My (_)B312 L337 5ki11ZZ !!eleven!!!

I have to apologize that the blog has been a little schizophrenic the last couple days. I wanted to add a template but was trying to reconcile what to do with a template that was far to narrow for the pictures I was posting. At first I started reposting all of the pictures. As you've seen it makes things look a little messed up, so I decided I'd try to edit the code of the blog itself. Who knew my leet computer Sk1lls would end up being worth something after all!?! I think it looks a lot better now. So hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here on out. Meanwhile back at the ranch G-units ex BFFL got arrested. First Sam Sort of gets malaria, now G's friend gets owned by the 5.0. Why can't I have some of the fun this summer. I heard from a girl today that she got Dengue fever a few years ago when she was in Kenya... Given that Dengue trumps Malaria in any story, I'm really holding out for that. We'll see what happens.

Fade so Tight

I got my second hair cut in the country tonight in anticipation of our trip to Lamu Saturday. I can’t wait for our trip, this has been my most demanding week thus far work-wise and it will be nice to be in a place without cars, without distractions etc. We all went to a marina club the other day just after lunch. I was disappointed for the most part but we started poking around on the “dock” and ended up finding a few little treasures.

These boats were all really colorful (which none of you noticed I'm sure). I didn't have my camera so Grace was in charge of getting it all on camera. Shes a good photographer.

As we looked around at the fish swimming around the dock we noticed a few crabs hidden in the shadows of the dock using their claws like lawn mowers cutting all the algae which had attached itself to the dock. If you look behind the crab, the black containers you can see are large plastic jugs used here in Kenya to contain about every liquid imaginable. In this case they were holding air and not liquid. I have no idea how the physics of this works, but the dock was being held up by jugs! I didn't really trust it, but the dock felt (mostly) stable even when grace and I were bent over to take pictures.

This Picture was all about team work. its hard to tell in the reflection, but I was holding one of my flip-flops above the camera to decrease the glare on the photo. I like how huge Grace's hand looks in the photo. This lion fish is bigger than it appears (classic fish story) in comparison to Grace's hand. I think it must have been trying to eat the crabs because it was holding so still that we thought it was dead except for the occasional tail wag. There was a crab that ran around the poll in the corner of the shot as the fish approached. The wildlife on the dock sure beat the catfish and carp you'd see clamoring around the docks at Lake Powell. I could have reached in and grabbed it. but the whole poison stings thing didn't sound great.

I'm on this new diet. I call it (drum roll) ... KENYA!!!! or maybe I should call it correct portion sizes, or not so American portion sizes. I'm sorry if this is a reiteration but I found out that I've lost 5 more pounds, taking me to a grand total of 15 since arriving in the country. The best part is that I'm not even really trying to lose weight. You just can't help but eat more correctly here. The foods aren't processed, the portion sizes are healthier, and fast food is as healthy as anything you would eat at home. I love it. I'll post after Lamu.

Prelude to a Trip

This will be short and sweet. I wanted to wish a very impersonal happy birthday to my father and brother whom I won't be able to call since I'll be in Lamu this weekend. I also want to try to upload some photos with the photo feature on Blogspot. We'll see how that goes. If theres a photo when you read this, it worked. If not you may never read this. haha
Ok turns out it worked. This dolls head was in old town. It seemed momentous given that white dolls are "not so common" in Africa. White doll... nail in head. Hmm. fun. As I've mentioned, I really want to write about being white in Kenya. Most aspects of it are good, although there are some decidedly bad things about it. I'll hit both of them in a couple days. thanks for reading. Oh, and for what its worth, my little google bomb worked. I doubled my traffic from search engines the day that I Had the title iPhone, iPhone, iPhone. Last I checked... if you google "Kenya iPhone" my blog is the top hit on google. Thats a strange sensation.

iPhone, iPhone, iPhone

The title probably won’t make any sense until the very end of the blog… Sorry that I haven’t Posted in a few days. Work has suddenly become more stressful as a major deadline I was up against have moved forward by a month. All of my creative juices have spilled into the writing of the audit manual I’ve been working on (clearly a very creative document indeed). I had seen a few older pictures that I felt were worth posting along with some newer ones. I’ve been meaning to speak about the nuances of being a white person in Kenya so if I have any energy by the end of this you may get a snippet about that also.
This crocodile looked very majestic when we were at Haler Park the other day. It wasn’t the biggest but I wouldn’t want to meet it in a dark alley, or um, in a… err, swimming pool.












I still can get over the giraffes that we saw at Haler the other week. It felt like the scene in Jurassic Park where they’re driving in the Jeeps and see the Brontosaurus and other dinosaurs around a lake. It just feels like two worlds colliding. I felt inherently like I didn’t belong in the situation. The giraffes seemed less concerned with our presence. They can be so shallow! Haha.
















This Picture also had a very Jurassic Park feel to it. I posted a picture of this Crowned Heron the other day. I don’t know if I posted any Hippo pictures. The hippos looked fake. The fat from their bodies rolled over their legs in a way that made them look very animatronic. We were told that they are the most dangerous animal in the park. Hippos are quite territorial and very short tempered I guess.





I tore my Only favorite pair of shorts getting off a matatu about a month ago. I wasn’t as bothered about having torn shorts as I would be in the states. It almost made me feel like I fit in a bit better. Karen (pictured) goes to church with us and works as a seamstress. She did a bang up job on the shorts, which are good as new (sort of). The Sewing machine she used was foot powered – Kenyans are super liberal and hippie like that… they are working hard to reduce their carbon foot print… just kidding – I figured out a few days later that the model she was using was a replica of a foot powered Singer Machine. Both looked really cool – Gold leafed trim on a black background. She refused payment but I gave her a few shillings anyway. After leaving the shop I realized I have no idea what the going rate is for their services, so I may have massively over or under paid her. I’m hoping the prior and not the a latter.




On Saturday we ventured to old town figuring we’d give it a second chance. We spent more time at fort Jesus this time. Above the fort there are these really odd trees. Some of the limbs head straight toward the ground and sprout into roots. Some like this one look very root-like prior to reaching the ground. They smell funny and look ugly hence the face. Grace really captured the moment on this one.
















The G-unit (Grace) insisted on being in front of the lens on this one so we enlisted the use of the timer on my camera to get a picture of us in front of the same tree that the roots were from in the subsequent photo. I would imagine that the stock of the tree keeps growing and growing. Grace … sorry eh Hem- The g-unit – said the tree looks like the Whomping Willow in the Harry potter movies. I think she was unhappy with my pose. What do you do right?




The fort has a really interesting design. According to the travel guide we have, it was designed so that you could never attack a wall of the fort without being a sitting duck for soldiers on another wall. Where I stand mas maybe a bit of an anomaly then. Notice my (now) holeless shorts.







Below the wall there was an abrupt drop and what seemed like a dry moat of sorts around the fort. A series of caves had been dug out of the corral stonewalls of the moat. “Unforch” they were gated off so you couldn’t explore back into them. The one behind me had a very “Pirates of the Caribbean” feel to it. I don’t know why that made me bust out a Derrick Zoolander look with a bit of the peoples eyebrow mixed in, but its rarely the wrong answer face-wise… except in family photos maybe.













Fort Jesus is a great example of how restoration isn’t really a well understood concept to people here. The outside of the fort looks nice, but on what could be considered the more picturesque portion of the fort two soccer goals have been placed right next to the fort. Its better than a baseball diamond, or football uprights – its soccer after all- but I’m guessing there is a dirt patch somewhere nearby that would have worked just as well. The ocean was really rough and stormy on Saturday. The swells looked big, but they never really turn into anything you can ride. It’s a bit of a tease.







This building sits in the middle of a square in old town. It overflowed with character. The different colors of paint, the uneven roof, I thought it was very cool – in an I am glad I don’t live there type of way.





Grace and I parted ways with Sam and Blair and headed to town after a brief tour through old town. There are some odd buildings in town. We were trying to decide if this building was looked more like Deconstructivism or Cubism If you click the link from Deconstructivism you can see an example of a building that looks a lot like it i guess.














Regardless of style it looks very Soviet I thought. Especially contrasted to the Cathedral in the lower sides of this shot.
















This is another little Eyesore treat from downtown Mombasa. The "TSS tower"is a different animal from each of its 90 million sides. From one end it looks like a bad rendition of the emerald city. On this side it looks more “Flash Gordon meets the Roman arch”-ish.









A decorated matatu. The name was extremely ironic I thought. It was meant to be a hip-hop reference of some kind, I’m sure but its probably more accurate as a description of the drivers tactics.











Saturday came to an end with a nice dinner with the (Mormon) missionaries. As opposed to the two that would usually come, we hosted four hungry elders. We had vegetarian spaghetti (a de facto menu selection), and an awesome fruit salad. The elders were from (right to left) Idaho Falls, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. It was fun to have them over and brought back good memories.

OK, that was a novel. In other news, according to Google analytics, I’ve had visitors to my blog from every continent on earth except Australia. I figure if the readership keeps growing I’ll break 500 unique visitors by the end of summer. I should put Paris Hilton and iPhone a bunch of times at the top of my blog to get more traffic from search engines. Or, maybe I’ll just keep the pictures coming. I hope you all have a great day.

Short But Sweet

I know that all of you only look at the pictures anyway so this post is mostly pictures. I’m sure no one will cry themselves to sleep over this. Last night Grace (who has insisted on being referred to as “G-Unit” in all publicized media) and I decided to go back to a hotel that looks over the bay north of Mombasa. We played with the setting on our cameras and each shot photos until our batteries were dead. Because neither of us had a tripod and are completely lacking photographic skills are fairly new to photographing things, most of them turned out as junk. I liked these though and hope you do too. Feel free to comment. For what its worth, if we look rather blank or stiff, it’s because the shutter was staying open for so long and any movement blurred things a bit. And here they are:

I thought the view was amazing

















Don't Move.. DON'T MOVE!!


















This may be the best picture I've ever taken













I call this one "Stiff as a Board"

Get In, Get IN, GET IN!!!

Saturday morning I went and got lost in downtown Mombassa when I decided it was time to go get a swimsuit – having left mine at home. I enjoyed a cupcake and then ventured into the maze of markets and shops. The others had headed to the beach so I had no one to confer with about getting my bearings. I soon realized that I didn’t recognize any of the buildings around me. I didn’t really feel worried. Before the day was over I got some awesome shorts, which are a little more businesslike than my old pair (five dollars). I felt really depressed when I was wearing sizes two above what I’d buy in the US although, I felt much better when I paid to use a fairly accurate looking scale and found I had lost ten pounds since arrival. So the day was off to a great start.

I went back home and met up with the others to head to Haller Park, a “Zoo” here in town. I put zoo in quotes because zoo connotes to me some kind of controlled environment in which you view animals. The matatu ride on the way was an adventure not to soon be forgotten. At a crowded “matatu stage” we had grown tired of weighting for a not so full matatu to come along and decided to just get the next one that arrived. People push like rush hour traffic on the subway to get on to routes that are less than common so we had little choice but to join in. The next Mtwapa matatu (Mtwapa is the route we needed named after the village at the end of the route) had 5 seats and there are four of us. People crowded in next to us pushing to get in. I suddenly lost my enthusiasm and it must have shown on my face because just as I was about to say, “um guys lets get the next one” .... the Hustler conductor looked at me and yelled “get in, get in, get in!!!!”, and I did. Before I could see that there were no seats the door was shut and we were off. 21 people got to be there for my first standing matatu ride- I’m sure they’re honored.

Like everything else in Kenya, the zoo had very few stated rules. In this case the lack of rules was a good thing, allowing us to do what we want when we wanted. At haller Park of the animals were fenced in, but at no point was there enough of a barrier between animal and visitor to keep you from just jumping over and geting up close and personal with the animals. Case in point: here is a picture of me next to two giraffes, which were not fenced in at all.


After we had been taking pictures for ten minutes and venturing closer and closer, the guide came and said, “Don’t get too close, they kick”. He was half joking and soon walked away, leaving just the four of us and the giraffes.

We also saw some hippos, water buffalo that had this crowned heron hanging out near it.



After that the “tour” took an abrupt downward swing as things suddenly became very touristy. We went to this really really lame snake exhibit and just as we were about to lose interest the guide said it was time to feed the crocodiles and we realized that there was certainly still hope. I wish I could upload the video that I shot but the photos will have to do. This crocodile was missing one of its front arms, a fact that I think can be attributed its very aggressive nature. It was amazing to see the crocs fighting and leaping almost entirely out of the water. The trip was the high point of the month so far.


On our way out we found a tortoise that was a hundred and twenty years old. The tortoises lay flat on the ground to eat but we had seen our guide reach under the shell and do something to the turtle that made it stand up for pictures. By this time, the park was nearly closed so it was just the turtle and us. I think I took 40 pictures of members of the group with my camera alone. It really worked the camera and was not temperamental at all about us being really close to it. I wish all 120 year olds were this cooperative.

By the way, Can you say Christmas card???? If you look at graces hand she's kind of tickling the turtle. This was the easiest way to get it to stand up. We saw one of the guides do it and it worked like a charm. The body felt like alligator skin.

Before we knew it the day was over and we headed home. I was completely worn out. What a day!

As It Turns Out

I found out this evening that the “IT guy” I thought I had gotten fired yesterday may still have a job. That’s a good thing I guess. Today wasn’t like any other day since I’ve arrived, which in some ways makes it exactly like every day since coming to Kenya. On our way to the office Grace and I stopped at a massive market to find a couple shirts for her. One shop had shirt she liked but the dressing room, which housed the only mirror, was occupied so we used my camera to let her see what the shirt looked like. She clearly loved it.


After a few minutes I realized we were next to one of the only shops that I’ve seen selling plastic containers of a diet soda so I went into buy one. I hadn’t been out of the shop for thirty seconds when a young girl came up and asked me for the drink in very broken English. What to do, what to do? Dealing with beggars is really really hard for me at home and even harder here. You can’t give them all money and sometimes if you give to one you will be forced to give to all. I gave here ten shillings hoping that she would no longer want my (diet) soda, but to no avail. She tagged along with us for five minutes before we threw in the towel and headed in to work. Once we got fifty feet from the market the girl faded quit following. I hate things like that.

We arrived at work and got a lot done until about twelve thirty when we decided to head to town. We split fresh rolls and made sandwich/pitas which chicken kabobs we got on the street. The sauce was really really spicy but I was far less affected than the other members of the group which I found odd as I don’t really consider myself someone whom can handle spicy foods. I think our entire lunch cost $1.50 each. We topped it off with AMAZING gelato from the bakery next door. I’ve decided that Heaven is gelato in the middle of a hot and dusty city - all of the chaos seems to disappear. After lunch we went and got some things for work and went “exploring” for bookshops, which are in very short supply here.

After a couple of hours we met a friend from church named Joseph who played tour guide at a massive woodcarving co-op. From what he said 10,000 carvers work at the place that we went and supply woodcarvings to most of the tourist areas in Kenya. We spent an hour or so walking around the area. All of the artisans (is that the dorkiest word in the world?) were very friendly, and I was amazed over and as we walked from hut to hut and saw what was being made. Everything from little two or three inch figurines of animals two or three inches tall to giraffes that were taller than I was and everything in between. Like many things in Kenya, their techniques in carving are all about utility; safety always seems to be an afterthought.

We got side tracked by a few EPIC spiders. I posted pictures of a black red and white spider a few posts back. These were the same species but much much bigger.



I can’t believe that no one seems to be bothered by having the spiders around. The three spiders that we saw were on webs covered in dust which means to me that they have been there for some time. As I said, the spiders were huge.

Before the novelty of the spiders or the carvings could wear off we had to leave for an appointment with someone from church that had asked to have us over. As is custom the woman whom had invited us over had prepared a meal for us. This is always so bitter sweet because they always take very good care of us and make plenty of food, but you feel bad because you know it was an enormous sacrifice to put such a meal together. I knew they would never accept payment so I took some money out of my pocket and put it between the cushions on the sofa. I don’t know if they will ever find it – I hope they do though. The food was great… we had stew and chapatti, which are like a tortilla slightly thicker than what you’d get at the store, which is used as an accessory and a utensil for the meal though spoons are also provided typically.
This is us with the family we visited.

After the meal we struggled to find matatus to ride during the crowded rush hour. We all felt that we had spent so much money today but on actually adding it up, I spent less than five dollars. Not to bad I guess.

I’m realizing that this is a bit of a novel already but um, by the way… our friend Sam thinks he has malaria. I’m a bit jealous because I feel as if getting malaria will top any other “What did you do this summer?” answer in a couple months. Lets all keep our fingers crossed for me Sam… shall we?

This is where I sleep and occasionally write my blogs. Nice net eh?

UR FIRED!!!

Today was the worst so far in some ways. I’ve hit a major brick wall. Writing an audit manual when you don’t really enjoy is something of a personal hell in ways. I’ve been excited to learn about audit procedures (which I know is really dorky –but hey that’s me right?). Today I realized that our operational manual already includes most of the things that I would have put in the audit manual I have been assigned to write. So I figured I should see which of the worlds companies are stupid enough to allow their internal audit manuals to get published on the interwebs. Turns out that there are more than you would think, which is good news for me and if ignorance is bliss I’m sure they’ll be fine. I felt a bit better when I inadvertently got the “IT guy” we’ve been using fired. The internet has been very very sketchy at the office since we arrived and he’s not doing a very good job in fixing it. I inquired from a fiery woman when Chris would be coming. She realized that it had been an hour since he had told her over the phone that he was on his way. She called 3 times during an unrelated yet VERY intense conversation about Kenya stuff and he never answered. After about five minutes he called. She picked up the phone and in a very commanding voice asked where he was and before he answered told him he was fired because she was tired of waiting. During the five minute conversation we had had -mentioned earlier- she had contacted Africa Online and not only received a reference for a new IT guy but had called and arranged for him to come in the morning before we open for business tomorrow; All while carrying on an interesting conversation with me. So needless to say, I’ve found a TYPE-A personality. Is it bad when the highpoint of you day is getting someone fired?

This is a picture of a typical day at the office:

Exploring

When we first arrived in Kenya I was confused that there were no shops near our home. Today I realized that there were many shops near where we live, but most of them are not on main streets and even more do not have signs. Grace and I went out “exploring” into a plaza near our house. It had a bunch of interesting shops including a full-fledged grocery store. We had been paying about 400 Ksh (6 US dollars) to get to the large shopping complex where we had been shopping since we had arrived. We also discovered that some of the other local shops had all of the things that we were getting at Nakumatt (the more distant shop). We also found a thrift shop, which is a rare find considering that most of the goods sold here are second hand, and a sporting goods store – all within a block from where we live. We all went into town on a matatu, which we usually don’t ride all the way to downtown. It turns around in a part of town that was really busy with weekend shoppers. We ended up discovering an entirely different side of Mombassa’s downtown. We found gelato for 40 Ksh (about 60 cents), and saw some restaurants highly recommended by tourist guides that we have. This was all before 11 am. We then each pulled out about 20,000 Ksh out of an ATM to pay for our safari. It’s a bit scary walking around the third world with this much money even though in US terms it’s not all that much. All of the bills I'm holding were 1000 shilling notes.


(p.s. like the new haircut?)


We gave 80,000 Ksh (by the way, Ksh is the way Kenyan Shilling is written) to the man book our trips. It seemed like SO MUCH MONEY. Grace and I then went to church. She taught some other members the basics of the piano and then we listened to a short lesson with a bunch of other college age kids. After church Grace and I went back to one of the restaurants we had passed called Pistachio, and had a very late lunch. Pistachio serves European style pizza at relatively fair prices. When we got there four of the five customers were non-tourist white people, a rare sight most places in town. It was a great meal. We shared a pistachio flavored milkshake (my first shake in months), and two pizzas, and I had a Coca-cola Light (which is like diet coke but tastes more like regular. Even though its called Coca-Cola Light on the packaging, no one really has an idea what you’re talking about unless you ask for it as diet coke though). I think we ended up paying 9 dollars when all was said and done. We explored some more and went home. The more time we spend here the more I realize that there is a lot to do. There are still a million things I miss at home, but the country is becoming much more livable.


No shoes, No goggles, NO EYESIGHT. I remember a boy scout leader once telling us you could look at a welding torch with the naked eye for 30 seconds before you go blind. Imagine 8 hours a day. Do they have OSHA in Kenya? HECK NO

Today (Thursday)

It was really hot today but I didn’t sweat a lot so maybe my body is starting to get used to things? We worked really hard until about 3 PM and then decided we’d head to a beach a few minutes from my house. Because we were walking I decided not to take my camera, which was a shame. When we got to the beach there were 20 or so camels just lounging on the beach. I also noticed there were a few local guys playing soccer on the beach. I got up my courage and went and asked to play. I fell a little above the average as far as skill level of the group was concerned. I had always heard that beach soccer was really physically taxing and made a complete idiot of myself the first couple times I got the ball. Playing soccer on the beach is basically like playing soccer in mashed potatoes. When you expect the ball to go, it stops and when you want it to stop it goes really fast. I ended scoring two goals and I think I made a good showing for myself. Hopefully I’ll play with them again. It was much harder than any of the runs we’ve been doing. And thank goodness tomorrow is Friday! Ya!

Who’s got the Power?

Today was interesting. We got to work and the power was out. This, in and of itself is not unusual, but once we had decided to go to the main part of town we found out from a shop owner that the power would be down until five. Nice of the electric company to only interfere with our work and not our lives after work hours. We ended up walking around downtown for a while in an effort to schedule a safari. I posted a few days ago about Type A personalities. This should prove the point. It took us two and a half hours to get four quotes from 4 agencies on what it would cost to do a very commonly configured safari. In most developed countries this would have taken 10 minutes on a web site. Its not that we had to walk between offices – they were all within one block of each other. The problem was that only one of the travel offices had any prices written down or standardized in any way. We got a lot of good information and should book our safari for much less than we would have expected when arriving in the country.

We used the remainder of our time to poke around a few shops and then go to old town. I’m sure you will see pictures on one of our blogs (Like Blair and Sam's or Grace's), but old town basically looks like the illegitimate child of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, and the Suburban rocket launcher scene in Clear and Present Danger. Look at these as an example:




And this one is especially Disneyland looking:



It’s meant to be one of the must see places in town but it was a bit of let down. It didn’t feel dangerous, as much as it just felt not safe(that’s not a typo).

Grace and I made a great Italian dinner for the other interns upon our arrival home. Fresh vegetables are very easy to buy and quite safe to eat and get incorporated into most meals and tonight’s was not exception. We walked a lot today so it was nice to get some carbs in my body. Meanwhile back at the farm, I turned on a feature so that I am required to moderate all comments left on the blog. I haven’t seen if this is working yet, so feel free to comment away and I’ll get them posted for you ASAP.


3p1|< C4${- 1\/10|) |=+VV!!!!one!
Translation: Anything valuable left sitting long enough on the street gets stolen. This is where a manhole was replaced with a large rock to keep people from falling into it. Now only small children can fit. The ones that are actually in middle the street aren’t usually replaced at all.

Sam and Blair

My friends Sam and Blairs blog can be found by clicking Here . When I don't post they usually do. We hang out together most of the time so there will be stories about me and pictures of me. Which is the only reason anyone reads them. (jk)

I Got My Hurr Did

Today was one of the better days I’ve had since arriving in the country. I had it all to myself. I started by going and getting a haircut. This was a bit of an experience as the terminology for most things like this are very different from country to country. After convincing the barber to cut my hair for less than one third the usual fair because it was all I had, I sat down in the chair and he went to work. I asked for 2 mm all around. The young barber kept reiterating “simple style”? ... “simple style”? Yes. I’d answer. Suddenly he produced a little white box, which I realized was filled with razor blades. I’m thinking to my self… Great!!! I’m paying this guy a dollar fifty for a four dollar haircut and he’s about to trim my neck with a straight razor. It turned out amazing. He even faded it a bit on the sides although I didn’t really ask for it. I think I’ll go back.

I then went to the office (still alone) and worked productively till I decided to venture into town. What started off as a quest to find an ATM soon became an impromptu shopping trip. I had no loose ends to worry about or people to watch. It was just me and downtown Mombassa. I found a little shop selling um “used goods”. They had everything from used high-end electronics to watches. I’m guessing they were “hot”. He had a Breitling watch that really caught my eye. I would imagine its an 800 dollar watch or so and he wanted 80 meaning I could probably get it for 60. I figured I’d wait. Its amazing how the economy here seems to have most things you need although no store would make you feel like it had anything at all. If you ask for something and the owner knows where to find it, they will usually send someone to get an attendant to the shop that will escort you over. Its great. I didn’t spend a lot but got quite a few things: some music, a few movies, and an umbrella. I think I spent 8 dollars in the process. Not too shabby.


This snail had already retracted three or four inches back into its shell. When fully extended it was probably 9 inches long.


Some of the ants are huge too

When you're young you hear stories about how huge bugs are in Africa. Strange thing is that its really true. If I saw a snail or ant like these in a movie I would have just laughed. They're huge.

Mud Mud Mud

It’s rained for the last all week with the exception of yesterday. At points the only way to get to and from our house has been through knee-deep water. Some how the poor weather has made the realities of living full time with most of my coworkers more achingly apparent. With few exceptions we all get along, but solitude is becoming a rare and cherished luxury. We took advantage of the one day of sunshine yesterday and took a day trip the Gede Ruins, which are about 70 miles from where we live. I kept feeling as if I were part of an Indian Jones movie. The ruins are from about 800 AD and very little in the area has changed. Because it’s the “off season” for the tourist industry here, we had the park virtually to ourselves. The ruins encompass most of a Swahili village though very few of the structures have had the vines and trees of the jungle cleared away from them. During our self-guided tour, I looked down at my friend Sam’s legs and saw that ants were rushing up them. In a panic I looked down and saw that the ground all around me was moving and furthermore that ants were now storming up my legs. I yelped and we both skipped out of the area frantically trying to get the ants off of us. This provided comic relief to the rest of the group who were looking at another building near by. There are so many things that I’ve seen on TV but never experienced; this is one of them. We had walked into what seemed to be a river of ants fifteen feet wide or so. You could see the ground but barely. The day went mostly without huge events after that, other than the fact that the 65 mi trip is a 2.5-hour bus ride.

In other news, earlier this week at work a few of us interns decided to take the sub par internet situation at the office by the horns but ended up starting a little war in the process. In doing some research at a cyber café I had come to the conclusion that (what we thought was) our router was too many generations from the office’s modem to connect us to the Internet. So we decided to move it to the other side of the building and connect directly to the modem bypassing several hubs in the process. Weelllll turns out that we disconnected the receiver and not a wireless router!!!! I guess in Kenya the Internet is received wirelessly from main transmitters in town and your receiver must be in a direct line of site with the ISP’s transmitter and then sent throughout the office. So we single handedly knocked out the Internet connection for the entire office. OOPs? Aw well, it was a humbling experience and we know whom to turn to now for our “IT needs”. More news later.


We were soaked after our first run. My shirt is light gray when not drenched.


This is a great depiction of the ruins. Notice the vines in the foreground. It was all so surreal.


The Palace is the center of the village and the largest building.





This monkey was running around on top of the walls of the first mosque we walked through.


Boabo Trees like these dot the country side in this part of Kenya. They are so bottom heavy. This one was only 2 stories tall but as big around as a VW bug at the bottom