Uganda

A pig in Kampala.

            So I went to Uganda the other day with a buddy of mine. Kampala, the capital city is very large and the buildings are painted with cell phone company advertisements much like Kenya.  The weather is more tropical then the parts of Kenya that we have come accustomed to and the areas near Lake Victoria are lush with green palms. From what I could tell Vervet monkeys are common all over the city. We stayed in Kampala for a couple of nights and then headed out to where the source of the Nile is located, near a small town called Jinja. The hostel we stayed at had a sweeping view of the White Nile that simply took your breath away as the sunsets over the hills to the west.

                                        Seven dollars US, per nights stay.

Most of our traveling around was done on the backs of motorcycles called “Boda bodas.”  On the dirt roads it was necessary to clutch onto the metal handrails behind your back in order to not fly off. They were very fun and inexpensive.

A town on Lake Victoria.

The highlights of the adventure included bungee jumping 145 feet over the Nile and also taking a cruise to the Nile source and around Lake Victoria. Other details of our trip I will not mention here in fear of horrifying my mother who reads this blog (hi mom).

The view from where we bungee jumped.

Some of the more interesting events occurred when I took the bus back home to Kenya. First off, the bus was two hours late and arrived with a flat tire that took another 45 minutes to fix. The local men that the bus company had fix the tire, worked really hard with terrible equipment that gored their hands in the process. After completing their task the rather large woman in charge of the bus, shortchanged them money and the men threw rocks at the bus as it left the station. Before getting to the border crossing the Ugandan police pulled us over and forced two passengers onto the bus after threatening the driver. There was much yelling on the side of the highway between the police and the bus crew. Around this time the sun went down as we drove into the middle of the night.

Then at the crossing there was almost a riot when the cops started kicking people out of line for seemingly no reason. The man who checked my visa reeked of booze. I was happy because they did not attempt to take any money off of me for an entrance stamp into the country. Past the crossing we drove for a bit before running into a police blockade that consisted of road spikes. After pulling us over, four very large cops with machine guns stepped onto the bus and checked all our visas. Three men got pulled off the bus and were handcuffed along the side of the road. There was a lot more yelling at this point. After a while the large bus woman went out to negotiate bribes for the bus passenger’s release. Figures were typed into cell phones and then shown to the cops. At first they were rejected. The cops shook their heads saying “hapana, hapana.” Then again a number was typed and the cops nodded in agreement. Money was very obviously exchanged along side the bus directly below where I was sitting and the men were released. We continued on our way for another twelve hours or so. The views of the Kenyan Rift Valley are unimaginably beautiful after the sun came up. Finally we reached Nairobi.

When exiting the bus a taxi driver approached me. I told him that I was not traveling far and I was going to the Kenya Comfort Hotel nearby. He lied about the distance and told me the price was roughly ten times what the actual fare should have been. Some local women laughed as they overheard the price offered. When I told him that I would rather go by foot and began to walk away he yelled at me “You are going to die.” I turned around in disbelief but he was already heading back to the bus to look for another fare. It’s good to be home. 

Bennett

December thus far.

Well we have had a pretty busy and successful last couple of weeks.  We spent a good deal of time with the girls of Daraja during their last week at the school: We took part in a student/staff soccer tournament (Bennett scored a goal in his first soccer game!), we accompanied them to the nearby orphanage in Maramoja to volunteer our time in honor of World Aids Day on 1 December (the girls were amazing– a blog on this will follow shortly), and we celebrated their hard work this past year by eating popcorn and playing musical chairs.  There was an emotional sendoff on 4 December.  The girls loaded into their respective matatu, some embarking on a journey to last several days and some hiking around the corner to their nearby homes.  We look forward to welcoming them back on 8 January!

On 5 December we met with a woman we had befriended via various interactions, a local nurse who just happens to have a fifteen year old son with autism.  We met her son, and he is wonderful!  Bennett will begin working with him after the holiday, leading the in home behavioral therapy, and I will join them on social outings into the community.  He loves music, and he and Bennett bonded through that medium during their first encounter.  He was shy at first, but his curiosity was conspicuous, and by the end of our time together he was curled up next to Bennett and smiling adoringly.  The boy’s mother has done great things for the community concerning autism awareness.  She helped establish a special education school in Nanyuki and has recently put together a special education classroom in her rural hometown of Dol Dol, where there were previously no options for those with disabilities.  We look forward to doing as much as we can, sharing with the community all that we have absorbed in our combined eleven years experience.  (Expect soon a blog by Bennett on this topic.)  

Bennett and I subsequently spent some much desired time in the bush – which we have really come to consider home.  We missed our local army of birds, and especially the baboons and vervets.  I would like to take this time to say 'rest in peace' to our adopted bush cat Miguu and to “Black Cat” (the house cat).  It seems that in the past month they have disappeared, most likely being ravaged by a leopard or jackal during this time of drought and sparsity.  Miguu managed to survive in the wild since 2003, despite having awkwardly healed hind legs and hence a debilitating range of movement.  She was a warrior.   Additionally, the grey wren warbler that used to wake us up well before sunrise every morning with its alarm like chirp (an alarm without a snooze button) and incessant pecking at the window has also seemed to passed or moved on.  He will be missed.  On a positive note, we did spot our first water buffalo just across the river (an animal described by the locals as being the most dangerous here), its dark and ominous frame nimbly traversing the bush.  Although the sun obscured its facial details, you could feel its penetrating stare.  Each party anxiously awaited its counterpart’s next move.   

Bennett and I then parted ways, he heading to Uganda with a friend and I to Nairobi to meet with a locally based primatologist who transported three groups of baboons to the Laikipia Plateau twenty-four years ago, and has been observing them ever since.  We discussed my research possibilities, and we decided that I should come to visit her research site at the end of January to join her team in some ecological monitoring.  Prior to my meeting, I spent the entire week rambling up and down the streets of Nairobi.  We are now intimate friends.  While I was there, the ICC’s representative Ocampo announced the six individuals he found to be most responsible for Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence, a series of horrific episodes whose effects have continued to rift this country.  Kenya is faced with a tough situation as the 2012 election approaches - unifying the nation’s 40+ tribes has proven difficult.  Consistent mismanagement by corrupt political elite (not to veil the great strides the country has made under the direction of strong and just Kenyan leaders) has been an outcome of a turbulent history of foreign control and enduring intervention.  I hope the country can achieve what so many people desire, a truly democratic and representative system.  

We are both now back at home in the bush.  Enjoying some peace and quiet, as well as some obscure animal rumblings, before heading to Daraja for Christmas and my 30^th birthday.  And then back to Nairobi to retrieve my mom and brother.  Wild times ahead!

Maria

Photos below taken by my friend Lindsay at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club Orphanage

Bennett and a Bongo

Mt. Kenya in the background.

We live on the equator.

Bennett feeding a patas monkey

Me and a patas

Me and a sykes monkey

Good Morning

What a peaceful morning, watching the sun rise up over the eastern hills.  And then suddenly.... the incessant humming of helicopters over the horizon... and now the dropping of practice bombs and rapid machine gun fire.  The British military must be ensuring that nobody is sleeping in and missing such a gorgeous (and at one time peaceful) dawn break.  I think I prefer to be greeted by the grey wren warbler's alarm-like chirping.

Good morning from the bush!
Maria

The Pictorial Guide to our Trip to Kenya's East Coast

The lavish, mansion-esque abode that we rented for two nights in the coastal town of Shanzu, located just north of Mombasa.  Seven of us shared a fully furnished three bedroom home - each of us spending only $12.50 per person, per night.  Shanzu was beautiful and we were only a few minutes walk from the beaches of the Indian Ocean.  The home even had leather sofas and a flat-screened t.v. (which we only utilized on one occasion to watch a very outdated and anti-climatic movie about adoption staring a very young Glen Close and James Woods).  Midday of our arrival, I read in our Rough Guides book of Shanzu: "Don't expect authenticity, but do expect a fun half-day out in Kenya's only theme park.", this is a pretty dead on description of the place.  You can get camel rides on the beach and the coast line is peppered with what a local described as "plastic Maasai" - People of the Samburu tribe adorned in traditional Maasai clothing and accessory (which is pretty flamboyant) to attract tourists for photo taking.  On two different nights we had dinner at at the Moorings Restaurant, which had a cozy and buoyant (the entire place was built on a barge), candlelit ambiance and allowed you the option of dining underneath the stars.  

Our first day in Shanzu we went shopping for groceries to make lunch in our fully equipped kitchen.  The coast has a stunning selection of fresh fruit and vegetables.

The result of our day spent shopping and cooking: Tostones with bean dip, steamed fish and an avocado, tomato, onion, and mango salad.

From Shanzu we loaded up in a matatu (the local mini-van buses that are used as mass transport both within towns and across the country) to travel to central Mombasa.  They seat 14 plus the driver, but they often pack people in to maximize their revenue per trip.   Although this is illegal and they can be ticketed, so they often stop just short of a possible police checkpoint and dump off a few passengers. This a view from the back of a matatu - and this is a very typical scenario (although the person snapping the camera would usually be too squished in between other passengers to break out a camera :) A matatu ride might run you anywhere from 10 Kenyan shillings for a very short trip to 400 KSh for a four hour ride, for example from Nairobi to Nanyuki.  80 KSh = $1.  Very affordable.  Photo credit: Paria

This is an outside view of Fort Jesus, built by the Portuguese in 1593 and subsequently under continuous assault and takeover by  the Swahili, other local peoples, and the Omani princes.  

Some ruins within the Fort.

Authentic Portuguese paintings, although it looks like there has been some touch up work (magic marker ?).

View of the dhow harbor from Fort Jesus.  Historically this port would have been crammed with traditional dhow boats - no longer the case due to the efficiency of the engine.

Maria in ruins.

Swahili carved doors.

After leaving the Fort, we walked almost the entirety of the Old Town area.  There was some beautiful architecture, and the narrow and winding streets were so peaceful due to it being a Sunday.

After our stay in Shanzu and visit to Mombasa, we hopped on another couple of matatus and headed a couple of hours north to the coastal town of Watamu.  We were surprised to be greeted in Italian upon our arrival.  There were even pizza places and gelato shops (!), and the menus were written in Italian.  Apparently this laid back town in a favorite destination of resort-going Italians and has a large Italian ex-pat population.  As soon as we set foot on the the main street, Captain Ali befriended us and led us to a suite of rooms right along the beach.  He gestured to two complexes and said, "One is for Italians and the other is for everyone else." We each spent about $8.75 to fall asleep to the sounds of the Indian Ocean.  We spent two nights here and were so happy to be able to safely stroll the sleepy streets at night, hopping from one food stand to the next, eating the local favorites of samosas, chapati, and grilled meat.  Bennett finally was able to have his long-craved-for meat on a stick (9 in total!)

The Indian Ocean

A tuk tuk is another transportation option.  In fact it was a tuk tuk that swiftly carried us from central Mombasa to Moi International Airport, to catch our flight to Nairobi.  We arrived with not a minute to spare (we literally checked in 20 minutes before our scheduled departure - and we only got there that early because the tuk tuk was able to weave in and out of the endless rows of traffic).  I guess the tuk tuk is an Asian import - a row of seats mounted on the back of a three-wheeled motor scooter.  Photo credit: Paria

Bennett and I in the Indian Ocean.  It was as warm and calm as bath water.  Photo credit: Paria

Bennett preparing to get his feet wet.

Anyone for a camel ride?

The Gedi ruins located just east of Watamu.  Here featured, some of what remains from the abandoned and enigmatic Swahili town dated to between the 13th and 17th centuries.  It remained unacknowledged, even during the height of its prosperity, by the Portuguese who had taken over the town of Malindi only 15 km away.  The ruins are shaded by giant baobab trees, and the curious Sykes monkeys keep you entertained.  Photos of monkeys and Gedi courtesy of our friends Paria and Matt who thankfully brought their camera that day!  

The Sykes monkey is really enjoying that banana - the rumors are true.

Bennett and the Sykes monkey teamed up to provide some entertainment :)

Images of our second home.

Here are some photos taken on the Daraja Academy campus and around.  I also threw a random animal photo in there.

Daraja volunteer Cora and the garden shed she is building for Daraja's garden.  What an amazing 18 year old she is!

View of the Daraja kitchen and dining hall.

Thompson's gazelles

The rondavel that Bennet and I reside in while at Daraja

Our water heater.  We get scalding hot showers when the sun shines!

One of Daraja's resident cows attempting to snack out of the compost heap.