Steve is a twenty-something Kenyan acrobat, a Rastafarian world-traveller with a wife and 7-month old baby. Just off the highway between Mombasa and Malindi, in the growing sub-urban settlement of Shanzu, Steve has set-up an amazing home-made gym. We met each other in my first week in Kenya, and we really saw eye to eye on this whole fitness thing. Since then we've been training, teaching, and learning from one another. Saturday was my last chance to workout there, so I figured I'd take some pictures and tell you all the story. The Quest for Fitness I've been a fitness nut [View Full Entry]

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Go past the alleyway filled with metalsmiths; their hand-tools clinking like a percussionist orchestra, wall-less bays of them sprawl out on either side. Follow deep into where the wooden shelters and workshops turn into mud huts and homes. Get into the dark part, where the ground is black from waste-water and the shadows of the taller buildings cover the street. You start to smell the aura of open-air latrines and unwashed drunks. I'm standing there, shouting about language with a drunken dwarf (we don't share one). The place is strange and textural and, as I look around, I think it's ju [View Full Entry]

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Sometimes it seems like we're living in a fairy tale--or at least on a lovely, long vacation. Then the pendulum of reality comes swinging back and knocks us off our unicorns... K-1 Fiance Visas Dealing with the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi was a nightmare. A NIGHTMARE. Truly some of the most painful, frustrating shit I've ever had to go through. On our last trip there, I caught a really bad head-cold and even had to leave the house in the early-morning chill with snot dripping from my nose, aching ears, and nothing but a thin shirt from India to cover me. [View Full Entry]

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Today is Chelly's 24th birthday, and it also marks the end of our first full month in Kenya. It's hard to believe that we arrived all the way back on January 24th, with a little money in our pockets and a lot of hope. The place looked beautiful then, but a little scary for me. Now I feel like I've been here forever--and the family is really helping me to belong--but most of our hopes have been dashed and we're dead broke. It's still beautiful here, and the future's still scary. Birthdays I suppose that everyone on Earth will someday have [View Full Entry]

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We have a friend here named Steve, who is a Rastafarian acrobat with a home-made gym in his backyard. Steve has been friends with Chelly for years and for a while they were both working at zoos in Thailand. I only met the guy a couple weeks ago, but we really have a lot of similar passions and beliefs, so I'm sure he'll be a friend for life. After working-out at his gym last night, I started thinking quite a bit about some other friends-for-life, about two of my best friends back home: Ole Johnson and Neil Devlin. I was riding [View Full Entry]

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Wow. I have a birthday this month, so does Chelly. After weeks of scraping by on borrowed money, chasing after visa info on slow computers and crackling phone lines, banging heads with awful embassy personnel, and riding busted buses on broken roads, we might actually get to enjoy them stress-free. It has really been fantastic, though--most of the time. We've balanced the unparrallelled headache of of the visa process with lots of quality family-and-friends time. Chelly has relatives scattered all across the Coast Province. We have a room at Dad's house in Mombasa's Mshomoroni ne [View Full Entry]

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I've now spent more time outside of India than I spent in the place. The thing about that is I still remember all the places and characters and major events, but I've forgot most of the details and especially all those little emotions. Anyway, I can still write about it. Looking back, I can even say conclusively that India is the perfect place for someone in search of that shocking cultural immersion and diversity of experiences that I was after when I went to Thailand. I guess that's a tip for other travellers like me--and an indication that I'll have to [View Full Entry]

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Chelly and I are still adventuring, and doing alright. I know it's been a long time since you've had an update from us, but don't worry. I can assure you that even though we are in a big mess, we will survive it and be happy to tell the tale. I called this post "House of Cards" because our plans have totally collapsed around us. Oh well, you know what they say about Mice and Men. Sad thing is, our plans weren't even well-laid. Actually, a house of cards is a totally innacurate analogy, it would be better to say, "House [View Full Entry]

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Rangers We left Calcutta in the back of a madman's tour-bus. It was cold, it was night, it was the impoverished upper-east corner of India. We didn't expect it, but we got it: ten hours of the worst discomfort either Chelly or I had ever imagined. The road was barley-paved and full of holes. Our driver bombed across pits and jumped the speed-bumps, weaving between both lanes of traffic and tearing off blindly to pass. I swear the bus got up on two wheels every time we took a corner. At the end of it, we were sore and tired and [View Full Entry]

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It's a good thing we started our Indian Immersion in Kolkata. 1. Kolkata is simply the craziest thing I have ever seen. A family friend, upon hearing that I was flying to this city, said that I was in for a heavy dose of humanity. He was dead-on. Kolkata is people--people everywhere jostling and shouting, and sounding like they're shouting even when they aren't because most of the city is at least partially deaf from all the noise (fact). The smells are impossible to ignore: underneath the waves of spice, incense, and perfume are strong currents of human feces and urine [View Full Entry]

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