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!