Went to Malindi for Saturday night and Sunday morning:
SUPERBOWL SUNDAY!!!
I found a West Coast CBS rebroadcast from the USA that actually streamed reasonably well to Kenya, so, being the techie volunteer with the good Internet, we had a lil’ party at my house! We got to watch the commercials and everything. The only problem? Kickoff here was at 2:30AM.
So for a little under a week now I’ve been in Nairobi for my one-year medical and dental checkup. Conclusions:
None of these things were actually in doubt, but that’s just about all that was tested.
I also finally changed my malaria medicine from Mefloquine to Doxycycline. I did this for two reasons:
I hadn’t had any of these hallucinations for a while, but I when I’d think about the general reasons to stop taking it, it seemed that it would be the best thing to do. So now I’m on Doxy, which means I need to take a daily pill and I need to be more vigilant about sunscreen. But it also means my complexion will improve! Check out the Wikipedia page on Mefloquine if you’re taking it and I’ve worried you.
In other news, Nairobi seems to be just as dangerous a place as ever. I had dinner last night with one of the newer volunteers, who is recovering from a mugging that he doesn’t even remember. The leading theory at the moment is that he was smashed in the face repeatedly with rocks before he had a chance to see what was happening. In any case, he looks good considering, and while he recovers, Peace Corps has put him up in, essentially, a mansion (3 stories, 3 full baths, hot running water, full-time security guard, etc). I already err on the side of taking taxis more often than necessary, but now I feel even more strongly about not walking alone in Nairobi. Prior to this event, it was easy to imagine myself reasoning with the muggers, slowly handing over money, phone, etc, to avoid any violence, but now that scenario has been thrown thrown right out the window. The fact that he hid money in his shoe didn’t help this particular volunteer avoid violence. (Although it did help him with the cab fare after he regained consciousness… and yes, the taxi driver did charge him.)
I’m not sure what the percentages are, but it seems like at least one volunteer is mugged every month in Nairobi, although this is the worst one I’ve heard of so far. I may regret sharing this story and worrying people, especially since I may soon be spending more time in Nairobi, but trust me— I won’t be walking alone at night, or even at dusk!
I don’t have any Nairobi pictures to go along with this post’s prose, since I lent my camera to a friend, but here’s one I took of a fellow volunteer in Malindi, where I spent a couple days before we travelled to Nairobi together:
Well, my girlfriend left on Sunday, so it’s back to the usual routine for the rest of the term. It was a fun two weeks while she was here. In my previous blog post I uploaded some pictures from her first weekend here, so now here are some pictures from the second and third weekends, with a few weekday pictures thrown in for good measure.
Second Weekend (Watamu and Malindi):
After some good snorkeling in Watamu, we took the glass-bottomed boat back to our hotel, Hemingway’s.
In Malindi, we dropped by Vasco de Gama’s Pillar (made from Lisbon limestone… none of that unacceptable Porto granite, even if if does hold together better in earthquakes):
In Watamu, one of the few butterflies in the Butterfly House:
Next door, the mysterious Gede Ruins (and me sitting upon them, ruining them further):
View of the ruins from a nearby staircased Baobab tree, which was an enjoyable climb:
Second week:
Upon our return to my home in Mombasa, we went to the Eid (end of Ramadan) festival/carnival. To get in we needed tickets, and there were two lines to buy them: one for men and one for women. The men actually made up more of a mob than a line, so it was handy that ErinRose could get tickets for us pretty quickly.
The carnival itself was like an African version of Something Wicked This Way Comes-meets-Dr. Lao. The whole thing was old-fashioned in a charming but unsettling way: many of the rides were manual, with men spinning children around or pushing giant swings, and we had the opportunity to see the world’s shortest women, twice (there were two of them), as well as the Nigerian rat monster. There was also supposed to be a severed head but it hadn’t shown up yet.
Here’s a clip of the carnival, with a man pushing one of the most popular rides, of which there were at least a dozen.
Here’s a professional photo taken in one of a half-dozen similar carnival booths. Because Eid is a Muslim celebration, and other people were taking rather conservative photos, we settled on this pose:
Here I am debating the merits of paying to see the severed head (which is depicted on the sign on the left).
The head wasn’t ready, so we went into another tent. Ahead of us, children climb over each other to see the world’s shortest woman:
Here she is, in a tiny little corner of the tent, just standing there with some extra clothes and some snacks at her feet. Because each shortest woman had competition from the other, we were encouraged to ask how old she was, to which each would reply “65” or “75” or something similarly impressive.
After much anticipation (there was a dramatic countdown), we were allowed to go into another tent to see the Rat Monster from Nigeria. The flash photo makes it a little less scary, but even with minimal lighting, it wasn’t much more terrifying:
Later that week, ErinRose’s birthday dinner at the Tamarind restaurant, which you may remember as being the swanky place with a fish tank as part of its flushing system:
In her last class with the younger kids, ErinRose taught them how to make paper puppets (I don’t actually know what these things are called—it was more of a girl thing in school). Here’s a clip:
For our last weekend we went to the Shaanti Holistic Health Retreat, which was a cool little new-agey yoga resort. We only did the yoga once (my first time ever), but we enjoyed the overall peaceful vibe regardless. Here’s a view from the restaurant:
This place was a full board experience, so we only ate out once, at Ali Barbour’s Cave restaurant, which was pretty cool, just like it sounds… a restaurant in a cave.
On our last evening at Shaanti, we took advantage of the outdoor bathtubs with a view of the stars and the ocean. They are next to communal area where people do yoga, so they are keep-the-swimsuits-on kinds of baths, but especially with the sparkling grape juice, it made for a romantic final evening.
So as of Monday, I’m back to teaching my classes without a helper, which means the blog posts will look much less like I’m on a luxurious vacation and much more like I’m busy teaching. I hope you enjoyed all the pictures!