raftin the nile..

So rafting was unbelievable and I think I’m still not quite back into normal work mode yet. Wednesday night, five other girls from our program and I took an overnight train to Western Kenya where we would cross the border into Uganda. We actually got to drive through Kibera, (the biggest slum in Nairobi) at night, which was very cool since you would never be able to walk around to see what it’s like after dark, and the train tracks were literally feet away from the little shops and shanties. The train-ride ended up being 14 hours long (and was 4 hours late) but the sleeping cars were nice and we actually ended up getting a pretty good night’s sleep.

From there, we took a matatu to the edge of Kenya and bike taxis across the Ugandan border, where we picked another matatu to a town in Uganda called Jinga. The people from Adrift Adventures met us in Jinja at this random Chinese restaurant/Shell Station called Ling Ling and we rode in the back of a really nice truck (with cushioned seats and everything) to the base camp. We sat out on this deck over the Nile and have pizza and their Nile Special beer for our Thanksgiving dinner. We were about ready for bed after dinner and 26 hours of traveling, but we had very cool, four-level, intertwining bunks in the lodge to sleep in, which felt a bit like sleeping in a big jungle gym.

I had to wrap my knee up in the morning because it was already getting infected from scraping it up back in Nairobi (and I was a little concerned when I saw the look on the guides faces when they saw it and told me it was going to bleed and bleed and bleed). Fortunately, they were wrong and while it still doesn’t look pretty, it held up really well for the weekend. (Plus I felt pretty badass with my knee all bandaged up.)

So our raft was the six of us, plus Clarky, our British guide, and two Danish guys who both happened to be named Espen. (We all got put together because we were the only group doing a two day trip.) We were all up for going for the “wild” versus the “mild” ride, because how often are you rafting on the nile? ..Although I’m not sure how mild they really would be able to make it; it’s truly amazing how powerful water can be! Adrift has a ton of safety measures set up though; there’s a safety raft and then 3 or 4 guides around in their kayaks, so whenever you fall out, there are always people around to help you out.

The first day there were class three, four and five rapids. I think one of my favorites was a class five rapid called Big Brother, which has two huge currents coming together, but we also went over a fifteen foot water fall called Bujugali Falls- backwards, no less. However, the most intense part of the day, by far, was the rapid referred to as the Bad Place. Essentially. you can’t go through the middle of it without completely flipping your raft, and I think I was actually one of the first people flung out. I somehow lost my paddle, my helmet and my knee wrap in the process, and it was actually kind of scary because you’re sucked down in to the current, and then you come up for a second, but half of the time you don’t even have a chance to catch a breath before you’re sucked back under. But the guys on the safety raft rounded us all up, and it was a pretty mellow ride back to the camp.

So rafting was definitely intense, but incredibly amazing too! When we got to our camp for the night, they already have a barrel of drinks waiting for us, and we all just hung out for a while and had dinner. Later in the evening, we took a ride a little way down the river on the roof of a Landover to see this huge waterfall. One of the guides, Jeffery, went over the waterfall (a class 6) in a kayak, which is absolutely ridiculous! All of the kayakers were pretty crazy though- doing flips and tricks in the middle of the rapids like it was nothing. But the falls itself and driving there were absolutely beautiful. Uganda is a lot more lush and green and just more peaceful-feeling than Kenya. We drove by a big football game outside, and adorable little kids and naked babies everywhere. We sat around the campfire when we got back and had some fabulous pineapple punch and watched the stars, before camping out for the night.

Day two was a handful of good class 4 rapids and wave trains, and some lakes of non-moving water where we got to lay out and enjoy the sun while being pulled along by the safety raft. (A pretty good deal, if I do say so). Then, we got to actually surf on the last rapid in our raft, and were surfing it for over 30 seconds (which even the guides were saying was an incredibly long time!) We also got to try surfing the rapid ourselves on boogie boards which I could only do for a few seconds, but Justine was actually really good at. Finally (and sadly) we had to end our little rafting expedition but we got to trek up between little Ugandan huts with all these adorable kids running around to get back to the van to take us to Jinja. We had a cooler of drinks waiting for us again and got to watch a movie of our rafting adventures. (The guy who was actually filming us the first day had his toes bitten off by a crocodile in the Nile last year! We thankfully didn’t run into any crocodiles, but we did see a couple of little snakes, which I was not particularly excited about.) Before we left the camp, Madalyn, Erin and Justine went bungee jumping over the Nile, but I was definitely too scared and not about to be hanging from my ankles.

We had to take an overnight bus going back to Nairobi, as that was pretty much the only option that would get us home before Sunday night so we could start studying a little for exams this week. The bus was 2 hours late, of course, but we were completely exhausted by then and content to just sit outside and wait. We crossed the border with no problem, but had to stop in the middle of the night because a truck stopped to tell us there were thugs up ahead waiting for buses. We had to wait for a police escort which ended up being a tuck-load of military personnel, but otherwise the bus ride was uneventful and we made it back to Nairobi by 10:30 the next morning.

So now it’s serious crunch time for the next week. But it was soo soo worth it! (There are some pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/denisemoriba/Uganda although none from the actual rafting..)

I know I haven’t written anything in ages, but these past few weeks have been absolutely ridiculous. Our grant proposals, which we’ve been working on pretty much all semester were due Monday, so we were working like 13 and 14 hour days to try to get everything done. I’ve also been trying to get surveys back from dancers and acrobats, organize a workshop for December, and get this photo lobby display to actually happen and I don’t think I’ve ever been as stressed/frustrated as I was in the middle of last week.

Then this weekend was Sarakasi’s big Umoja Festival, where they bring together acrobats and dancers from the Netherlands, Norway, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Zanzibar, and have a two week workshop with the Sarakasi artists. The last Saturday of the program, the groups put on performances in different neighborhoods and informal settlements all over Nairobi, and on Sunday, there was a huge performance of all the groups at Uhuru Park. So I was at different events all weekend, helping with ushering a little on Sunday, but mostly just hanging out and enjoying the shows.

Then, yesterday evening on the way to class, an older street kid was following me and asking for money, and then as I was about to put my wallet back in my bag, he grabbed it out of my hand and started running. I didn’t even stop to think about anything; I just dropped all my other bags and started sprinting after him. I almost caught him, but then he jumped into a ravine that goes into the underground sewer, and I was pretty much like- okay, the chase ends here. I tripped and fell in the process and scraped and bruised my hands and knees pretty badly, but I am sooo lucky, because literally all I had in my wallet was some hand sanitizer, chap-stick, 100 shillings (less than a $1.50) and my apartment keys (and one of my roommates just happens to have a spare for some reason)… no ATM cards, credit cards, my phone, etc. I’m sure they guy that took it is kicking himself for taking my wallet and not someone else’s.

So for Thanksgiving weekend, I’m going to Uganda to go white-water rafting on the Nile, which I am soooo excited about! We’re taking an overnight train this afternoon, and then we’ll be rafting and camping out for two days. There are supposed to be class 4 or 5 rapids, and I think they might also have rock-climbing there as well… We literally have soo much work to do in the next week and a half, but how could you possibly pass up an oppourtunity like that?

We did have a little Thanksgiving dinner last night, with my apartment, and some of Justine’s friends from ISSA (where she works). We made mashed potatoes, stuffing, roasted vegetables, rosemary chicken, apple strudel… it was pretty excellent and almost like a real Thanksgiving. And they guys from ISSA are great; we stayed up until like 2 (which seems about like 5 this week) playing spoons and mafia and thumper and laughing hysterically.

I’m sorry this has been a very jumbled posting, but that’s about all I’m good for right now. I hope you all have great Thanksgivings where ever you may be! And hopefully I’ll have some good pictures soon from rafting…

Sunday we had a group excursion to Magadi Lake, Olorgesaillie, and Olepolos. Lake Magadi is this salt lake, in I think the bizarre-est little industrial town I have ever seen! (The salt factory there uses the salt from the lake, and is essentially the source of income in the town). There is no grass or dirt anywhere; the ground is entirely covered in these little white stones, and it was a cloudy-ish day to begin with, so everything was white. There were donkeys everywhere and although everything in their tiny little grocery store looked dusty enough to make you believe nothing had been touched in about fifty years, outside everything was incredibly clean (unlike Nairobi!) and the apartment buildings all looked really new. Then at the actual lake, which was incredibly beautiful, there were tons and tons of flamingos everywhere.

Olorgesaillie was this pre-historic site where they had tons of old Acheulian hand-axes still in the site that the were excavated and a humerous bone of an ancestor of an elephant. I'm not a huge palentology fan, but the site itself was incredibly beautiful. And there was a pre-human skull on display that was 2.4 million years old, which was pretty cool.

Finally, on the way back, we stopped at this restaurant (I guess you would call it) called Olepolos. It's a very authentic nyama choma place (Kenyan roasted meet), where you literally see goats walking around when you walk in, and then see them cooking them for you on their grills. It took forever for them to cook our food, but it was good, and the view there was phenomenal too!


I posted some pictures form Sunday on Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/denisemoriba/LakeMagadiAndOlorgesaillieOlepolos

Well, Obama day and the peak of the post-election drama is starting to die down here, but things are just as busy as ever. (Pictures of people from our group were in the national papers and there was a segment with all of us in on the national news though, which was pretty cool.)

Anyways, Friday was back to work, except I took a day off from Sarakasi to go to interview people at this organization called Kuona Trust (for this NGO paper I have to write). Kuona is similar to Sarakasi in terms of programs, except their focus is on the visual arts, so I got to meet a bunch of artists there, and see them working away in their studios. They were working on everything from cartoons and sculptures of things from recycled materials to charcoal drawings and paintings.

One guy I talked to, who made these huge charcoal and pastel images, was working on a series of pictures about the pre-post-election period, before all of the violence in Nairobi last winter. He did one image depicting politicians, one with the media, one of the religions intuitions, one of the international community, etc. He said he had originally named the works, “Who’s to Blame?” but said he didn’t want to judge anyone, but rather document what had happened, and let each group speak for themselves. I thought it was a very interesting perspective on something that happened so recently and was so disturbing to society.

It has been raining like crazy the past few days; I guess it’s probably officially rainy season. The thing is, when it rains in Kenya, it pours and everything becomes a huge muddy mess. And the other thing is, Nairobi has a serious infrastructure problem, especially in terms of the roads, and for some reason when it rains, traffic gets absolutely ridiculous. What might normally take fifteen or twenty minutes to drive can literally take hours when it rains. Luckily, this is only the short rainy season, and by the end of November we’re supposed to be heading into summer.

obama day...

As amazing as it would have been to be in DC during the election, I have to say, Nairobi definitely did not let us down! We got invited to the American Ambassador’s Residence to watch the votes coming in, so we all got up at like 4 this morning, and took cabs over there. We needed our invitations and passports to get in and there was quite a bit of security, but almost 1,000 people ended up coming, so we were glad we got there early. Apparently a lot of the big people from parliament made an appearance, and although we didn’t actually get to see her, Wangari Maathai was there too. (She’s famous for winning a Nobel Peace Prize and being the first women in Africa to get her doctorate, and she started the Green Belt Movement, which has helped women’s groups to plant billions of trees all over the continent.)

Anyways, we watched the votes coming in till about 7:00 in the morning, when they announced that Obama was officially the new president-elect. I cannot begin to explain the energy in compound then, and when McCain and Obama gave their speeches; the Kenyans were excited that their brother was going to be leading America and we were excited to actually have something to be proud of in our country for once. Everyone was laughing and crying and excited (and tired)—just generally a crazy time.

After that the Ambassador made a speech and some Kenyan high school girls who had won a essay-writing contest read letters they had written to Obama. And then, a representative from the Kenyan government spoke briefly said that Kibaki, the president, had announced that tomorrow is an official holiday, in honor of Obama!

It’s been crazy being in Kenya for the election, firstly because in the US, the nation is split between Obama and McCain, but in Kenya, literally everyone is a fan of Obama. And secondly, it’s crazy because we’re so much more important here. We would never get invited to the home of an important dignitary to watch the elections in the US, and even walking down the street today, people are all cheering and excited and wanting to shake our hands. I’m not sure all the Kenyans we’re interacting with fully understand that having Obama as president is not going to dramatically change US foreign policy towards Africa, but it still is cool for them that someone whose father is from Kenya is going to be president of the US.

It seems like there have been holidays left and right over the past couple of months: Kenyatta Day, Moi Day, Idd, the Indian holiday Duwali (which we’ve been hearing fireworks for, during the last week), Halloween, and the election (which I feel like will basically be a holiday here- with people probably going crazy either way. Halloween was pretty anti-climatic, because everyone was exhausted by Friday night, but the rest of the weekend was very relaxing.

On Saturday, I went to the Maasai Market with my roommate Justine, and then we went to Kibera, the slum where she works. It was perfect weather and it’s actually a really nice place to walk around, because there’s always so much going on and it feels much more like a community than the rest of the city.

Anyways, Justine has been working with a women’s group in Kibera, trying to help them get their accounts together, so I was going to go with her to meet them. (They have a merry-go-round system, where all the women put a little money in each week which goes to one person, as well as a doll-making business— but they’ve been running into some challenges with their book-keeping.) It turned out the women’s group wasn’t meeting that day, but there was a parents’ meeting at the school which we got to sit in on instead, which was also very cool, since we would never normally have any reason to go to something like that.

This school that we were at literally has holes in all the roofs, and struggles to pay a couple of dollars a day for firewood and food for the kids for lunch. There used to be school fees that covered all those expenses but they got rid of them altogether, because some kids who weren’t able to afford to pay anything weren’t going to school at all. So now, it’s this women’s group, and a share from their merry-go-round that is completely supporting the school.

Sunday morning, I went to this amazing modern art gallery called Ramoma, because I need set up an interview with someone there for my NGO paper. It’s in this very Indian neighborhood called Parklands, with tons of Sari shops and Indian food places everywhere. It’s kind of like India in the middle of Kenya and it’s very bizarre to walk around there because there are virtually no Kenyans anywhere. (There's a huge rift between Indians and Kenyans here, because the Indians supposedly own a lot of the businesses in Nairobi, and have a reputation for not treating their Kenyan workers very well.)

I don’t know what my problem is this week, but I have been so exhausted! There’s been a lot going on, but it’s just the usual crazy. Our organization reviews and grant proposal outlines for our internships are due this week, so we’ve all been rushing around, trying to find working computers and internet, and meeting with all the people we need to in our organizations. (My grant proposal is trying to get funding to have capacity-building workshops for the performers on a regular basis, on issues like personal finance, different forms of contraception, performers’ rights, etc.)

I needed to meet with the director at Sarakasi to go over some of my ideas Wednesday, but she’s an incredibly busy woman who is literally in meetings and on the phone all day! So finally, after about the third time I had peeked in her office in the middle of a meeting, she just told me to come in and sit down while she finished the meeting, so she could talk to me after. And it turns out, the man she was meeting with coordinated the opening and closing ceremonies of the Sidney Olympics!

Wednesday night was my roommate Justine’s 21st birthday. I got home from work late, so I didn’t have time to go out with her and some of our other roommates, but we had some Halloween-themed brownies for the occasion (thanks to some candy corn from Heather!)

Thursday, we had class at USIU, but my friend Jessica and I decided to leave early so we could get in some extra work on our grants proposals before Swahili class. But on the bus on the way back, we pass by some markets in Ngara, where they have tons of stands of clothing for sale. (The market is actually right around the corner from where I work, but I hadn’t gotten a chance to stop yet.) So we were looking in different shops and got separated a little bit, when all of a sudden these masses of people start running down the street, and shoving us into the shops, and there is white smoke everywhere. It turns out the police had decided to tear-gas the street, which they do on a semi-regular basis in an effort to deter the hawkers on the street, who don’t have actual permits to be selling stuff. (Its' very in-effective though- because everyone's right back out at soon as it clears up.)

The tear-gas wasn’t actually too bad; it’s kind of the same reaction to cutting a really strong onion for your eyes, and it burns your nose and throat, but I think it was lucky that we happened to be right next to some shops. So they ushered us way into the back (which I had a brief panic moment about, because I couldn’t understand why they would put us all in a tiny room where there was no ventilation). But obviously, they knew what they were doing; there was a tiny court-yard out back where all the businesses keep their trash, so we all hung out there for a bit, until the streets cleared up.

So eventually Jessica and I met up again. We were actually pretty excited that we got tear-gassed because now we can say we’ve actually lived in Nairobi, and we decided we would take that any day over the ridiculousness of USIU.

So I have one more class this week, and I’m done for the weekend (and I have no major anything due at the begininng of next week) so life's looking good!