Good morning! (at least on my end). Today we are heading off to Samburu which isn't really that far away, something like 70 miles...but the trip will taked us close to 6 hours because of the roads. I'm not too worried though, I've heard it's just really bumpy in our 4-wheel drive cars. Our driver Francis is very nice and I'm sure we can get there without problems.
We had a nice evening last night and sort of forgot that the New Year was on it's way. We ate at a pretty nice Italian restaurant (believe it or not),and spent the rest of the night playing Euchre at a table outside. One of the women who works here came outside and said "Happy New Year!" and that was about it.
We will be in Samburu for the majority of the rest of the trip until we are back here before we fly home, so I doubt that I will be able to update this until then. Don't worry about me though, I will be busy playing with all of the animals and Brett told us that the people in the rural communities could care less about the political situation since they are generally too busy trying to put food on the table.
Hakuna Matata :)
Monday, December 31, 2007
Jambo!
Jambo means "hello" in Swahili and thank God that we are finally here! After over 24 hours of traveling and long tiring flights we have made it safely to Nairobi.
For those of you who are unaware, the political situation here is a bit unstable because the people here in Kenya have just finished their presidential elections and the previous president was re-elected, which not too many people are happy about. I couldn't help but be reminded of the Florida vote re-counts a few years ago because the problem here is that people feel that the government unfairly counted the votes and rigged it so that the current president would be re-elected. The riots that have been publicized on CNN and other world news channels have been happening in the large slums surrounding Nairobi, not in the downtown area where we are staying.
I am happy to say that we are quite safe here and are staying in a cute little hotel that caters to tourists. Right now we are just hanging out and getting over our jet lag, and the security here seems well managed. We cannot leave here without first giving our keys back to the front desk so they can keep them safe, and there are locked entries to all of the floors as well as a couple locks on our doors. I know that those of you who are aware of the political situation are worried, but I promise you that we would have moved to a much safer place by now if anything was unstable.
If I have time this evening I will write again with more updates, but if not don't worry. Tomorrow morning we will be heading off to Samburu which is a very rural area where the political situation is not as much of an issue. Until then, hakuna matata (don't worry!).
Much love!
-L
For those of you who are unaware, the political situation here is a bit unstable because the people here in Kenya have just finished their presidential elections and the previous president was re-elected, which not too many people are happy about. I couldn't help but be reminded of the Florida vote re-counts a few years ago because the problem here is that people feel that the government unfairly counted the votes and rigged it so that the current president would be re-elected. The riots that have been publicized on CNN and other world news channels have been happening in the large slums surrounding Nairobi, not in the downtown area where we are staying.
I am happy to say that we are quite safe here and are staying in a cute little hotel that caters to tourists. Right now we are just hanging out and getting over our jet lag, and the security here seems well managed. We cannot leave here without first giving our keys back to the front desk so they can keep them safe, and there are locked entries to all of the floors as well as a couple locks on our doors. I know that those of you who are aware of the political situation are worried, but I promise you that we would have moved to a much safer place by now if anything was unstable.
If I have time this evening I will write again with more updates, but if not don't worry. Tomorrow morning we will be heading off to Samburu which is a very rural area where the political situation is not as much of an issue. Until then, hakuna matata (don't worry!).
Much love!
-L
Friday, December 28, 2007
Lots of emotions
Ok, so here I am on my futon at midnight just a few hours before I head off in the morning. What am I doing?? To tell you the truth, I'm totally nervous and psyched. Kenya has always been this far away place on a map that I never really thought about, and here I am on the brink of going there.
I have spent the whole day packing and I said goodbye to my parents and family today, which really brought it home for me that this whole thing is happening to me. If you had told me a year ago now that I would be going to Africa I would have said you were crazy. That's what is so fun about life, you never know what's just around the corner. I know in my last blog I said I would describe the whole survey thing we took more in depth, but to be honest I really don't feel like it. Maybe I'll write about it later, or if you really want to you can just ask me about it :)
Tomorrow is going to be a long day of traveling, which I am not particularly looking foward to. I wish we could just close our eyes really tight and suddenly be there. Here is an abbreviated version of our itinerary:
DIA to Chicago: 2 hrs. 30 min.
Chicago to London: 7 hrs. 30 min.
London to Nairobi: 8 hrs. 30 min.
It's exhausting just to look at. Hopefully I will have the chance to make an entry when we get to Nairobi. I really need to go to bed...
I have spent the whole day packing and I said goodbye to my parents and family today, which really brought it home for me that this whole thing is happening to me. If you had told me a year ago now that I would be going to Africa I would have said you were crazy. That's what is so fun about life, you never know what's just around the corner. I know in my last blog I said I would describe the whole survey thing we took more in depth, but to be honest I really don't feel like it. Maybe I'll write about it later, or if you really want to you can just ask me about it :)
Tomorrow is going to be a long day of traveling, which I am not particularly looking foward to. I wish we could just close our eyes really tight and suddenly be there. Here is an abbreviated version of our itinerary:
DIA to Chicago: 2 hrs. 30 min.
Chicago to London: 7 hrs. 30 min.
London to Nairobi: 8 hrs. 30 min.
It's exhausting just to look at. Hopefully I will have the chance to make an entry when we get to Nairobi. I really need to go to bed...
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
new things
Hi everyone - sorry it has taken so long for me to update this, but school hit me like a ton of bricks and I have been busy in the mountains finishing up instructor training at Keystone. I am also a bit exhausted and distracted right now, so I apologize if this entry seems a bit disjointed.
Anyways, a couple weeks ago we talked about service and what that word means to us. One of the definitions that we came up with I thought was pretty good, where we defined service as "your ability to distribute your resources and sacrifice for the benefit of others. There are many ways to service other people," and it was great to have that discussion since we are going on a service learning trip abroad. I realized that it is better to serve people, that means give them a hand up rather than a hand out, and to make sure that your service to others is meaningful and useful. Through this whole process we have been warned that Kenyans have no qualms about asking for money right out and that we have to be wary of that, but Brett explained to us that sometimes there isn't a whole lot that you can do besides give them that money as long as you are sure that it will be going to the right place (i.e. giving a mother $150 to put her kid through primary school).
My life has been really crazy, so I haven't had a lot of time to process the fact that I will be leaving for Kenya in 13 days (whoa!). Last week was finals week and we had a final group meeting/dinner at Brett's house. We talked about this test that we took two weeks ago (I forget the name of it because I forgot to bring my notes with me). Anyways, we took this test to help us to figure out how comfortable we are with experiencing and interacting with different cultures. I'll have to explain this better later when I have my notes with me, but the gist of it is that our whole group is on the middle of a continuum between ethnocentrism (on the far negative end) and being acceptable/wordly (on the far right positive end). I don't think I am explaining this well, so I am going to save a deeper explanation of this for later.
And...here are some more photos from my life :)
Anyways, a couple weeks ago we talked about service and what that word means to us. One of the definitions that we came up with I thought was pretty good, where we defined service as "your ability to distribute your resources and sacrifice for the benefit of others. There are many ways to service other people," and it was great to have that discussion since we are going on a service learning trip abroad. I realized that it is better to serve people, that means give them a hand up rather than a hand out, and to make sure that your service to others is meaningful and useful. Through this whole process we have been warned that Kenyans have no qualms about asking for money right out and that we have to be wary of that, but Brett explained to us that sometimes there isn't a whole lot that you can do besides give them that money as long as you are sure that it will be going to the right place (i.e. giving a mother $150 to put her kid through primary school).
My life has been really crazy, so I haven't had a lot of time to process the fact that I will be leaving for Kenya in 13 days (whoa!). Last week was finals week and we had a final group meeting/dinner at Brett's house. We talked about this test that we took two weeks ago (I forget the name of it because I forgot to bring my notes with me). Anyways, we took this test to help us to figure out how comfortable we are with experiencing and interacting with different cultures. I'll have to explain this better later when I have my notes with me, but the gist of it is that our whole group is on the middle of a continuum between ethnocentrism (on the far negative end) and being acceptable/wordly (on the far right positive end). I don't think I am explaining this well, so I am going to save a deeper explanation of this for later.
And...here are some more photos from my life :)
The goofy holiday staff photo at my internship
Me and Sarah at Copper
Monday, November 19, 2007
Things I know so far...
Every Monday for the past couple of weeks our Kenya group has been meeting to do team-building activities and have general discussions about issues in Kenya. I think it might be helpful to compile my knowledge up to this point so that everyone can be on the same page.
General trip stuff:
I will be gone from Dec.29th to Jan.13th, with most of that time spent with the Samburu people in Umoja and the Kalama Community Wildlife Conservancy. Our first 3 days in will be spent in the capital, which is a large city called Nairobi. Interstingly enough, we will be celebrating New Years Eve there - which should be pretty amazing. After that we will travel to the Samburu National Reserve (who works with Kalama and the village of Umoja). During our time there we will be working the the reserve and the Save the Elephants campaign doing mammal counts during the mornings and evenings, and working in the Umoja village in the afternoons. You can learn more about Save the Elephants at http://www.savetheelephants.com/. I also found some good information about Kalama at http://www.nrt-kenya.org/kalama.html.
About Umoja:
Umoja is the Swahili word for "Unity," and is a fitting name for a village that was founded 10 years ago by a "troublemaker," an indigenous Kenyan named Rebecca Lolosoli. Rebecca has started a women's rights movement that has never before been seen in Africa. She is working hard to change gender roles, and has created a women's only village where battered, solitary, or widowed women and girls can find a safe haven. Much of our time will be spent in Umoja, where we will be helping teach their children English, and doing basic labor in an effort to increase their quality of life.
I found a good article about Rebecca at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/08/AR2005070801775.html, or you can just google her name.
There is also a good website about Umoja with some pictures and videos that were taken for a documentary that was made. You can see those at http://www.mantrapod.com/ (be sure to click on the English vesion of the site).
I found this video on YouTube about Umoja and Rebecca. It was filmed by the Mantrapod crew, so the subtitles are unfortunately in French.
Kenya is a collectivist culture, meaning that everyone works together, everyone benefits, and no one is ever alone. Brett (one of the supervisors) was telling us that Rebecca has a story about how when she first came to the US to speak, people put her up in a very nice hotel with a room to herself. She said that she just sat there and cried, wondering why they didn't like her and wanted her to be alone. This just shows the huge difference between Americans and Kenyans, us always wanting to be alone - and them never being alone.
For the most part, everyone in Kenya is an open book with their emotions because one person's issues are viewed as the entire tribe's issue, and no secrets are kept from anyone.
Women have had virtually no status whatsoever until relatively recently. It is a general belief that there is no such thing as a non-sexual relationship between a male and a female. Female foreigners, especially those who are white/or American are generally not viewed by men in a positive light because of the widespread viewing of TV programs that portray women as purely sexual objects. We were given wise advice to never be alone with a man and always be with other female friends. I know that this may worry some of you out there who are reading this, but please keep in mind that we won't be around many men - seen as how we are working in an all women's village, and most of the men that we do encounter will be well educated and have generally more western views.
We also got a little history lesson about traditional marriages and the woman's role in a family. Initially, the groom will give a "lobola" to the bride's parents as a labor payment and a way to help cover childcare costs (this is not to be confused with a dowry). The lobola means that she legally (this word is used loosely by our standards since they are largely an oral society) becomes a part of his family and so will their children. Children are always considered to be a part of their father's family even if a legal divorce occurs.
Polygamy is still widely practiced in Kenya and is veiwed as a status symbol, as well as a way to "distribute the work." Women like Rebecca are fighting agains the concept of polygamy, and increasingly couples are marrying into monogamous relationships that were not organized by their families.
General trip stuff:
I will be gone from Dec.29th to Jan.13th, with most of that time spent with the Samburu people in Umoja and the Kalama Community Wildlife Conservancy. Our first 3 days in will be spent in the capital, which is a large city called Nairobi. Interstingly enough, we will be celebrating New Years Eve there - which should be pretty amazing. After that we will travel to the Samburu National Reserve (who works with Kalama and the village of Umoja). During our time there we will be working the the reserve and the Save the Elephants campaign doing mammal counts during the mornings and evenings, and working in the Umoja village in the afternoons. You can learn more about Save the Elephants at http://www.savetheelephants.com/. I also found some good information about Kalama at http://www.nrt-kenya.org/kalama.html.
About Umoja:
Umoja is the Swahili word for "Unity," and is a fitting name for a village that was founded 10 years ago by a "troublemaker," an indigenous Kenyan named Rebecca Lolosoli. Rebecca has started a women's rights movement that has never before been seen in Africa. She is working hard to change gender roles, and has created a women's only village where battered, solitary, or widowed women and girls can find a safe haven. Much of our time will be spent in Umoja, where we will be helping teach their children English, and doing basic labor in an effort to increase their quality of life.
I found a good article about Rebecca at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/08/AR2005070801775.html, or you can just google her name.
There is also a good website about Umoja with some pictures and videos that were taken for a documentary that was made. You can see those at http://www.mantrapod.com/ (be sure to click on the English vesion of the site).
I found this video on YouTube about Umoja and Rebecca. It was filmed by the Mantrapod crew, so the subtitles are unfortunately in French.
Gender Roles:
During one of our Monday meetings we had a woman come in a speak about the cultural differences and gender roles in Kenya that we need to be aware of. I managed to take some notes, and I want you guys to learn about these things too.
Kenya is a collectivist culture, meaning that everyone works together, everyone benefits, and no one is ever alone. Brett (one of the supervisors) was telling us that Rebecca has a story about how when she first came to the US to speak, people put her up in a very nice hotel with a room to herself. She said that she just sat there and cried, wondering why they didn't like her and wanted her to be alone. This just shows the huge difference between Americans and Kenyans, us always wanting to be alone - and them never being alone.
For the most part, everyone in Kenya is an open book with their emotions because one person's issues are viewed as the entire tribe's issue, and no secrets are kept from anyone.
Women have had virtually no status whatsoever until relatively recently. It is a general belief that there is no such thing as a non-sexual relationship between a male and a female. Female foreigners, especially those who are white/or American are generally not viewed by men in a positive light because of the widespread viewing of TV programs that portray women as purely sexual objects. We were given wise advice to never be alone with a man and always be with other female friends. I know that this may worry some of you out there who are reading this, but please keep in mind that we won't be around many men - seen as how we are working in an all women's village, and most of the men that we do encounter will be well educated and have generally more western views.
We also got a little history lesson about traditional marriages and the woman's role in a family. Initially, the groom will give a "lobola" to the bride's parents as a labor payment and a way to help cover childcare costs (this is not to be confused with a dowry). The lobola means that she legally (this word is used loosely by our standards since they are largely an oral society) becomes a part of his family and so will their children. Children are always considered to be a part of their father's family even if a legal divorce occurs.
Polygamy is still widely practiced in Kenya and is veiwed as a status symbol, as well as a way to "distribute the work." Women like Rebecca are fighting agains the concept of polygamy, and increasingly couples are marrying into monogamous relationships that were not organized by their families.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Getting ready
I decided to create this blog because I am well on my way to finishing my senior year here at CSU and I've come to realize that I have a lot of plans for my future.
In December I will be leaving on a two week trip to Samburu, Kenya through the Alternative Break program at school. I am incredibly excited and slightly nervous for my upcoming trip. As some of you may know, I am not an extremely traveled person outside of my experiences in Mexico and Alaska. Wanderlust has struck me over the past year, and I have a great urge to go explore and see new things. I will use this blog to catalouge my feelings and experiences over the next year or so, and hopefully this will help me organize my life and priorities by creating an outlet for me to express myself.
And, just for fun...pictures from recent goings-on in my life.
In December I will be leaving on a two week trip to Samburu, Kenya through the Alternative Break program at school. I am incredibly excited and slightly nervous for my upcoming trip. As some of you may know, I am not an extremely traveled person outside of my experiences in Mexico and Alaska. Wanderlust has struck me over the past year, and I have a great urge to go explore and see new things. I will use this blog to catalouge my feelings and experiences over the next year or so, and hopefully this will help me organize my life and priorities by creating an outlet for me to express myself.
And, just for fun...pictures from recent goings-on in my life.
getting some air before the 1st annual bicycle scavenger hunt
good times at the Head for the Hills show
happy in CO
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