The KBC Staff!!!

I just wanted to take one blog entry and talk about the amazing staff from Kenya.  It’s for you understand how amazing they all were and for me to be able to look back and remember all of the funny memories with them!

·         Tara—Our Student Affairs Manager and one of my best friends at KBC.  I loved all of the amazing conversations that I was always able to have with Tara.  We could talk about anything from our experiences in Europe to where both of us want to go in the future.  We had so much in common to talk about and it was great to have someone that has done so much with their life and still be so young.  I envy her for her ability to just pick up and leave to go do whatever her heart desires.  I hope that is something that I can take from her and take advantage of all of my opportunities the way she has!  She played soccer and volleyball with us and we got to know her in so many different situations.  She was like my mom and my best friend all at once, and when we had to say goodbye at the border, she told me how amazing I was and to never change.  I look forward to seeing her again in the future!

·         Jenna—Our intern and friend in everything that we did.  Jenna is only a little bit older than all of us so we always had something in common, whether it was her singing “look at me now” or talking about college life.  One of my favorite memories with Jenna was sitting with her in one of the huge trees at our campsite in Lake Nakuru.  We sat there for over an hour, talking about our future and where we wanted to be, her past in Tanzania, and what our ultimate goal for our future it was.  She is so easy to talk to and I literally felt like we could sit and talk forever.  I loved playing volleyball and soccer with her because she was always laughing and never had a problem giving the staff a hard time when we played.  She was best friends with all the staff and I loved her interactions with all of them. She had to fill in a lot for Tara this semester and she did amazing and I really appreciated everything she did for us.

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 Arther—The head chef and probably my best friend at the entire camp.  At first, I had no idea what to think of Arther.  He came to play volleyball with us and smashed the ball in our faces and was always so bossy in the kitchen.  But it was only a matter of time before I realized how awesome he was and how genuine of a person he was.  He was always joking around with us, calling us names in other languages, but also could be really serious and have great conversations.  I would always catch him waving at me or winking when he was in the kitchen cooking and I was working on assignments.  One day before leaving Kenya, we had the most amazing conversation about his life goal to open a coffee plantation and export his coffee to the united states and how he has been working toward that his entire life.  The machines for it are so expensive, so he has been saving since he starting working.  I promised to come back one day and come visit him on his coffee plantation and we shook on it!  I miss his smile and his joking personality tons.  I hope to see him soon in the future!

·         Ernest—Our driver and most smiley person in the world.  Somehow I always ended up in Ernest’s cars, like 90% of the time.  We never planned it, but I was so happy that it always worked out.  Ernest had the best smile and the best voice inflections when saying things like “oh yeaaaa” and “I don’t knowww.”  He always came to play volleyball and soccer with us, but was always a little behind compared to the rest of the staff.  He wore these ridiculous red genie pants whenever he played so anytime he missed the ball, I just blamed it on the pants!  Ernest would never tell us anything about his life, like how old he was or whether he was married or not, but we had fun trying to interrogate him and figure it out.  I could always count on him to put a smile on my face, no matter what was happening!

·         Sipaya—another driver with a pretty funny fashion sense and personality.  Sipaya wears this ridiculous h and m hat that makes him look like a bum in New York, but he loves it so much.  He won’t even take the tag off.  Sipaya is Maasai as well and always try to con us into making him food.  I was lucky enough to be Sipaya’s Valentine on Valentine’s Day and got the most adorable card that didn’t even make sense in English.  I loved it so much and have it tucked away to look at when I get home.  I loved playing soccer with Sipaya and am so happy that he will be joining us for our expedition in the Serengeti as well!  I sure do love his grin when he is trying to trick you or tell you some ridiculous lie.

·         Charles—My brother.  Charles asked me all the time if my parents would adopt him and he could just be my brother and come visit the United States.  He was my first driver in Kenya when we first arrived and was one of the last people I said goodbye to at the border.  He has this adorable really shy grin and always says my name with that smile on his face.  Before I left Kenya, Charles demanded that we got a good picture together and wrote all of his contact information down for me so that I could keep in touch with him.  Charles had this amazing Maasai beaded belt with his name on the back that would make me laugh every single time I saw it.  I will miss that grin so much but there is no doubt that I will see my brother again.

·         Kioko—My Grandpa.  Kioko was always convinced that he was so old and thought he should be a grandpa.  He sure watched out for me like one though.  One day I got stuck on nasty dish duty and he came over and helped me with everything and kept me company along the way.  I think I would still be washing dishes if it wasn’t for him.  One day, I decided to show Kioko where I lived in Colorado and the animals that lived around me.  I showed him a picture of a bighorn sheep and you would have thought it was an alien.  I loved watching his reactions, and I even showed him my house on google earth.  In return, he told me about his family and showed me pictures of the new house they were building.  Kioko was the first face from SFS that I saw in Kenya greeting us at the gate and the last face I saw as I crossed the border into Tanzania.

·         Harrison—The soccer playing mechanic.  Harrison was always happy and would always say hi to me, even if I was really far away from where he was.  He always played soccer in this red white and blue jersey and a baseball hat and blew me away with how fast and good he was.  At the end of our time in Kenya, a lot of the drivers took their days off, so Harrison always seemed to be driving my car. We got really close in those last two weeks since we were always stuck together!

·         Shem—Our Wildlife Management Professor and Family.  Shem was one of the most soft spoken people that I have ever met, but has some of the best stories.  He told us about all his crazy experiences in Lake Nakuru when he worked there and had us all laughing.  Shem was also obsessed with Waterbucks, and he was always calling them majestic creatures and telling us he wished he could have one as a pet.  He was really obsessed.  He made me cry so much before he left when he called us all his children, and he was definitely the most amazing professor that I had in Kenya.  I worked with him one on one a few times when I had questions, and he was so understanding and really wanted you to learn.  Such good qualities in this setting.  I will miss him as a professor and just a friendly face sitting with us at dinner.

·         Daniel—The first person I got to know.  Daniel was the first person that I actually knew his name.  He was the first person to introduce us to playing soccer out in the dirt and invite me and a few friends to watch the Africa Cup of Nations in the TV room with the staff.  He was our Swahili teacher, with a natural resources background and a very competitive personality.  Sometimes Daniel would get so over the top when we would play sports that no one could handle it.  He loved his Maasai culture though, and was a great person to learn the culture from.  He would always be singing Maasai songs and talking about all their crazy traditions.  He knew all the Maasai in the area and was the reason we got invited to the wedding we attended.  I loved how Jenna and Daniel would literally argue like siblings, and Jenna called him bebe (which means grandma) because of the way that he drives.  I am so happy I got so close to him and had him looking out for me on the field and in the classroom!

·         Kiringe—Our Wildlife Ecology professor.  Kiringe had so much knowledge that he was able to share with us about everything and I enjoyed the way he taught his class. He would get a little annoying when he thought he was in charge of the whole program and would ring the bell to summon us obnoxiously and way overdone.  No one ever knew if Kiringe was kidding, but by the end we had gotten much better at interpreting him.  He was a great professor for that class.

·         Ekisa—Our Environmental Policy teacher.  Ekisa was always so ice, greeting us and sometimes eating dinner with us.  He liked keeping his distance though and we never got to know him very well. My first impression of him was the KFC red polo he was wearing the first day we met him hahaha! His accent was the most difficult to understand and that mixed with a topic that no one was super interested in made it difficult sometimes to keep up.  He was really nice though and I wish I could have gotten to know him better.

·         Askaris—We had tons of Askaris to watch over us during the night and the day and you could always count on all of them to smile and wave no matter what time of day.  One askari had the greatest smile I have ever seen and that smile greeting us at the gate when we returned was the best welcome home ever.  They started to learn my name at the end of the session and would just yell my name but then would just laugh because they didn’t know any other English.  I loved the two that came with us on expedition and I will miss them joking around with me and greeting me when I returned home.

·         Judy, Susan and Mutero—the rest of the kitchen staff.  The kitchen staff at KBC was awesome!  They made cook crew in the morning so fun and were always joking around with us, especially Mutero!  Mutero loved torturing us and pretending to hit us with towels, but I could always get back at him by tickling him.  Susan and Judy were always so sweet and nice to us, but every once in a while would throw a few tricky jokes in there.  I miss cooking with them!

·         Martin—Our main mechanic.  Martin was so quiet, but seriously had the kindest soul.  I don’t think he ever was unhappy or didn’t greet all of us when we returned.  I could always count on his kindness and smile under his baseball hat.

·         Moses—The manager of the Duka.  Moses always talked to us and wanted to hear about where we were from and how our day was.  I loved playing banana grams with him and giggling at the words he would try to get away with.  He definitely convinced me to get a soda more often that I needed to, but it was the best time to get to talk to him.  He was so great and really interacted with all of the students, even those that didn’t reach out to him.  He was a great store owner because of his personality that he added to it.  I loved the duka only because Moses was in there.

I will miss  KBC mostly for the amazing staff that I met there!  I hope to meet all of them again in the future when I return to Africa!!!