Categories
Loitokitok Machakos Mombasa

Machakos and The Photos That Time Forgot

Well, I’m back from Machakos and I’ve met the ten new Deaf Education Volunteers who just arrived.  Some of them have blogs, which are now listed in the right column.  Enjoy!  I got back from Machakos just in time to grade my students’ exams, return them, and to finish shooting video for the DVD yearbook.

Today we had a big school lunch where all the teachers gave speeches (actually variations of one speech— help your parents when you go home and don’t be lazy) and the kids dressed up in their fine clothes, which is unnerving with the older ones because it becomes clear how indistinguishable they become from adults if they dress well.  I just now (this evening) got home from the library, which I opened one last time for them to use the computers.  Tomorrow is the day when the parents are supposed to pick them all up until the next school year starts.    I’m “off” for the next month, but I anticipate the blog will soon attest that I’m going to be pretty busy.

If you’re a Peace Corps blog addict or a stickler for time, you might have noticed that I’ve not been in America for over a year, although I haven’t mentioned it until just now.  For many people this is cause for reflection, but since I’m an endless pool of reflection, I thought I’d do something a little different.  I thought I’d post some pictures from my phone.  Phone pictures are a little different from camera pictures.  Their subjects are unexpected and fleeting: people or places I probably wasn’t expecting to see twice, or simple moments that for whatever reason stuck me as worth documenting.  So let’s see what the heck I’m talking about.

I took this picture in Loitokitok because I was struck by just how far I could see, something alien when I lived in LA and just as alien now in Mombasa.

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I took this one because I’m an egomaniac.  Also, this is about as long as my hair got in Kenya.  I could never maintain those wisps in the heat here.

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I found a copy of Climbing Magazine in the woodshop where I teach.  It made me think of Salt Lake City and begging climbing companies for documentary money not long before leaving for Kenya.

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A typical Kenyan dish… add a toothpick and it’s just about iconic.

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Kids in my art class turning my vase into two faces.

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President Kibaki and his entourage fly by in their Land Cruisers and Mercedeses just as I’m walking home.  They’re a few minutes from the big fiber optic unveiling for East Africa, where Kibaki gave a speech.

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ErinRose loving her henna as it’s being applied in old town:

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If there was any doubt about the heat here, check out these candles in a hotel’s gift shop:

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So there you have it… one year.  I’m still too busy to make the big profound reflective post, but it’ll come around I’m sure.

Categories
Mombasa

3 Easy Steps to a Better Home

1. About a month ago, I bought a new couch.  Having guests is much nicer now… it was awkward before when people had to stand.

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2. Around the same time I also bought a larger mosquito net.  I makes sleeping a less claustrophobic experience:

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3. Lastly, about two weeks ago I (actually ErinRose) discovered that I do in fact have running water for a few hours a week.  This has literally changed my life.  My clothes and I are much cleaner than ever before.  All this time I had just assumed that the faucet never worked, but in fact the city rations out water to my school from time to time, so Monday and Tuesday mornings, if I turn on the faucet and wait a few minutes, water will eventually come out!

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OK, enough of that.  I have to run because I’m off to a weekend event (some kind of HIV workshop / games thing), but here are my nine English/Math students from the vocational school:

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Categories
Diani Malindi Mombasa Watamu

ErinRose Back in Kenya, Part 2

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.

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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):

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In Watamu, one of the few butterflies in the Butterfly House:

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Next door, the mysterious Gede Ruins (and me sitting upon them, ruining them further):

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View of the ruins from a nearby staircased Baobab tree, which was an enjoyable climb:

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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:

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Here I am debating the merits of paying to see the severed head (which is depicted on the sign on the left).

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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:

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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.

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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:

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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:

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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:


Third weekend (Diani Beach):

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:

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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.

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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!