Weddings, Hikes, and Lots of Work in the Field

 

Jambo,

It has been quite a week since the last time I was able to write.  Things got crazy busy here and I have been working on assignments every open second of the day!  If we are not in the field or not sleeping, I have been working on papers and scientific posters and worksheets!  Tonight is the first night that I have been able to relax without anything else due in the near future!

Other than just the assignments that we have had going on lately, we have had some great experiences, not only with the field exercises and lectures, but once again interacting with the locals and getting to go on amazing hikes and explore new towns.  In the past week, we have had several field exercises where we get to go out into the community and the field and do random experiments and other data collection.  The first exercise that we did like this was to estimate the amount of damage that elephants and humans have on woody vegetation.  We literally got dropped into the middle of nowhere and had to stake out plots in a total of a kilometer!  We worked together, recording the damage that we saw, what the damage was from, and what species it occurred on.  It was so cool to be in the middle of nowhere, and there were tons of wild animals right by us, including zebras and gazelles and even a few giraffes.  Everyone here knows how much I love giraffes and they are always sure to point them out to me.  Another exercise that we did was to examine the vegetation and the amount of cover that it could provide for animals and to prevent soil erosion.  We had three different techniques to do so, and being in groups once again, we traveled 2 kilometers, measuring random plots along the way.  For all of these exercises, we have local guides from Kimana that assist us in the data collection.  They are amazing at the amount of knowledge they have. You can point to any plant or animal and they can tell you the common name, the scientific name, and the Maasai name.  It’s so great to be able to talk to them about where they went to school and why they chose to come to Kimana for whatever career they have.  The final field exercise that we completed was for Environmental Policy.  We once again got to venture out in the middle of nowhere and conduct interviews with the farmers in that area.  I love talking to people and I really can’t think of a better way to really understand the human-wildlife conflict in the area.  All of the farmers were so happy to talk to us and we learned so much about their conflict issues, what they do to prevent damage from wildlife, and their opinions of the government organization that controls the wildlife.  We interviewed 9 different farmers, and it’s so crazy because a farm literally next door to another farm can have completely different answers.  At one farm, the farmer said he had no wildlife conflict at all, whereas his next door neighbor had daily interaction with wildlife and had damage to crops from the wildlife.  It’s amazing how much the answers can vary in such a small area.

Unfortunately, I finally got sick here for the first time in the last week.  Everyone here caught a really bad cold, but when mine started to hit my lungs, I figured it was time to get it checked out.  I returned to the clinic where we gave blood earlier this semester, where I saw some amazing doctors and was given some medicine to improve how I was feeling.  Going to the clinic took FOREVER though!  We left camp at 8 am and did not return until 3 in the afternoon.  It is a free clinic to all people, so a lot of the locals take advantage of this amazing resource.  I got to meet a lot of unique individuals there, including a woman that had lived in California for three years and wanted to talk to us about it!  It was a very long day of sitting in the sun, but it was good to get piece of mind.

Another night, we had the option of attending a goat roast at the fire pit in the main part of our camp. Goat roasts are extremely popular with the staff, and they decided it would be valuable for the students to experience also.  A goat was purchased in the market, and we were able to watch it be killed.  We watched in the woods, and it was so much more gruesome than what I expected.  I couldn’t even watch the entire thing.  After the goat was dead, we were able to go through and see how it worked!  We skinned it and looked at its stomach because it has a similar digestive system to the other ungulates in this area.  It was really disgusting, but also fascinating to see in person and get my hands on.  So much better than reading about it in a textbook.   Then the staff put the goat on sticks and roasted it over the fire pit.  It was amazing! The Maasai employees of our camp would cut pieces off and hand them to students.  I felt like a baby bird.  It was so good though and nice to see where our food was coming from for once.  The whole roast was a great experience, but there were definitely parts I could have gone without seeing!

The best part of the last week was our day off on Saturday.  We packed our lunches in the morning, loaded up the cars, and started driving to a town about 30 minutes away to visit their market.  Before that though, we had the opportunity to go on an amazing hike.  We literally drove 30 minutes from the desert like climate of Kilimanjaro Bush Camp, and as we approached Mt. Kilimanjaro, the climate and vegetation made a 100% switch compared to what we were used to.  There were huge green trees, long green grass, bushes without thorns, flourishing agriculture, and moisture in the air.  It literally felt like I was in a completely different country, and I couldn’t believe we were so close to our camp.   

When we started the hike, we were at the top of a hill and started to climb down it toward a corn field with an AMAZING view of Kili.  I had no idea where we were headed, but I was so happy to be surrounded by so much green stuff!  We started to climb down a steeper trail, descending into something that looked like a gorge.  It was very dense and we could not see where we were going at all.  At the bottom, though, we popped out right by a huge waterfall and a giant river curving down through a canyon.  It was so unexpected and that made it that much more gorgeous than it already was.  It reminded me of the paradise that Timon and Pumba lived in during the Lion King!  There were huge boulders and lots of places for us to explore.  My friends here are my kind of people because we immediately started following the river, jumping over narrow parts, rock climbing up steep edges, and jumping from rock to rock until we couldn’t go any farther.  I felt like I was 5 years old again going hiking with my parents and sister up in the mountains, jumping over streams and climbing rocks when they weren’t looking.  It was so pretty and a perfect temperature.  I couldn’t believe how gorgeous it was and how happy I was to just sit there and look around.  We had lunch at the base of the waterfall, and then had to pack up and head back into town to meet the other group of students.

When we got to town, we went to the VCT, a local aids testing center, clinic, and counseling service for HIV positive members of the community.  We all gathered in a room with one of the nurses that worked there and 4 women that were all HIV positive.  The clinic is very small and only made up of 3 small buildings.  They have recently lost their funding and their resources for the local community have decreased immensely.  It was sad to hear about everything they had to cut out because of the lack of money.  However, the one thing that has been sustained is the support group, which meets once a week to allow these men and women to talk to others in the same situation.  The four women that we met were some of the most amazing people I have ever met.  They were so calm about the entire thing.  They each went down the line and told us their story, like when they found out they had AIDS, who else in their family has been affected by it, and how they carry on with their daily lives despite how terrible it can be.  These women were SO strong.  I always picture people with terrible diseases like this one to be feeling sorry for themselves, complaining about how hard everything is, and how they don’t know how to cope.  But not these women.  They have all continued to work and support their families, taking every day as it comes and dealing with it if necessary.  Some of the women even had children that were infected, and to hear them talk about their kids and how it has changed their lives was incredible to hear.  I have never been so shocked by the strength of the women and how they didn’t let AIDS kick them to the ground.  Sometimes, I feel like we think our miniscule problems are the end of the world.  Then I see women like this and it makes me want to hold my tongue.  After we heard all of their stories, they showed us around the other buildings and invited us to their beading shop.  All of the women make jewelry and bowls and wood carvings and more to help provide a source of income for their families.  We all bought tons of stuff and hopefully helped these women and their families a little bit.

When we finished at the AIDS clinic, we had a short amount of time to head into downtown Loitoktok to their Saturday market.  There were a lot of the same items, but some new bags and other things that were really colorful and will make great gifts.  I was shocked when I saw all the same Maasai mamas at this market!  Apparently they travel to all the local markets to make the most money.  The best part of this market was a local grocery store where they had ice cream and cold drinks!  It’s the first cold things we have had since we got here, and you can imagine how quickly we devoured the ice cream.  It was great and a nice change from the Kimana market.

As if all of these things weren’t enough, we had one more amazing experience to wrap up the best day off ever!  We got invited to a Maasai wedding in our neighbor’s boma!  We got to get all dressed up in skirts and jewelry we have purchased and arrived at the boma to join in the festivities.  The weddings in Maasai culture could not be more different than the United States.  There is no official ceremony, but the day instead revolves around the bride and groom entering the boma together as one, dancing of all age groups, and some sort of meat slaughter.  When we got there, tons of traditional dancing was going on, and the bride and groom were outside of the fence getting pictures taken.  They invited us to dance with all of them, and for the first time, I felt like the Maasai enjoyed our presence and were happy that we were there and interacting in their culture.  It was so fun and we danced for a long period of time with the mamas and the warriors.  We also gave a gift to the bride and groom, so our student affairs manager presented it to them and they both thanked all of us one by one.  It was so cool to be a part of such a significant celebration in this culture and I was thankful that they invited us willingly as neighbors.  The best part of the whole wedding happened at the end.  We were all loading up the cars and I told my friend that I really wanted a picture with one of the warriors.  We got one of their attentions and he came over and posed with me.  But right as we were about to take the picture, a few other warriors saw what was happening and ran over to be in the picture.  The best part? One of these warriors was the groom!!!  All of my classmates were piled in the cars, and there I was with a group of Maasai warriors!  It was seriously the funniest experience ever and I couldn’t believe my luck.  Everyone loves the warriors, so I was so lucky to get this picture, especially with the groom.  I will never forget that picture and the warriors coming running to be in it with me.

Tomorrow we are leaving at 5 am to travel to Lake Nakuru for our expedition!  We are camping right in the middle of the national park in tents!!! I am so excited to be right in the middle of the wildlife and to have an amazing camping experience.  The drive takes around 10 hours, but luckily we make stops at curio shops and grocery stores to break up the drive.  We even get to drive through Nairobi, which will be great to finally see the downtown area!  Expedition and all the activities that we get to embark on have the potential to be the greatest experience of the entire semester.  I am so excited and counting down until we get there!  I will write again in a week after our return to KBC!!!

I hope everyone has had an amazing week and I look forward to hearing from you soon.  My e-mail is mam5810@psu.edu if you ever want to get in contact with me!

Thanks again for reading and wish me luck on expedition!

Love,

Mollie Ann

Helping the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Lodge!

Hi again!

I wanted to sum up the rest of the week that we had in addition to the homestay and things mentioned in the blog before this!  Currently, we are in the middle of a very heavy week filled with days and days of classes and assignments.  I sometimes wish that there was a better balance of leaving camp and staying here for class.  It seems like we are gone for a week and then trapped for the next week!  It’s really not too terrible however, because we are taking amazing classes that play right into the experiences that we are having outside of camp.

On Saturday, we got to go to Amboseli National Park again, this time for actual data collection for assignments in class.  Not only were we using this data for in-class assignments, but the animal information collected will go to the Kenya Wildlife Service to help them better manage the animals that they have in the park!  I think it’s so amazing that the data we are collecting is actually going to help a real organization that can make changes in the park to benefit the animals and the humans in the area!  We split into four different groups, around 6 people per car, and left for the park at around 8.  When we got to the park around 8:45, there was a huge conflict with our passes to get in.  A lot of other professionals were waiting for us to come and divide the park up for the counts, so it was really frustrating that the guards weren’t letting us in.  We sat outside the gate for an hour and a half in the hot sun, just waiting to get in to the park.  When they finally let us in, we all cheered because the cars moving meant we got some air movement!  We traveled to the lodges that are actually found inside the park to where the other counters were waiting for us.  We picked up a KWS official that was joining us in our car to help with the counts of the animals.  He had an automatic weapon and when he placed it on the ground, it was facing right toward my friend and me.  We both noticed and said a quick prayer that the safety was on tight haha!  The entire park was broken into eight blocks and each group had a block.  The data that we were collecting was total animal counts in our assigned block.  This meant counting everything from guinea fowl to zebra to lions and everything in between.

Our block started right at the lodge where we picked up our friend Peter, so we started counting baboons from the second we were in the car.  We had around 4 people counting, sexing, and aging animals that we passed and two people recording all of the information on the data sheets.  I was one of the recorders, sitting in the middle seat toward the front and acting as the liaison between the driver, the KWS official, and the rest of the group.  And oh my gosh did I love it!  I felt so important, recording all the animals, the total counts, their age, the exact coordinates where we found them, and the habitat types they were in.  I would yell up to everyone with their heads out the window, asking for exact numbers, letting them know which side of the vehicle to count on, and where we were heading next.  I would also communicate with our driver, Charles, and tell him where to stop so that we could get the best counts and confirm with him the numbers we were getting.  It was so fun and high energy and important, and I loved being right in the middle of it.  This was one of the first activities that we have completed here that I could see myself doing as a career.  Maybe not a career counting animals every day, but just the feeling of being in the park, surrounded by these gorgeous mammals, coordinating an important study and working with park officials and other volunteers.  I seriously found myself smiling when we were right in the midst of the counting, realizing how happy I was and how I would love to do something like this for a career!

The block that we were assigned to was one of the smaller ones, so we finished our counts before everyone else and got to see KWS headquarters in the park.  On the way back, I was talking to our driver and telling him that I have not seen any giraffes close to us the entire trip.  He promised he would show me some by the end of the day, and I took it with a grain of salt since I hadn’t seen any before.  But on the drive to headquarters, we saw a whole herd of giraffes!  Big ones, baby ones, dark ones, faded ones, tall ones, everything!  I was so excited, I almost jumped out of the hatches in the roof.  I could not have been happier and had to thank Charles for delivering on the giraffe sightings!

We hung out at headquarters with a bunch of employees and their families, watched the Chelsea FC soccer game on TV, and had a Coke, Fanta, or Krest.  We had to wait for all of the other groups to return, and it turns out one of the groups car broke down!  We played cards and just enjoyed our time off since we knew the upcoming week would be filled with a lot of assignments.  As soon as we all returned, we loaded up the cars and headed back to camp.  Even though it was a really great day, it was exhausting being in the sun for so long and we all just hung out in the Chumba for the rest of the day!

The next day was finally our day off and it was much needed after an action filled week!  We had the option of staying at the camp and just hanging out, or heading to a local lodge to go swimming and have their buffet.  I chose the lodge, just wanting to relax and be away from camp, and have some great dessert at the lodge.  The lodge was called Kilima, and it was absolutely gorgeous.  It was so clean and so bug free.  It was shocking to me because it’s so dusty here all the time and I don’t know how they kept everything so nice.  It was very touristy though, and I could see how people staying there would have a completely different experience than what we are having here at our camp.  The pool was also amazing.  There was a deep pool in the middle, around 6 feet deep, and an outer pool that was 3 feet deep, with gorgeous Kilimanjaro in the background and Amboseli National Park right outside the fence.  The buffet had a lot of similar foods to what we have at camp, but it was done really well and made in slightly different ways.  The dessert was fantastic though.  We had pineapple crisp, chocolate lava cake, and all sorts of fruit jello and flan.  We don’t get dessert a majority of the time at camp, so we all indulged in what the lodge had to offer.  The rest of the afternoon, we all hung out by the pool and the huge observation deck in the main lodge, having pina coladas and cokes and relaxing.  It was a stress free day and I loved spending time with the group of people that decided to go.  Although it was so nice and relaxing to spend the day there, I love our camp and the experience that we are getting in Kenya.  It would be a completely different perspective if we were staying somewhere similar to this lodge.

After the lodge, we had dinner and it was my night to do our student RAP.  RAP stands for reflection, announcements, and presentation.  I reflected on Penn Stat e Dance Marathon, since the night before we raised $10.6 million for pediatric cancer!!! I was so excited and happy to share it with my group here!  For my presentation, I decided to teach everyone how to line dance! I go all the time at home, so I thought it would be something fun and interactive to have everyone do.  I wasn’t sure how everyone would respond or if they would join in, but as soon as I showed them one dance, everyone leaped up and were so eager to learn it!  We danced for at least half an hour and I taught them all the dances I could remember!  It was so fun and I was happy to find something everyone had so much fun with.  Even the staff joined in and tried to keep up. I was thrilled at everyone’s enthusiasm!

Now we are deep into classes, with around 5 major assignments due this week!  I can’t wait until we leave for our expedition next week, where we get to stay in tents in one of the National Parks around 6 hours from here!  It will be quite an experience to be right in the park with everything we do!  Having so much to look forward to definitely helps you get over the humps of these long classes.

Thanks so much for reading once again.  I hope everyone is having a great week and I look forward to talking to all of you soon!

Love,

Mollie Ann

Cultural Experiences with the Maasai!

Hello Everyone!

We have had a crazy past couple of days, going everywhere from the National Park near us to doing a homestay with one of the local Maasai Mamas.  It’s been so exciting, but definitely exhausting in this bright sunshine and heat!

One of the really great things that we had the opportunity to do in the last week was go out to the local community and get a feel of the surrounding area and the people that live there.  I was in a group with 5 other girls, one of our student affair managers, and a local guide to help us translate what the locals were telling us.  The goal of the exercise was to get an inside scoop of daily life in this area, including the major limiting resources, interactions with neighbors, interactions with wildlife, and sources of income.  Our guide was from Kimana and spoke English, Maasai, and Swahili, so we were able to talk to everyone we came across.  We had the chance to go to five different farms, all near the primary school that we visited the day before.  It’s amazing the hospitality that every person showed us.  They had no idea that we were coming to visit, yet a majority of the people we interviewed invited us into their modest houses, offered us chai, and provided chairs for all of us.  I feel like it’s hard to find anyone that would have that much hospitality with completely strangers if I was in the United States.

 The first woman that we interviewed was this beautiful woman, around 23 years old, that owned a farm as well as worked at the local seamstress’s shop in town.  She was so honest with us and answered our questions so completely.  I think I learned the most from her, and I felt like she was telling 100% truth and not trying to sugar coat things from us.  It’s insane to hear their stories about the elephants coming and trying to eat her corn.  Sometimes, they never get to sleep because they have to stay up and be ready to chase the elephants away using spears and torches and making as much noise as possible.  She even told us that they only have access to water 3 hours a day!  I cannot even imagine not having a constant source of water and it once again made me feel so thankful for everything that I have in my life. After thanking her and moving on, we stopped at a farm right down the road, but this woman was there all alone and didn’t seem as willing to answer our questions.  We didn’t want to inconvenience her, so we wrapped up our interview a little quicker.  The next interview was with a Maasai mama, but her English speaking son took over very quickly, wanting to practice his English with us.  He was so energetic and loved having us there.  The next interview, there was this crazy old Maasai mama that decided one of the girls in our group looked exactly like her first born daughter that she hadn’t seen in years.  She grabbed on to my group member, and hugged her and kissed her and was just in disbelief at the similarities.  We were all laughing so hard at her reaction to us.  The final interview could not have been more different from the 4 before.  We knocked on the door, politely saying “hodi” which asks if we are allowed to come in.  When the door finally opened, there was a group of 4 boys, around 20 years old, and in the background, the walls in the house were completely covered in American Pop Music posters.  I am talking Lil Wayne, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, 50 cent, and more.  It was so funny because it turns out this group not only had crops and livestock, but they were also a local rap group that performs in the clubs in Kimana.  They were all amazing at English, hoping to go to University soon, and we spent too much of our time asking about their rap career than about their crop management.  We couldn’t help it!  But overall, the experience was so incredible.  I had no idea how much I would be interacting with the people that live in this area, and I think it’s such a priceless experience.  I cannot think of a better way to really know the problems in this area and what these people have to deal with every day.  It was so fun and so helpful.

The next day, we had yet another opportunity for a cultural experience in the community.  In one of the classes we are taking here, we talk a lot about the tourism industry and how the government benefits from it much more than the local people that are right in the middle of it.  As I talked about before, we visited the homes of the Maasai Mamas, called the Boma.  For this field trip, we had the opportunity to visit another boma, accept this time, the boma was right at the entrance to Amboseli National Park, and we had to pay to visit.  The goal was to see what these people have had to do so that they can gain something from the tourists in the area.  It was so crazy to see the differences.  This boma was still a real boma, with the Maasai living there; however, everything seemed so staged.  The performed a dance for us, and it was much more forced than the dance we had seen before.  Their houses were set up differently, making them look larger and also more tribal.  The entire experience was the Maasai attempt to show tourists the tribalism that they are looking for.  Yes, these people have preserved their culture more than anyone in this part of the world, however, not to the extreme that this boma attempted to portray.  We even interrupted a class at the school that neighbored, and they said that every tourist group had that opportunity.  I felt so bad that these kids get interrupted every day over and over.  I felt that subjecting them to the tourist industry was not called for.  It angered so many of us, but it really opened my eyes to what these people must do to make a living for themselves.  The government has taken their land without asking for the National Park, so of course they will do what they need to so they can combat that.  It was a very eye opening experience, especially since most tourists would never know that there was anything wrong with that experience.

The next day, after finding out who our partner was, we loaded up the cars once again and had the chance to do a homestay with one of the local Maasai Mamas that live close to our camp!  I had an amazing partner named Anna and really enjoyed spending one on one time with her.  Every group of two was dropped off at separate bomas in the area, carrying cabbage, sugar, milk and other gifts to thank the mamas for hosting us for the day.  Our boma was actually the one that we got to tour the first time we ever met the Maasai people!  The mama that we were with was named Jen and she was 25 years old and had around 6 kids, although we weren’t exactly sure.  It was an insane experience from the second we got there because these mamas speak zero English and only a few words of Swahili!  The entire day was based on body language, very basic words that we all knew, and following her lead.

When we were first welcomed into her home, she immediately started making us chai, definitely the local favorite.  You would not believe the size of the home and the conditions that she cooks and lives in.  In the corner of this tiny boma, there were three stones arranged so that her pots could sit on top and she could make a fire underneath.  The bomas have no windows other than 3 or 4 holes the size of my fist, so you can imagine the smoke that builds up quickly.  My eyes were burning and watering so badly, I thought I would never have tears again!  They are so immune to so much that they do, yet Anna and I were struggling to sit right by the fire.  The chai was amazing though!  So fresh with milk and sugar, and we drank our cups quickly.  As soon as we finished, the mama stood up and said “come!” and marched out of her house.  She grabbed some of the water cans sitting outside and we started to make the trek to fetch water.  The source of water for this particular boma was a mile away!  We just kept walking through trees and tall grass with the water cans until we finally reached a watering hole, filled with cows!  Jen immediately started unscrewing the caps and filling the cans with the water flowing from the water hole into one of the nearby furrows used for irrigation.  The water was so muddy from the cows, but it was not even a consideration.  The immunity of the Maasai is second to none!  After filling about 6 cans with water, Jen turned around and told us to come closer.  The way that they carry their water is by placing a belt or strip of material around the can and putting that belt on your head, with the water on your back.  It was so heavy and gave you such a headache, especially carrying it for over a mile! I have no idea how she would ever carry all this water on her own, but I was so impressed at the amount she could carry, being around 100 pounds max!

After getting back with the water, she once again thought that we should have more chai, so we went back in the boma for more tea.  She also started making lunch and let us help with all the little things.  The mamas were supposed to treat us as workers as opposed to guests, but our mama definitely treated us like her guests.  As the food starting cooking, some of her adorable children flooded into the boma to visit us.  There was a set of 2 year old twins, a 4 year old, and a few older boys that all stood and stared at us.  These kids were so beautiful and their laughs were even better.  I started tickling them and they laughed so loud, I couldn’t help but laugh right along.  Jen made us this thing called Ugali, which is nicknamed African cake.  Its basically boiled flour and water that they let sit for a while until it becomes a little thicker and harder than mashed potatoes.  It’s a great way for these people to get a lot of carbs in their diets, but it’s hard to eat a lot of.  She also boiled us tomatoes, cabbage, and onions to add to our Ugali.  I had to cut the cabbage myself, and she just laughed at me.  I was so slow and cutting huge pieces, so very soon after I was done, she had to recut everything I had done!  When she made our plates for us, she literally gave Anna and me a quarter of the pot each! I am talking a slab of heavy flour cake stuff the size of two Nalgene water bottles!  And our teachers told us how rude it was to not finish things during our stay.  I decided this had to be the exception.  We ate and ate and ate, with our fingers only (you can imagine that mess) and literally did not make a dent.  I felt bad, but there was no way...

After lunch, we went out of the boma again and went to some of the acacia trees nearby to help her collect firewood for her stove.  She is this tiny thing, but she used a machete like no one I have ever seen.  She took full braches off of trees and we gathered huge stacks of firewood in less than an hour.  She let us try a couple times, but we were not fast enough for her and she quickly took the machete from us!  We once again loaded the firewood on our backs using the belts and walked back home.  The rest of the afternoon was just a hang out time, where Jen worked on some of her bead work, and Anna and I got to play with her kids for hours.  I loved these kids and wanted to steal them so bad.  The only problem was how dirty these poor kiddos were.  They literally had flies crawling all over them, were covered in dirt, and their clothes were filthy.  Such a different world than what we are used to at home.

At around 5, our student affairs manager came and picked us up.  We said goodbye to the whole family.  I literally loved every second of this experience, and we are lucky enough to get to do it again in Tanzania with a different tribe!  I learned so much and got to see the true lifestyle of these women.  I really value that chance.

I have so much more to share from our other trip to Amboseli and going to one of the tourist lodges nearby, but I have to go and have some dinner!

Thanks for reading all of this and I will update soon!

Love,

Mollie Ann

Valentine's Day Community Service and Helping at Local Schools

Hello Everyone!

I have been so crazy and busy this last week that I have not had a chance to write a blog lately!  This one is going to be a little long because we have done SO much in this last week!

Last week was full of a lot of classes.  We had class five days in a row from 8 am until 4 pm, alternating between the four classes that we are taking here.  But as long as that sounds, one of the best parts about lectures here is that we have the chance to do field lectures and travel around the area to see the subjects we are talking about in person.  Three of the days last week, we had a chance to go to different overlooks in the area to see specific land uses and human dimensions.  We all have our collapsible chairs and find a place on the hill without any thorns or cacti.  Then the professors hold a regular lecture, allowing time for us to ask questions about the things that we are seeing. The hills allow you to see so far into the distance since a lot of the land around here is pretty flat.  It’s a very steep hike to get to the top usually, but absolutely worth it when you get to spend hours up there learning about the area you are looking over.  It’s such an enjoyable way to have classes, and it breaks up the week a lot.

Another way that the week was broken up was the visits that we got to go on to local schools near our bush camp.  The first school that we got to visit was Kimana High School that shares some of our fence line to the north. The kids at this school are anywhere from 13 to 22 years old, so there is quite a mix of personalities and interests and everything else.  When we first arrived there, it was so awkward.  None of the students there knew what to say to us, and we weren’t even sure if they spoke English at all.  But as soon as one of us broke the ice, it was chaos!  There were probably over 300 students there, and it is a boarding school so they come from all over.  Some of the students told me that I was the first white person they had ever seen outside of pictures and television!  They love being close to you.  They grab your arms, wrap their arms around you, look at your watch, undo your hair and play with it.  It’s so funny to watch the things that are so amusing to them that in the United States, no one would think twice about.  The girls I starting talking to first were so funny!  They were a posse of about 6 thirteen year olds, and they swarmed me the second I was away from the SFS students.  They told me that I looked exactly like Hannah Montana and begged me to sing any of her songs that I knew.  Little did they know that they picked the expert haha.  They loved having all of us sing for them.  They would literally beg and beg until you sang some song for them.  At one point, I was able to get them to sing for me instead, and I loved hearing their songs in Swahili that they knew from home.  After those girls were bored with me, the next group to gather around was about 15 boys from ages 17-22 and they literally asked so many questions, I could barely keep them straight.  They want to know all about America and what it is like and if they could go to college there.  And the boys here love asking all of the American girls to be their wives.  All of the girls from my camp got multiple marriage proposals from the random guys that we were all interacting with.  I made a new friend, wearing a Dallas Cowboys shirt that loved using my camera.  Unlike the others, he was so gentle with it and really understood how to use it.  I talked to him for a really long time and we compared America to Kenya.  It was so fun to just hang out with kids our age from a completely different lifestyle than what we have at home!

The next day, we only had one morning class from 8-9, and then the rest of the day was designated a community service day.  After one of the students here was sick and was taken to a clinic nearby, we decided that donating blood to this clinic would be a great way to give back to the local community.  The clinic is called Mbirikani and it is about 30 minutes from our camp.  When we first arrived there, we were greeted by a HIV counselor and she explained the ideals of the clinic and that it is completely free to everyone that goes there.  We got a tour of the entire facility, which is sponsored by a woman in Chicago.  They had up to date technology, a huge lab, an in-patient ward, staff quarters, a pharmacy, and anything you could need at a local clinic.  It was amazing to see the amount of money this woman must have put into this clinic to take care of hundreds of people a day.

One of the most shocking things about the clinic was when they showed us the current supply of blood that they had available to give to patients.  There were 3 bags of blood, all of which were half full.  It was amazing to me what a difference our blood could make, as opposed to the United States where you are not sure where your blood is going when they take it from.  The person sitting across the hall from me was going to take some of our blood that day, which was going to save his life.  It literally was unreal to me how much this donation could really help.  The only problem with this donation is my biggest fear in the entire world is needles, especially needles in Africa!  Needles scare me more than anything, and I could barely handle the thought of getting blood drawn at this clinic without crying.  However, there was no part of me that could justify not giving blood when someone desperately needed it because of my fear.

 I was one of the first people to go, and I was so happy with all of the support that I was getting from our student affairs managers and other students in my group.  I had people holding both hands, telling me stories, and making me laugh the entire time.  I could never thank all of those people who supported me enough.  After they finished taking the blood, we were given soda and chips and brownies and other sugary things to help us recover fast!  As soon as I was feeling back to normal, I took over my regular position as mom and helped take care of everyone else donating blood.  I ran around from room to room, holding hands, delivering coke, and escorting people outside to get fresh air.  I just wanted to show them the same support that they had given to me.  I am so happy that I was able to face my fear and donate blood, and I am so proud of my entire group doing the same.  Is there any better way to share the love on Valentine’s Day?

The next day was a non-program day, so we once again we got to sleep in, hang around, work on all of our assignments, and bake cookies and other stuff if we wanted to.  In the afternoon, we all loaded up the cars and went to a primary school about 10 minutes from downtown Kimana to help teach some of the classes and play games with the kids.  We all split into 5 groups to teach each of the classes for 2 hours.  My class was the 8-9 year olds, and there were about 40 students in a classroom comparable to my freshman year dorm room.  They were the most amazing kids though.  They had so much respect for their teachers and were so attentive and loved learning the new things we were teaching.  We played Pictionary with them on the chalk board to practice their animals in English, and then we sang songs like the Hokey Pokey and Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.  We were all laughing the entire time, and then they decided to teach us how to play their favorite game.  It was a game that one person in the middle yells out an animal, and if it is something you eat, you have to all jump at the same time.  The kid would yell cow, goat, chicken, LION and would look around to see if anyone moved.  It was so fun!

Then we all got to go play outside with the kids, things like soccer, red light green light, and duck duck goose, or twiga twiga simba as they call it here (giraffe, giraffe, lion).  At one point, I had little girls tell me to sit down in the middle of a field, and before I knew it, I had 8 little hands in my hair, putting random braids every which way off my head.  They just love our hair here, and it’s so fun to see what they do with it.  I had so much fun at the school and loved all the new rafikis that I met while I was there.  I hope we get to go back again while in Kenya because these kids are great and 

they make you so happy with everything they do.

I love everything that we are getting the opportunity to do while we are here.  I had no idea I would be interacting so much with the local community, and I am so happy that we have the chance to do so.

Thanks for reading!!!

Love,

Mollie Ann