A Masai House

(The first room)

(A house not made for big europeans)

(Flashes from our cameras made it posible to see)

(The "window" the pride of the Masai living in this house)

Sparkles!

I’m making a Kiswahili poster, just for fun, to decorate my wall and to help me learn it. Newspaper pictures, shredded parts of fashion magazines and lots and lots of colored pencils make the words come to life and hopefully they will have the same effect on my boring walls.

Numbers

1. Moja

2. Mbili

3. Tatu

4. Nne

5. Tanu

6. Sita

7. Saba

8. Nane

9. Tisa

10. Kumi (do not say kuma! It is a bad, bad word)

Masai jewelry

Letters

After having Marabou chocolate (which make you royalty in this school) getting letters are also something that make you a bit special. Since all letters end up in the students pidgin hole = a bookshelf with several shelves all with letters on them (my letters end up in the T or S box). Due to the fact that all letters end up here everyone can see when you get one and as fast as a letter hits the shelf it is always someone who runs to the lucky one to tell him or her.

// Looking happily at my two lovely letters //

My new favorites!

Podcasts are something I’ve completely missed! But they are a great invention. I am now via iTunes subscribing to MSF:s news program (a huge help with my project work), The Economist, News Pod, French for Beginners, P3 documentary and P3 news investigate and best of them all Conflict in P1 (last three ones are in Swedish of coarse). They make all the bumpy rides through Kenya so much more interesting.

I’ve also gotten some files from Lisa that contains audio books, another great invention. Right now I’m busy listening to all the Harry Potter books, love the British man making all the voices.

Me in Mara

(pictures taken by Lisa, hairdo by the African wind)

Game drives and Masais part 2

Last day in the Mara

Woke up by ourselves this time for an early peaceful breakfast without any rush. We then packed our bags so that we would be ready to check out when we returned from the visit to a Masai village that was the activity for the day.

It was a bit touristy but still seeing the Masais dance was quite cool and their outfits were just extraordinary. We got to, in small groups, take a seat in the Masai houses/huts. All Masai buildings are made by the women since it is their task and can take up to 5 years to build. Completely made from logs and cow dung with tiny rooms inside and no windows they are very warm and very dark inside. We could see nothing when we entered but thanks to flashes from our cameras we could make out at least a bit how the rooms looked. 5 people lived in the hut I visited, 5 people in a room much smaller than the wardrobe under our stairs at home.

Got back, said goodbye to the amazing camp, shoved ourselves into the car and started the bumpy ride back.

The lion king in real life

(Rock Hyrax, evil little vampire, looks like a hand puppet but will attack you when you least expect it)

(No he is not dead, the lazy bastard was sleeping)

(Before..)

(and after picture)

Game drives and Masais part 1

A couple of hours on “real” roads (Kenyan roads suck!) followed by the last couple of hours on something I can’t with respect for the English language describe as roads. It was grass planes where the grass had in straight lines been driven over so many times that the only thing being left were gravel and holes. It was a bumpy ride.

Singing, laughing and baguettes made it fun and seeing Basecamp made it worth all the bumps I got from hitting my head in the sealing. It is a Eco-camp = they plant trees, educate the Masai community in the area, everything in the camp is made from sustainable material that won’t harm the nature too much, the food is ecological and of coarse they have dry toilets (no flushing) and so on.

A couple of years ago, before he became the president, Barac Obama and his family stayed at the camp. That’s how luxurious this camp is. He lived in room number 16 and his kids had the room that Lisa, Julia and I had the pleasure of staying in. The rooms/bungalows/tents where made up of a wooden platform with a roof that a huge tent was attached to. The tent had net sides that made it possible to see out and enjoy the beautiful scenery consisting of the river running just a meter from the wooden foundation, a small forest with monkeys and the savanna in the background, all covered with wildebeests. The toilet, a dry one as I said, and the shower was not inside the “tent” but the bathroom was still surrounded by walls but the shower was outside, walls around but no roof.

At arrival we got a short briefing about the area and after that a very refreshing lunch with great vegetarian alternatives and a desert. We were shown to our rooms and left to say our O:s and A:s and run around exploring the luxury. Then it was time for the first game drive!

We visited Masai Mara at the exact right time because the wildebeests that migrate from the Serengeti in Tanzania to Masai Mara were all there. Everywhere you looked there were black dots, gnu after gnu walking around. Of coarse there were the regular zebras, gazelles and giraffes but we also got to see a pack of lions, 3 cheetahs and a Leopard! Being able to stand up in the car was so much fun and made it possible for me to take some photos that I will show you. A dinner in a candle-lit restaurant without walls, a very tasty soup as the first coarse, mashed potato with a mushroom and cheese filled aborigine and then a delicious desert. When we returned to our rooms our beds had been made up and in them we found one of the best inventions ever: warm water bottles.

We were awaken by a Masai at 6 o’clock and headed out for our next game drive. Hyenas, jackals, vultures and a male lion were the animals I saw during this drive that I hadn’t seen before.

Visit to a boarding school that Basecamp tries to help and develop and a short visit to the areas hospital. The classrooms at the school were a lot better than those in Kibera but still they lacked so much things children should have, like books, pens, papers and a map of the world (haven’t seen one since I got here). We also got to see the girls dormitory = a huge metal barn where 80+ girls lived on metal bunk beds. I felt quite bad when they asked me if this was how we lived at our school in Nairobi and I had to answer no, we have our own rooms.

Last game drive and we had the huge privilege of seeing a hippo-mother with her 1-day old baby; even the drivers had never seen one that small. It looked like a huge naked rat.

After the dinner the Masai men and women sang and danced for us and we sang and danced for them. After that I don’t remember much because I passed out from a very exiting day.

// Cliffhanger… the story continues in the next episode. //

Some photos of Basecamp

(The restaurant)

(our tent)

(Our view)

(Bathroom door)

(dry toilet)

(shower)

(me failing with getting out)

Back from the Mara

Love ya!

Tomorrow morning, 7.45, we head out in small busses for a 6-hour trip (Kenyan time 10) to Masai Mara. First hours will be on a road, the last ones won’t. As previously mentioned we’re staying at Basecamp, luxury camp for a group of students like us. I’m really looking forward to this, even the bus trip since we’re getting baguettes and since I’ve bought dried fruit to nibble on and downloaded podcasts to listen to all the way. The possibility of seeing the safari animals I still haven’t seen like hippos, leopards, hyenas and also the ones I’ve already seen on the safari I went on with my family in South Africa isn’t to bad either.

Since half of the school (the students taking nature/science) is already there we’ve had 2 calm and quiet days here at the boarding. Today especially was a day of true comfort. I woke up early as always and went down to breakfast with Lisa, we’re always the first there. After that we had no lessons, chilled a bit in the children’s library reading Per’s books which are all there and then decided to go sunbathe in the pool area since we finally had gotten a warm day. 2 hours of sunbathing and swimming, with a very uneven layer of sun cream on my back and it now looks like I have the map of the world burnt on my back. Two short lessons in the afternoon, dinner and then we who decided to stay home for the night (being hung over in a small car which is going to drive for 6 hours on crappy and very bumpy roads wasn’t a very alluring thought) made chocolate-balls and a chocolate cake. Lisa and I chaired 20 chocolate balls and then jumped in the pool, hoping that the cold water would burn away the fat. It didn’t.

// Se you in 3 day //

Masai Maras homepage if you want to find out more about the place.

http://www.masaimara.org/

A little story on Masai jewelry

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11392354

Kibera

Today I did my first reel visit to Kibera. By now I think you all know what it is but I doubt that anyone actually understands how bad it is there, even I don’t and I’ve been there. The only thing I want to do right now is eat, eat and eat. I want to sit in my room, cry and shove huge pieces of chocolate into my moth, that is how crappy I feel right now.

I thought that the slum I saw in South Africa was bad, but now I see it is really a luxurious place to live compared to Kibera. They had roads, water, nice schools and it did not smell like Kibera. Kibera has a smell worse than anything I’ve ever smelled before. It turns your stomach inside out and upside down.

Kibera is just shed after shed built on piles of garbage. Dogs, cats, chicken, goats and huge pigs walk around in the huge piles of waste lining the streets whilst kids run around by themselves, playing games and greeting us happily when we pass.

Our first stop was at a preschool for kids of single parents. No books, a one hundred years old blackboard, around 100 kids (all amazed by our hair and skin) in a huge metal barn is of coarse for us quite hard to see as a preschool but knowing what happens to kids that don’t go to school I think they are very well of. Their biggest issue was that they just recently lost the sponsor providing them with food, food being what gets kids in Kibera to go to school since they usually wont get much at home, and now had huge problems with being able to keep the kids coming.

Second stop was at a school for a bit older kids. We we’re divided two by two and got to join a class each. Me and the girl who was with me got to introduce ourselves to a class of 55 kids all mashed together in a classroom that was smaller than half of my room here at the boarding. They couldn’t even sit down all at the same time because the homemade benches were too small for everyone to fit. They wanted to know everything about Sweden (which they thought was Sudan) but we hardly knew what to tell them, how can you explain a country like Sweden to a kid who has seen nothing but the slum? Who’ve never seen a map of the world? They sang several songs to me and Anna and they especially took great pride in singing us their national anthem and then asked us if we could sing ours. Realizing that our national anthem is boring (and that we only knew the first part) we instead told them that we would sing a song in Swedish and see if they knew it in English and then sang twinkle twinkle little star, they got so exited when they could hear witch song it was that they started jumping up and down starting chaos in the small metal hut.

Leaving the school, a very inspiring place, we headed for the Women Power Group. This is a group of 20 women, all HIV positive that together have started a shop where they sell handicraft they’ve made themselves. They also improve their English together and learn how to use computer thanks to volunteers from among others the Swedish school. It was an amazing experience to speak to women like that. Who stood up straight and told us about what they’ve gone through. How the society and people shut them and their kids out when they got diagnosed and how they’ve now earned peoples respect again through hard work.

Tomorrow morning I’m going straight to the teacher who accompanied us because she is the one organizing volunteer work in Kibera.

// I can’t give a better description //

Pictures coming later!

I am no longer Swedish,

Mom, Dad, friends and family I am sorry to announce that I will not return to Sweden. I’m ashamed; people here have shown me nothing but respect and welcomed me with opened arms. What will they say tomorrow when they announce that a party like the Sweden Democrats is now allowed to join in and run Sweden. I will have to cover my face and hide in shame.

// Farwell dear countrymen! Hopefully one day I’ll be able to return. //

For all you grownups at home!

This picture is taken from my window out onto the new apartment that is being built next to our school. We wake up every morning to the sound of hammers and the contractors laud chatting. But that wasn’t what I wanted to say; I wanted to say can you see any safety lines? Or nets? Or helmets? I can count a couple of violations against the Swedish “Arbetsrätt” (I think it is called, but I’m probably wrong) and rules about how your environment and safety at work is supposed to be.

Just thought you should all take a thinker and realize for one second how lucky you all are, because even if your work sucks if you fall down from a roof there will be something or someone catching you.

Basecamp!

This is where we’re going on Saturday, Basecamp Masai Mara. We’re gone be living in a nice luxurious camp this time which hopefully has a real toilet.

http://www.basecampexplorer.com/our_destinations/masai_mara/our_basecamps/125177/en?expand=

A long walk

N'gong road, not a the prettiest road to walk along

After our party night Lisa, Elsa and I decided to go for a walk first to toy market and then to Yaya (another mall here, also the place where the Masai Market is held). If you walk by N’gong road, the road to hell if you’re not careful, for 10 minuets you get to toy market. Knowing that I’m torturing my shoes walking around in the mud all the time I had decided to find myself a pair of converse I could destroy without feeling bad so that was what I did. 100 kr for a pair of new grey converse, I’m happy. Even better was that I found myself a new best friend in the woman having her shed in the far end of toy market, because she had the nicest skirts I’ve ever seen. Now I’m sitting here in my skirt bought for 20 kr feeling pretty. She’ll see me many more times.

After that we came up with the idea to walk to Yaya to get some unhealthy stuff to make tonight’s waiting for the results of the election a bit more interesting and also Lisa wanted to find herself a bag at the Masai Market. I was itching to get myself into bargain mode and start buying all the beautiful clothes, fabrics, bags and jewelry that they sell but decided to wait, thinking about the fact that we’re going to Masai Mara next week and soon also Mombasa.

Earth Dance

Colorful lights, tents, fun upbeat music and lots and lots of people all in hyper party mode was the sight that met us when we entered N’gong racecourse here in Nairobi. I wanted to do nothing but dance, dance and dance all night an that was pretty much what I did.

This is a huge event in Kenya. Everyone was there, especially everyone who wasn’t Kenyan. We had the French school, English school, some Americans, the Dutch and loads of other nationalities but nobody sang as loud, danced as much or partied as hard as the Swedish school. Here we’re met with smiles and cheers whenever the Swedish school bus roles up to a party. Nobody dislikes us, in the markets, stores and at parties we’re never met by the hostility that we sometimes see people here show for British people.

// Next year I’ll have to go to the Earth Dance party in Copenhagen instead //

I've gotten a tour in Kibera

An article about truism in slums. Kibera witch is just 10 minuets from here is mentioned.

http://www.sydsvenskan.se/varlden/article1241852/Kakstaden-som-turistmal.html

In the end of the article there are some facts about Kibera, very interesting to read.

We're in Africa of course there's no water

I woke up and stumbled to the bathroom, my legs didn’t want to work after a night in pain, unable to sleep. Remembered that our toilet was still out of work. Decided to just splash my face with some water before I walked down the stairs, but then…. Psssshyyyyy said the tap and no water came. I realized this must be some kind of toilet curse; everything in our bathroom was breaking down. I checked the shower, no surprise there it was out of order too. I went down to the girl who lives in the corridor under me to see if her toilet worked, but she suffered from the same no where to go problem as the rest of us. I went to talk to one of the boarding hosts, and jippy! The whole school is out of water. This is gone be an interesting day.

// I’m forced to rest the whole day, will miss the trip to the orphanage but what can I do? //

Stomachache, pain, pain and more pain, no school for me tomorrow it looks like.

MSF and the Red Cross

As I might have mentioned before I’m going to do two huge projects for school this year. The first being the mandatory project that all third graders have to do; the second is to write a resolution for the Model UN coarse that I’m taking.

For the first project I have decided that I am going to write about how Medicals Sans Frontiers and the Red Cross works and what makes them differ from each other. I will also ad a section where I’ll write about a particular place, conflict or natural disaster where they’ve both participated and helped. So if you got anything: good articles or sites with information about these two organizations feel free to help me out.

My second project is a group project and is as I said for the Model UN coarse. The Model UN coarse has a finishing stage where your group is supposed to present the resolution you’ve written to a jury and about 800 other students from around the world. This will be held at the UN-Habitat here in Kenya in February from the 7^th to the 11^th. Writing a resolution and trying to explain what the Model UN coarse really is, is kind of impossible since I have no idea how it works. But so far my group has decided that we will write a resolution about something concerning immigrants and their rights. So once again if you’re sitting on any good information about immigration politics or anything concerning the subject I need your help.

Jina langu ni Saga

(My name is Saga)

Subject

Mimi = I

Wewe = you

Yeye = he/she

Sisi = we/us

Ninyi = you

Wao = they

Wewe ni nani? = Who are you?

Jina lako ni nani = What is your name?

Ni = är

Si = är inte

// African dance = pain in every muscle //

Earth dance

This Saturday we’ll be aloud to party for the first time since we got here. We are going to a huge event called Earth dance witch is held at the Ngong racecourse here in Nairobi. It is a party supporting peace on earth and is held not only here in Kenya but all over the world. The girls who’ve been here more than a year all say it is an extraordinary party so we’re all looking forward to it.

Masai Market

Sunday, once again time for the Masai Market. I had been longing to go back there since the first time, so many beautiful colors, fabrics, bags and jewelry and so very cheep (if you know how to bargain). Last time I was scared of the very pushy vendors but this time I knew my Kiswahili words and could play the game of someone who knew what she was doing. I’m even getting better at bargaining, I found it a bit to fun and didn’t want to stop.

This is what I bought:

A bag (the green one) perfect for carrying my camera around in, now I’ll be able to take more pictures to show you.

Two scarves, they are amazing (just as with the bag and the fabric the internet doesn’t do the colors justice) and surprisingly high quality, so soft and comfy. The best part is that they are perfect to wear as turbans, the best type of clothing there is in the Kenyan sun.

The yellowish thing is a fabric that I’ll put on my wall as fast as I can find a place where they can frame it. It took me hours to choose which fabric I wanted because there were so many of them but this suited my wall the best.

A typical Kenyan print painting that I just fell in love with. It is perfectly covering up the part of my wall were someone has written Robin was here 2009.

Indian spices

Our ride, one of the smaller Swedish school vans picked us up at 19.15 and took us to the Indian restaurant that the boarding parents had recommended. We were 7 girls and 1 guy all in good mood and very hungry. When we got to the restaurant we were all presently surprised because from the outside the restaurant really didn’t look like much but inside it was really cozy. As usually we stood out amongst the rest of the people in the rum who were mainly upper class Indians. Women in colorful fabrics with beads and sparkling prints and men with very proper suits all turned their heads when a group of blond kids walked in. We were seated at huge round table right next to the glaswall that divided the kitchen from the restaurant witch we all found perfect since we then could watch the talented chefs tossing nan breads and frying tica masala (ignore spelling). We got our menus and started picking what we wanted, some going for things they knew how it tasted like and others just picking what sounded most interesting. Since rise usually comes with the food and if not the waiter usually tells you, so we all assumed that the rise would be included. It wasn’t. But who cares? The food was amazing and we used the nan breads to not die from the hot spices. However we were three people, me being one of them, who probably would have needed the rice because our food was a tad spicier than the rests. In the end of the dinner the three of us were red in our faces and sweated like pigs, I believe that is how Indian food is supposed to leave you so I didn’t care.

Inception

I found it! Lactose free yogurt! In a small health store I found the one thing I’ve been longing for since I got here, happiness.

Last night we were all aloud to choose if and where we would like to go out and eat dinner in the evening. It was our first time out at night and we could choose between 3 restaurants were we could go; we’re still not aloud to go to any nightclubs. The restaurants were: Impalas bar were you could eat hamburgers (and drink way too much witch was the real reason people went there), Westgate mall were you could eat wherever you wanted to (or sneak over to the club next to it, the people who went there later found out that it was a gay club) the last choice and the place were I went was first to go to Java for coffee and cakes and then to go to the cinema at Junction and watch Inception. The movie was amazing and it was also quite interesting to see how different going to the cinema here in Kenya is from how we do it in Sweden. I’m used to go in quite comfortable clothes, sit down in the saloon and take of my shoes. Here you go in your nicest suit, dressed to the teeth and taking of your shoes is just something unthinkable.

// Indian restaurant tonight //

5.40 and I’m up.

Early morning and it is pitch black outside. Got my training gear on and went down stairs to the hallway were Fam was waiting. Both of us still had lines from our pillows on our cheeks. The guards knew we were coming and one of them escorted us over the sleeping N’gong road. The dawn which we’ve been told is the most dangerous time in Nairobi didn’t seem to bad, there were only a few women walking to work and a man jogging outside, but still it was nice to have Gorge (the guard) accompanying us. When we got to the gym there were quite a few people already up and working out in the gym, but we were set on the Tums, Bums and Legs class that started 6.15. We were the only once there so the trainer could focus all his attention towards us. It hurts; everything hurts, every little centimeter of my exhausted body hurts, but breakfast never was this good.

Kenya’s inefficiency

It is hard for me to say this but Kenyans have one huge flaw in general and that is their inefficiency. First you think it is because the country itself has an air of Hakuna Matata and you feel sorry for the Kenyans living in bad conditions. I still feel bad for them but after speaking with the girls and guys attending the Swedish school and who’ve lived here a couple of years with their families they all say the same, Kenyans are annoyingly inefficient. Everything here takes, as I’ve told you, hours. Take today for example when I went to the gym to get a gym card that would last a month. I get there; receptionist number 1 fills in a form and gives me a gym card, this took 15 minuets. I then have to go to the next reception to speak to the next receptionist who was supposed to give me a form to fill in but since they were all out on forms I was told to fill it in when I left. 1,5 hours later when I came back to the reception there were still no form to fill in, I’ll have to go there tomorrow to do it. I bet there won’t be a form then either because this is how it works in Kenya, it doesn’t.

// It’s gone be horrid to get back to Sweden where there’s so much stress //

TIA = that's why our toilet still wont work.

More Kiswahili, some important words

Safi = Good

Asante sana = Thank you very much

Hujambo = Hello (Jambo is only for the turists)

Sijambo = Your answer to the previous hello.

Hodi = What you say when you knock on someone’s door

Karibu = Welcome

Habari ya asubuhi = Good morning

Habari ya jioni = Good evening

Habari ya mchana = Good day

Habari yako = How are you?

In Kenya you always answer Salama, Nzuri or Njema witch all mean good if someone asks how are you. Kenyans would never answerer bad, they just say I’m good but…

Salama lakini mimi ninakufa = I’m good but I’m dying.

Talk about positive people.

// Kwaheri = Goodbye //

Roads

Roads, some extremely busy, few frequently maintained in a somewhat okay condition all with Matatas (small vans working as public transportation), buses and huge trailers driving in a way that would stun the Swedish police. Here they are supposed use the British system and drive on the left side of the road but nobody really does that, here you drive where there are no holes or donkeys on the road. I have realized that the only way to not get ulcers from the fear of dying when you’re in a car here is to concentrate on the scenery instead. Goats, cows, chicken, dogs and donkeys all in what would be considered bad condition walking by the road. Some all-alone tied in there feet to the spot were they are standing so that their owners will be able to find them for dinner. Cows and goats walking outside the city and the small towns in tiny or huge herds shepherded by one man or several younger boys who that day, and possibly everyday miss out on school. Kids from 4 years and up walking all by them self by the highway to the daycare centers because their mothers are busy. 8-year-old girls carrying bundles of twigs to bring home to warm the small houses during the cold nights.

Everywhere garbage, garbage and more garbage and where there is garbage there are people trying to find something useful in it. Kids with plastic bags digging through huge piles of crap trying to find something useful to possibly sell, with dirty clothes and hope in their eyes they dig in piles higher than their heads. They always smile and wave to us. We look horrified, is this reality? What happened to sandboxes, games at the schoolyard, finger-paint and all the things we got to have as children. Why were these kids chosen to dig through the dirt?

Ladies and gentlemen I have pooped in a hole

I have spent 3 days and 2 nights in a park called Hell’s Gate, a park with zebras and gazelles grazing the grass and baboons sneaking into unguarded tents. The landscape in the park was indescribable; I can’t find any words good enough to portray the valley, the mountains and the savanna. It is just Africa.

You might think the headline of this post is a bit too straightforward but I’m quite proud of myself. I have never entered a “toilet” so disgusting in my whole life; one campsite chaired an outhouse split in two, each with a 10 cm in diameter hole inside. And no light! (People missed!) From now on I’m going to cherish every moment on a real toilet. Also taking my first warm shower in 3 day was amazing, I’ve never felt so fresh. For 3 days I’ve been covered in the orange Kenyan dust and sweat from my first really hot days since I came here. But now I smell of Body Shop’s strawberry lotion, I’m feeling rather at home here at the boarding school.

So now I’ll tell you everything else I did this weekend, except from pooping in a hole.

The first day we were split into 3 groups, my group being the one that would stay in camp the first day for bonding games. They were all good thought through games; we had lots of fun and came a lot closer it felt like. A yummy dinner was served. The people serving it told us we ate more than the British group of military men that had been there a week before and laughed at us running towards the kitchen area every time they mentioned food. First I thought that well we’re growing kids (or teenagers) that need a lot of food, but then I felt ashamed and thought about all the people here that cant buy food, who never know when they’ll eat their next meal.

Day 2 my group went gorge walking after an early sunrise stroll in the park. The walk was most of the time in or just next to a tiny river flowing through the ravine so afterwards we were all wet, muddy and of coarse covered in the orange dust of Kenya. The scenery was one of the most breath taking I’ve ever seen, the sun shining in over the huge walls of the gorge, burning our necks and tanning our arms (most people forgot sun screen on their necks, I didn’t!). Lunch when we came back wasn’t too bad either since the walk had consisted of a lot of rock climbing we were all starving. After that we went to a flower farm growing roses. If you didn’t know Kenya is supposedly growing 90 % of the flowers sold in the stores in Europe or something like that. I thought that that number couldn’t be correct until I saw the rose farm, 50 hectares of roses in every color and shape. It wasn’t even one of the big farms witch are up to 100 hectares. When I thought the day couldn’t get any better we went to another camp in the area witch had… wait for it… SHOWERS! Cold ones but who cares when you’re covered in 5 layers of dirt. The absolute best part was that if there are showers there is running water and if there is running water there is… wait for it… TOILETS!

Day 3 I challenged my fear of heights. My group ended our stay in Hell’s Gate with something that is close to a visit to hell for me. We went rock climbing. I have a very dumb and extremely silly but o so real fear of heights. First I had decided that I wouldn’t do it, my stay in Hell’s Gate had been so much fun that I didn’t want to jeopardize it by climbing a huge stone that god dropped in the middle of nowhere. After I had taken pictures of almost everyone else doing it something clicked in my brain and I went temporarily insane and decided to give it a try. I geared up and in seconds I was several meters above ground. I looked down and realized that were I was at that point was my limit of how high I could go without passing out. I slowly was lowered down and the second my toes hit ground every muscle in my body relaxed, including the ones holding back the tears. Thankfully the instructor got me out of the harness quickly because seconds after the flood of tears came my legs were shaking so badly I could no longer stand on them. I’m very proud of myself and to my defense I wasn’t the only crier in the bunch. I have now been rewarded by myself with a chocolate bar witch I ran to Juction to buy as fast as I got back to school.

// A weakened that was too short ended with a post that is too long //

Three days in the bush.

Camping in Africa!

Alliance Francaise

Spent the evening on a concert with artists from the northern parts of Kenya. First there were to groups playing after each other containing two women and a man in each. They were followed by a group of seven women and then the main act being a sax player. These women, coming from the northern parts of Kenya, were all Muslims. Dressed in long dresses and wearing hijabs. The audience was also containing many Muslim women, who were the first to hit the dance floor closely followed by us. OMG (OMG = o my god, translation for mom and dad) they could dance. And of course we couldn’t. But we didn’t care and neither did they so we just danced the night away.

// Another Kenyan night to remember //

Some new words that you wont use

Remember to pronounce them just as you would if you read them in Swedish

Kataa – Refuse

Pekee – Alone

Sisikii – I can not hear

Jogoo – Roster

Mguu – Leg

Pia – Also

Tai – Tie

Kadi – Card

Mboga – Vegetable

Uchi – Naked

Jibu – Answer

Imba – Sing

Ndizi – Banana

Chafu – Dirty

Mbuzi – Goat

Swedish embassy!

Just voted for the first time in my life! All third graders got to go to the Swedish embassy with the teachers from school to vote, it was a really fun little school trip were we ate bananas and sang the Kenyan national anthem in the buss.

The rest of the day was a sports day so we got to choose two activities, each an hour long that we would do. I wanted to do the African dance but that group was full so I got to go to the gym instead and after I went to yoga. I’m exhausted right now; my muscles are still trying to fill up on the air they lost while training on such high ground. These activities were so we could try out what we wanted to have as after school activities for the rest of the year. I’m signed up on the African dance now so from now on I should be able to participate in that and then yoga every Thursday. On the rest of my spear time I can just hang at the gym. I’ll be a body builder when I come home.

As a reward for training so hard, for not eating anything unhealthy since I got here and as a pre-reward for voting I went with a couple of the girls from school to Java to try their famous chocolate fudge brownie. It was heaven on earth. It was like Christmas, my birthday and a ski holiday all at the same time. It was soo good. It was a HUGE CHOCOLATE FUDGE BROWNIE, what more do I need to say.

// Now my stomach will punish me with some more pain for losing my will power to a dessert //

Toy Market

First visit to Toy Market. That was a weird place. Crappy second hand clothes for 2 kr, nice second hand clothes for 2 kr, bags, shoes (the converse “store” will be visited again. Practically new for 70-90 kr, that is a good price for a pair of nice converse), and really cool jewelry. I had decided from the start that I would just have a look; still none of us really understand what to pay for things here and the bargaining part I really need to practice. I of course ended up with two pairs of earrings but since I paid 15 kr I’m happy. They are quite cute.

My room has gotten a bit cozier since I put up the pictures I printed at Junction yesterday. I’m gone print some more later but for now I at least have some of my family and friends on the wall so I can see them every day.

// If you’re not up there, don’t worry you’ll soon bee //