It has been an eventful week. On Monday I went to Mathare. I was supposed to work with a couple girls to write a concept note for an event UN-Habitat asked them to host. So Mathare Roots will be hosting a big event for International Youth Day. If you know what a concept note, you know more than I did when I was assigned this task. According to google, a concept note is basically a proposal for an event where you outline the objectives, the activities at the event, how you will evaluate it and the proposed budget. It is to secure funding from other organizations. Of course, the girls I was supposed to meet with were both more than an hour late, (I feel your pain Packer). it wasn't too bad waiting because I had my laptop and could work on my report. There were a lot of young people around talking about the demonstrations and the government. The sentiment was not in favour of the government. Eventually the 2 girls came and they told me all their ideas, we went over the budget, and I left with the assignment to write it all up.
My professor wanted me to have the next draft of my report done for Monday night. That didn't happen, but I did feel accomplished that I got the concept note done. The kids and I went to Karura forest for a walk and smoothies. The forest is right in the middle of Nairobi--1000 hectares in size. (At one point a corrupt government tried to give away the land to its friends for development, but they were stopped by Wangari Maathai, an amazing environmentalist who showed up to plant trees while they were bulldozing trees down. Her actions raised awareness to the general public and eventually toppled that government.) I am an admirer of her, but I digress. We went a a cafe in the park and got smoothies. I expected more creative and tropical options. I got a mango one and the reds both got one a pineapple, mango, banana one. (I guess that is pretty tropical). It was a cool space--a covered area with tall pillars wrapped in twinkle lights and the forest right there all around us. After eating, we went for a little walk.
We didn't walk far before we saw monkeys! There were so many of them all around us, some crossing the path in front of us, others in the bushes and trees near us. We saw some jumping and swinging from branch to branch. We saw mommies with their babies, smaller grey monkeys and bigger darker ones that looked more like baboons, but they didn't have blue bums. We watched them for quite awhile. It was enthralling. We found a playground and picnic area just beyond the monkey place. It had a fun wood play area. We entertained ourselves taking panoramic pictures.
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| I love the purple flowers on top of the trees |
The next day I needed to get a lot of work done on the report, but the cleaning lady was coming and we could not be in the apartment, so we went to the church. They kids practiced piano and read while I wrote. I ordered uber eats that was supposed to take only 20 minutes, but took an hour longer than that. The kids kept bugging me about when was the food going to come. They were much better once they had some food. The true story of this day is that on the way home from the church, in super heavy rush hour traffic our uber ran out of gas. Luckily we were going down a long hill, but because of traffic we couldn't just coast down the hill. We had to keep stopping and then the driver had to get out and push to get some momentum again. When we got to the bottom, he pulled over onto a little dirt platform and walked around the corner to the gas station. I expected him to come back with a small jerry can, but no--he came back with a couple attendants from the gas station to push us. But then he couldn't get his car out of park. One of the attendants left and came back with a trickle charger. Luckily that worked--he put it in neutral and we got pushed to the gas station. After putting some gas in his car, they pushed us to the side because it still wouldn't start. So I had to order another uber. Normally it takes 3 minutes at the longest for an uber to arrive. This time it said it would be nine minutes, but then the driver went a different way and it said 20 minutes. Traffic was so bad there that it seemed inevitable. Finally he got pretty close, but wasn't moving, so our previous driver called him and he said to order a different uber. The next uber driver asked me to cross the road because traffic was so heavy and he was over there. I did NOT want to leave the safety of the gas station, but could see no other way of getting home. Crossing that busy road terrified me. There were no traffic lights; just merging traffic and we would have to cross 6 lanes. Since I am writing this you know we survived. The trick was to follow right behind another person that seemed to know what she was doing.
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| This is where we had to cross. |
But when I got to the other side I couldn't see the uber. There was no sidewalk on that side, but there was considerable foot traffic. One woman warned me to watch my phone because someone would snatch it. But I had to contact the uber driver. I turned my back to the road and people and had the kids stand as a bit of a barrier. The kids were really nervous too. They told me that men walking by slowed as they passed me and looked over my shoulder at my phone. The driver told me to walk to the end of some wall and he was there. I had no idea what wall he was talking about, but there was a temporary metal wall that was up for construction, so we started walking along it. It was scary and I was scared. Eventually we came to a break in the wall, where there were some construction workers there that helped me call another uber and explain where we were. I was so relieved to get in the uber. We left the church at 4:30. If there is no traffic it is an under 15 minute drive. It is only 7km. That day it was after 7 by the time we got back to our apartment. After all that, the cleaning lady didn't even come!
Wednesday I finished writing the report and my professor said it is almost ready, so that was great news. I took the kids and we went to Village Market, a place that my professor had recommended. Village Market is a mall but it has an outdoor indoor space it is pleasant and safe. One of the places the kids were so excited to find was a Miniso. They didn't know there is one in Abby. We explored the mall until it had sucked all the energy out of us and then got shwarmas. That cheered them up enough to get us through a little bit of grocery shopping before we went home. Our uber driver was very encouraging about my Swahili. All I said was thank you and then asked a question about the difference between mwema and njema. They both mean good and you use it when you want to wish someone a good day or evening or night or whatever. One person told me that one is used in the daytime and one is used at night. Another person said one is plural and one is singular (depending on the amount of people that you are talking to), but I always get some wrong on duolingo. I can't figure it out. But he told me it didn't matter--they would still understand.
Thursday was a Mathare day. Cheryl had mentioned something about me doing a workshop on how to write a CV, but I wasn't sure if it was happening. I thought Thursdays were days where we visit the schools and something about collecting recycling and their buy-back centre. Of course when I got there, she was not there, but I was able to set up in an office space to try to get prepared for a possible workshop. I had no idea what kind of technology I would have at my disposal, but I assumed I wouldn't have much. My report is all about a course on a digital learning platform that the researchers designed for urban South Sudanese refugee youth. There is a section about writing CVs and the difference between CVs and resumes, so best case scenario, I could get them onto the learning platform and they could look at it on their phones. But it isn't a simple process and I hadn't figured it out since I was up super late finishing the report. If the group was small enough I could just show them on my laptop...which would have worked really well...except that unbeknownst to me, I brought a glitchy computer. I can't tell you how frustrating it has been.
We have 2 laptops at home. The family one, which basically became mine when I went back to school and the one we bought for Brent to use when he designs septics. My laptop keeps running out of room and gets bogged down and really slow until I get Brent to clear up some space for me, so we decided it would be better for me to take Brent's laptop. It wasn't until I got here that I discovered that sometimes it will just drop the wifi signal and then when I try to reconnect, there is no visible wifi icon. It is gone. I have to shut everything down and restart and then it is there again. Sometimes I can go days without this being a problem, and then other times it will happen mulitiple times while I am working. This time, when I was doing a presentation, it wouldn't connect at all even after turning it on and off. So I had to go off the top of my head a lot. And it's not like I have a lot of experience writing CVs. I've made one once. For this internship. Luckily I had printed an example to show them and I showed them mine on my phone. There weren't many people there and none of them seemed particularly inclined to actually write one. I think they were only there because the Mathare Roots leader wanted them to learn. None of them wanted to apply for a job anywhere. They did get a bit more interested when I showed them how to make one on Canva (the laptop finally cooperated) and Word.
Friday was our big adventure. We woke up early and met our guide outside at 6:30. He took us to the Nairobi National Park. It is right outside of the city. In some of our pictures you can see the city skyline in the background. I wasn't sure what to expect. Actually, to be honest, I was afraid I was being scammed when I booked the tour, but I did a lot of research and this company had really high reviews. So we went on a half day safari. I thought that maybe you see the animals way off in the distance and we would need binoculars to see them and a really good camera to take good pictures. Once we got in the game park, our guide opened the top up so we could stand and look around.
He also had a radio so he could hear the chatter about what people had found. He asked if we wanted to go see a lion. Of course we did so off we went. It wasn't a very long drive before we came to a road that was super congested with safari vehicles all parked to see the lion. Maneuvering around in there was just like the roads of Nairobi! I couldn't believe it. We weren't in a safari jeep--we had a large 9 seater van. It was a good time to scope out some of the other safari tour companies and I think I made a pretty good choice. Some safari vans were smaller than ours and stuffed full of people. As some vehicles left, our driver managed to get us right in front of where the lion was. It took a minute to find the lioness with her 2 cubs because I was looking way farther out. It turned out she was much closer, but lying in the grass, so it was hard to see. We were so excited when she temporarily sat up and we could see her better.
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| can you spot the lion? |
Later we saw a young male lion as he strode between vehicles.
And after that we followed 3 lionesses with a bunch of cubs down the road. We literally drove right beside them on the road!
The cubs were spotted and so so adorable. When they ran to catch up to the rest of the group, their bodies swayed from side to side--it looked like they were dancing. We also saw a few herds of zebras and impalas--they were almost always together, we found a few rhinos right on the side of the road. We saw plenty of ostriches and giraffes and a few hartebeests.
Malachi really wanted to see hippos so our guide took us to the hippo pools. I had read that you can get out and walk along a trail to see hippos and crocodiles. It didn't seem that safe to me, but when we got there, we were escorted by a man with a rifle. He showed us where there were crocodiles and a python, but we didn't see any hippos there.
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| Can you find the crocodile? |
We could see a bunch of monkeys across the river. Along the river was the only area that I saw that had trees. The rest was grasslands and shrubs. It was really beautiful. Our guide took us to a different spot where we could see their hippo noses poking out above the water and once one opened his mouth so we saw the top of a head briefly, but that was it for hippos. I didn't see it, but Malachi and Elizabeth saw a monkey with "blue balls."
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| 2 crocodiles |
Our tour ended with a trip to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust or elephant orphanage. It is the only place around Nairobi where you can see elephants. The place is all about rehabilitating elephants so they limit the public exposure. The elephants come out for one hour. In order to go I had to send an email requesting certain dates and then wait 2 days for a response. I had heard that it takes about a month to be able to go, so I was really surprised to find out on Tuesday that we were confirmed for Friday. I had to find a tour in really short notice, but it all worked out. At Sheldrick there was a large area with a rope fence that we all gathered around. We were way on the side so I worried we may not see very well, but when they brought the baby elephants in, they used the bottles of milk to lure them all close to the fence so everyone got a good view. They were so cute and greedy for their bottles which they held in place themselves with their trunks. Some of the older babies were taller than us or close to our height, but the youngest one--only a few months old was the size of a large dog--not as tall as Apollo though. The baby was cute and still quite fluffy, but was more growly than any of the other elephants. One of the older elephants stayed close to it--mothering it. Very cute. Malachi just really wanted to touch one, but for the longest time, none of them came close enough to where we were. Eventually one of the workers got one to come close and we all got to touch it. It was hairier than we expected--kind of bristly. Later they played in the mud pool and people that were close to that got splashed by one of the elephants. I thought, 'yeah that's what happens to people in the closest seats,' kind of smugly. But after a little bit the muddiest of the elephants came over where we were and reached for some leaves in the tree near us and I got flicked with mud. Then it came right over to us and got the rope in front of us all muddy. Another elephant pushed against the fence further down from us and flicked the fence. Both Elizabeth and I got splattered with mud in our faces.
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| some mud may have gotten on the pink bag 😉😬 |
Saturday we had to be out of the house for the cleaner but Mathare cancelled on me and it was cold and rainy so we went to the museum. Malachi had really wanted to go since he had never been to a museum before. When we got there there were so many kids outside waiting to go in. There must've been kids from at least 4 different schools there. It was so noisy when we first went in and once again the girls treated Malachi like a celebrity, which he hates. It makes me laugh. Our first strategy for seeing the museum was to go places where there weren't any other kids. That was a hard thing to do. Malachi soon got bored and kept asking to go home. 😠There were displays showing skeletons and skulls of humans that are dated to over a million years ago. Apparently our brains have gotten smaller. There were lots of cool displays of animals that are in Kenya. There was whole section with birds. We discovered the bird that wakes me up most mornings is an ibis. They are very loud and every where in Nairobi. While were were looking at the bird display a little girl came and asked if she could get a photo with me. Why me, I don't know. There were lots of other foreigners there. So her whole class gathered around for a photo op with me. Then the reds came around the corner and so she got another one--this time sans classmates and with the reds. We saw lots of cool artifacts from precolonial Kenya, and then colonial Kenya up to modern times. They had such different musical instruments.
Right next to the museum is a snake park so we went there too. Finally Malachi stopped bugging me to go home. When you first walk into the snake park, there was a little display with a high wall around it. There was a sign that said "trespassers will poisoned." We had a guide for the snake park and he pointed out all the venomous snakes in that little display. There were so many boomslangs in the trees which are some of the most feared snakes. We saw various scary snakes--vipers and spitting cobras and mambos that all live in Kenya (these ones were in cages behind glass. Many of them live right right here in Nairobi, and the ones that aren't in Nairobi are in more northern parts--like Nanyuki, where we are going on Friday. He assured me that it is rare to see most of these snakes, and a lot of them give you a warning. I am not reassured. The park didn't have only snakes, there were also tortoises, turtles, crocodiles and an American alligator and a small aquarium with fresh water fish. They had a whole tank of cichlids--they are from lake Victoria. Our tour concluded with us all having a turn holding a small python. Elizabeth really liked it. Malachi was more tentative.
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| This python is over 4 meters long |
It was an adventurous eventful week.
