Filed under: Kenya | Tags: Adaptation, Danger, Food, Hiking, Lokichoggio, Sudan, Travel
ok … so this may be the last you hear from me for a long time … i am told that the UN occasionally will allow people to use their internet … but who knows …
i board my first of 4 (i think) UN flights tomorrow morning at 6am … and i am EXCITED … more than anything i am excited to be settling in somewhere … it’s nice to have a place to call home … even if it is … well … i have no idea what my ‘bedroom’ is going to look like …
it’s astounding how fast you learn to just go with it … i walk into my room at 8:00 in the evening … it is 35C+, there are at least 30 flies buzzing around, there is something resembling a large grasshopper sitting on my pillow, 2 small lizards scurry into the corner and a bigass frog hops by … i am not sure how clean the bedding or chairs are … but i would assume ‘not very’ would be applicable … the shower is only on for 2 hours a day, and is not so much a shower 4 tiny streams of cold water that “pour” out of a faucet haphazardly attached to the wall in the middle of the bathroom … though it must be added that cold water is nice when it is above 40C all day and most of the night …
i sit down to eat … order something that sounds like it doesnt involve raw intestines (though I have failed in this respect) … and eat whatever is put in front of me … sometimes i learn only after that first fateful bite that a mistake has been made … but i swallow what happens to be in my mouth, push the rest of that mystery to the side, and finish the rest of the food … sometimes i step back and smile at myself and realize just how much of a little princess i am in canada … i feel liberated … i am no longer ‘too good’ for anything …
today i made the mistake of asking a local who has become a good friend to take me for a hike up to a nearby mountain … (aside: secondary school is not paid for in this country … and he is DESPERATE to go … it’s $200/year and includes a uniform and a daily meal … if anybody wants to change the life of a wonderful, kind, intelligent and extremely motivated human being … let me know) … its a sheer cliff that overlooks the town from a distance … and i thought it would be fun …
i realized as i was hanging onto the side of said cliff … scaling upwards at about 95 degrees … that i probably should have asked how dangerous the climb was going to be …
then again … that wouldn’t have done much good … while i … a relatively fit and agile 25 year old from canada huffed and struggled to reach for holds and not fall to my death … a scrawny 18 year old who had barely eaten in the past decade hopped and ran and spent most of his time sitting and waiting for me … humbling …
and i didn’t die … so that was nice … though i think i am being a bit dramatic … as with most things … the more dangerous it is, the safer it is, as you are forced to be alert … on the gradual easy walk back i succeeded in rolling my ankle and taking a header onto a rock … life is funny …
oh .. and i have a urinary tract infection … health care in this country is so much better than canada we should be embarassed … i was into the doctor, getting lab tests done and results back and getting the appropriate prescription filled within 20 mintues … i am not such a big fan of the urinary tract infection … as i can think of more pleasant areas of the body to experience “moderate discomfort” … but its part of the experience … for those keeping count … i have now had 1 major stomach flu, 1 minor stomach issue, 1 random rash and one infection … not so bad for 10 weeks …
so anyway … tomorrow night i will be in south sudan in a place called Maual Akon … in Aweil county … i have no idea what lies ahead … and i am so exicted i will hardly be able to sleep tonight …
see ya’ll on the otherside …
Filed under: Kenya | Tags: Bus, Civil War, Kakuma, Kitale, Loki, Nairobi, Poverty, Refugee Camp, Travel
ooooook …
this has got to be fast, as the internet here is expensive as sh*t … and i have SOOO much to say …
since i last wrote i have spent 3 days on busses travelling from Nairobi to Kitale, Kitale to Kakuma and Kakuma to Lokichoggio … and what an experience !!!
a couple hours into the first bus ride, we started passing the burned out houses …
i asked the young boy next to me what happened … he said one word … “tribalism” … i have never seen the effects of war with my eyes before … it was … sobering … to see blocks of 10 or so houses … with 3 of them burned to the ground …
30 minutes down the road we passed a refugee camp … a few hundred tents in a field … as people wait for the government to sort its stupid power struggles out so they can go home … and rebuild …
though i can’t imagine the rebuild … neighbors turning on neighbors … friends on friends … because what tribe you belong to is more important than the people you have lived around your whole life … how do you return to your home and start over … how do you forgive ???
this went on for much of the first day …e very hour we would pass another stretch world bearing the shadows of a small civil war …
on the second day we left the most vibrant world i have ever seen … nairboi and the world around it is LUSH .. lush green plants and bright red soils … 10 hours staring out the window of a bus never saw my intoxication with the colours wane … then … the moutains suddenly fell away and the ground became … lion king like … is the best way to describe it …
the trees changed … they became smaller, and there were fewer and fewer and fewer … the soil changed from rich red to sand … camels and monkeys started to flash by my windows … and the turkana people … colourful and proud … started to emerge …
my first night was in a place called Kitale … it was the sight of much of the violence in recent months … but ifound the people there to be as kind as debre sina … and i was sad to leave …
my second night, after the longest bus ride of my life, brought me in very late to Kakuma … formerly the home of the biggest refugee camp in the world … at the height of the Sudanese civil war, it was the home to more than 80,000 sudanese … plus Ugandans, Ethiopians, Rwandans and Somli’s … all unable to live at home …
it was strange … as i was literally arriving IN the book i was reading … the book is called “What is the What” and is the story of a Sudanese Lost Boy who walked for months across the desert to become one of the first people to occupy Kakuma I refugee camp … the experience of reading him describe the landscape, and then looking out my window and SEEING it … was … surreal …
the morning i spent in kakuma i toured that refugee camp … i can not describe how utterly unexpected that expereince was … though if i had thought about it, i suppose i would have …
while its numbers have now dwindled from almost 100,000 to less than 10,000 … many of those who live there have been living there for 18 years … since it was founded in 1990 … and what do you think would happen in 18 years ??? … a CITY springs up … walking through a refugee camp is like walking through a city … there are shops and markets and hotels … kids on bikes and cars going by … i couldn’t believe it … AND … unlike nearby kakuma town, where poverty has torn a hole in too many stomachs … everyone is fed and watered in kakuma camp … so the people … are satisfied … and are happy … so weird …
after kakuma i caught a short bus to Loki … though the ride was considerably longer thanks to the frequent police stops along the way … in our mini-bus there were 19 passengers plus the driver …
at every police stop (4 of them) … the 6 passengers without ‘papers’ would get out … get yelled at b the police … disappear behind the bus … and then get back in and we would be waved on … commerce is not dead 
…
i was once politely asked for a ‘gift’ … i politely said ‘no’ … and that was all that came of it …
and now i am in loki … home of millions of flies, lots of white aid workers and too many starving children … i have been trying to find my way to sudan for the past 2 days … but due to a breakdown in communication with CASS at home, i have been frustrated and stumped … i THINK this has now resolved itself, and with any luck i will be cheaply on a UN flight over the border on Friday morning …
from there, i may not be on again for awhile … but the current plan is to then drive out of sudan into norther Uganda … will see what happens …
this has cost me way too much … and i have so much more to say … so i will have to save it for another day …
i am a bit sick, am half crazy from the flies and half crazy from the heat (which is as immense as one would expect … i am told the Constant Gardener was based here … and it seems familiar … very ’surface of the sun’ like) .. and am having a harder and harder time dealing with the children asking for money … as i know they really are hungry …
but what can you do right ??? … still having the time of my life … though not in the wild and crazy party sense … i feel myself changing everyday … and for the first time feel that i am actually prepared for the road ahead …
thats it for now … peace and love to all from Lokichoggio, Kenya …
i ever tell you about this one time, in addis ababa, when we all went out to the most happenin place in town … called “Harlem Jazz” … and the last song of the night was Redemption Song ??? … i know i wrote in my journal, but i am not sure if i wrote it here …
anyway … still can’t shake that experience … i mean … i have been in hundreds of large groups of people doing little ’sing-a-longs’ with the guy/girl with the micro-phone … but never like that …
i think, based in large part to a poolside convo with linds and michelle, that Bob Marley is in fact the resurrection of Jesus Christ … he inspires people all over the world to believe in freedom and to love one another … he is a voice for the powerless and the oppressed … wow …
standing shoulder to shoulder with people for whom the words we all YELLED … were more than just symbols of oppression … but a testament to the lives they live every single day … was beyond spiritual … still can’t stop thinking about the power in their voices and the pain on their faces … won’t you help to sing … these songs of freedom ???
ANYWAY …
ever try crossing the street at a roundabout with 16 lanes of traffic entering and exiting from 3 different directions, at impressive/terrifying speeds ??? … the people in this town are f**kin fearless …
that was neither here nor there …
things are now in order … i should have my Sudanese visa tomorrow and should be boarding a bus for Kitali on Friday morning … to arrive in Loki on Saturday afternoon, and hop a UN flight to Malual Akon, Sudan soon thereafter … hoping to spend tomorrow getting a package with the crap i have this far accumulated in the mail for home … and enjoying my last night in this crazy town …
i like nairobi … not sure i would want to live here, but i have spent 5 days now wandering all over town (yesterday i started walking down a random sidestreet and ended up in SKETCH town) and it really is a nice place to visit … especially when there are riots going on in the suburbs and the whole place is brimming with political anger and turmoil :S …
but then i am leaving in a couple days … out of the pot and into the fire …
i should have one more post before i go, and then i really have no clue when i will be online again … hopefully soon … peace and love to all …
i am, for those who were wondering, having the time of my life …
eman
Filed under: Kenya | Tags: Frustration, Genocide, Hooters, Media, Nairobi, Soccer, Talisman
so my ‘go-to-guy’ at Amurt, the Nairobi based, South Sudanese NGO that I will be working with for the next 2 months (i think), is in Southern Sudan …
I have a feeling this is going to make my life SO much simpler, as most of my instructions for this phase included the words “talk to Amurt for guidance” … so it goes … i am confident there are worse fates, and this just means I need to be a bit more … resourceful …
hey … anyone ever heard of Talisman ??? …
they were a Canadian oil company that used to allow the Arab Sudanese government to use thier facilities to kill thousands (probably more) of Black Sudanese …
they were accused of war crimes and genocide … a Canadian company … Sued for genocide …
don’t you think its kind of funny that you have never heard of them ??? … they did pop up a couple times on CBC … a couple times …
A CANADIAN COMPANY COMMITTED GENOCIDE AND WE DIDN’T HEAR A WORD ABOUT IT !!!!
i do love free and unbiased media … makes me so proud to be an American …
life in Nairobi is friggin splendid … i spent my weekend wandering aimlessly around the city … too bad it’s too dangerous to walk around at night, as I bet this place is something to see in the wee hours of the morning …
the people are not quite as friendly as in Ethiopia, and i do see genuine animosity in the looks of some passersby … but in general, they seem more welcoming and friendly than Canadians, and I still can not walk more than a few blocks before I meet someone who wants to get to know me …
yesterday i went for a late lunch at Hooters … i didn’t know Nairobi had a Hooters until I found myself staring up at the sign … but i just HAD to check it out … you can imagine my unhappiness at finding that the waitresses here were often waiters … and my GREAT relief (after seeing men instead of women) at finding that they wore t-shirts and jeans, instead of those cute orange shorts … c’est la vie … they were out of hamburgers, had only warm coke and i waited 45 minutes for a plate of the smallest chicken wings i have ever seen … but there was soccer on the big screen … and the atmosphere in any bar playing soccer in east africa is unbeatable … cheering and yelling and dancing everywhere … so i had no complaints …
i am also, it should be noted, now a die-hard Chelsea fan … and Arsenal can rot in hell
i must run or i will miss lunch …
alright … fast fast fast …
i don’t know what is going on with my sidebar … i was at a great internet cafe in Addis that seems to have f**ked up my whole set-up …
if you can find my flickr feed, you can see about 15 pics … i just grabbed a handfull quickly, as in the process of screwing up my sidebar, the internet cafe was also not letting me get 90% of the photos off of my memory cards … sure hope that is not permenant issue, or my heart just might break …
ANYWAY …
i’m in nairobi …
NOT what i was expecting … Addis has the feel of a (quote/unquote) 3rd world city … there are donkeys roaming, and lots of little markets and old busses and all that jazz … i walked into Nairobi expecting something along the same lines …
i found downtown Toronto … everything is nice and paved, with mowed lawns and flowers abound … and money … so much money … nice cars and nice clothes and bigass buildings …
it’s almost impossible to imagine that Kibera (sp???), the world’s largest slum, is probably within easy walking distance …
and i caved to someone asking for money for the first time … though he didn’t ask for money, and he did spend half an hour sitting with me, telling me about Zimbabwe and his life over the past 6 months … and he seemed genuine … and he asked for a bag of uncooked rice because his family was starving … and i caved …
not sure how i feel about it … there are many MANY people on the street in Addis who are missing limbs, or who walk around on their hands, b/c their hips/legs/feet are deformed … there are poor grandmothers with crying babies on their backs and orphan children begging for food …
i didn’t give anything to them …
why does the school-teacher from zimbabwe deserve more than they … i almost feel guilty for buying him rice for his family … arg …
i am in my hostel, thus beginning my little solo-journey around africa … and am looking forward to spending the night relaxing in privacy, as i have been sharing a room with 1-4 people for the past 2 months straight …
tomorrow should be chill out day, and then monday i will start getting the pieces in play for Sudan …
that’s it for me today … should be back on in the next day or 2 …
