Advertisement
Published: April 5th 2006
A little after noon we left the park and headed into Voi. We ater our packed lunches at a gas station/ rest stop. Anne, Ruben (our teachers), our food and other supplies joined us there. We then clombed back into the vans and began our way inot the Taita hills for our week village stay.
We got rained on on our way up. It was so peaceful I ended up falling asleep. When I awoke it appeared our vans had been teleported to Costa Rica. The hills/mountains we were climbinb were so green and trees were everywhere. The only ones I recognized were the banana trees. The hillsides were covered in terraced farms that reminded me of Nepal and scattered houses.
It didn't take us long to arriave at the site of the clinic we were going to help build at the village of Mgange-Dawida. We were met at the site by our host-mothers. Once our bags had been unloaded they began reading off the names of a student and their new mother. We began leaving one by one. when they read off mine and my mother's name, Romana, I recieved a great big hug from her, grabbed my
bag and we were off to my new home for the next 9 days. It was about a 15-20 min walk down the mountain t o our house. I was greeted by lots of people while we passed their homes.
Everything around me was sooo green and vibrant. It was such a contrast of landscape and vegitation from where we had just been. we passed houses that had flowers planted infront of them. I hadn't realized until that moment that that had been missing from all the houses I've seen in Lamu, Malindi and Mombasa. They made those homes appear much more welcoming. I hadn't realized how much I missed planted flowers. After we turned off the main road we headed down a fairly steep and very muddy narrow trail. It had just rained so everything was extremely slippery. I kept expecting myself to slip and just eat it with my big backpack on my back trhowing off my balance. I really was prepared to just slide down on my bag. hehe... Wat a site that would've been. =) luckily I managed it without falling.
My house was in a little cove of trees. The front was decorated
Working on the site
SIT in corroboration with the surrounding villages has put up this building which will hopefully be open as a dispensary for the area by the end of the summer.with planted flower beds. One of the vine-like plants had beautiful pink flowers. It was so picturesque. We walked inside and walked down an open rectangular courtyard. The courtyard had big plastic buckets filled with rain water from earlier that day scattered in it. The water remained in those buckets and water was drawn from them when needed for cooking or washing.
The house was built of cement and had a tin roof. The first door on the left was the living room and dining room. then to the right of that and to the front of the entryway was the kitchen, of which I'll give a description later, usually with black smoke billowing out fo the door. Next to the kitchen was a storage room and also the room where the chickens were kept. On the opposite side from the kitchen were the bedrooms. Mine was the first one. It was a large dark room with a window on the opposite side from the door that had a bed unter it. Just above the head of the bed was a little table with a doiley that I put my bag on so my clothes weren't on the cold
Working on the site
SIT in corroboration with the surrounding villages has put up this building which will hopefully be open as a dispensary for the area by the end of the summer. cement floor. The walls didn't go uip all the way to the ceiling but were open at the top and opened to the next room. The room was usually so dark taht even during the day I had to use my flashlight if I needed to find something. The side opposite the living room was another bedroom. At the end of the side witht the kitchen there was a little walkway. You walked down a couple stairs to an open recangular area with a backdoor to the "shamba" (farm). In the cornere there were 3 narrow rectangular rooms. the first was the washroom, then a storage room and then the toilet room. that r oom consistted of a little square hole in the cement over a large hole in the ground. when you were done you covered the hole with a piece of wood.
(A little culture side note while I'm talking of bathrooms. It's very interesting here that people are very indirect when expressing needing to go to the bathroom. You don't just say "I have to go pee" or "I have to go to the bathroom". In Swahili you say "Ninahitaji kuenda kujisaidia" meaning "I have to
The family farm
Most of the people living in the Taita Hills are substince families meaning they grow the food they eat (for the most part). The average size of a plot of land is 4 acres. Enough land to grow food to feed your family. The main crops are beans and bannanas. Families also have their own cows and chickens along with a few other crops go help myself". In Taita you have to gof ro a "short call" or a "long call" and that's very important because sometimes the place you go depends on the type of "call" you have. Just thought you would all enjoy that. )
After I got a tour of the house I met the rest of the family. I had 2 younger brotheres, Eric - 18 and Alphus - 14. My host dad Cassian returned from Mombasa right before dinner. My host-parents are both in their 60s and have 3 other children in their 20s and 30s but they live in Mombasa and Voi.
We were going to sit down for milk tea, which we did everyday at around 6, but first I had to bathe. I was soooooo dirty. I had red dirt caked all aver me from the safari. My host-mom put some heated water in a bucket and took it into the washroom for me. I followed with my flashlight and clothes. It felt so nice to take a hot shower, even a bucket shower. It's amazing how little whaiter you use for a bucket shower and yet you still get as clean as you
do taking a regular shower. I do have to say though that bathing by flashlight is pretty interesting and has its challenges.
The chai (tea) was very good. They drink it all the time there so I'm glad I liked it. With tea we had white bread with butter and maple syrup (which seemed to be the staple food). We ate dommer early beacause I was exhausted from the trip (and speaking Swahili. They only spoke to me in Swahili which was great but also exhausting). Early, however, is relative. We ate dinner at 9:00 that night. the rest of the week we ate between 9:30 and 10:00 which was still early by their standards. My family was catholic so we prayed befroe dinner. I've never seen anyone pray that long before a meal. Cassian and Romana took out their rosaries. They said the prayers in Swahili so I didnt' understand anything. Prayers must have lasted about a good 15 min. or so.
Then we set the table and ate dinner. The food was very good but they wanted me to eat waaaaaaay more than I could. They eat so much I don't have any idea where they
put it all! I finished dinner with a very full stomach and them saying I hadn't eaten nearly enough. With that they sent me off to bed. I curled up under the wool blanket and settled in for a very peaceful night of sleep.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.091s; Tpl: 0.025s; cc: 8; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0552s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mugambi Arimi
non-member comment
IT IS PRUDENT TO SPEAK GOOD OF PEOPLE
Thank for your generous comments about Kenya. It is un common to see people say anything good about Africa. What baffles people with common sense is, where do people find all animosity to speak ill of 800million people.