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Yo homies,
BEFORE I START, please be aware that I have added so many photos this time, that this blog goes over two pages. I think you have to click on page 2, to see all the photos.
Well, it’s been another week and another 168 hours of bucketing rain (Although for some strange reason it hasn’t rained today.) The road to Mombasa flooded a few days ago and the road had to be closed: people were stuck in the cars for 20 hours. I’m actually starting to get a bit sick of it now, as it restricts our movement and means we have to rely on getting taxis (or getting soaked) or waiting for the rain to stop, which it doesn’t. After a few days we have just started riding through it, regardless of how saturated we get. The massive amount of rain also means that the power goes out pretty frequently (I don’t mind it too much when this happens because I get to say, “Hakuna Stima,” which means “there is no electricity”): sometimes up to five times a day, usually only for a few minutes, but occasionally for 4-5 hours. It hasn’t gone out for
a couple of days, however. So, due to the rain, we don’t have too much news this week, but here it is anyway:
Last Saturday, despite the rain, we ventured down to Mombasa again. There was an Aussie girl over here for a week for work, so we went down with her and a group of med students from the lab. First off we visited Fort Jesus, a big old fort dating back to about the 15th century. Was very interesting and had great views of the coast, see pictures. Then we walked around the Old Town where there is a lot of interesting architecture. After lunch we went to have a look at Biashara St, which has lots of material shops and African crafty stuff (the main street in Kilifi is also called Biashara St).
Was a fairly quiet week (apart from going out for dinner with various people on about five nights). Yesterday, we woke up and the weather was great so we set off by bus to see the Gede Ruins, just near Watamu, which is about 45 minutes north of us. We went with Cleo and Leah, two of the girls from the lab.
Fort Jesus 3
Hanging wit my homie at FJAs soon as we arrived, however, it decided to bucket down again and we got thoroughly saturated, which spoiled out trip a little bit. We had planned on also wandering around the Arabuko Sokoke forest as well, but we might have to wait until the weather clears up a bit. Heading off the Lamu on Thursday, until Sunday, so very muchly looking forward to that!
Last night we got on the sauce a little bit (praise the lord for red bull and vodka) and ended up heading to a local nightclub and having our first African dancing experience. Was a fantastic night and incredibly amusing!! We have concluded, however, that white people have absolutely no sense of rhythm. This didn’t stop Andy (one of the med students), however, and he proceeded to absolutely dominate the d-floor…reminiscent of me at my best, really. I was slightly more subdued, but still did some good work. One of the local girls appeared to see it as her mission to teach us how to dance, and so she spent about two hours dancing with us, teaching us various moves such as the African bum-wiggle. I think it kept the whole place entertained to
watch our brilliant dancing all night.
I would like to thank my best friend Betty, Better Crocker, for the beautiful cake (chocolate packet cake which K whipped up) which we had when we got home last night. And which we also ate for breakfast-dessert yesterday morning.
I realised I haven’t really told you too much about the orphanage, so I thought that now that the kids are back at school, I’d let you know some of the differences between a school in Oz and one in Kilifi:
-In Australia the teacher does not leave class for half and hour to “go and get some grass for her cow.” Or to go into another class to do the other teacher’s hair.
-The teachers also don’t wander out to have a chat to the other teachers for an hour or so, leaving the kids to do their work (or not do their work and, instead, start a riot in class). There is absolutely no discipline amongst either the kids or the teachers.
-The lunch breaks over here seem to last for a minimum of two hours (not all that much teaching seems to go on). We have planned for me
Fort Jesus 5
View of Mombasa (looking over a canon). to start doing some sport, reading, art, gardening and other such stuff with them, which will hopefully break up the monotony of the kid’s day.
-There is the obvious lack of funds, resources, teaching materials, shoes for kids, poor/ripped uniforms, etc. Upendo does have a pretty decent building, although it’s quite small, which was opened late last year.
-You have to trek through knee-deep mud (well, my knee-deep, everyone else’s ankles) to actually get there.
-There is a rotation of two meals for lunches: 1. rice and beans and half a sour orange; 2. ugali (maize) and sukuma wiki (a spinach type thing, which is not actually spinach) and half an orange. Sometimes there is a little bit of meat too.
-There doesn’t seem to be any such thing as boy/girl germs over here. All the boys and girls get on and play together, regardless of age. The boys over here to seem to act in a slightly feminine manner sometimes. They love to brush my hair, for example. One of the boys told me the other day that my hair was like that of a farasi - a horse. I think he meant it as a compliment.
-I had
an official welcoming lunch today, held by the ladies who run Upendo. I was welcomed as "a daughter of Kilifi".
-And I suppose the fact that they are all orphans:
The other day one of the school teachers, Catherine, said to me that Kea (one of the boys who is about seven) asked her if the mud huts in the area get destroyed by all this rain. She told him, “no, they’ll be ok,” but asked him why he wanted to know, to which he replied, “well I live in a permanent house with my grandma, so I’ll be ok, but my mum lives in a mud hut.” Very sad story! Not sure if he doesn’t fully understand the concept of death (although you would think he would by the age of seven) or if he’s just in denial.
Anyway, moving on from sad subjects. More random pieces of information re. Kilifi/our experiences:
-I was walking over the bridge the other day and a passing man blew me a kiss. And a few nights ago, Katherine and I were heading to Cleo’s house (girl from the lab) and a woman walking past said to us, “hello you
Fort Jesus 7
K and Janine with our very amusing tour guide. He told us Australians are great, but Americans, Canadians and British people are bullshit. beautiful ladies” (not sure how she decided we were beautiful, given that is was dark). I have lost count of the number of people who have screamed hysterically at me that they love me. People are very friendly over here!!
-It is a sign of friendship for people of the same sex to hold hands over here. It is quite different to see teenage boys walking down the street holding hands.
-I do think, however, that we met a gay Kenyan last night. His name was Amos, and he certainly met Katherine’s description of him as “the gayest man in the cosmos”.
-It’s a bit cooler over here now and it’s getting fairly painful to have a cold shower. Even in these ‘luxury’ houses you don’t get hot water.
-People have no concept of rubbish bins over here. They just drop their rubbish on the grounds: is a bit disturbing.
-Have had to become very patient, as everything is done on African time here. For example, 1-1.5 hours is about the minimum time you can expect to wait to get your dinner at a restaurant. The longest it has taken so far was 3 hours! Fortunately we were warned about
Fruit
Fruit for sale in Mombasa streets this in advance.
-Much to our Kiswahili teacher’s distress, the phrase “Hakuna Matata” was actually mistranslated in The Lion King. Apparently it doesn’t actually mean “No Worries,” it actually means “No Trouble.” The correct wording should be “Hakuna wasu wasi,” although that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
-Kiswahili lessons are going well. We can say a fair bit now. Kenyans absolutely love it when you speak Kiswahili to them. They get very excited, no matter how slowly you are talking.
-The other day I was going to walk into town, which takes about an hour. However, I got a few metres from our gate and our neighbour (I hadn’t met him before) pulled up and offered me a lift. Turns out he is an Italian, who speaks a bit of German and Kiswahili but hardly any English. Made for a very amusing conversation in four languages on the way into town!
-Also, please check out photo of Miss Titanic Competition...very phunny!
Moving onto the subject of Klein, who is now my best buddy. She doesn’t even seem to mind when I say to her, “your mama’s a bitch.” Sorry, that was a very uncouth thing to
say, but it is true. She was just doing some crazy form of breakdancing on the floor next to us (twirling round in circles on her back at a very rapid pace). She also started vomiting on Sunday - apparently she does that when she eats grass. The interesting part of that story is that Katherine stepped in it barefoot. It was phunny! Although K didn’t really seem to appreciate the humour. Apologies for that grossness.
The other day I was sitting in a restaurant having morning tea when an old man walked in. He was white, about 65-70 years old and wore a bum-bag. I shall call him Harry-Highpants for the benefit of the story. Anyway, Harry walked in and sat at the bar, where he took out his portable dvd player and proceeded to crank up the Backstreet Boys, full blast, while he had a cigarette and a beer, at ten o’clock in the morning. No one in the restaurant knew quite what to make of him, and the barman was very amused…There are some very strange characters over here!
Ok, might leave it at that…it will now take me forever to upload all these pictures,
Another house in Mombasa
Very original captions today...sorry, i'm a bit tired. so you better appreciate them. Haven’t put the ones from yesterday arvo and today on my computer yet, or the ones K has taken of me, so you’ll have to wait for them (and the ones of the kids which I haven’t taken yet…sorry).
Peace out dawgs,
Brig xoxo
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lord of the dance
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do think i could get the michael flatley book on amazon? i must have it.. he is even wearing his leather pants mmmmm