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 //
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