I live in Africa

The first three months, that has been more of a question than a statement or exclamation. But, over the past few weeks Narok has started to feel more like home.

Monday: brownies
I didn't have anything planned for this Monday so another PCV, Brian, suggested I visit his site. We share the same supervisor (even though we are 3 hours away from each other) and I will be trying to fund raise for his site as well so I figured, why not? Plus, he has a friend who drives people into the Maasai Mara Game Reserve and he said he would take us for free= free safari! However, I got to the matatu (Nissan vans that act as the Kenyan version of the Greyhound) stage and all of the vehicles to the Mara were full. But, since I live here, there's no rush so I figured I would go home and hang out. I get home and decide to make brownies. This necessitated it's own project since I had to "bake" something using my kerosene jiko (stove). How does one do this? I took a big sufuria (pot) and put it on top of the stove, put a few stones on the bottom of the pot and then put the pan with the brownies on it on top of the stones. Then I covered the big sufuria with a lid and a wet towel to insulate the heat. It worked in the sense that they baked and they tasted delicious but they baked into a funny shape and ended up looking like a pile of cow dung. Graciously, my family here didn't let looks set them back and ate them anyway and I guess they liked them because I went in the house yesterday and only crumbs were left on the plate.

Tuesday: safari
But, I digress... While I was making the brownies, Brian called and told me he found me a ride! Apparently, the guy who offered to take us into the park was travelling from Narok to the Mara that afternoon and he said he would come pick me up. So I got a free ride, which, after some pricey weekends last month, I definitely appreciated. After two hours down a bumpy dirt road and after passing a family of elephants, some zebra, and tons of gazelles, I arrived at Brian's. What a difference. I live in a town and he lives, quite literally, in the bush. Well, actually it's a pretty dry area so there aren't many bushes to speak of but you get the drift. I'll put some pictures up of his site and mine and you will see the difference. He is about 200m away from the Sekenani Gate into the park, which is the main gate. Tuesday morning I walked around his village with him, greeting and talking with various people who were all wondering why the white guy is walking with the black woman, why they are so far from the tourist lodges, and where the hell we were going. We tried to explain that no, we aren't married, yes, we are both from America, and we were just walking. To people with a load of firewood or water on their back, this understandably made no sense. After the "tour" of Sekenani, consisting of tons of bars, a few "restaurants", some small dukkas (store stalls), the cyber cafe, and the county council area, we sat and waited for Lefty, our friend/guide. He came and took us into the park for about 3 hours, it was awesome. First, you see the deleterious effects of overgrazing clearly. Around Brian's compound there's barely any grass but in the park just a bit away it looks like a true Savannah. I came at the end of the wildebeest migration, so when we looked out into the distance you could see lines and lines of wildebeest. The other highlights of the safari were: a leopard in a tree, a lion walking right next to our car, lots of zebra and gazelles, some ostrich, and one of about 3,000 black rhinos left in the world. A good day indeed.


Wednesday: Olikirkirai
Wednesday it was back to work. We were going to Olikirikirai (about 50km N of Narok) to meet with a women's group but it coincided with National Literacy Day so I got to meet the chief, DO, area counsellor, Ass. Chief, and a bunch of other people I should have met a month ago. 2 birds, one stone. Oh, I forgot. In order to get back to Narok from the Mara I had to wake up at 5am to catch the matatu (they only leave in the morning) but we did do some great star gazing: Orion's belt, some galaxies, Jupiter, and a bunch of other stars Brian pointed out to me that I forgot. On the bumpy three hour ride back sitting by bags of maize or potatoes or who knows what, a giraffe came right in front of the matatu! I got back to the house about 8, had a breakfast of Kenyan pancakes, and left for Olikirkirai around 10. It started raining at the end of the Literacy Day program, around 3pm so we met with the women and then tried to catch a ride back to Narok. It took about 30 minutes walking down the muddy road in the rain before a car came, which they then packed full of people and vegetables. (Sidenote: I now play a game called, how much can you fit in a car? So far the record is 12 people but this was a close second with 8 people and 8 bags of veggies). At 7PM, my supervisor and I arrived back in town and I was exhausted in the best way possible and starving. I hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning! Home, dinner, two wine spritzers and 3 episodes of Sex and the City later, I was asleep.


Thursday: Rrotian
Yesterday was another full day. OFDC has provided loan money for 6 women groups but we have to do home assessments for all interested loan applicants to ensure they really are needy. Yesterday was home assessment day 2 of 5 in Rrotian, which meant more walking in the hot sun, more chai and chapati and failing to understand any more than 10% of the Maasai spoken. Luckily Josephine, my supervisor's wife and my unofficial counterpart, was there to translate. I asked them a bunch of question about their lives, families, homes, businesses and their community. It was worth it though, when at the end of the day one woman thanked me for coming and said no one had ever been to their homes or asked about their problems. Intangible rewards.

Today I am going to finally get some statistics I have been after for a month and then going to Naivasha to look at a group do some briquette making, a possible IGA (income generating activity) for some of the women's groups. Tomorrow I am going to one of the first senators of Kenya's house to meet his grand-daughters and family and I'm going to try and make pizza. Sunday it's off to Nairobi!!!!!


Happy Eid al Fitr to all my Muslim friends! Fasting in August had to have been haaaaard, feast well!