I worked at Sarakasi today, and was starting to get really frustrated. I wasn’t there for almost a week and half (since I went to the hospital one day, was gone on Safari another day, and had the Muslim holiday Idd off.) And after coming back, even though I’d been working at Sarakasi for several weeks, I still didn’t know what I was actually supposed to be doing. (On Monday, for instance, I wrote addresses on envelopes for seven hour.)
So today I went to go to one of the training centers in what is supposedly a ghetto, on the East side of Nairobi. A group of kids form the local school meet with a trainer for a couple of hours each week, to practice their acrobatics in another old cinema. And this afternoon, I finally got to sit down with the director of Sarakasi, which was incredibly helpful and definitely what I needed to get re-excited about working there.
Aside from that, we’re kind of getting into the thick of things, in terms of school work. We have midterms at USIU next week, and we’re supposed to be starting to develop ideas for our organization grant proposals and NGO sector research papers. And for our photo class, we’re supposed to have fourteen prints done by next week, even though we haven’t started developing yet, and there is one enlarger for our class of 46 (…which is not even remotely close to possible!) Our photo class continues to be a joke, but we actually got to go into the darkroom for the first time Tuesday. The smell and the feeling of not knowing whether your eyes are closed or not because it’s so dark, was so great and reminded me why I actually like photography. That in itself almost makes the whole class worth it.
So I’m thinking this weekend will include quite a bit of actually trying to be productive. Last weekend, a bunch of us went to the Mr. and Miss Kibera pagent. (Kibera is one of the biggest slums in Nairboi- with I think about 800,000 people.) My roommate Justine works for ISAA, the organization that was sponsoring it, so we were all there for pretty much the entire day, but it was definitely a good time. And the majority of the weekend, we didn’t have power, so Sunday morning, we went to get breakfast at Java House (essentially, the most American restaurant around) I got the best avocado, cheddar and bacon omelet and apple muffin I think I’ve ever eaten!
So life’s good, busy, (and I’m about a week behind on my blog because I forgot which email address and password I used—hahah.) But I was able to post some picture online on Picasa http://picasaweb.google.com/denisemoriba/MaasaiMara#5253984173417790274. There’s a bunch of safari pictures for now and more to come?
So today I went to go to one of the training centers in what is supposedly a ghetto, on the East side of Nairobi. A group of kids form the local school meet with a trainer for a couple of hours each week, to practice their acrobatics in another old cinema. And this afternoon, I finally got to sit down with the director of Sarakasi, which was incredibly helpful and definitely what I needed to get re-excited about working there.
Aside from that, we’re kind of getting into the thick of things, in terms of school work. We have midterms at USIU next week, and we’re supposed to be starting to develop ideas for our organization grant proposals and NGO sector research papers. And for our photo class, we’re supposed to have fourteen prints done by next week, even though we haven’t started developing yet, and there is one enlarger for our class of 46 (…which is not even remotely close to possible!) Our photo class continues to be a joke, but we actually got to go into the darkroom for the first time Tuesday. The smell and the feeling of not knowing whether your eyes are closed or not because it’s so dark, was so great and reminded me why I actually like photography. That in itself almost makes the whole class worth it.
So I’m thinking this weekend will include quite a bit of actually trying to be productive. Last weekend, a bunch of us went to the Mr. and Miss Kibera pagent. (Kibera is one of the biggest slums in Nairboi- with I think about 800,000 people.) My roommate Justine works for ISAA, the organization that was sponsoring it, so we were all there for pretty much the entire day, but it was definitely a good time. And the majority of the weekend, we didn’t have power, so Sunday morning, we went to get breakfast at Java House (essentially, the most American restaurant around) I got the best avocado, cheddar and bacon omelet and apple muffin I think I’ve ever eaten!
So life’s good, busy, (and I’m about a week behind on my blog because I forgot which email address and password I used—hahah.) But I was able to post some picture online on Picasa http://picasaweb.google.com/denisemoriba/MaasaiMara#5253984173417790274. There’s a bunch of safari pictures for now and more to come?
1 comment:
I'm loving your blog! Your safari pictures are amazing. They seem so up close and personal. It doesn't even seem real. I love all that i am learning from you! Mom
Post a Comment