Day 6, Monday, May 28th, Nairobi. From Brian:
More exploring today. We felt pretty comfortable using the Matatus today, and even got off more or less where we wanted to this time. If you ignore the general condition of roads and traffic in the city, these are actually a pretty good transportation system. Because they will rarely go on their route without a full passenger load (14 people or so), they can charge only 30 shillings (USD 0.40) per passenger. Because it's a private system and not very heavily regulated, it makes for a very efficient system (as long as the matatus don't overload with 20 passengers or so and cause a safety hazard) (which they do).
We went down to check out the National Museum of Kenya, which contains some really cool taxidermies of african animals as well as some hominid fossils that were found in Kenya. We couldn't decide if the fossils were real or not - they did look real, but there was no guard at the museum, just plastic cases. And the "preservation" system was to lay the fossils on some foam. Let's just say I hope those aren't the real ones.
We saw a park yesterday that we wanted to check out today. It's kind of their Central Park, I suppose, located just by the city center, but it feels very calm and removed from the craziness of the city.
A few notes on Nairobi and my experience here so far:
This is a different city than any other I have been in. Definitely not planned in advance and not designed to handle the traffic it now has, you can tell that the Brits were here. Roads are windy and there are roundabouts everywhere. There are some nicer sections of town, but because there is no money for infrastructure, there are hardly any sections of town that don't look at least a little run down. The monsoons don't help either. It becomes very hard to maintain roads and sidewalks when they have to withstand a rainy season each year.
I've also never been this acutely aware that I am white. In South America, I was definitely a foreigner, but you had to wait until I opened my mouth to find that out. I've been in cities in Haiti and Jamaica where you could tell I was in the minority by my skin color, but I was with a group in both of those settings and with people who knew what they were doing in those cultures. Here, Sharon and I have been by ourselves for a few days now that Eric is back in camp, and it's been an experience to just walk around the city. It's good and bad, and most of it comes down to money. White usually means rich, and it seems like I'm walking around town with a Dollar Sign spinning around my head. We walk by matatu stands and are almost physically pushed into them by the operators. Kids on the street see us from a mile away and head straight for us to ask for money. Businesses will sometimes push us to the head of a line. But there are upsides: People seem to have a great respect for Sharon, as a white woman, and afford her special consideration in some cases. We are also pretty much able to go wherever we want, because there is no reason to shoo a rich person away from most places.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Heart of Darkness...er..Nairobi
Day 5 - Sunday, May 30th. From Sharon:
After failing to get to City Center yesterday, we decided to make that our sole goal of the day. Well that, and attending church. We'd gotten an offer to go to the church service that the house goes to, but kindly passed. While it would have been easy from a logistical point of view, I think we both wanted to see a Kenyan service (Eric called their church "westernized"). Our trusty internet cafe eventually led us to a Mass at the Holy Family Basilica at 6pm. Since it was located in city center, that seemed perfect.
At this point, it was time to brave our first matatu experience. With no guide. Two idiot white people trying to negotiate non-regulated, unposted schedules and stops, "public" transportation systems in Nairobi. Seems kinda like a disaster waiting to happen. Here's the basic rundown of how these things work: a matatu has been described as a half bus/half taxi, but it's really hard to draw comparisons of any kind. Basically these are 16 passenger vans (made by Toyota) that were probably designed as 10 passenger vans. You either catch one randomly on the side of the road (they'll stop pretty much anywhere if they have an empty seat) or at a matatu "staging area," hop in and take off down the road. There's a driver and what I'll just call a "doorman." The doorman solicits passengers, collects fares, and tells the driver when to stop (which he does when he sees a potential passenger or you signal him). At staging areas, they'll wait until the matatu is filled before taking off. Which explains the lack of schedule. It's like a bus that only moves when full or nearly full. Supposedly there's different numbered routes, which all Kenyans are familiar with, but which we are decidedly not. Although many in Nairobi speak English, the doormen we encountered weren't much use in telling us whether or not the matatu went where we needed to go. Luckily, we were headed to City Center, which is a prime destination, so our chances were good that we'd pick a correct one. Approaching the staging area (not too far from the mall by Eric's place) was a pretty overwhelming experience. Probably 5-10 doormen converged on us, all waving their hands in our faces, yelling in Swahili (with a random "good price good price" mixed in) and trying to usher us towards their matatu. We finally picked one and crammed ourselves in. I can't begin to describe how cramped, hot, stuffy, and crowded these things are. There is basically no comparison in the States, to include rush hour metro/subway rides. There are loud bumping tunes though, and every traveler knows that makes everything better.
We paid our fare and hoped we'd recognize our stop when we were getting close. Luckily, we were trying to get at a prime destination downtown, so we didn't need to signal to stop and pretty much everyone else got out too. We ended up in City Center at Tom Mboya and River Rd, a roundabout with the staging area in the middle. Remember these cross streets, they'll be important to the story later. We were trying to get our bus tickets to Kampala for later in the week, so headed off down Tom Mboya in the direction we knew the ticketing office roughly was. The streets in downtown Nairobi are similarly insane, like the highway. There are stands/shops all along the sidewalks, people still don't obey traffic lights or laws of any kind so every street crossing is like throwing your life into the hands of the drivers around you, and the sidewalks are packed with people. PACKED. Again, as the only white people in sight, we were constantly approached by vendors to purchase whatever they were trying to sell. In what ended up being several hours downtown, I think we saw 4 other white people. And we probably saw a good several thousand individuals.
We found the train station, which was crammed with buses and seemed like a good possibility for the office location. It wasn't. At this point, we'd been walking for almost an hour. It was hot, and sweaty, still loud and crowded, and I almost ripped the freshly cut pineapple slices out of the hands of a street vendor. Parasites and infected water be damned. We headed back up to where Google Maps said the bus station was. It wasn't. It turned out to be the hub for the local buses, but not the intercity buses we were looking for. A kind Kenyan took pity on us with our map and cell phone and distressed expressions and tried to help. He gave us a rough idea of where to go, but didn't fully know how to explain it or what the streets were called. We got in touch with Eric's coworker Clayton, who grew up in Nairobi, and he gave us some directions, but trying to find the "central matatu staging area" as he said to do, was a lost cause -- every other street corner looked like a central staging area. We wandered some more...and found the Hilton, which Clay had mentioned was a good landmark. There was a tourist information center there -- hooray! Too bad it was closed on Sunday. At this point, we'd been wandering in chaotic downtown Nairobi for almost two hours. No fewer than three street children had grabbed on to Brian's arm and refused to let go for a couple blocks. We then told a man selling safari trips that we'd give him an honest listen if he told us where Akumba, the bus company whose office we were looking for, was. He agreed and walked us there. We did give him an honest listen, but for $200 a pop, and not a lot of free days left in Nairobi, we passed on his safari. I felt a little bad. But not as bad as the fact that it took us over two hours to find the office. We headed back up Tom Mboya and decided to make a note of the surrounding cross streets so that we could find our way back on Friday when it was time to catch the bus. The next street south of the street the office was on? River Road. Yes, we'd spent more than two hours wandering around the city when our destination was two blocks from our starting point. We should probably write a travel book.
We had a bunch of time to kill before Mass, so headed south in the direction of the Basilica. We stopped at the August 7th Memorial Park, which commemorates the bombing of the US Embassy in 1998. (the embassy at that time was in downtown...it's currently way north in the city, away from the city center, and heavily heavily guarded and fortified). It was a peaceful, quiet area (ironically next to the chaos of the train station) and we thought it well worth our 20 Ksh entrance fee. We wanted to check out the Maasi Market, which was downtown, near the Basilica.
I don't know if this is how the market works for everyone or just white people, but we were quickly approached by a man who called himself Picasso and his porter. Picasso is the boss and will lead you all around the market. The porter takes your "maybes" and carries them around while you continue to shop. They both do a good job befriending you, encouraging you to look at different vendors' goods, and generally increasing business for the market. Picasso, "the boss," became BFF with Brian, while the porter, talked me up. We picked out a few things for our families, and then went to the "office," an area by the fence where they laid out our "maybes" and we picked what we wanted. Then the negotiations began. The porter became the secretary and wrote down his initial offer of price in a little black book. It was ridiculously high. Brian countered with a low offer, that probably wasn't low enough in hindsight. The porter/secretary insisted that we were friends and could do this nicely, that he would "come down like a monkey" and that Brian needed to "jump like a Maasi boy." Yes, it was as funny as you're imagining it. They went back and forth until Brian reached his "final" offer. We all negotiated to about 15% above that, which made us realize we should probably make our "final offer" a little early. That's what you get for being honest about your final offer. Oh well, lesson learned.
We went to the Basilica about 45 minutes early since we were in the area...and tired. Having never heard sung Swahili before, we marveled at its beauty at the opening hymn. The Mass was pretty standard....except it was a little difficult to understand, even though it was in English (hymns were largely in Swahili and, even with them written out in the hymnal, were a little difficult to join in. Lots of consonant blends that I did not learn in 2nd grade with "bl," "str," and "cr"). The homily drew a parallel between the three-in-one of God and the need for the tribes of Kenya to unite together as one as the referendum on the new Constitution approaches. I made a mental note to look up more on that.
We had a little bit of trouble getting back to Eric's, but made it back safe and sound. We cooked ourselves a delicious dinner with the groceries we'd gotten yesterday (not sick yet!), which was made even more delicious by the presence of sweet pineapple (soooo good) and some quality (okay, maybe not quality) Kenyan beer. We're also really bonding with Edison over How I Met Your Mother. And by bonding I mean, we laugh and watch many many pirated episodes in row together. But basically the same thing.
After failing to get to City Center yesterday, we decided to make that our sole goal of the day. Well that, and attending church. We'd gotten an offer to go to the church service that the house goes to, but kindly passed. While it would have been easy from a logistical point of view, I think we both wanted to see a Kenyan service (Eric called their church "westernized"). Our trusty internet cafe eventually led us to a Mass at the Holy Family Basilica at 6pm. Since it was located in city center, that seemed perfect.
At this point, it was time to brave our first matatu experience. With no guide. Two idiot white people trying to negotiate non-regulated, unposted schedules and stops, "public" transportation systems in Nairobi. Seems kinda like a disaster waiting to happen. Here's the basic rundown of how these things work: a matatu has been described as a half bus/half taxi, but it's really hard to draw comparisons of any kind. Basically these are 16 passenger vans (made by Toyota) that were probably designed as 10 passenger vans. You either catch one randomly on the side of the road (they'll stop pretty much anywhere if they have an empty seat) or at a matatu "staging area," hop in and take off down the road. There's a driver and what I'll just call a "doorman." The doorman solicits passengers, collects fares, and tells the driver when to stop (which he does when he sees a potential passenger or you signal him). At staging areas, they'll wait until the matatu is filled before taking off. Which explains the lack of schedule. It's like a bus that only moves when full or nearly full. Supposedly there's different numbered routes, which all Kenyans are familiar with, but which we are decidedly not. Although many in Nairobi speak English, the doormen we encountered weren't much use in telling us whether or not the matatu went where we needed to go. Luckily, we were headed to City Center, which is a prime destination, so our chances were good that we'd pick a correct one. Approaching the staging area (not too far from the mall by Eric's place) was a pretty overwhelming experience. Probably 5-10 doormen converged on us, all waving their hands in our faces, yelling in Swahili (with a random "good price good price" mixed in) and trying to usher us towards their matatu. We finally picked one and crammed ourselves in. I can't begin to describe how cramped, hot, stuffy, and crowded these things are. There is basically no comparison in the States, to include rush hour metro/subway rides. There are loud bumping tunes though, and every traveler knows that makes everything better.
We paid our fare and hoped we'd recognize our stop when we were getting close. Luckily, we were trying to get at a prime destination downtown, so we didn't need to signal to stop and pretty much everyone else got out too. We ended up in City Center at Tom Mboya and River Rd, a roundabout with the staging area in the middle. Remember these cross streets, they'll be important to the story later. We were trying to get our bus tickets to Kampala for later in the week, so headed off down Tom Mboya in the direction we knew the ticketing office roughly was. The streets in downtown Nairobi are similarly insane, like the highway. There are stands/shops all along the sidewalks, people still don't obey traffic lights or laws of any kind so every street crossing is like throwing your life into the hands of the drivers around you, and the sidewalks are packed with people. PACKED. Again, as the only white people in sight, we were constantly approached by vendors to purchase whatever they were trying to sell. In what ended up being several hours downtown, I think we saw 4 other white people. And we probably saw a good several thousand individuals.
We found the train station, which was crammed with buses and seemed like a good possibility for the office location. It wasn't. At this point, we'd been walking for almost an hour. It was hot, and sweaty, still loud and crowded, and I almost ripped the freshly cut pineapple slices out of the hands of a street vendor. Parasites and infected water be damned. We headed back up to where Google Maps said the bus station was. It wasn't. It turned out to be the hub for the local buses, but not the intercity buses we were looking for. A kind Kenyan took pity on us with our map and cell phone and distressed expressions and tried to help. He gave us a rough idea of where to go, but didn't fully know how to explain it or what the streets were called. We got in touch with Eric's coworker Clayton, who grew up in Nairobi, and he gave us some directions, but trying to find the "central matatu staging area" as he said to do, was a lost cause -- every other street corner looked like a central staging area. We wandered some more...and found the Hilton, which Clay had mentioned was a good landmark. There was a tourist information center there -- hooray! Too bad it was closed on Sunday. At this point, we'd been wandering in chaotic downtown Nairobi for almost two hours. No fewer than three street children had grabbed on to Brian's arm and refused to let go for a couple blocks. We then told a man selling safari trips that we'd give him an honest listen if he told us where Akumba, the bus company whose office we were looking for, was. He agreed and walked us there. We did give him an honest listen, but for $200 a pop, and not a lot of free days left in Nairobi, we passed on his safari. I felt a little bad. But not as bad as the fact that it took us over two hours to find the office. We headed back up Tom Mboya and decided to make a note of the surrounding cross streets so that we could find our way back on Friday when it was time to catch the bus. The next street south of the street the office was on? River Road. Yes, we'd spent more than two hours wandering around the city when our destination was two blocks from our starting point. We should probably write a travel book.
We had a bunch of time to kill before Mass, so headed south in the direction of the Basilica. We stopped at the August 7th Memorial Park, which commemorates the bombing of the US Embassy in 1998. (the embassy at that time was in downtown...it's currently way north in the city, away from the city center, and heavily heavily guarded and fortified). It was a peaceful, quiet area (ironically next to the chaos of the train station) and we thought it well worth our 20 Ksh entrance fee. We wanted to check out the Maasi Market, which was downtown, near the Basilica.
I don't know if this is how the market works for everyone or just white people, but we were quickly approached by a man who called himself Picasso and his porter. Picasso is the boss and will lead you all around the market. The porter takes your "maybes" and carries them around while you continue to shop. They both do a good job befriending you, encouraging you to look at different vendors' goods, and generally increasing business for the market. Picasso, "the boss," became BFF with Brian, while the porter, talked me up. We picked out a few things for our families, and then went to the "office," an area by the fence where they laid out our "maybes" and we picked what we wanted. Then the negotiations began. The porter became the secretary and wrote down his initial offer of price in a little black book. It was ridiculously high. Brian countered with a low offer, that probably wasn't low enough in hindsight. The porter/secretary insisted that we were friends and could do this nicely, that he would "come down like a monkey" and that Brian needed to "jump like a Maasi boy." Yes, it was as funny as you're imagining it. They went back and forth until Brian reached his "final" offer. We all negotiated to about 15% above that, which made us realize we should probably make our "final offer" a little early. That's what you get for being honest about your final offer. Oh well, lesson learned.
We went to the Basilica about 45 minutes early since we were in the area...and tired. Having never heard sung Swahili before, we marveled at its beauty at the opening hymn. The Mass was pretty standard....except it was a little difficult to understand, even though it was in English (hymns were largely in Swahili and, even with them written out in the hymnal, were a little difficult to join in. Lots of consonant blends that I did not learn in 2nd grade with "bl," "str," and "cr"). The homily drew a parallel between the three-in-one of God and the need for the tribes of Kenya to unite together as one as the referendum on the new Constitution approaches. I made a mental note to look up more on that.
We had a little bit of trouble getting back to Eric's, but made it back safe and sound. We cooked ourselves a delicious dinner with the groceries we'd gotten yesterday (not sick yet!), which was made even more delicious by the presence of sweet pineapple (soooo good) and some quality (okay, maybe not quality) Kenyan beer. We're also really bonding with Edison over How I Met Your Mother. And by bonding I mean, we laugh and watch many many pirated episodes in row together. But basically the same thing.
Oof.
May 29th, Day 4, Nairobi. From Brian:
Ok, jet lag has officially caught up to us. We had grand plans of getting up this morning and going down to the city center to find the bus station and get our tickets to Kampala, and to check out the city. Well, we slept until about 2. Hopefully now we're back to a somewhat normal amount of sleep. We got ourselves up and showered, headed down to the internet cafe by Eric's place to catch up on email, and then decided to grab some lunch. We were pretty hungry and recovering from our Ethiopian feast the night before, so we decided to try the sports pub above the cafe we were in. The place was nice, but felt just like any Applebee's style bar back home. But we did get to meet a gentleman who introduced himself as Julius Caesar (IX? I think?) and proceeded to dance all around the bar, by himself. At 4:00 in the afternoon. So we had some avocado cheeseburgers and Tusker beers, and then decided to go to the city center.
Unfortunately, better judgement took hold of us then and we realized that it would take a couple hours to get to the bus station and get tickets, which would put us back home at around 8 or 9 (it gets dark around 7 here, because we're so close to the equator), and we decided that wasn't a great idea.
So we decided to go get some groceries. We went to the Nakumatt to pick up some rice, chicken, beer, corn, avocados and pineapple to make dinner. We haven't really had a "Kenyan" meal yet, so we don't really know what to make. So we'll just make some tasty food. We also had a great checkout experience. Apparently when you buy produce, you're supposed to take a sticker and place it on your corn, avocado, etc. Being Americans, we were not aware of this, and felt a little embarrassed when each item had to be sent back to be properly stickered before we could pay. I guess the only good news is that their computer system was so difficult to use that the checkout guy hadn't finished entering all the other items we bought before the runner came back with our properly stickered produce. Still, the checkout guy and the guy behind us got to exchange a look that said, "crazy white people."
Today felt like a bit of a failure, but at least we're caught up on sleep and ready to go now!
Ok, jet lag has officially caught up to us. We had grand plans of getting up this morning and going down to the city center to find the bus station and get our tickets to Kampala, and to check out the city. Well, we slept until about 2. Hopefully now we're back to a somewhat normal amount of sleep. We got ourselves up and showered, headed down to the internet cafe by Eric's place to catch up on email, and then decided to grab some lunch. We were pretty hungry and recovering from our Ethiopian feast the night before, so we decided to try the sports pub above the cafe we were in. The place was nice, but felt just like any Applebee's style bar back home. But we did get to meet a gentleman who introduced himself as Julius Caesar (IX? I think?) and proceeded to dance all around the bar, by himself. At 4:00 in the afternoon. So we had some avocado cheeseburgers and Tusker beers, and then decided to go to the city center.
Unfortunately, better judgement took hold of us then and we realized that it would take a couple hours to get to the bus station and get tickets, which would put us back home at around 8 or 9 (it gets dark around 7 here, because we're so close to the equator), and we decided that wasn't a great idea.
So we decided to go get some groceries. We went to the Nakumatt to pick up some rice, chicken, beer, corn, avocados and pineapple to make dinner. We haven't really had a "Kenyan" meal yet, so we don't really know what to make. So we'll just make some tasty food. We also had a great checkout experience. Apparently when you buy produce, you're supposed to take a sticker and place it on your corn, avocado, etc. Being Americans, we were not aware of this, and felt a little embarrassed when each item had to be sent back to be properly stickered before we could pay. I guess the only good news is that their computer system was so difficult to use that the checkout guy hadn't finished entering all the other items we bought before the runner came back with our properly stickered produce. Still, the checkout guy and the guy behind us got to exchange a look that said, "crazy white people."
Today felt like a bit of a failure, but at least we're caught up on sleep and ready to go now!
Flashing, Slums, and Traffic. Like you've never seen before
Day 3 - Friday, May 28th. From Sharon:
I can't speak for Brian, but I know I slept like a rock Thursday night. It was nice to be in a bed after two nights spent on airplanes. I stayed with the head female staff of the camp, who are about the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. They might actually be the nicest, most friendly people I've ever met. But that could also be because I've been away from the South for too long. Also a possibility.
We started the morning by going to the camp's "devotion," which typically consists of a Bible story for reflection throughout the day (and discussion at night for the campers) as well as some praise. The camp staff is little more musically inclined than my family's genes allow for, so in addition to being a very calming, reflective, peaceful way to start the day, it was pretty beautiful from an acoustic perspective.
From that point, we left camp with Eric to drop our bags at his house, where we'll be staying for our time in Nairobi (the house is inhabited by the senior leadership of the camp, so they're all at the camp for most of the summer). The house is beautiful, and huge, and, as is common for the not-poor in Nairobi, guarded 24 hours a day and gated. The guards also apparently patrol at night with their watchdogs (including into Eric's backyard) -- unclear if this makes me feel better or worse...
We also went by one of the schools from which many of the campers come from, Rosslyn Academy, to pick up applications. The school was founded as a missionary school and many American kids (kids of missionaries or diplomats) in Nairobi go there. It's huge and beautiful and most "hallways" are outside. The gym is "open air" and doubles as the cafeteria -- seems like a pretty sweet place to have to go everyday. Eric's group has a really good relationship with the teachers and staff there, so they collect applications in the main office and are generally very receptive. Later in the day we would go to the International School of Kenya, which apparently is more international students and wealthy Kenyans, and is run on the British system. It was similarly large and beautiful.
We met the camp staff back at Village Market, which, despite it's name, is essentially a shopping mall. Since it was Friday, the local market was there, so we got our first taste at Kenyan price negotiations. First we stopped and got a cell phone from Nakumatt, Kenya's Wal-Mart, which I hadn't imagined that we would do, but at the low low price of around $25 USD, it seemed like a good investment. Especially since after today, Eric will be working and we will be set loose on our own to get lost in Nairobi. We loaded it with 500 Kenyan shillings (Ksh), which should get us pretty far considering texts are 3 Ksh and talking is 6 Ksh/minute. Really shows you want a sham US cell phone companies are running. It's also free to receive calls, so Eric introduced us to the Kenyan phrase "flashing." (Brian to me: none of that for you). Flashing is apparently calling someone and hanging up before they answer (which is free to do). That is either a predetermined message -- "I'm done, meet me back out front" -- or, in the case of someone who doesn't have any minutes left, "call me, I'm out of minutes." Eric informed us that "Kenyans do this all the time." Kenyans seem like real smart people to me; I like them.
We had lunch at the food court (seriously, we could have been at an American mall) and had the good fortune to run into Eric's friend Joe who works with refugee camps (caused by the election violence in 2007-2008) out in western Kenya. He's going to let us come along for a day or two next week to visit the camps and work with the group of college students that he has out that week (from UNC, no less) to do some house building and other work. That should be a great way to see some of Kenya outside of the city, since Eric doesn't really have the time to take us to his projects out in west Kenya.
After lunch, we (where we=Brian) haggled with the market women to purchase some necklaces before heading back to Eric's place. Eric said he starts with an offer of 1/4 of the price of what the market vendors tell him.....we didn't start that low, but ended up at about 50% of what the vendor originally asked for, so we felt relatively good about that. As I was taught in "car buying 101," in 9th grade ELP (Economic Legal and Political systems for the unlucky non-North Carolinians among you), the biggest power you have is to walk away. As soon as we tried that tactic, "well, that's nice, we'll walk around and be back," she countered with "how much for now?" and gave us a price 50 Ksh above that. Thanks, Mr. Tharp, I owe you one.
At Eric's place, we hung out with his friend Paul for a bit, which was an interesting experience to say the least. Paul runs camps for Kenyans (Eric's camp is targeted more towards non-Kenyans, who, unlike those in the public school system, have the summer off) and also grew up in Nairobi (he went to Rosslyn Academy). His family has a ranch not far from where we went rock climbing so....he carries a pistol. On his ankle. Apparently there's bandits afoot. More (or at least less frightening) is the fact that his license took 5 years and 7 applications to get. Apparently the going bribe rate for getting a license when you want it is $8,000. Charming.
Our last activity was visiting Kibera, which is Nairobi's largest slum. Estimates of the population there are anywhere from 200,000 to 1 million people, although Eric thought a quarter million was about right. In any event, it is everything that you might imagine a slum in Nairobi to be. There are a couple of streets that run through/around it, but other than that, it's a huge area filled with tin/cardboard/fabric "houses" that are about five by ten feet. Dirt "alleyways" run through in confusing and intricate ways that even Eric says he never hopes to master. These alleyways are filled with trash and feces, children run around barefoot and stare in awe at us, small shacks line the road offering food, shoe shines, or clothing. In irony of ironies, we were there to return soccer cleats that Eric had borrowed from his friend, Kip, who lives there (someone earlier in the day, to Eric: "you borrowed cleats...from someone..in Kibera???"). Although we didn't see Kip's house, Eric says it's about 7'x9' and has a bed, dresser, and desk. That's not his room, that's his whole house. It was frustrating and disheartening and sad to see that level of poverty -- unlike anything I'd ever seen -- and even more frustrating and disheartening and sad to hear Eric say he wasn't sure if there were any good avenues out. (an aside: There are apparently 1/4 the number of secondary schools (high schools) as primary schools in the Kenyan public school system, so aside from the money needed for uniforms, transportation, etc, it is extremely competitive academically to get in.) Kip wants to get his certificate in social work and work with youth to improve their condition, and I guess it's perhaps those small steps from which all big change have to come...? Let's hope so. Kip is the smiley-est person I've ever met, so I'm hoping and praying for him.
We had dinner at Eric and friends' favorite Ethiopian restaurant which was.....delicious. I was very proud of DC to find out that Ethiopian food there is almost exactly the same as Ethiopian food in East Africa. Strong work, District.
The drive back to Eric's house was INSANITY. I've never seen so much traffic and chaos in my entire life. And I've been stuck in both DC and NYC traffic. There are no lines on Nairobi roads and what traffic lights exist, are completely and utterly ignored. Trucks are overloaded beyond any sort of safety standard, matatus weave in and out of traffic like they're in their own little world, pedestrians dart in and out because the lack of traffic light obedience means there's no good place so cross the street, and, when the going gets really rough, KENYANS DRIVE ON THE SIDEWALKS. I'd heard from a Dave Berry column on international driving that this happened in France, but never really believed it (nor did I see it when I was in France). Let me tell you, it happens in Nairobi.
We got back to Eric's, watched a little How I Met Your Mother on pirated DVD's with Edison, the university student staying at the house for the summer (it was weird, felt like I was back home), and promptly passed out from an Ethiopian food coma.
I can't speak for Brian, but I know I slept like a rock Thursday night. It was nice to be in a bed after two nights spent on airplanes. I stayed with the head female staff of the camp, who are about the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. They might actually be the nicest, most friendly people I've ever met. But that could also be because I've been away from the South for too long. Also a possibility.
We started the morning by going to the camp's "devotion," which typically consists of a Bible story for reflection throughout the day (and discussion at night for the campers) as well as some praise. The camp staff is little more musically inclined than my family's genes allow for, so in addition to being a very calming, reflective, peaceful way to start the day, it was pretty beautiful from an acoustic perspective.
From that point, we left camp with Eric to drop our bags at his house, where we'll be staying for our time in Nairobi (the house is inhabited by the senior leadership of the camp, so they're all at the camp for most of the summer). The house is beautiful, and huge, and, as is common for the not-poor in Nairobi, guarded 24 hours a day and gated. The guards also apparently patrol at night with their watchdogs (including into Eric's backyard) -- unclear if this makes me feel better or worse...
We also went by one of the schools from which many of the campers come from, Rosslyn Academy, to pick up applications. The school was founded as a missionary school and many American kids (kids of missionaries or diplomats) in Nairobi go there. It's huge and beautiful and most "hallways" are outside. The gym is "open air" and doubles as the cafeteria -- seems like a pretty sweet place to have to go everyday. Eric's group has a really good relationship with the teachers and staff there, so they collect applications in the main office and are generally very receptive. Later in the day we would go to the International School of Kenya, which apparently is more international students and wealthy Kenyans, and is run on the British system. It was similarly large and beautiful.
We met the camp staff back at Village Market, which, despite it's name, is essentially a shopping mall. Since it was Friday, the local market was there, so we got our first taste at Kenyan price negotiations. First we stopped and got a cell phone from Nakumatt, Kenya's Wal-Mart, which I hadn't imagined that we would do, but at the low low price of around $25 USD, it seemed like a good investment. Especially since after today, Eric will be working and we will be set loose on our own to get lost in Nairobi. We loaded it with 500 Kenyan shillings (Ksh), which should get us pretty far considering texts are 3 Ksh and talking is 6 Ksh/minute. Really shows you want a sham US cell phone companies are running. It's also free to receive calls, so Eric introduced us to the Kenyan phrase "flashing." (Brian to me: none of that for you). Flashing is apparently calling someone and hanging up before they answer (which is free to do). That is either a predetermined message -- "I'm done, meet me back out front" -- or, in the case of someone who doesn't have any minutes left, "call me, I'm out of minutes." Eric informed us that "Kenyans do this all the time." Kenyans seem like real smart people to me; I like them.
We had lunch at the food court (seriously, we could have been at an American mall) and had the good fortune to run into Eric's friend Joe who works with refugee camps (caused by the election violence in 2007-2008) out in western Kenya. He's going to let us come along for a day or two next week to visit the camps and work with the group of college students that he has out that week (from UNC, no less) to do some house building and other work. That should be a great way to see some of Kenya outside of the city, since Eric doesn't really have the time to take us to his projects out in west Kenya.
After lunch, we (where we=Brian) haggled with the market women to purchase some necklaces before heading back to Eric's place. Eric said he starts with an offer of 1/4 of the price of what the market vendors tell him.....we didn't start that low, but ended up at about 50% of what the vendor originally asked for, so we felt relatively good about that. As I was taught in "car buying 101," in 9th grade ELP (Economic Legal and Political systems for the unlucky non-North Carolinians among you), the biggest power you have is to walk away. As soon as we tried that tactic, "well, that's nice, we'll walk around and be back," she countered with "how much for now?" and gave us a price 50 Ksh above that. Thanks, Mr. Tharp, I owe you one.
At Eric's place, we hung out with his friend Paul for a bit, which was an interesting experience to say the least. Paul runs camps for Kenyans (Eric's camp is targeted more towards non-Kenyans, who, unlike those in the public school system, have the summer off) and also grew up in Nairobi (he went to Rosslyn Academy). His family has a ranch not far from where we went rock climbing so....he carries a pistol. On his ankle. Apparently there's bandits afoot. More (or at least less frightening) is the fact that his license took 5 years and 7 applications to get. Apparently the going bribe rate for getting a license when you want it is $8,000. Charming.
Our last activity was visiting Kibera, which is Nairobi's largest slum. Estimates of the population there are anywhere from 200,000 to 1 million people, although Eric thought a quarter million was about right. In any event, it is everything that you might imagine a slum in Nairobi to be. There are a couple of streets that run through/around it, but other than that, it's a huge area filled with tin/cardboard/fabric "houses" that are about five by ten feet. Dirt "alleyways" run through in confusing and intricate ways that even Eric says he never hopes to master. These alleyways are filled with trash and feces, children run around barefoot and stare in awe at us, small shacks line the road offering food, shoe shines, or clothing. In irony of ironies, we were there to return soccer cleats that Eric had borrowed from his friend, Kip, who lives there (someone earlier in the day, to Eric: "you borrowed cleats...from someone..in Kibera???"). Although we didn't see Kip's house, Eric says it's about 7'x9' and has a bed, dresser, and desk. That's not his room, that's his whole house. It was frustrating and disheartening and sad to see that level of poverty -- unlike anything I'd ever seen -- and even more frustrating and disheartening and sad to hear Eric say he wasn't sure if there were any good avenues out. (an aside: There are apparently 1/4 the number of secondary schools (high schools) as primary schools in the Kenyan public school system, so aside from the money needed for uniforms, transportation, etc, it is extremely competitive academically to get in.) Kip wants to get his certificate in social work and work with youth to improve their condition, and I guess it's perhaps those small steps from which all big change have to come...? Let's hope so. Kip is the smiley-est person I've ever met, so I'm hoping and praying for him.
We had dinner at Eric and friends' favorite Ethiopian restaurant which was.....delicious. I was very proud of DC to find out that Ethiopian food there is almost exactly the same as Ethiopian food in East Africa. Strong work, District.
The drive back to Eric's house was INSANITY. I've never seen so much traffic and chaos in my entire life. And I've been stuck in both DC and NYC traffic. There are no lines on Nairobi roads and what traffic lights exist, are completely and utterly ignored. Trucks are overloaded beyond any sort of safety standard, matatus weave in and out of traffic like they're in their own little world, pedestrians dart in and out because the lack of traffic light obedience means there's no good place so cross the street, and, when the going gets really rough, KENYANS DRIVE ON THE SIDEWALKS. I'd heard from a Dave Berry column on international driving that this happened in France, but never really believed it (nor did I see it when I was in France). Let me tell you, it happens in Nairobi.
We got back to Eric's, watched a little How I Met Your Mother on pirated DVD's with Edison, the university student staying at the house for the summer (it was weird, felt like I was back home), and promptly passed out from an Ethiopian food coma.
We are in AFRICA!!!
May 27th, Day 2
Somehow the second redeye in a row was easier than the first. Or at least I felt relatively less terrible when I got off the plane this morning than yesterday morning. So we deplaned via stairway and got to see a great sunrise from the doorway of the plane. Despite the pollution, the sky here is the bluest I can remember seeing anywhere (yes, even bluer than NC). We headed over to get our visas, which we somehow didn't screw up, and man that is one of the cooler visas I've seen - all official looking and colorful. We then went to pick up my bag, which we were hoping had made it to Nairobi. The staff at Heathrow had not exactly given any reasons to have confidence that it would. We looked on one conveyor belt and then the other, and then at the stacks of luggage off to the side, and I finally gave up and went to talk to luggage services. As Eric put it, "Yeah, I saw you walking back and forth from the luggage to baggage services looking angrier each time you went by. I figured that wasn't good." As I finally gave up and filled out the luggage claim form, Sharon emerged from the bowels of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with my bag. Big sigh of relief.
Eric led us out to his car and we started driving to camp. This was some of the craziest driving I've seen, and it explains why Eric is now considered a maniac driver when he comes back to the states. I was first thrown off because they drive on the wrong side of the road here, which I'm pretty sure I won't get used to before we leave. There are also no police cars here. That's right, the cops have neither cars nor guns, so even if they tried to enforce traffic laws, they can really only yell at you.
A big part of what Eric does here is to run a camp for kids who's parents are expatriates of America and other countries, mostly with missionary parents, along with some Kenyan kids. It's a Christian camp that offers activities such as a high ropes course, rock climbing, etc. The kids don't arrive until the weekend, but the staff are training, so Sharon and I kindly volunteered to serve as climbers for the staff to practice belaying.
There was another part of the mountain that you could hike up, so Sharon and I decided to do that. We went up probably 1000 feet and then got to the point where we decided there was no shame in not having a machete, so we didn't quite make the top.
We also got a mini-safari on our first day. Eric drove us around the camp and took us to see some Giraffe and Zebra, and we caught a glimpse of some Gazelle. The giraffe were very calm and let us walk up to within a hundred feet or so before sauntering off (yeah that's the best word I can use to describe their gait. Picture the way a bird bobs its head as it walks and then picture that motion being made by a Giraffe).
We stayed awake as long as we could, which was until about 9:30 or so, and then we crashed. A pretty amazing day for our first one in country.
Somehow the second redeye in a row was easier than the first. Or at least I felt relatively less terrible when I got off the plane this morning than yesterday morning. So we deplaned via stairway and got to see a great sunrise from the doorway of the plane. Despite the pollution, the sky here is the bluest I can remember seeing anywhere (yes, even bluer than NC). We headed over to get our visas, which we somehow didn't screw up, and man that is one of the cooler visas I've seen - all official looking and colorful. We then went to pick up my bag, which we were hoping had made it to Nairobi. The staff at Heathrow had not exactly given any reasons to have confidence that it would. We looked on one conveyor belt and then the other, and then at the stacks of luggage off to the side, and I finally gave up and went to talk to luggage services. As Eric put it, "Yeah, I saw you walking back and forth from the luggage to baggage services looking angrier each time you went by. I figured that wasn't good." As I finally gave up and filled out the luggage claim form, Sharon emerged from the bowels of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with my bag. Big sigh of relief.
Eric led us out to his car and we started driving to camp. This was some of the craziest driving I've seen, and it explains why Eric is now considered a maniac driver when he comes back to the states. I was first thrown off because they drive on the wrong side of the road here, which I'm pretty sure I won't get used to before we leave. There are also no police cars here. That's right, the cops have neither cars nor guns, so even if they tried to enforce traffic laws, they can really only yell at you.
A big part of what Eric does here is to run a camp for kids who's parents are expatriates of America and other countries, mostly with missionary parents, along with some Kenyan kids. It's a Christian camp that offers activities such as a high ropes course, rock climbing, etc. The kids don't arrive until the weekend, but the staff are training, so Sharon and I kindly volunteered to serve as climbers for the staff to practice belaying.
There was another part of the mountain that you could hike up, so Sharon and I decided to do that. We went up probably 1000 feet and then got to the point where we decided there was no shame in not having a machete, so we didn't quite make the top.
We also got a mini-safari on our first day. Eric drove us around the camp and took us to see some Giraffe and Zebra, and we caught a glimpse of some Gazelle. The giraffe were very calm and let us walk up to within a hundred feet or so before sauntering off (yeah that's the best word I can use to describe their gait. Picture the way a bird bobs its head as it walks and then picture that motion being made by a Giraffe).
We stayed awake as long as we could, which was until about 9:30 or so, and then we crashed. A pretty amazing day for our first one in country.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Whelmed
May 25th - Day 0
Once we finally got out of the District, we made it to Brian's family's house. Brian's mom did a remarkable job of restraining from grilling us for all the details on our final plans, which is impressive considering MY parents probably would have resisted our venture to the third world in any way possible. Probably by at least refusing to drive us to the airport. Brian's family is a little more accomodating and we had a full send-off party at the airport with his mother and siblings. We got a "Day 0" picture with our packs on, said our goodbyes, and the journey began! (I did grab Brian as we walked away and demanded in only half mock terror - "what are we DOING??")
During our flight to London, we had some delicious chicken curry and watched "Invictus" in order to get in the proper frame of mind for both [South] Africa and thrilling world sporting events. We got about as excited as teenage girls during the first showings of Titanic every time there was B-roll of some of the stadiums we'll be seeing World Cup games. The movie quoted Ellis Park stadium, where we'll be watching some games, as holding 63,000 people. That's going to be ridiculous. In the best possible way. The airline was also kind enough to include high red socks in our transatlantic flight kit along with the requisite toothbrush and sleep mask. We will be fashioning these as "shooting sleeves," which, for the World Cup will obviously be worn on the calf rather than the arm sleeve favored by AI et al.
Invictus cut into our already limited sleep schedule and we ended up probably dozing for only 2-3 hours. Part of this deficit was due to the fact that we were seated in front of the loudest passengers on the flight who felt compelled to hold a discourse on very time-sensitive and mission critical questions such as 'is there a difference between celsius and centigrade' while the other 246 people on the plane had the good sense to be sleeping. Except for the two innocent bystanders (us) unlucky enough to be caught in earspace. Consequently, while I couldn't do basic math the next day I was so tired, I DO now know that guy on the left thinks there is a difference, guy on the right disagrees enough to punctuate his points by slamming his tray table into the back of my seat (thanks, guy) and the girl in the middle is adamantly neutral. Like Switzerland. Without the diplomatic usefulness or courage of conviction.
May 26 - Day 1, London
We arrived in London at 7am local time, giving us a 13 hour layover before our second redeye flight in as many nights. A quick rundown of activities of the day:
-discovered transportation in London is very very expensive. Almost 8 pounds for an all day metro? Unreal. Good thing we really got our money's worth and used it only twice.
-Additionally, you can't take the metro from the airport into town (advantage: DC) and so had to buy another (very expensive) ticket to get in to and out of the city.
-the circle line does not, in fact, operate in a closed loop circle.
-There's not a lot to see of the Tower of London from the outside.
-the Tower Bridge is sweet. And Carolina blue.
-the "fish" in fish n chips is large. Real large.
-the British criminals charge you exorbitant fees for visiting churches. See: Cathedral, St. Paul's and Abbey, Westminster.
-What exactly are the Horse Guards guarding? Their own parade field?
-Buckingham Palace is more impressive from far away than from close up. We're not sure why. The gates are sweet too.
-Parliament is nice to look at.
-Warm British beer isn't actually that warm (thank goodness)
-consensus on London from our party: to paraphrase a great, it is possible to be neither over- nor underwhelmed, just whelmed? We think you can in Europe.
We got back in plenty of time to catch our flight to Nairobi. We did have some interesting interactions with Kenyan Airlines personnel over the issue of whether they should send Brian's checked bag to Nairobi or not. Because keeping it in London seemed to make sense too....? Oh, British people.
In conclusion, a few reasons why London is a lot like Disneyland:
-it's very expensive. You knew this going in and had been warned multiple times. And yet, you still thought you or your friends must be mis-remembering. Surely they can't seriously charge such ridiculous fees. Yes, yes they can. And will. And did.
-normal conventions of naming are suspended - streets are named Broken Wharf Lane ("hey, we could fix the wharf, or....OR we could just leave it and use it as a landmark for the purposes of street naming"), bars are named "the whale and the carpenter" (actually, i want to know the story behind that one) and airport gate numbers appear in the following sequence: 10, 15, 12, 11, 14. I had always thought that the purpose of naming gates by cardinal number is that they would then appear in the order of cardinal numbers. But clearly that is too simple. Instead of putting the numbers in order, let's flippin' mix 'em up! I mean, if they're not going to be in order, why not just name the gates after your favorite tree saplings? Then they'd at least just be not in an order as opposed to being very decidedly out of order. Maple, oak, longleaf pine makes a lot more sense than 10, 15, 12, 11, 14. Just saying saying.
-people talk in funny voices.
Coincidence? I think not.
Preview to Day 2: giraffes, rock climbing, trail blazing.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Leeeeeeeaving. On a jet plane.
Well team --
This is it: our bags are packed, my cell phone service has been suspendedand everything I owe is sitting in a 5x5' storage unit on New York Ave in Northeast. Pretty soon we're going to take the last few things over there and then drop the car back at Brian's parents where someone will take us to the airport and we will get on a plane. Ultimate destination: AFRICA. I think it's all starting to become very very real at this point and with all the errands out of the way, we're actually allowing ourselves to get excited.
While I'm not an overly sentimental person, I am human and it's strange to think the DC chapter in my life is closing. It's hard to believe I'm not going to spend another night on Belmont St again, that my time riding the 50 and 70 series buses up and down 14th St and Georgia Ave with all kinds of colorful characters is over, and that I'm not going back to work at Walter Reed (at least for the next four years!). But I guess that's all part of this "growing up" and "finding your life goals" process that I'm engaged in.
We'll full of Five Guys (what better American food to leave on? I'm pretty sure the Founding Fathers ate Five Guys. In fact, Five Guys might be named after the Founding Fathers. Pretty sure it is) and ready to go!
Hopefully we'll be able to keep you updated from our travels!
First stop: London. Hoooooooooooray warm beer!
This is it: our bags are packed, my cell phone service has been suspendedand everything I owe is sitting in a 5x5' storage unit on New York Ave in Northeast. Pretty soon we're going to take the last few things over there and then drop the car back at Brian's parents where someone will take us to the airport and we will get on a plane. Ultimate destination: AFRICA. I think it's all starting to become very very real at this point and with all the errands out of the way, we're actually allowing ourselves to get excited.
While I'm not an overly sentimental person, I am human and it's strange to think the DC chapter in my life is closing. It's hard to believe I'm not going to spend another night on Belmont St again, that my time riding the 50 and 70 series buses up and down 14th St and Georgia Ave with all kinds of colorful characters is over, and that I'm not going back to work at Walter Reed (at least for the next four years!). But I guess that's all part of this "growing up" and "finding your life goals" process that I'm engaged in.
We'll full of Five Guys (what better American food to leave on? I'm pretty sure the Founding Fathers ate Five Guys. In fact, Five Guys might be named after the Founding Fathers. Pretty sure it is) and ready to go!
Hopefully we'll be able to keep you updated from our travels!
First stop: London. Hoooooooooooray warm beer!
Friday, May 21, 2010
The Plan
Because my mom asked. Probably so that she can freak out if there's a natural disaster, Somali pirate activity, or any other worrisome event within 500 miles of our location throughout the seven weeks we're abroad. (P.S. I love you, Ma). Also this brings up another point: I'm sharing this blog with my parents, so it should be relatively tame (as tame as sbaaaaafrica can be?), so feel free to share with anyone else who might be interested (or who is bored as work. Which is probably the more likely of the two).
Our itinerary:
May 25th -- Overnight flight from DC to London. We have ~12 hour layover in London, so we're hoping to be able to get out into the city, see 1.5 sights, drink half a warm beer, and make it back in time for our next flight.
May 26th -- Overnight flight to Nairobi, Kenya. Brian's friend Eric is being generous enough to pick us up from the airport and take us to the camp where he works. Where apparently we're going to be able to camp and rock climb. I've never been rock climbing before, so I'm very excited. Also, who goes rock climbing for the first time ever in Kenya? This kid. Hopefully two red eye flights don't make me a safety hazard.
May 27th-June 15th -- We'll be splitting our time between Nairobi and Kampala, Uganda. This part of the trip is the most sketchy plan-wise, so it's good that we're doing it first? In Nairobi, other than hanging out with Eric when he's able, we don't have any certain plans in place, so it looks like we'll just see what the winds take us to. We'll be working with the Missionaries of the Poor in Kampala June 6th-12th, and then hanging out/throwing down with my buddy Stu that weekend when he gets back from his brief assignment in Madagascar (a couple month contract with the UN or something crazy like that. He's kinda a big deal). I'm extremely excited for both of those two Ugandan experiences and anticipate that they will be completely and utterly diametrically opposed in nature.
June 15-June 24 -- Johannesburg. We fly to Johannesburg out of Nairobi (and via Addis Ababa. Insane, I know) on the 15th. We have a few games pretty close together in Joburg, so it should be an intense (and awesome), soccer-filled 10 days:
-Argentina v Korea: 17 June -- we're meeting Manuel, my undergrad thesis adviser for beers "before, during, and after" this game [his words, not mine] and I think it'll be pretty insane to see him in a foreign country. At a World Cup game. In Africa. Plus if you know anything about soccer, you know that Messi is unbelievable so we're excited to see him play.
-Slovenia v. USA: 18 June -- USA! USA! My mom also got us US jerseys to sport (not matching, don't worry), so we'll look pretty swell. I'm hoping to talk Brian into face painting as well.
- Brazil v Cote d'Ivoire: 20 June -- from the perspective of a soccer player, I think there is going to be no greater joy than watching the greatest soccer players in Brazil play the beautiful game. It's going to be sight to behold. I absolutely can not wait.
-Ghana v Germany: 23 June -- should be another great game. And we have good seats for this one. My sister Kelly will be in Germany for the summer, so I'm hoping she'll be able to sit in a bar in Munich and point out her sister on the TV to the Germans she knows.
We then take an overnight bus to Port Elizabeth (on the southern coast of South Africa) for a Round of 16 game (June 26). That's the first round after group play, so obviously we don't know who will be playing. But I'm pretty sure an elimination game in the World Cup can only be spectacular.
We then take an overnight bus back to Joburg as we have another Round of 16 game there on June 28 (yes, we have great lives). Then ANOTHER overnight bus back to Port Elizabeth for our quarterfinal game on July 2nd. I can't even put into words what I anticipate these experiences to be like.
July 4th-9th: We'll take yet another overnight bus (seeing a trend yet?) to Cape Town, where we don't have any games, but is a place we didn't want to miss out on. Other than taking in the World Cup fever some more, I'm hoping to catch the sight of some South African penguins. (Not a myth, google that ish. Insane. -ly awesome.)
July 9th: We then head back to Joburg where we stay until flying back to DC on the 13th. That will be the weekend of the final, so the city should be an incredibly fun place to be. We'll be staying at the same hostel we have for our first couple of visits in Joburg, so hopefully we'll be old hats at having a great time by that point in the trip.
July 14th: We arrive back at Dulles where I anticipate I will sleep for about 20 hours straight. Yes, at Dulles.
Although we've now been planning this trip for a couple of months, it's finally becoming real. (For real real, not for play play as we say back in the motherland) We made some international wire transfers today to pay for our bus tickets and picked up our malaria prophalaxis from the pharmacy. For some reason, those two things really drove it home that we're going. to. Africa.
This weekend will be spent packing, moving out of my DC house (and into a storage unit), buying a lot of sunscreen, and trying to soak up the last few days of DC chillin'.
Stay tuned.
-S
Our itinerary:
May 25th -- Overnight flight from DC to London. We have ~12 hour layover in London, so we're hoping to be able to get out into the city, see 1.5 sights, drink half a warm beer, and make it back in time for our next flight.
May 26th -- Overnight flight to Nairobi, Kenya. Brian's friend Eric is being generous enough to pick us up from the airport and take us to the camp where he works. Where apparently we're going to be able to camp and rock climb. I've never been rock climbing before, so I'm very excited. Also, who goes rock climbing for the first time ever in Kenya? This kid. Hopefully two red eye flights don't make me a safety hazard.
May 27th-June 15th -- We'll be splitting our time between Nairobi and Kampala, Uganda. This part of the trip is the most sketchy plan-wise, so it's good that we're doing it first? In Nairobi, other than hanging out with Eric when he's able, we don't have any certain plans in place, so it looks like we'll just see what the winds take us to. We'll be working with the Missionaries of the Poor in Kampala June 6th-12th, and then hanging out/throwing down with my buddy Stu that weekend when he gets back from his brief assignment in Madagascar (a couple month contract with the UN or something crazy like that. He's kinda a big deal). I'm extremely excited for both of those two Ugandan experiences and anticipate that they will be completely and utterly diametrically opposed in nature.
June 15-June 24 -- Johannesburg. We fly to Johannesburg out of Nairobi (and via Addis Ababa. Insane, I know) on the 15th. We have a few games pretty close together in Joburg, so it should be an intense (and awesome), soccer-filled 10 days:
-Argentina v Korea: 17 June -- we're meeting Manuel, my undergrad thesis adviser for beers "before, during, and after" this game [his words, not mine] and I think it'll be pretty insane to see him in a foreign country. At a World Cup game. In Africa. Plus if you know anything about soccer, you know that Messi is unbelievable so we're excited to see him play.
-Slovenia v. USA: 18 June -- USA! USA! My mom also got us US jerseys to sport (not matching, don't worry), so we'll look pretty swell. I'm hoping to talk Brian into face painting as well.
- Brazil v Cote d'Ivoire: 20 June -- from the perspective of a soccer player, I think there is going to be no greater joy than watching the greatest soccer players in Brazil play the beautiful game. It's going to be sight to behold. I absolutely can not wait.
-Ghana v Germany: 23 June -- should be another great game. And we have good seats for this one. My sister Kelly will be in Germany for the summer, so I'm hoping she'll be able to sit in a bar in Munich and point out her sister on the TV to the Germans she knows.
We then take an overnight bus to Port Elizabeth (on the southern coast of South Africa) for a Round of 16 game (June 26). That's the first round after group play, so obviously we don't know who will be playing. But I'm pretty sure an elimination game in the World Cup can only be spectacular.
We then take an overnight bus back to Joburg as we have another Round of 16 game there on June 28 (yes, we have great lives). Then ANOTHER overnight bus back to Port Elizabeth for our quarterfinal game on July 2nd. I can't even put into words what I anticipate these experiences to be like.
July 4th-9th: We'll take yet another overnight bus (seeing a trend yet?) to Cape Town, where we don't have any games, but is a place we didn't want to miss out on. Other than taking in the World Cup fever some more, I'm hoping to catch the sight of some South African penguins. (Not a myth, google that ish. Insane. -ly awesome.)
July 9th: We then head back to Joburg where we stay until flying back to DC on the 13th. That will be the weekend of the final, so the city should be an incredibly fun place to be. We'll be staying at the same hostel we have for our first couple of visits in Joburg, so hopefully we'll be old hats at having a great time by that point in the trip.
July 14th: We arrive back at Dulles where I anticipate I will sleep for about 20 hours straight. Yes, at Dulles.
Although we've now been planning this trip for a couple of months, it's finally becoming real. (For real real, not for play play as we say back in the motherland) We made some international wire transfers today to pay for our bus tickets and picked up our malaria prophalaxis from the pharmacy. For some reason, those two things really drove it home that we're going. to. Africa.
This weekend will be spent packing, moving out of my DC house (and into a storage unit), buying a lot of sunscreen, and trying to soak up the last few days of DC chillin'.
Stay tuned.
-S
Introduction
[With apologies to those who already received my email. You can skip ahead to the next entry whenever it appears. Do not pass Go, but feel free to collect $200]
Dearest family and friends --
As some of you may or may not know, I'm leaving for seven weeks in Africa next Tuesday (yes, in four days). My boyfriend Brian and I will be traveling to Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. In Kenya, we'll be visiting Brian's college roommate who is living there; in Uganda, we'll be working with Missionaries of the Poor for a week and visiting my buddy Stu from college who lives in Kampala; and in South Africa we'll be going to the WORLD CUP (and meeting my undergrad thesis adviser for an Argentina game in Johannesburg). The idea kinda came out of nowhere back in January when we both decided to quit our jobs and travel for the summer and became much more concrete when we realized we were both serious. Needless to say, we're very excited. At this point, I'm just hoping to make it to our airplane without being kidnapped by my older brother and hidden in the crawl space beneath our house so that I will be unable to travel to the third world (actual threat. My father's response? "Yeah, I'd be okay with that.")
Anyways, we'll be keeping a blog while we're gone (as much as possible -- unclear what kind of internet access we'll have, but I'm hoping to be able to write "still alive" at least once a week. Mainly for my parents' sanity) and I thought I'd pass it along: sbafrica.blogspot.com, "Sharon and Brian Go to AFRICA". [You might note that typical rules of etiquette and humility would demand that I name our literary masterpiece "Brian and Sharon..." but that lends itself to a rather unfortunate abbreviation so I dispensed with tradition for that reason. That and "sbafrica" sounds like a word that could really catch on. Brian is also getting quite annoyed with my singing of "Sbaaaaaafrica," a la Toto in 1982, every 15 minutes]Hopefully this blog will be filled with our many adventures and misadventures. If we find ourselves faced with complete internet fail, I promise to update it at least briefly (and probably with pictures!) when we return.
For those of you who I really haven't talked to in a while, I'll be going to medical school in August at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, so if you're in the area in the next four years, definitely holler!
[Princeton friends: this sadly means I will be missing this year's festivities. Don't even say the r-word around me, I can't bear the pain. Have fun for me and see you at homecoming in the fall. And apologies to Integrated Science kids who might be getting this twice....]
Hope all is well with you and yours,
-Sharon
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)