The first of December

Have for 3 days now been trying to cough up my lungs, so far I haven’t succeeded but I don’t think it is far to go now. I drink liter after liter of tea and sleep as much as possible, as the school nurse say there is not much else I can do. Except for being happy being in warm sunny Kenya and not cold snowy Sweden. I thought it would be hard without a real Christmas but we are not really missing anything, we just get the best parts of Christmas and skip the rest. For example tonight everyone is getting ready to see the first episode of this years Christmas calendar on SVT.

101 days in Kenya

1:a advent

När första ljuset brinner står julens dör på glänt

och alla barnen glädjas att fira få advent.

Yesterday we watched Harry Potter 7 part 1 and today it is time to let the Christmas frenzy begin.

The tea farm at the tea hotel

18/11

Before starting the bus ride back to Nairobi from Kericho (the tea district) we got a morning tour in the tea fields and were told about how you pick tea, what part of the bushes you pick, when you pick it and so on. There where several people out on the field already, working hard with the plucking. One person at that farm picked up to around 60 kilos a day and got 8 kr per kilo, not a bad salary being in Kenya. One very positive thing with bigger tea farms like the one we visited is also the fact that the workers get a place to live with their families, newly built houses in very neat rows built on top of the tea hills, houses a lot better looking than the Kenyan homes I’ve seen so far and with much better access to clean water. They even have something that is extremely rare here in Kenya, which is privacy; usually houses here are located wall to wall without any space between them, squashed together to save space but here there where almost a front yard for to house.

We also got to see the next step in the tea production, which was the tea factory. It was a 40-minuet tour and we got to sea how the tealeaf went from being a leaf to the finely grinded powder that they have in tea bags.

Lucia

For the first time since I was 8 I’m participating in something that involves singing, namely the Swedish Schools Lucia. After an hour of practicing for the first time for this I’ve lost my voice, which just shows I’m not used to sing. The reason behind that, well of course it is because I’m tone deaf and can’t sing at all. So far they haven’t kicked me out but I guess that won’t be too long because I doubt they are going to risk having to bring me to the embassy where they are going to perform. We are a couple of girls, about 5 who sing in quires, 4 who sing very well, me, and 3 guys + all the 1-9^th graders. We were discussing the possibility of going to Junction (the mall) to sing but decided to not do so thinking that walking around in white robes and pointed hats with a girl with fire in her hair leading the whole thing might be miss interpreted being in Kenya and all.

Fish

17/11

The whole group of SP students went to the fishing ministry in the morning to learn more about Lake Victoria, nobody really did, it was quite a bad presentation but after that we got to do more fun things like visit a small harbor where they were just taking in the days nets. We got to see a Nile perch, the most disgusting fish ever; it was bigger than Jens (my brother). When the fish had been put in boxes we got to go to the next station namely a fish factory. It was very interesting and we happily explained to the guide that being in the huge freezers made us feel very much at home. The fish that they packet at that factory goes to all Europe, including Sweden. It has a life span of 2 years… and the fish inside the plastic airtight bags comes from the green water of Lake Victoria that you could see on the previous pictures. If I were you I would check once or twice on the packet of my fish sticks before I ate them to see where they are from.

Stole Lisas photos again

(I love my batique pants, they are so not fashion!)

Kenyans

Frida

Jacob, a dead Lisa and Fanny

Lisa and Emma

Kusa = Is a Cow in Swedish

(As our Kiswahili teacher put it)

16/11

The visit to Kusa was mostly for us to see how a typical Kenyan village works and also see how different organizations are helping villages like Kusa to develop and improve themselves. It was fun but also very tiresome since the sun was shining and it was extremely warm outside. We got to see a woman and her house, including the houses of her sons, here mango, cotton and peanut fields and her animals. She was one of those truly strong women in hart and soul and ran her whole household all by herself.

After that visit we went to the village’s little clinic and those who wanted could listen to a woman who spoke no English explain about how her work was as a midwife helping with home deliveries, both the Kiswahili teacher and our bus driver where to embarrassed to translate what she was saying so she took to a very special body language.

A last walk around the area ended our visit to Kusa and we returned to Kisumu, 9 of us going to an amazing Chinese restaurant to eat until we had to unbutton our pants to be able to stand up and walk back to New Victoria Hotel.

VI-skogen

After our visit to Lake Victoria and a quick lunch, a small group of students got into one of the school buses and were driven to the headquarters of the VI-forest project in Kisumu. This building is the base of the organization, which in Kisumu helps around 40 000 farmers to improve their farms, the nature and their lives. We got a short briefing about their work, got in the bus again and drove for an hour to a small farm owned by a man and his wife.

He showed us what changes he had made to his farm to improve it, told us what he had gained from it and showed his fields of bananas, beans and a couple of Kenyan crops which I don’t know the names of. It was the first time I’ve seen such an organized farm here in Kenya.

One problem for me though was once again seeing the Kenyan way of keeping animals. Just as every farmer here in Kenya this one had a couple of cows, goats, chickens and dogs to be able to provide his family with food. But they don’t have the same way of looking at animals here as they do in Sweden, which is understandable, but still it was quite hard for us to see the tiny dog shed, the over crowded chicken house some of the cows which in my eyes looked a bit thin. But even that is improving thanks to the VI-forest project now that they are teaching the farmers to better keep animals and bread them in a more humane way.

Lake Victoria

After a breakfast that took 2 hours we walked down to the shore of Lake Victoria where two “boats” (read scraps of wood and metal put together to something floating) were waiting for us. We divided ourselves and jumped into the boats and floated out on the green contaminated water of Lake Victoria. It is quite easy to see one of the reasons why Lake Victoria is so full of trash and other substances not really belonging in any nature environment because the first thing we saw when we got down to the Lake’s shore was cars which had been driven right down into the lake which was now used as a huge carwash. Quite sad to see.

Apart from alga and water hyacinths we also saw hippos and eagles living of the Lake. How anything could be living in such green water, the color just like green paint, is to me a mystery.

While being told about the latest death brought up by hippos our boat broke down about 2 – 3 meters from a pack of them. The engine died and the boat was leaking from the side, we had to be dragged by the other boat back while the boys sitting behind me in the boat were given buckets to try and keep the boat somewhat dry. It was all very exciting.

More transportation

Tuck tucks you’ve probably heard of, miniature cars with 3 wheels and very weak engines. This transportation method I tried for the first time in Kisumu and it was quite fun.

But it could never beat Boda Boda which was so much fun to try. It is a bike with a pillow in the back to make it more comfortable to sit on. It was such a adrenaline kick to fly down the steep streets of Kisumu on a very old bike without gears and which I wasn’t sure had any brakes. I just felt sorry for the poor Kenyan guy who had to paddle around with me behind him.

New Victoria

A trip to Kisumu

We left home early Monday morning in four busses, two heading for Kakamega rainforest, two for Kisumu. I slept almost all of the 8 hours to Kisumu except for the pauses I took to sing along with the rest in the singing game lead by one of the teachers riding in our buss. Lunch was a picnic brought from school, which we had at the tea hotel in Kericho where we also stayed the last night of our field study week.

Around 4 o’clock we arrived at New Victoria Hotel in Kisumu where we got to walk around in the city before it was time for dinner with the whole gang of SP students. During our little stroll we got to try two new transportation methods that they have here in Kenya, but more about those later.

About the hotel: it is Muslim owned, ugly but cozy, and the first thing that greeted Lisa and I in our bathroom was a cockroach. I’m starting to get used to those iffy little things. The best thing about the hotel was that it was close to one of Kisumu’s huge mosques, a perfect location if you want to hear them call to prayer at 5 o’clock in the morning.

I need a fur bal

Being without a doggy is really hard for me, and as I said before the empty space in my life that was before filed by Ofelia was for a week here temporarily filled by a goat. Now the goat is gone I miss my baby again. Yesterday one of the girls who live here in Kenya more permanently and by herself brought here cat to school so that the two girls who are staying behind (do to sickness) can take care of it while the rest of us go to Kisumu. It is just a teeny weenie kitten and it is perfectly adorable, so calm and just loves to curl up in your knee and fall asleep. I think it should stay here forever.

// Back on Friday //

Nairobi city center

I woke up yesterday with way too much extra energy, so after I’d thrown all my laundry into a washing machine, I went to get rid of it by doing some swimming. Still feeling the need to do something after that Lisa, Elsa, Frida, her friend Emma (who is visiting from Tanzania) and I took a Swedken taxi to Biashara Street, which is in central Nairobi.

Biashara Street is the fabric street here in Nairobi and had a couple of really fun shops where you can find not only beautiful Kenyan fabrics with colorful prints but also touristy stuff and other unnecessary things. We walked around a bit, up and down different streets until we found a beautiful bookshop, I almost couldn’t leave, there where amazingly beautiful books, all the classics in the world and new African books. It was all too much for me and of course I couldn’t leave without one of the books so I bought The Black Man’s Burden by Basil Davidson a book about the history of Africa.

After a lunch we took a city hoppa back to school so we would have time to sleep an hour or two before we were going to go out partying at Double Inn.

A visit to a home

Friday night a couple of girls were invited to go and visit Ellen’s home. She is one of the girls who lives here in Kenya with here family and doesn’t live on the boarding. It was amazing being in a real home again. Almost everyone here refers to the boarding as our home by now, but there is something missing, that feeling of it being yours. So being in a home with a mother, father and brother, with pictures on the walls and all those little personal decorations that make a home a home was a welcomed pause from being “old” and take care of yourself and we all started to behave a bit more childish as fast as we entered the house. We sat down in the living room to eat popcorn and sing songs from when we were younger, it was very cozy, until we had to return to the school so that those who wanted to go out partying wouldn’t miss the school bus going to Double Inn, one of the nightclubs we’re aloud to go to.

Lisa, Elsa and I (mostly I) were planning to go out Saturday instead so we decided to watch TV instead. Not being able to find a movie we wanted to watch we tried SVT to see what was on. Doobidoo with no one less than Maria Montesami as a guest was all we could have ever wished for and when it was followed by Skavlan, with Carola as a guest, we could almost not hold back our happiness.

Field study week

Monday-Friday we’re leaving Nairobi again, this time for our field study week in Kisumu. Kisumu is located by the coast of Lake Victoria and is Kenya’s third largest city so there will be lots and lots to see.

Kisumu’s main resource is fish, no surprise there, so most of the things we’ll get to do and see are lake or fish related but of course well get to do and see more than just fish.

Monday will be spent in 4 busses, two going to Kisumu (SP-students) and the other two going to Kenya’s only rainforest (NV-students). We’ll be traveling from 7.30 to around 17.00 when we’ll arrive at New Victoria Hotel in Kisumu.

Tuesday we get to choose if we want to go on a boat tour on Lake Victoria or go explore Kisumu, I’m going on the boat tour. After lunch we’ll get to choose once again but this time between going to the VI-forest (Swedish NGO), a visit to the Kenyan NGO IDCC which is working in a village near bye called Osiri with questions like HIV and AIDS (Kisumu has the highest percentage of population with HIV or AIDS in all of Kenya) or again explore Kisumu, here I’m going to the VI-forest.

Wednesday we’re going to a small traditional Kenyan village called Kusa. Here we will be divided into two groups. The first group will contain the 9 lucky people who got their names drawn in the lottery we had about who would get to go will go fishing on Lake Victoria. I was not one of them but I’m happy anyway because I’ll get to go with group number two and learn about the village life in Kusa and visit a couple of homes. After eating we’ll get to talk and listen to the different groups of the village, the elders, the women, the single mothers and the youths.

Thursday we’re going to visit a fishing camp, the fishing ministry and a fishing factory. After that we leave Kisumu behind to go to Kericho, the Kenyan center for planting tea.

Friday is dedicated to a visit at a tea farm and a visit to a tea factory. Then after lunch we head home.

// Kisumu is a Luo word and means a place where hungry people can go to find food. //

// One hour with car from Kisumu there is a small village called Kogelo, where Obama’s grandmother lives. //

Kenya news

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11733765

Ninapenda Kiswahili!

MVG on my first Kiswahili test.

I love boxing!

Transport

Here in Kenya you can get from one place to another in many ways, some better, safer and a lot more comfortable than others.

1. Walking only works with short distances and is not really safe due to it being written in our foreheads that we are muzungus.

2. Biking I would never do here but a lot of Kenyans get to and from work in that way. The traffic on the roads is usually chaotic and unlike the drivers in Copenhagen drivers here don’t watch out for bikers and wouldn’t really care if they accidentally hit one.

3. Matatos are strictly forbidden for us students, mostly because there are rapports every day about the accidents they are in. Matatos are vans which have been striped of everything inside them so that a couple of extra seats can be squeezed in, making the car a metal shell without any possibility of not crumpling to a metal ball in case of a crash. These cars are driven by people trying to make some extra money, they “stop” at the same places where the city hoppas “stop”. You just hop on when they’ve slowed down enough and pay 20 shilling (2 kr) and tell the guy sitting in the seat by the door where you want to get of. Matatos always have more people than seats in them, no air-condition and the driver usually has the stereo on full volume so it is not really a comfy way of traveling.

4. Citty Hoppas are the busses here in Kenya, a bit safer than the matatos but just as hard to get on and of. These we are allowed to go in and today will be the first time for me when I’m going with a couple of other girls from school to try boxing not to far from toy market. Just as the matatos they cost 20 shilling but unlike them they are supposed to be a lot more comfortable and usually not filled to the breaking limit.

5. The train I’ve already told you about.

6. Swedken is the only taxi company we are allowed to travel with. It is owned by a Swedish woman and all their drivers know the Swedish School so it is supposed to be the safest way to travel for us.

50 + 1 = 51

A new girl has landed on the Robinson Island; a huge turtle that was placed in her room before her arrival welcomed her to her new life on the island. We all wonder how this new addition will change the life of the contestants who’ve been playing the game from the start? So far it is a positive addition to the group.

Kenyan size

Went to a “Christmas market” at Westgate shopping mal today with a gang of girls from the boarding today. We went mostly just because we needed to get away from the boarding and I also needed to fix a pair of new running trousers and also felt it was time to start looking at Christmas presents. To go to shopping malls are for us a luxury because they are the closest things to Swedish shops there are here in Kenya. But still some things differ.

One thing is sizes on clothes in the stores. Of some reason the storeowners believe that everyone who can afford to buy their clothes in nicer shops are fat. Even when I went into the sport stores the only sizes they have are XL or XXL. L, M or S does not exist. I searched in the Nike store, the Adidas store and even at Nakumat but no smaller sizes was to be found anywhere; I’ll have to train in broken pants from now on.

But I did find two Christmas gifts and also a laundry basket (I’ve been keeping my dirty clothes in my suitcase since I got here and that is a bit nasty I think).

BBQ and bonfire night

After sleeping 3 hours to regain sleep after Model UN and the mock debate we were pleasantly surprised to se that the grill had been taken out and that we were going to make our own food that evening.

For the meat eaters there were several different things to choose from like hot dogs, chicken and some kind of beef and for us vegetarians there were vegetables on sticks to grill and enough halloumi cheese to last a year (but of course we ate it all). To go with all this there were baked potatoes, garlic bread, salad and tzatsiki. We ate until we could eat no more, then I jumped in the pool to swim it all of and were later joined by 6 others in the sauna where we sat until they started the bonfire by the pool so we could sit outside and talk for a little while.

Movie night with Harry Potter again and then we sat up talking until the boarding teachers told us to go to our rooms around 1 o’clock. Lisa came dragging her madras into my room around 1.30 because of the lizard on the toilet which she was convinced could in some way crawl into her room through the wall.

// I’ve found Swedish fashion magazines at the boarding! Happiness! //

Bhutan - The land of the thunder dragon

On our way all dressed up

(My MUN group)

Bhutan representatives

Frida = Ambassador

Lisa who lives next door, politics

Karin, enviroment

Anja, human rights

(My placared, which I got to wave when it was time to vote)

Model UN – First mock debate at Brookhouse

Waking up at 6 o’clock to find out that there is no hot water in any tap or shower anywhere at the boarding is not the way I wanted to start the important day that yesterday was, but then again T.I.A.

15 people woke up at this ghastly hour on a Saturday, ate breakfast and were driven to Brookhose School for their first mock debate ever. 15 students who knew nothing about mock debates, resolutions or what the hell they were doing up that early, all 15 so nervous they thought they’d die, of course I was one of them.

This mock debate, and the others to come, are part of the coarse called Model UN that I’m taking, which is going to lead up to a huge role play in February where we’re supposed to pretend to be the UN voting for and against different resolution that we students have written. About 800 students or so from around the world will be apart of the February debates and the mock debates that we are going through now are there to prepare us for that. Every school has divided its students who are taking this coarse into groups of five and then been given countries to divide amongst the groups that the students then will represent. After being given a country you are supposed to choose a subject that your group will write your resolution within. These subjects are political, human rights, economy or ecology. Every person within the group are also expected to choose which subject they want to represent and appoint an ambassador who is to read the resolution that the group comes up with at the huge role play in February and also at the mock debates.

Does this sound complicated to you? Well it is, we’ve been trying to understand what we’re doing since we started this class but none of us really has a clue. We just play along.

My group got Bhutan as a country, 600 000 people live there, 12 000 of them are monks… We are working within the human rights subject with Frida as our ambassador. I am in the economy group most because I’m the only one who has read any economy at school (not nearly enough though). The worst part is trying to understand all the abbreviations being used, because seriously how am I supposed to know that GDP means BNP? I will be forced to sit all alone, cut of from my fellow countrymen in a huge hall with other economy delegates and in this hall I am expected to vote either for or against the economy resolutions that will be presented.

The best part is that usually students take this coarse 2-3 times just so that they’ll get the hang of it but we are thrown right into it. Also most of the participants have the advantage of having English as their mother tongue. Still yesterday went really well and 2 out of 3 resolutions from the Swedish school were passed! In the room I was sitting in 2 out of 14 resolution passed, the Saudi Arabia resolution being one of them (also from Swedish school) so you see very few resolution usually pass, maybe we do have a chance to do well in the real role play too.

A random life

(Stole this picture from Lisa)

Ninapenda wewe

I had my first Kiswahili test yesterday; unexpectedly I don’t think I failed. The Kiswahili words stick to my head like glue and stay there, which is very rare in my case, I studied Spanish for 4 years and French for 2 and cant say a word in any of the languages. Yesterday I even understood when one of the women in the kitchen told another woman in Kiswahili that it was time to take out the fruit for our snack time, but I probably only understood that because the subject concerned food. I can now count in Kiswahili too which helps when I want to bargain about prices in the markets, the vendors at Toy market and the Masai Market are less likely to try and trick you if you speak their language (and they stop insulting you in Kiswahili as fast as they realize that you might understand).

But what will happen with this knowledge after my year in Kenya, will I ever benefit from it? Could I continue learning it in Sweden or should I just drop it? It doesn’t really matter because it is a very fun language to learn and classes with Lazarus are the best so for now I’m just going to have fun learning something new.