was during the week leading up to the party, but no one was dancing.  It took a good few hours for people to feel comfortable I guess.  Jenga and his friends made food (ugali and kale) for everybody and after people had had their fill of that, it was on.  Out of nowhere, the living turned from an awkward elementary school dance to a nightclub at Westlands on Thursday night.  I don’t know, maybe it’s a custom in Kenya that you have to eat ugali and kale before you’re allowed to bust out the moves.  By that point in the night, we had all had enough to drink (volunteers and Kenyans) that any pre-existing awkwardness was essentially gone.  The Kenyan guys jumped at the opportunity to dance with real live white girls and so Kate and Elle spent the majority of the rest of the night fighting guys off with a stick.  The rest of the night was essentially one gigantic photo-op and I spent most of it playing paparazzi.

Much to Jenga’s chagrin, most of us were ready for bed by about 1:00 AM, myself included.  I was lucky that I was full of beer because there was no way I would have fallen asleep sober.  That house was loud.  I passed out for the next eight hours or so, but when I wake up, get this, the music was still going.  The party went until 11:00 AM in the morning.  I’m sorry but that’s insane.  Apparently people had been up all night, drinking and dancing.  People only began to leave the next morning.  I like to party hard, but wow.  That’s impressive.  At about noon, Jenga finally turned the music off and our ears were allowed to rest.  All-in-all, that house party was quite an experience, one not to be forgotten.

I don’t know if you guys have been following the news (or if this even made the news back home) but Kenya has been on high alert concerning terrorist attacks for almost a month now.  The situation in Somalia is not subsiding really at all so the danger of an attack, especially in Nairobi, has not decreased since October.  The second largest mall in Nairobi is a 20-minute walk from where I live, and us volunteers go there pretty often to get our fix of commercialism.  They have been checking cars as they enter the parking lot by scanning the underside with a mirror and checking the trunks.  It’s actually a little bit intimidating to see that all the time.  It makes me legitimately worry that something actually might happen.  We were having dinner at this restaurant (in said mall) because two of the volunteers were going to be leaving the next day.  We were sat on the top floor and had a clear view of the main entrance to the mall.  At about 9:00PM, hoards of people started pouring out of the entrance in a huge rush.  We all started freaking out, like there was someone strapped with dynamite inside or something.  We sat tight and nothing happened.  We figured out later that it was just the employees of the supermarket that closes at 8:30 rushing to get their buses.  I bet the staff of the restaurant was laughing at the stupid mzungus.

Amidst all this madness, I managed to get sick for a second time.  I started feeling kind of gross on our last night in Mombasa; I wasn’t really able to keep any food down.  So upon returning to Nairobi, back to the hospital I went.  It turned out that I had a throat infection (much less stressful than amebiasis) which is highly contagious, and several people at the house I’m living at had already had it, so no surprise there I guess.  I got more pills to take as well as some truly nasty mouthwash that I had to use three times a day.  The doctor told me to come back to see him for a check-up in five days.  He did some math in his head and told me “next Thursday” (it was Tuesday) which was a little bit, um, wrong, but I went with it.  When I went back the next week, it was the third time I had been there in something like a month, I felt like a hypochondriac and I think the hospital staff felt the same way.  By that time, the doctor and I were practically bffs, and while I was waiting, he passed through the lobby and we talked for a minute or so.  I should get his facebook deets or something, shit.  Anyway, that’s all done and I’m no longer sick.  I’m hoping that’s it for a while.

Paddy organized another game for Grace Academy FC on his last weekend in Kenya, and the competition was much stiffer.  Our team doesn’t have jerseys or boots or anything, we’re like the least legitimate team I’ve ever seen, but you can’t blame us because those things cost money and pfffffft lame.  Anyway, as our guys were warming up, I was trying to figure out who our opponents were.  There were lots of games going on in the surrounding area so it wasn’t immediately clear who we would be playing.  There were a group of boys strapping on their cleats near me but it couldn’t be them, they looked too professional.  They all had Spanish national team jerseys and cleats that looked brand new. Also, most of them looked to be at least 13 or 14 years old (our guys are about 10 I think).  I kept searching for our opponents but all of a sudden this group of young teenagers sporting the jerseys of the current European and World champions took to the field.  Fuck.  These guys were really good, but our guys actually put up a decent showing against them.  We got beaten 4-0, which was a little disheartening for the kids, but the coach told us that they win by upwards of 10-0 on a regular occasion.  He was actually quite impressed with our team.  One of the goals against us was embarrassing as hell: our keeper collected a ball in the box, and instead of going for a drop-kick or something, he placed the ball on the six-yard line (like it was a goal kick).  One of the players from the other team saw this, ran up, and scored the easiest goal of his life.  I guess I have some more to teach them…

A little while ago, before Kate and Adam went back home to Canada, the three of us went into downtown Nairobi (terrorism threats and all, we’re hard) to go to the top of the Kenyatta National Tower.  It is a 50-story building in the heart of the city that offers a great view of Nairobi, so we took some time to go check that out.  It was an amazing view.  Before we got on a bus back to Regina’s, we hung around the city for a little bit to get some food.  A regular thing in Nairobi (and I imagine most of Africa to be the same) is that preachers place themselves in the crowded areas and shout about Jesus (in Swahili meaning I can’t get what they’re saying, I’m sure it’s mindblowing though…).  As we were returning from getting food, there was this one preacher, shouting at the top of her lungs.  Fine, that’s normal I’m used to that, but she was doing the strangest thing: at the end of every sentence, so probably about once every couple of seconds, she yelped like a chicken.  It was So. Fucking. Weird. Words can honestly do no justice to it, so I sneakily took a video without her noticing.  I’ll upload it later if I get the chance, but trust me: it was bizarre.

The volunteers have been slowly leaving to go back home.  At the beginning of September there were tonnes of people here to hang out with.  Some new people have come in, but not as many as before and none of them are living in Pasor Regina’s house.  The last two volunteers that were living here left this weekend so I’m now completely alone.  It kind of sucks but I only have a month left (probably less because I think I’ll just leave early) and if it gets too boring I will just move to volunteer house, where there are currently five people I believe (I don’t know why the hell none of them are living here, Fadhili is weird sometimes).

I’ll end this post off by sharing with you the awkward situation I’m currently in.  Regina employs a woman named Virginia as her maid.  During the week, she is here all day.  She cleans, does their laundry, and cooks.  The volunteers living here have gotten to know her pretty well as she is always here and we talk to her.  Well about a month and a half ago, someone brought up that they thought they were missing some money.  At that, three other people mentioned that they too were missing money, but they previously thought it was just their own error in counting or something so hadn’t brought it up.  After some deliberation, we were certain that someone had stolen from at least four volunteers (see where this is going?).  Some people were only missing something like $30 but Margaret was missing over $200.  The thing is though, it wasn’t just lying around.  Margaret’s money was in a bag, which was inside another bag, which was inside yet another bag.  So someone was obviously looking very hard.  We decided that it wasn’t any of the volunteers because, well, we’re just such amazing people and would never do something like that, obviously.  It clearly wasn’t any of the small children (all under 9 years old) and we couldn’t decide who else it would be.  We counted Virginia out almost immediately because she was always so nice to us, but that was obviously stupid.  We went to Regina to talk to her about it the next day, and Virginia was fired on the following day.  End of story, right?  Well, no.  She hadn’t actually been fired, she had been forced to take a week off, during which time Regina handled the cleaning and cooking duties.  She was obviously exhausted from all of this and a week later, Virginia was back.  It was insanely awkward.  She stole from us and we knew it, and she knew that we knew it.  We had been given keys to our rooms by that point and locked them every time that we left, but it was still very awkward being around her.  About two days later, Jenga, Regina’s son, caught Virginia in the act.  So she got fired again, and then came back again after about a week.  I guess it’s hard to find a god maid or something because that just would not fly back home. So she’s been fired and re-hired twice, and is currently working for Regina, in the house every day.  I lock my door every time I leave the room now (not just the house, I lock it to take a shower) and sometimes she is downstairs (where our rooms are) ironing and it’s soooo awkward locking the door with her right there, because I think she knows that she’s the only reason I do it.

Anyway, that’s it.  I’m all up to date (finally, I’ve been putting this off forever).  I’m not sure exactly what the next couple of weeks for me will entail, but I guess you’ll find out by reading my next post.  Until next time, take it easy. 

Beach Beach Beach, Sleep, Beach Beach Beach, Eat, Beach Beach Beach...

A couple weekends ago, a bunch of the volunteers and I flew to Mombasa for a weekend on the beach.  It’s a whole other world down there and its relaxed pace was a welcome break from living in the business of Nairobi.  Most people take the bus (in fact two of the people in our group left a day early and bussed down) but a flight was not much more expensive at all and it meant that we would be able to save ourselves almost twenty hours of travel.  We arrived in Mombasa on Friday afternoon and it took us a couple of hours to make our way to where our lodgings were.  On the way we had to take a ferry across a little channel and let me tell you, this shit would have been shut down immediately if it was in Canada.  They crammed literally as many people and cars onto this ferry as possible and it started leaving the dock as people were still jumping on to it.  I use the ferry from Nanaimo to Vancouver probably two dozen times a year and they’re nuts about safety and whatnot so seeing this ferry run in such a relaxed manner was a trip.  I almost liked it better this way though; if I have to hear that stupid BC Ferry safety recording one more time I think I’ll jump off the side of the boat. “Welcome to BC Ferries, please come up and enjoy our on-deck services…” SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, we arrived at our hotel/hostel/whatever you want to call it in the evening.  We were paying only $8 a night so I was definitely expected an insect-filled shithole but I’ve got to say that I was quite impressed.  It was very basic but pretty snazzy considering the price.  There were eight of us staying in one unit.  It had four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a large living room area with a dining table and a coffee table.   Not too shabby.  Oh and also the beach was right outside our door.  It took me a while to realize how cool this was.  At first I was just like “oh will you look at that, it’s the ocean, right on.” But eventually I realized that I had never seen the Indian Ocean before so having it right outside my door was actually pretty awesome.  We went to a place called “Forty Thieves” for dinner (we ended up having 90% of our meals there) and enjoyed the beachfront view.  After dinner we indulged in some light boozin’ and then, after shoving eight of us into a six-person capacity (max) cab, we hung out on the beach for a while.  A few of us went for a little wade in the water and it was absolutely magnificent.  The water was unbelievably warm, even in the pitch blackness of the night.  We sprawled out on the sand for probably a half an hour just staring up at the unpolluted night sky, it was marvellous.  There’s nothing quite like seeing the night sky in all its glory, completely unaffected by the light pollution of a major city.  Most people don’t get a chance to see that very often (myself included, one of the reasons I love Tofino so much) but it is truly beautiful.  Perhaps it was the decent amount of beer in me or maybe it really was that beautiful, but at that moment, I was struck by the awesomeness of my present situation.  I was lying on a white sand beach on the coast of the Indian Ocean staring up at thousands of stars.  A fellow volunteer, Cheyenne, and I talked about hardcore punk and various other types of music.  The best things in life truly are free, because I will remember that half-hour or so forever, it was perfect.  Another cool thing about the lack of light pollution was that I was in the southern-hemisphere and almost as far away from my home as physically possible, which meant that the night sky looked completely different from what I am used to in BC.  I saw certain constellations that I would never see back home and the ones that I recognized were in completely different places.  The Big Dipper was right on the horizon, it definitely threw me off. I hadn’t really thought about that until I was looking up at the stars, but it’s pretty cool. (Sorry to all non-nerds that may be reading this, I like stars and junk.)

The weekend was exactly what it needed to be: a relaxing few days on the beach with nothingness pure, blissful nothingness filling the gaps between planned activities.   It was hot as hell and we pretty much all got burned pretty badly (especially Paddy, holy shit he was a lobster).  I actually avoided the sun for most of Sunday, fearing permanent skin damage. The water was absolutely unbelievable; I’ve never been in water so pleasantly warm (without the help of my urine).  However, it was still Kenya and there were people trying to sell us shit wherever we went.  On the beaches of Mombasa there are these guys called “beach boys” (don't they have a new album out? wait, nevermind) and they didn’t really leave us alone, ever.  They tried to sell us cheap souvenirs and drugs and tried to get us to rent various different types of water-sports equipment from them (which I wouldn’t have minded indulging in but it was way too expensive).  The ones on the beach right outside our rooms though got the message that we weren’t interested very quickly though, and eventually just resorted to hitting on the females of the group (sometimes having a penis is awesome).   Myself, Paddy and another guy named Caleb played a game of three-on-three beach soccer against them.  I was sure we would get destroyed seeing as a) they live on the beach and do this all the time b) they’re Kenyan and are therefore approximately 100 times more gifted at football than the average white person.  We played first to five goals wins.  It took a while but hell yeah we kicked the shit out of those guys with our crazy mzungu skills.  They wanted a rematch but I could feel myself starting to develop skin cancer and we said no.  I got out of the sun right away after that while Paddy stayed to roast on the beach for another couple of hours.

On Saturday night, mama Elle and papa Paddy made us dinner instead of having to go for yet another meal at Forty Thieves.  They made us a delicious veggie pasta with garlic bread and there was even melted ice-cream for desert! Our freezer didn't exactly work so we called it a milkshake instead of ice-cream and it worked out perfectly haha.  That was followed by some drinking, including a brief stint of beer-pong in which team Adrian and Adam went 2-0.  No one was up to the challenge of our awesomeness I guess because we stopped playing that after a few rounds.  As the night carried on, Elle broke out the twister mat.  At this point I just stood back, watched, and laughed.  I think the last time I played twister I was probably 12 years old, and I can see why. Everyone sucked pretty badly at it; I guess we're just more flexible when we're kids.  Still, drunken twister was an absolutely brilliant idea.  The night was accompanied by a pretty bitchin' playlist that I made up on my iPod.  I tried to include something for everybody: there was danceable indie, some gangster beats, and various other types of party-fuelling jams.  The group was less than impressed with my decision to include some Lily Allen but you know what? Haters be hatin', Lily Allen rules. 

On Sunday, as many of you may or may not know, the Rubgy World Cup final was being held in New Zeeland.  Like football, the rugby world cup only happens once every four years so it’s actually kind of a big deal.  Also, the New Zealand All-Blacks, the undisputed best team in the world and hosts for the 2011 tournament, were playing in the final.  New Zealand treats rugby the way us Canadians treat hockey: if we don’t win it all, it can be seen as nothing but a colossal disappointment.  Adding more drama to the plot was the fact that they hadn’t won since the inaugural tournament in 1987.  Every four years held a different (seemingly epic) story of how they lost it all and this year, the year that it was back on home soil, was meant to be their moment of national redemption.  They were playing France in the final, who they had beaten quite convincingly in the group stages, and everyone expected them to win by a large margin.  We watched the game at Forty Thieves and by the time the match started the place was absolutely packed.  It was really an awesome atmosphere.  Mombasa is a prime tourist destination for rich European tourists and so there were actually quite a few French people there cheering for “Les Bleu.”  It was a great game, very defensive and strategically played.  In the end, New Zealand won a nail-bitter by a score of 8-7, the lowest scoring final in the tournament’s history, and took the title home for the first time in 24 years.  I know next to nothing about rugby but I was very happy for New Zealand at that moment.  I couldn’t help but recall the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 and Canada’s epic capturing of the gold medal after placing seventh in 2006.  I don’t know what it is about sport that can make us feel such a strong sense of national pride, but it’s actually pretty cool to see.  I enjoyed watching the post-game coverage more than the actual game; it was nice to see the people of New Zealand so happy after 24 years of heartbreak.

We had to leave the next day but our flight was not until the afternoon, so we planned a snorkel trip for the morning.  Our entire group got on a glass-bottom boat at nine the next morning and ventured a couple miles out into the clear-blue waters of the Indian Ocean.  We looked at sea-life, we snorkled, blah blah blah.  Sorry but there’s not really much to say.  We anchored the boat at a sand bar a couple miles from the coast and got out to walk around for a bit.  It was pretty cool how the water can just get randomly shallow so far out from the coast and it was a beautiful view back to the mainland.  Even out there though, miles from the beach, there was a guy selling crap, I couldn’t believe it!   I mean, really? Even out here?  My god.  I mean who is out in the middle of the ocean on a sandbar thinking “you know what? I would like that fucking pirate ship, how much!?!?!?”  After that, I half-expected some guy to show up at the bottom of the ocean floor attempting to sell us bracelets while we were snorkelling and trying to look at the sea-life.  I mean Christ, where does it end?

On our way back, the driver of the boat put on his showtime face and asked “so are you happy?” and I immediately knew what was coming next.  He put a tip box in the middle of the boat and the twelve of us on the trip just exchanged awkward glances.  First of all, none of us brought wads of cash with us, obviously, we only had enough to pay the agreed upon price.  Secondly, we’re all cheap as hell.  Good luck getting a tip from us.  It’s probably the case that they’re used to getting tipped very well by rich eurotrash, but we sure as shit weren’t that.  It was actually insanely awkward but none of us tipped at all.  Oh well, deal with it assholes.  Another strange thing that happened on the way back happened when I was alone on the boat with one of the beach boys (before the others returned from snorkelling).  First of all, that guy shouldn't have even been there.  He didn't work on the boat or anything he was just along for the ride, how come he didn't have to pay? Racist.  Anyway, he asked me if I had any shampoo.  I was like "...um, yes?"  Then he asked if he could have it. I didn't know how to respond and he kept going on about how I wouldn't need in anymore because we were leaving Mombasa that day.  It made no sense whatsoever.  I eventually back tracked and said something along the lines of "ohhhhh I thought you meant *mumblemumble* no I don't have any shampoo, sorry."  It was weird.

Now I’m not sure if this was big news back home or not, but it was during that weekend that the terrorist attacks were beginning to happen in Kenya.  I’m not going to go into it here, long-story short: there are lots of people in Somalia that are pissed off at Kenya and the Kenya-Somalia border is a joke so it’s very easy to get in to the country.  The U.S. embassy put out a warning for tourists to avoid non-essential travel and tourist areas.  Well, fuck.  We were in Mombasa (strictly a tourist destination) and were going to be flying back to Nairobi that day.  Airports weren’t exactly considered “safe.”  Everything went swimmingly though and we all arrived back in Nairobi in one-piece.

The weekend in Mombasa was just what we needed.  We got to kick back and relax for a couple days.  We got our beach on and we got our drink on (some of us more than others, hey hey hey now, don’t be hatin’ I was on vacation OK?) and none of us got blown up or kidnapped by Somalian pirates.  All things considered it was a smashing success.   It was back to the grind of our daily lives in Nairobi (kind of).  Next post coming soon! 

Passing Time

When we got back from our epic trek up Mt. Kenya, we were absolutely exhausted.  I pretty much hit my bed right away but first there were some new people to meet.  As we entered the house, Paddy and I were greeted by two gigantic bearded men.  Their names are Nolan and Steven and their story is awesome.  After a bit of exchanging of pleasantries, we eventually launched into a discussion about their impressive trip.  The two of them bought motorbikes in USA and shipped them over to Cape Town, South Africa.  They are currently midway through their journey up Africa, heading for Jordan in the Middle East. (They must be no-good dirty Marxists.  High-five for the first person to get that reference)  I have always wanted to do something like that, a massive road trip, so it was really cool to talk to them and see how something like that could actually be pulled off.  They’ve been on the road for over a month now and have ridden through some of the craziest areas in the world.  Steven is a dual-citizen (American/British) but Nolan is just American and so his trip is a bit trickier.  As I’m sure you all know, Americans don’t have the greatest reputation all over the world, and most of Africa treats them like scum.  They need to go through Sudan for part of their trip, so Steven is using his British passport for that leg, but Nolan does not have the luxury of choice.  As an American, getting an entry visa to Sudan is next to impossible, so he had to embark on some light forgery.  He was very careful to not actually break any laws, but what he’s trying to pull off is still very sketchy.  He wrote up an official-looking letter and placed the American seal on the top, and is attempting to pass it off as an official request for entry by the American government.  The Sudanese embassy in Kenya jerked him around for a while so his future is still uncertain, but they will apparently be trying this is every country they ride through before Sudan.  I hope to hear from them soon because I’m really curious to find out if it works.  Otherwise, well, he’s kind of screwed I suppose.

The next week or so consisted of more of the same at Grace Academy, but Paddy managed to get a game arranged for our little soccer team over the weekend.  On Sunday, the day of the game, we were meant to arrive at the field at 2:00PM but, of course, it was nearly 3:30PM by the time we actually left the orphanage (African time is starting to really piss me off).  It was pouring during most of the game, it kind of reminded me of soccer as a kid back home, good times.  I was expecting to get absolutely destroyed seeing as our team had no idea how to play positions or play it wide etc. but, surprisingly, we made a very good showing.  All of our players somehow managed to stay in their general areas, and while most of the play was quite sloppy, a lot of it was very organized and well-conceived.  Most of the passes were actually along the ground, as the few long balls that they played were swallowed up by the other team’s massive central defenders (they had to have been like 16 haha so unfair).  We ended up losing 2-0 which was a disappointment for the kids, but I was honestly expecting a slaughter so I was quite pleased.  We could have easily scored a couple of goals, and one that the other team scored was complete crap.  Overall, it was a very good first game, and the opposing coach said he was quite impressed.  He said he would like to invite us to the next tournament held in the area.  I probably won’t be around for that but I hope that there will be volunteers arriving in the next little while to replace Paddy and me.

Another story of interest since the last update is Adam’s encounter with a matatu.  Adam is this really tall guy from Canada (Winnipeg, specifically, go Jets!).  When he showed up to Regina’s house this past week he had stiches on his head.  We were all “holy shit intense! How did that happen?”  He kind of bashfully looked away and mumbled something under his breath. We made him repeat and speak up and I immediately understood why he was so embarrassed: he walked into a parked matatu, end of story.  So he has a big scar on his head now.  Cool story bro, right?  I know. ANYWAY

Last weekend was pretty entertaining.  For the first time since I’ve been here, a group of us decided to go out drinking.  It started out pretty low key with some dinner at Junction (the mall) but we decided it would be fun to go get a couple drinks.  We tried to get into this sports bar in the mall but they had an age-restriction, you had to be over 25 to get in (what the hell?).  Well SCREW EM we said, that place would have been too expensive anyway.  We instead decided to go to this dingy, rickety bar on the way back home and I don’t think they’ve ever seen a white person in there, let alone nine.  We were quickly segregated to a little corner (racist) but it was cool because it felt like a VIP section haha.  We sat there pretty much the whole night consuming Tusker’s.  In hindsight it was great that we were denied from that uppity sports bar in the mall, because for nine of us to get wasted (and I do mean wasted) it cost a grand total of 6000Ksh, about $60.  I even tipped our waiter, why not.  Anyway, before too long we started playing drinking games (two of the most fun I’ve ever played, I’m bringing them home) and the whole bar seemed really interested in what was making us all yell every couple minutes.  I think when we first entered the bar the Kenyans were a little bit pissed off that the mzungus had invaded, but by the end of the night they were loving it.  We ended up ordering shots (you know Adrian is drunk when he orders a round of tequila, gross) and things got a little bit more interesting.  We played a drinking game and agreed that the loser would have to go serenade this guy.  Paddy lost and obliged, treating us all to a very sexy song and dance routine.  That started the previously non-existent dance floor and the rest of the night was a huge dance party, all races allowed (aww look at us, breaking down boundaries).  A great time was had by all and at about 1:00AM we left.  Against all of our advice, Paddy decided it would be a good idea to go meet Jenga in downtown Nairobi (Jenga is the son of our host mum; he lives at the house with us).  The area that we were in was pretty safe, but being white and belligerent in downtown Nairobi, and alone, is generally a bad idea.  Case in point: Paddy got mugged three times that night.  Yes, three times.  I can’t believe I was considering going with him.  We kept telling him not to go but he had lost the drinking game we were playing three consecutive times and had made up his mind.  He ended up getting home at about seven in the morning, somehow having only had his iPod stolen, no cash or anything.  As for me, I did the smart (ish) thing and just walked home from the bar. There was a group of eight of us but those of you that know drunken me will be sure that I didn’t stick with the group.  No, I put my iPod on and basically ran home, shouting lines from Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisdted Fantasy all the way home.  I’m sure I woke some Kenyans up and, in hindsight, I kind of feel badly about that, but the sight of me stumbling home at close to 2:00AM through what is essentially a slum shouting “YOU KNOW THAT SHIT IS, FUKIN RIDIKALUS” at the top of my lungs was probably pretty hilarious.  Luckily for me, I remained un-mugged (like I said, our area is pretty safe and the walk home was about fifteen minutes).  Shit, I would have mugged me.  Stupid pink jacket, slurring rap lines, whiter than sin, eww.

The next day a group of us had planned to visit a place called Fourteen Falls near Thika.  Pretty much everyone but Paddy was still up for it.  When I woke him up to see if he was still down, he opened his bloodshot eyes, grunted, and rolled back over, asleep.  He had had a bad night, we understood.  Five of us ended up going.  It’s a really cool place, the Nairobi equivalent of the Nanaimo River.  We had to hire a guide (who was trying to screw us into paying way too much, but we laid the smack down) who helped us across the fast moving river.  We hung out there for a couple hours, did some swimming and some cliff jumping.  It was literally exactly like a day at the Nanaimo River.  Right down to the weed smoking.  My summer’s in Nanaimo used to consist of going to the river, getting baked, and going swimming.  Well, the Kenyans here had pretty much the same setup and the whole place was ripe with the smell of ganja.  We didn’t participate in the drug-smoking (for what I hope are obvious reasons) but it reminded me of home so hard.  It was a full day and we ended up getting back home pretty late, but it was tonnes of fun and I think I’ll go back soon.

On Monday, Adam, Paddy and I went to play golf at this very nice course on the outskirts of the city.  It was easily the nicest course I’ve ever played and Adam got us a very good price.  I didn’t think I’d be coming to Kenya and playing golf, let alone one as amazing as this, but there I was.  We had to rent clubs (obviously) and so they required us to have caddies.  We argued with them because holy awkward, but to no avail.  It was club policy, or something.  I’ve never had a caddy before and I kind of felt like a dick just handing this guy (Peter) my club after taking a shot, but it was cool I suppose.  We were also absolutely wiped by the end of the round so it was probably a good thing that we didn’t have to carry our own clubs.  I started out playing pretty well actually.  It was a very difficult course, with strategically placed water hazards and sand traps, but I managed to keep my shots in the fairway for the most part and I actually hit some greens in regulation.  I pulled in a 45 on the front-nine, a very good score for someone with my skill level and for not having played golf in a long time.  The wheels came off on the back-nine though.  I shot a 51 on the back (45-51 = 96, how’s that for inconsistency?) but my original goal was to break 100 so I suppose I was happy with that.  The 18^th hole was beautiful, but its green was completely surrounded by water.  I’ve never played a course with a feature like that, it was pretty intimidating. After a very good drive, I was lying 160 yards away, so I couldn’t possibly lay-up.  I decided to go for the daunting green, to my demise.  I took a 7-iron, scared of not being able to muscle an 8 over the water, and promptly hit it fat.  I knew the second I made contact that I was in the water.  I should have played it safe because I started the hole one shot up on Adam.  In the end, I made a 7 and he carded a 5, so I lost by one shot.  He went 48-47 = 95.  The 51 on the back killed me.  It was a great day though and I was pleasantly surprised that I still knew how to play golf, sort of.

One last thing I forgot to fit in somewhere: some doctors came to the school last week to hold a free medical clinic for the staff and so I got tested for HIV/Aids, why not.  Good news ladies: I’m clean.  Form a line please.

Anyway, that’s the last couple of weeks or so through the eyes of Adrian.  This weekend we head to the coast, specifically Mombasa, for what should be a fun-filled couple days of beach and drunken shenanigans.  I hope you’re all doing well.  Until next time, peace out.

8900 Miles From Home, 4200 Metres From Sea Level

Alright I’ll cut right to the chase: I didn’t make it to the top.  I am very sorry for the crushing disappointment that you are all experiencing right now.  I’ll wait while you deal with that.

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Over it?  Good, now here are the details.  It ended up being only Paddy and I making the trip, two others were supposed to join us but they decided against it. We were supposed to get picked up at 8:00 AM but they have this thing in Kenya called ‘African time’ and it was about 10:30 by the time we actually got picked up.  It was kind of annoying but not entirely unexpected so we dealt, we dealt.  We had to drive about three hours to get to the city of Nanyuki and on the way we crossed the equator going north.  I’ve been to the equator before, when I was in Ecuador, so I knew what was coming.  This guy did a demonstration where he showed that the water goes rotates down a drain in a different direction depending on what hemisphere you are in, and doesn’t rotate at all if you’re on the equator.  It was pretty cool, but I’d seen it before. (Oh and one of you jerks, probably Kevin, said that it was “bullshit” and “faked” and that that doesn’t actually happen when I came back from South America and I sort of believed you.  But yeah you’re wrong haha.  ANYWAY) The guy then tried to sell us a certificate for 500 Ksh and we said no, but tipped him a bit.  That’s the thing about Kenya: you can’t do anything just to do it, there’s always someone who wants to grab some money off you.  Which brings me to the shops, my god.  Those of you that have read my previous posts will know how pissed off I get with pushy shopkeepers, but the guys at the masai market were nothing compared to the guys at the equator.  There were dozens of shops, full of the same tacky shit that I’d seen a hundred times before, and they cornered us in their stores, literally begging us to buy stuff.  It was really upsetting and Paddy and I kept wanting to get away but they weren’t having any of that.  We eventually bought a couple pieces of crap each and got the hell out of there, but not before another guy tried to push the most ridiculous “trades” on me.  He wanted my watch.  He wanted my bracelet with the flags of the countries I’ve been to (um, no way fuck you).  He wanted my shirt.  He wanted my Canadian dollars.  It was very unpleasant.

Anyway, that night we stayed in a hotel and it was to be our last decent sleep for the next four days.  We picked up our guide on the way and he showed us a list of things we would need for the hike.  We had none of it.  I mean, I guess it’s kind of our fault for being unprepared, but you’d think that they’d tell you this sort of stuff beforehand.  I didn’t come to Kenya with winter clothing, why would I?  So we had to rent jackets, hats, gloves, boots, etc.  I was also explicitly told that I would not need to bring my sleeping bag, so I didn’t.  But guess what?  It turns out that I should have because I ended up having to rent one for like 1000Ksh, I was pretty pissed off.  What was pretty funny though was the hats that our guide rented for us.  We didn’t go with him, but when he came back and showed us our gear it was mostly ok.  The toques that he picked up for us though had the logo of the Chelsea football club on them.  Now, Paddy hates Chelsea. He hates them.  The look on his face when he saw what he would have to wear for a four-day hike was priceless.  He said “I’m not wearing that” and I would not have been surprised if he wasn’t kidding.  He sucked it up though, turned it inside out, and wore it embarrassingly.

The next day we left for the entrance of the park, somehow managing to cram all the extra stuff in our bags (I had to tie my jackets to the outside and stuff my shoes full of underwear).  On the first day, we only had to hike for something like two and a half hours.  We ended up at a camp at an altitude of about 3400 metres.  We arrived at about 4:00 PM and there was literally nothing to do.  It was also really cold.  We shivered and drank obscene quantities of tea while we waited for our dinner, then tried to kill time by playing cards.  Sleeping was next to impossible, as the lodging was absolutely dreadful.  Besides being cold, which honestly wasn’t that much of a bother, the beds were awful.  They went to the trouble of building bunks and putting mattresses on them, but for some reason they stopped there.  No sheets or covers or pillows or anything.  The sleeping bag was definitely required.  I don’t know about you guys but I can’t sleep without a pillow.  It’s just not doable.  The entire night consisted of brief stints of 30-minute sleeps due to exhaustion but I never got any quality shut-eye on account of being so friggin uncomfortable. It was one of the most miserable nights of my life (but that was nothing compared to the next one).

I was happy when the day started the next day if only because I was pleased to finally have something to do, to occupy the time.  It was to be approximately a six-hour hike to the next camp so we started early, at 7:00 AM.  On the way up we stopped to talk to a group who was on their way down, and got to hear about the terrible weather they had to endure.  I guess we got lucky because these guys had to do the six-hour hike in driving rain, and even got some hail.  Our weather was nothing but clear skies the whole time, and thank the lord because if you added rain into the mix then this would have been the official worst day of my life.  Don’t get me wrong, the views were beautiful and it was a really cool experience, but at about the half-way point, my legs turned to jelly.  I literally could not walk for more than two minutes without my right knee beginning to give out.  It was absolutely miserable.  I mean, I wasn’t overly tired or anything, that wasn’t it at all, my legs were just too weak to carry myself.  The porters took some of my load for me so that my bag would be lighter and that helped a bit.  Still, the second half of the hike (the easier half) took me about four hours.  I literally hobbled into camp.  I’m really pleased that this only happened at the halfway bit, after all the uphill sections, because I literally don’t think I would have made it up those hills with my legs in that state.  I couldn’t figure out what it was, but in the end I decided that it’s because I’ve gotten way heavier (fatter) in the last year or so without gaining any strength in my legs.  So basically, my legs weren’t used to carrying a fatass around, and they quit halfway through the hike.  That’s what I get for being a lazy sack of shit for the past year, so it goes.

So we eventually made it to the camp, surprisingly at the estimated time of 1:00 PM.  We did the first half in about two hours and were on pace to get there very early, but my embarrassing breakdown erased that.  It was at that camp that I had a talk with our guide and we decided I wouldn’t make the push for the peak.  We were meant to leave at 3:00 AM the next morning so as to get to the top for the sunrise, but the last bit was the steepest and most physically demanding.  We both decided there was no possible way that I was going to make it.  The thin air also started to take its toll as my breathing became very heavy near the end.  This surprised me because when I was in South America and everyone around me was bitching about the altitude, I felt fine the entire time.  I guess I was just in better shape back then.  So after another, even more miserable, night of intermittent sleep, Paddy and the guide left for the top at 3:00 AM while I waited for them to come back.  I’m a little disappointed in myself for not being able to go with them, but I did make it to 4200 metres, which is really high.  Our camp was also right under the peaks and I got a very good view of all of them (there are multiple peaks; the main, highest one is too much for 99% of people).

They got back to camp at about 8:00 AM, a little earlier than expected.  We ate breakfast and set on back down the trail.  My legs had been given ample time to recover by that point (sort of) and it was much easier going down, so all was good.  There were still some very difficult sections, but we did the whole walk in 3 hours and 15 minutes.  Just as we were about to arrive at the camp, I realized that my bag had opened and some stuff had fallen out.  I was really pissed off but wasn’t about to go back for it.  One of the porters felt bad though and against my demands, he ran back up the trail to find my jacket.  It turned out to be not too far away and he found it quickly so in the end, I’m glad he went back.  He wasn’t able to find my Chelsea hat though and it was just starting to rain.  Paddy must have been pleased to hear that one of the hats was being disrespected by getting covered in mud.

We were supposed to sleep at that camp again, but the guide mentioned that there was an option to instead just finish the hike and get the hell out of there.  We gladly took that option because the thought of another night in those hell beds was too much to handle.  It meant a very long, tiring day and a late arrival back in Nairobi, but we were both up for it.  We’re still both talking about how horrible the thought of spending another night in those lodging would have been.  We were originally meant to take a matatu (a van with way too many people crammed in it) from Nanyuki back to Nairobi which would have taken at least three hours.  Our guide worked some magic though and rustled up a private car for us and we didn’t have to pay any extra for it. Now let me tell you, I’ve seen my fair share of crazy driving here; the drivers in Kenya are ridiculous.  But this guy took it to a whole other level.  He was INSANE.  It was about a three hour drive back to town, but that’s only because of traffic near the city.  Our guy drove way too fast the entire way, and coming from me that’s saying quite a bit; I rip it up in my car back home.  It was like an extreme sport for him.  If there was any gap to pass at all, he went for it.  There were three or four separate times when I actually thought we were going to crash into oncoming traffic because he was ripping down the wrong side of the road, trying to pass a truck or something.  He even ended up stuck on the wrong side of a barrier once and the cars on that side were not pleased at all.  It was a crazy experience, but he got us back to town quickly, and I was grateful for that.

All-in-all, it was a very interesting experience.  I’m glad that I did it, but definitely would not do it again and would probably not even recommend it to fellow travellers.  It was some of the most intense physical activity I’ve ever done and the lodging was comparable to the holocaust (ok that’s overdoing it but you get what I’m going for).  The scenery was awesome though, and even though I didn’t get to the top, it’s pretty cool to spend a night at 4200 metres from sea level.

*Sorry that this seems rushed, I just really wanted to get it written and posted but I’m too tired to care right now.  I’ll edit/proofread it tomorrow and may revise it later but for now here it is.  A new post should be up in the next couple of days because it’s been a week since I got down form the top and lots of interesting stuff has happened but for now, I hope you enjoyed.  Peace out.

*EDIT: Apparently Kevin may be right http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html I still don't get why they bother but hey whattyaknow