How to get lost in Kenya in 10 days

Asante sana, squash banana

2010-01-29T13:16:00.000+03:00

Jambo rafiki!

Recognize the title? It's a line from the movie "The Lion King", that the baboon, Rafiki, sings. When in Kenya, we all got pretty much completely fluent in Kiswahili (cough, cough), and I figured I should try keeping it up, and could do so by writing down some of the things we learned.

So, asante sana actually means something, and isn't complete gibberish as one could think. It means thank you very much. The name of the baboon, Rafiki also has a meaning - friend. Therefore I started this post by saying "Hello friend!". If you haven't been aware of the fact that jambo means hello, then you've clearly not visited this blog before. So, karibu to this blog then, karibu sana! ('Welcome' and you are 'very much welcome' - the words we probably heard the most during our stay in Kenya - and yes, we felt extreemly welcome whereever we went)
More about jambo: jambo actually means "has anything bad happened?", to which you reply "Si jambo" (no, nothing bad has happened). If you're gretting meany; hatu jambo, if being greeted by many, you reply: situ jambo! Mostly jambo is though used as a plane hello, and shouting 'jambo, jambo!' everywhere we went, was great fun. according to us, at least.
Habari Ghani (or Habari Yako) appearently means how are you?, to which one could reply with simple thumbs up, much used by the locals in Taita. (mostly we got this question in Egnlish though, sounding something like: Houwwwaayooouuuu?? in a highpitched tone, coming fromt he children running after us.)

But back to The Lion King, which could also be known as The Simba King.
Because yes, Simba means lion. Nala, on the other hand, means bald on your forehead. We're not sure this is true though, the pupils teaching us this might have tricked us. That would mean we're all pumbas - someone who doesn't know very much.
Remember the cool tree from the Lion King movie, the one Rafiki is chillin' around? We saw plany of those, the Boabab trees. (known as monkey trees in Finnish) and while driving from Taita Hills to Nairobi, we would joke that it's like driving through all the movies we've seen about Africa: The Lion King, Out of Africa, Tarzan (well, not driving through, this one we walked through, scroll down to read more!) Wah Wah, and a lot of documentaries about Africa.

Something else that is still good to know, is Dio -yes, and hapana - no.Safari means travel, journey, and njema means good. Safari njema! is therefore somthing we got quite familiar with at the airport. Other airplane terminology is kutoka - exit and sukuma - push. These two words could be stared at during the 8 hour flight, to and from Nairobi, so ithey're pretty stuck in my head.

But that's pretty much the limit of my kiswahili-knowledge. We really tried to learn, reading every sign we could. Sadly, in the Taita area, many of the signs where in Kitaita (tribe language) and in Nairobi, they all where in English. And online-dictionairis won't do much good, they all tell me different things! So don'r mind looking the words mentioned in this post up, since it might not make any sence. But this is what we where thought while in Kenya, and this is how our conversations went:

Kenyan: Jambo mzungu!
Mzungu (us, that is): Sijambo!
K: Karibu Kenya!
Mzungu: Asante sana!
K: Habari Ghani?
M: *thumb up*: Kwaheri!
K: Kwaheri!

...pretty fluent, right? ;)

oh, and by the way: kwaheri means goodbye.

So Kwaheri to y'all!

And yes, kiswahili-expert reading this, you may correct me.

//H

Back home

2010-01-20T00:00:00.000+03:00

Now, when all of us have been back to school for a few days, the thought of how different our school world is from the one in the Canon Kituri High School (from now on only CKHS) in Taita Hills came to me. Here's a list of things that I still can remember (sadly, Africa feels so far away here on snowy and cold Finland, where no one asks how I am or waves at me in the streets):

Half of the students in CKHS were living at the school
Half of the school equals about 200 students. Most of them come from some city far away, like Nairobi or Mombasa, and live permanently at the school till school's over. Their parents come and visit them once in a while, bringing them new clothes and other things they might need. Some of them get some pocket money as well, but there are those who are dependent on what their parents bring them, not able to buy anything on their own.

This is quite unfamiliar to us, as there are very few boarding schools in Finland. I myself have a hard time imagining how it would be to actually be in school all the time and be supposed to follow the school rules, not being able to get away. Those who live at the CKHS have to wake up really early, at 5 AM each morning just to do their homework before the lessons begin, and they also help to clean the school area.
(Some of our teachers thought the idea of waking us up at 5 AM and making us do our home work was a really good idea, what a surprise...)

They also have school uniforms, and the colours at CKHS are brown (pullover), beige (under knee-length skirt for girls, trousers for boys), white (shirt) and light green (the Gym class t-shirt).

For the ones who are interested, their school fee for one year is 23,000 Ksh, which is about 230 €.

No boyfriends/girlfriends allowed
My pair in the research, Irene, told me that if someone caught you with a boy (or a girl) at school, both would be punished - how hard the punishment is depends on the "crime". She said the punishments could vary between digging a hole where it was needed, or to clean all the classrooms, to even be expelled from school! I think this affects the relationships between the boys and the girls at CKHS - when we were there, we noticed that the boys and the girls were standing in different groups, far away from each other. Maybe the distance (which was not to be observed in the dining hall where we finished our research, however) help to keep the boys and the girls "from each other", and prevents "illegal" relationships to form.

Studying
At CKHS, they are, like us, able to choose what subjects they want to study and create a time table of their own. Their subjects are, however, combinated into pairs, and if you for example study Physics, you have to study Maths. My pair Irene had the combination of History and Business Studies. I don't think this "making-lumps-of-the-subjects" is a good idea - the students should be free to combinate whatever subjects they want. But in the case of Physics and Maths, I am able to see the connection :D

Another thing that is different from our system is the Gym class. They have no actual "Gym class", all the students just stay for another hour at the school after the lessons have finished for the day, and play football or other games together. Wouldn't this be nice, being all together and having fun?

This "Gym class" makes their school day to end at 5 PM, and after that, the students who don't live at the school rush home to help their parents with domestic tasks before it gets too dark. This is another thing different from our world - free time and hobbies. Most of them I talked to didn't meet any friends after school - they spent their free time with their families, helping out at home or doing home work. They were surprised that we actually have time to do something after school, gather with buddies, do sports or go to the cinema. But, this is understandable - here, we have almost ridiculously little domestic tasks that have to be done each day, which equals more spare time. We also have lights along the streets at night, so that we are able to make our way home even if it's dark - this is something they don't have, even in Nairobi.

Then last, but not least, some pictures from Canon Kituri High School:

The sign for the school along the road

Maria and Sofia at the road to the school from the main road. In the background you can make out the dining hall

Some of the school buildings

Classrooms

All the teachers, Nina and some locals kids at our field trip to the farms

Local students and Finnish students at the field trip

Students in the yard

Finalizing the SWOT-research in the Dining Hall

Maria and Vilma, handing over the cellphones and the other equipments to the Head Master of CKHS

Jarmo, the Geography teacher from Kauniaisten Lukio, handing over the satellite pictures of the Taita Hills area

// Crista

"Video-picture" diary of our trip!

2010-01-19T01:03:00.000+03:00

Most of these amazing videos made by Reima from the finnish school, you've already seen. But here's one more, and after this, still one more to come! So stay tuned.
All videos from HERE.

The trip in pictures

2010-01-18T23:15:00.000+03:00

Almost there. We were all happy when we finally stood on Schiphol, Amsterdams airport, ready to border the enourmous plane that was going to take us straigh to Nairobi.

Crossing Africas border. Our first view of Africa, flying from the Mediterrean sea over to the Sahara desert.

The first morning in Nairobi. Already seven in the morning, when waiting for our driver, the sun felt warm and refreshing compared to the lame sun back in Finland.

This beutiful lizard posed for us on a gasstation on our way from Nairobi to Taita Hills.

My first view of Taita Hills. We arrived in the evening as the sun settled. No more words needed than.. wow.

Getting to know the students of Cannon Kituri School. Me, Vilma and our studying-partner Fred, who was from Taita, became close friends already during the first day. I think there was nothing he didn't know about farming. I even know how you're supposed to grow coffee beans now.

The rainforest through which we hiked at our second day in Taita, was exotic and almost absurd with all its disformed branches, enormous insects and vivid colours. This is a hollow tree which we walked THROUGH.

I'm sitting inside a cave, photographing the others who listens to our guide telling stories of those who used the cave as shelter hundreds of years ago.

Our guide with his red cap. A little... angry with me for taking photos?

On the safari. Is it just me or was this impala moking me? Well got him on photo so who is laughing now!

We met the elephants, in this case the kings of the jungle since no lions were seen on our trip. This king got real angry though and we were lucky to get home unharmed.

What more do i need to say than SAFARI.

Getting late. We were racing towards the gate of Tsavo Nationalpark to get home in time, before everything gets pitchdark after the sun sets.

The colours of nature in Taita.

These sculls are a part of the Taitas ancient religion. They removed the sculls from the body when someone died and placed them in sacred caves.

Back in Nairobi we got to meet students that were truly happy to get the chance to go to school. Unlike some back home. This boy is one of the students of Mathare Special Training school in the Mathare slum.

// Nora

Lost

2010-01-16T12:34:00.000+03:00

So.
We all made it home.

Reading the other Team Kenyan's facebook statuses, I can see I'm not the only one depressed to be back in Finland. What did we ever mean with the "....and hopefully back"???

You might be thinking "You never got lost in Kenya, so you never told us how to get lost there in 10 days! Does this mean you failed?" (according to the name of the blog)
But this is so untrue!
We succeeded, and by doing everything we did in this blog, so will you - you'll succeed in loosing your heart to Kenya.

So that's what we told you how to do with the help of this blog. And gosh does it hurt not to be in Kenya, when your heart is still there.

When is the next flight for Kenya leaving, I wonder....?

Something else I lost in Kenya was my voice.

But I don't miss it as much as I miss Kenya.

On the plane

2010-01-15T10:13:00.000+03:00

After waking up at half past four and leaving for the airport an hour later, Ica, Mikaela, Emilia, Julia, our two principals and I, have now boarded our fancy Kenya Airways plane and are choosing what movies to watch first... Although it seems that my TV is broken, which will mean a long seven hours for me ... The rest of the group left for Amsterdam already two hours ago. Wow, our plane to Paris appears to be half empty! No, not half empty, all the middle seats are empty! Now if something makes my carbon dioxide footprint larger, then this is, this feels horrible! Well, time for lift off, I hope it's not going to be cloudy, so that we have a chance to see the Nile, and Sahara and so on. Have a good day,
Hugs Ica, Emilia, Mikaela and Hanna

The days/weeks to come

2010-01-15T04:16:00.000+03:00

You, yes you, the one reading this and visiting this blog.
According to our statcounter, there have been approximetly 5000 first time visitors on this blog per day.
That's not bad. That's not bad at all.
But since we're leaving Kenya in just a couple of hours, if we don't manage to get lost asap, you might be wondering what's gonna happen with this blog.

First off: we're not done here. You might think you know what went on in Kenya during these past 9 days.... but ou don't. We still have a LOT of unpublished material (the roads, the weather, the culture, the language..... you name it -I've probably already written it, but not posted it. If you are interested some sort of Q&A about kenya/our trip might also be in order?) Also thoughts about the journey will come up, perhaps a lot of more details, a couple of overlooks.... AND, we're planning on writing articles about our trip to both Kaunis Grani and HBL, making a video out of everything we've filmed, some sort of movin exhibition, couple of power point presentations, reports of the SWOT project and such.... so as you can see, we're not done with Kenya yet.
Apart from this, we are all now also bubbling with ideas of how to help the different schools we visited, developing the garbage system and.... well, lots of things!We'll see how much will actually happen in the end, but with your help we hope to at least be able to raise money/stuff for the schools. We have plans... will come up here later! All I can say is.... it's exciting!! But so far it's all in the head department...

And last, one thing we keep promising you, but never happens... PICTURES AND VIDEOS. We've all had cameras with us, and practically all our camera's are full... I'm sure you can do the math, and come up to a sum of pictures closer to 20000... so finally finally, when we get to the slightly faster internet connection in Finland, these pictures and videos will for real start coming up!

....so, my point is, don't go anywhere yet, there is still much to see, and at least during the week to come, daily posts should be expected. (if by no one else, then me ;) )
So, wish us luck with our flights home (you know we've had some missfortune before,krhrm) and stay tuned for the next blog post about Kenya... might already be on Saturday!

//Hanna

Summing it up 2 hours before leaving - wanting to get lost in kenya

2010-01-15T04:15:00.000+03:00

Hello.
No happy "jambo" this time... since, like everyone else I think, I'm not happy about going home.
This journey has been AMAZING, and we've had the opportunity to do so much people don't usually get the chance to do, for example visit the three different schools. As Reima, one of the finnish students, just said; this was a once in a lifetime journey.
Although it's only 2 hours(leaving 5.30!!) till we have to get on the buss to (sit in a traffic jam for a couple hours) go to the airport, I'm still in denial- this trip can't be over yet!
I already miss my travel company (the wonderful team Kenya and the finnish students) the people here (especially the Taitas, Ken, Valentine and Pauline) the weather, and THE LANDSCAPE. Most of all, though, I miss the rather troublefree (for us pupils, that is...) existance and the feeling of waking up everymorning to a brand new adventure - you never know what to excpect, but you do know you will learn something new, and go to sleep at night a little happier, wiser and a with lot of new experiences.

However, whether I will admit it or not, this trip is coming to an end. So, as there are a LOT of unpublished videos and pictures, and I feel I need some... closure, I thought it would be a good idea to just sum this trip up. Maybe, it will even help you, since many of the posts where posted in a really random order, due to the fact that we never quite new when we had internet connection, and when we didn't. All of the picture.travel blogs are made by Reima from the finnish school, and can be accessed through THIS LINK, if not seen otherwise.. I deff. recommend wathcing them!

So, here we go:

Kenya, 2010

2.1.Saturday
Horrible, horrible news: we might not be leaving after all, due to problems with our flight tickets. Panicking and a lot of questions arrise.

3.1 Sunday
The day we should have left for Kenya - but didn't. Thoughts of suicide were common, although some, Sofia and Ica, stay cheerful and calm.

4.1 Monday
We find out when we leave for Kenya. The ones who were happy before (Ica and Sofia) are suddenly unhappy with a lot of things. The different flight dates stir up a lot of anger, but most try to be positive even though the situation is extreemly unfair. Some manage quite well; after all, at least we are leaving for Kenya!

5.1. Tuesday
First group takes of. Me and our principal, now on known as "Nicke" fly together to Amsterdam, and due to a delayed plane run quite a race with other late passangers on the Amsterdam airport. We make it, and on the plane we meet the group(containing Ica and Mikaela) who left earlier and flew via Paris.
In Finland, the rest of the girls are panicking about packing; long pants, blouses, will we need binoculours?

Day 1 - 6.1 Wednesday
Me, Ica and Mikaela arrive early, early, early at Kenya airport. Only 4 of our group of 12 people get their luggage, Micky and Ica are two of the lucky ones.

We arrive at Scripture Mission, eat breakfast ("what?? it's not night?? does this mean I´m not allowed to go to sleep??") and swim. Then we leave for Great Rift valley, and see buffalos(a really rare albino one, too!) Zebras, Impalas, Elans, Warthogs, Giraffes among other animals.

After a very cool hike/climb in the Hell's Gate Canyon, which was practically lava smoke that had been pressed together and then formed by heavy rains.

We also got to meet Ken and Stan, who were to become our guide and our driver, plus close friends, for the entire trip.

At home the girls left for the airport and immideately got BAD news. The plane was late. After this things only got worse, and we felt rather helpless reading their texts in Nairoby. I will not go into their problems, however, since Maria already listed them well, and they should be the ones telling you.

Day 2 - 7.1 Thursday
In the morning the rest of Team Kenya should have arrived, but didn't. Instead we picked up out lost luggage, that had arrived, and did (a lot) of shopping in one of the Nakumatt's.(which are pretty much big grocery stores) After this we did nothing but stare out the bus windows at the changing landscape while driving towards Voi.
In Voi we got stuck for an hour or two because of a jeep-problem (one of MANY to come) but finally all made it to Taita Hills and our house, Hebron. Here we where greeted by Granton, Valentine, Pauline, Moumburi and the dog, Soffin. And of course a breathtaking landscape, and the cutest house and yard ever

.Meanwhile the rest of Team Kenya woke up in a hotel in Amsterdam, and did NOT miss their Kenya flight, and therefore arrived in Nairobi late at night. Meeting them were Ken, our guide, and Nina, a soon-to-be professor at Helsinki Uni, who has, and is, working a lot around the Taita area with ecotuorism and whatnot. Honestly you name it. But I do hope I, or someone else will have time to write exactly about what she's been doing, since it's pretty amazing and super cool. Before heading to Scripture Mission for some sleep, they had "the world's best vegetarian pizza", which we also got the pleasure to taste later on.

Day 3 - 8.1 Friday

We woke up in Taita Hills and headed for Wundanyi to explore the town and update the blog.

After this we drove to Canon Kituri to meet the students we where going to work with the two following days.
The other girls had sat in Ninas and Kens jeeps for the whole day, and finally arrived at around 7 a clock!

Day 4 - 9.1 Saturday

A pretty much amazing day. We walked from 11 to 15 with the Caonon Kituri students to the local dam, passing many farms and farmers. Had a heard of farm-kids following us around, who were truly fascintaed by our cameras. Got an own little friends of mine, Samba, who followed me for the entire walk.Barefoot and thirsty. We all agreed she was an extreemly beautiful girl, and had she lived somewhere more "Western" she would already be a model.
We also talked to the local farmers, which was very interesting.

The day did have a down side to it - everyone except Emilia got badly sunburned. Wohoo. This was also the hottest day we experienced under our trip - but the warmth was something I enjoyed, since the rest of our trip has been quite chilly.

Day 5 - 10.1 Sunday
Again, another amazing day. In the morning we went for a long hike in the Ngangao mountain rainforest.

Afterwards we met the Canon Kituri students once again, to make a SWOT (strenght, weakness, opportunity, threats) presentation about the Taita Hills area, based on the interviews with the farmers. We also held presentations about Finland and gave out the cellphones and cameras we had brought along - which all were extreemly appreciated.

Day 6 - 11.1 Monday
Safariday. And yes, yet another amazing day. Compared to the other days in Taita, when we had mostly spent time with locals, we know had a real "tuorist day" in Tsavo East National Park. We saw lots of animals, and the whole experience was so much fun, but being that much of a tuorist, was something at least I got enough of.

Day 7 - 12.1 Tuesday
Leaving Taita. An extreemly sad day, did not want to leave. Earlier, everyday had felt so long, and it felt as if we had already been in Kenya for months - suddenly it felt like our trip was ending and we had only just arrived.
A long jeep and bus drive later we arrived in Nairobi, and at least I did not get any happier. Nairoby was shabby, the air was hard to breathe and everything was "like in Finland". More agriculture and local farmers, clean air and amazing views, us being treated like zoo animals (mzungu, mzungu!!!) -yes please! But that didn't seem to be anywhere to be found.

Day 8 - 13.1 Wednesday
Visiting Mathare, and the Special Training Center made me tear-eyed more than once. Hugging the little children and talking to their brave parents and teachers was overwhelming, and, at the risk at sounding utterly stupid; I really really felt "blessed" to be able to experience this. Although the school was quite well equipped, giving the laptops, pens and papers felt amazing - we could actually do something to help. We definitely have plans for how to help this school and it's students in the future - so keep on checking this blog!
After this we went to an extreemly expensive suovenir shop, and then rest continued to a fancy mall. Ica and I decided to stay at Scripture Mission and swim instead.

Day 9 -14.1. Thursday
Our last day. Denial, denial, denial. Can't be.
Left for the finnish embassy, and then Nariobis largest slum, Kibera. Visited the Drug Fighters school, which was both amazing, and extreemly disturbing when you started to feel like everything they were saying was just part of their rehearsed "commercial" - a commercial for a "poor, needy school" with "poor, needy, rescued children" who need lots of lots of everything.
Lunch at the same pizza inn, as the girls that arrived later ate at, an yes, the vegetarian pizza was to die for even(or specially?) without cheese.
Giraffe spotting at a tuorist place - not too nice. Soccer game and swimming back at Scripture Mission - very nice. And then packing. I can't believe this is over. I want it to last forever. If everything goes my way, I'm so not boarding the plane tomorrow, but instead sitting in a bus (matatu) on my way back to my beloved Taita Hills. I don't think I'm the only one hoping for this miracle.
"A blog about our trip to Kenya... ....and hopefully NOT back" is what the title should be changed to. We didn't even manage to get lost. yet. Ken, our guide, says it's all thanks to him. Might be, might be... how to loose him tomorrow morning then?

//Hanna

EDIT: got so tired, and the internet was so slow, so didn't even add half of the pics I was going to, and none of the videos.... I'll keep adding them to this post as soon as I get back to Finland. Sleep tight, and next time I'm blogging -it'll be from Finland if everything goes as planned - how sad is that??

Pictures of Kibera

2010-01-15T00:18:00.000+03:00

View of the Kibera slum from the school yard

The school "building" with classes for 7 grades. All in all DFC educates 260 pupils, but two of the classrooms are located in another shack just outside the school area.

Some of the pupils of the DFC

Pupils at the DFC in one of the classrooms

Pupils in standard one

// Crista

Still the last day

2010-01-15T00:01:00.002+03:00

I really have no idea how to describe all the thoughts and feelings that went trough my head today while walking in the Kibera slum, just like Maria said. The surroundings were so different from what we are used to see, the people so truly poor it's hard to imagine in what ways they manage to survive, day by day. While walking down the streets, following Martha, the administrator of Drug Fighters and Counselling for the Young Generation (DFC in short) and looking at the small children, the pineapples covered with flies and the dogs sleeping in the middle of the roads, you started to really appreciate the life you have back home. And in the same time, you started wondering how to help all these people, who seems to be without a future.

The school we were heading for was in the middle of the slum, about a 20 minutes walk from the boarder. It is built of blue iron barracks and plates in two levels, with a different "building" for the staff. There also were iron plates which surrounded the muddy yard. We visited all the classes, from standard 1 to standard 7, and all the children sang a welcoming song to us. They looked happy, even though we knew they had all been rescued from ie sexual abuse, drugs (or parents which had done drugs), child labour etc. It was a mood lifter to see how competent the teachers are and that the children have an opportunity to go to school regarding the circumstances they live in.

After this, the show began. We noticed that this repertoir had been practiced before, even many times. All the teachers were supposed to present themselves and then tell about all the challenges and lacks of educational equipment they struggled with. Afted listening to all seven teachers and the Head Master, two of the students had to enlighten us about the same problems. Yes, we know that there are many challenges in running a school in a slum; yes, we noticed the lack of equipment, desks and such; and yes, we are aware of that they need money. But repeating all this almost ten times, and then handing us all a form that required us to donate 5,000 Ksh (Kenyan Shillings) was a little bit too much. Of course we felt sorry for all their struggling, and reallywanted to help them (as we have wanted to help the other schools we have visited), it still felt that they had run a show for us to make us feel as bad as possible, and then demanded money for it. I reacted on this especially when the administrator Martha wanted us students to share som thoughts with her, and Mikaela said that the pupils in DFC looked happy. Martha didn't even seem to listen to Mikaela's comment, even though the students' happiness should be real close to her heart. But, she may have hoped for a more chocked comment or something of really wanting to help, who knows.

After this visit my vision of the slums is darker, but with more rays of light. The conditions these hundreds of thousands of people have to live in every day are horrible, but still they have been able to arrange education (the founder of DFC is a former slum habitant who used to take children back to her shack when she still lived in the slum area) for abused children. I am very happy for all the children in the Drug Fighter school, that they have been rescued and given a chance for a better life. Even though many of them have to return each day to the past they were rescued from (the school is still working on a "building" for boarding), they are given an opportunity to at some point get out of the slum and start a life in better circumstances.

As I said in one of my contributions before we left to Kenya, you are not able to imagine how other people live and lead their lives befoere actually experiencing them by yourself. Now we have seen a glimpse of the everyday life in the slum, and I think that all of us futher on think a bit about them when complaining of other things that in the end don't matter much. People are living in iron shacks, fearing every night of being robbed or even killed, trying to live a life worthwhile. Does it really matter if you just lost the new mascara you recently bought, or if your new telephone got a little scratch? I think I further on will think of the people I met today, and decide not to care so much of the mascara or the scratch. What about you?

// Crista, both tired of the harshness of this world and of the thought of waking up at 4.40 AM (in about 4,5 hours) to enjoy the traffic jam in Nairobi to get to the airport in time (hope we wont have any problems with our flights this time)

PS. From the slum we went to feed giraffes at this horrible tourist place, where they chased the giraffes to make them come and eat from our hands. Talk about environment change!DS.

Day 8 - the last day

2010-01-14T22:18:00.000+03:00

This morning (very very very sad that it was the last actual morning!) we had to get up early. We had to be at the Finnish embassy at 9.00am, but the traffic was heavy so we had to leave Scripture Mission at 7.30am sharp. When we finally arrived at the embassy after sitting quite a while in the traffic, we were slightly shocked about the clean and very western building, which we weren't used to at all! The people in the embassy were really nice, we met Heli Sirve who has been the ambassador in Nairobi since year 2007. Then we were given a presentation about the work that the embassy does in Kenya by some other employees, Theresa and Jussi. Some things we learned were that...

-" The main aim of the Embassy of Finland is to uphold and strengthen the relations between Finland and the Republic of Kenya as well as the relations between Finland and Uganda, Seychelles and Eritrea. The embassy is also in charge of matters related to Somalia." (from: http://www.finland.or.ke/public/default.aspx?nodeid=32139&contentlan=2&culture=en-US)

- The embassy puts mostly effort on supporting the developement in Kenya (and I can tell you that there is loads and loads and loads of things that need to be done)

- Between the years 2008-2011 Kenya will recieve 63,4 million euros for different projects

- The Finnish embassy emphasises on forestry, agriculture and the Kenyean government

- 250 Finns live permanently in Kenya, tourism from Finland isn't that big yet, only about 1000 tourist per year

We were inspired by the work they do, especially Crista who now might know what she wants to do in the future! Some of the information would have been useful in the beginning of the trip though, for example what might be dangerous and some manners. Before the visit to the embassy we didn't now that you will be fined if you smoke on the streets!

After the visit we radically changed the environment and went to the biggest slum in Africa, Kibera. We weren't quite sure about what toi expect, some were afraid about what might happen, and some took it quite easy. I was one of the people in the last group. Why should one be worried if there's nothing to worry about? Of course you have to be careful in the slums, but if you keep your mind cool and use your brain nothing should happen if you move together with other people, keep your valuables out of sight and dress properly. It's hard to describe what the slum is like. If you try to imagine some iron plates that are poorly put together to something that could be a shack, people had shops in these shacks and probably also lived in something compareble to them. The streets were full of small shops selling everything that you can imagine, light bulbs, beans, music, clothes, shoes..... on the streets little children in dirty clothes, bare feet and runny noses happily shouted "how are you mzungu!"and you tried to answer them but most of the time I just smiled and kept on walking. The ground was dirty, mostly covered with mud, stones, old pieces of shoes, flat bottles, and corn (the hard part that is left when you have eaten the yellow part.. you know what I mean?). The smells differed from foods that were cooked (ie cow feet barbeque, smelly fish, vegetables) and some human feases. The streets were colourles but the shops were colourful.. It's hard to describe all the feelings that went through my head during the walk on the streets, you should see it yourself. Not even pictures are good enough to describe it all (which we by the way don't have for security reasons, we didn't want our cameras to be seen while walking). I never felt threathened though.

The point of the Kibera visit was visiting a school called Drug Fighters and Councelling for the young generation (DFC), but I will let Crista continue with that.

// Maria, who also posted the pictures underneath!

Pictures

2010-01-14T21:01:00.000+03:00

Some of the work that the students have done in a workshop in the Mathare Special Training Center (MSTC)

A boy in class in MSTC. The students have made most of their education equipment themselves (see the background)

A group of the smaller children in MSTC. They were all really active and needy, so many teachers were required to keep the class in order.

A man walking in Mahtare. The infrastructure in Mahtare is very poor, and the trash is only dumped somewhere where there is space.

A small view over Mathare. In the "buildings" in the back of the picture about 400 000 people live,but who knows how many people there actually are..

Some mentally handicapped children of about 10 years are practicing counting with capsyles.

Some "houses" and shops on the way to Mathare.

Day 7

2010-01-14T18:50:00.000+03:00

The second last day of our trip to Kenya. I miss Taita Hills so much. The dusty and polluted air of Nairobi makes it hard to breath and everything is gray and dirty. It's huge contrast to Taita Hills fresh mountain air and the vivid colours of its rainforests. Maybe it just takes some time to get used to it. When we first arrived to Nairobi it was the most intresting and exotic place, and I'm sure it still is. Just in another kind of way.
We would have finally gotten the chance to sleep long this morning but the rooster at Scripture mission woke us up at 06.00 am. I kind of hope it was him we ate to dinner this evening... Just kidding. But I could really use a good night sleep.
Our buss-driver arrived only 2 minutes late this time, suprisingly enough since following Kenyan time means two hours late is close enough. We headed towards Matare Special Training Centre trough the kaotic traffic of Nairobi.
I'm not sure what I had expected. Some breafing of the School system and meeting the students maybe. But I sure was not prepared for the emotional experiense this visit included. The handicapped children of Nairobi are facing the hardest kind of life. They have been left outside the community and some are even abandoned by their parents. Some are kept tied inside, hidden by their family so that noone can see the abnormal and humiliating beeing they have brought to this world. But theese children we met today had been so lucky that they had gotten the chance to go to school, even though coming from the slum of Matare. When walking trough the classes the teachers spoke of their students with such pride and love in their voices. The teacher of the wood-workshop told us how everyone of these students werer worth just as much as anybody else. That boy over there was the best at sweeping floors. The other one wasn't able to do that but he was an expert on counting woodsticks. They were all experts on something. All the best. But this school is really the only place they meet this kind of treatment. The headteatcher told us about what treatment they face in their everyday life. They have to have their one schoolbus, the common ones won't take them up when they see that they are different.
In the end of the visit we even got to meet with the parents. The room we gathered in was so filled with emotions it was a wonder I was able to breath in there. I think everyone had a hard time keeping their emotions to them selves when realising what hard a life theese parents and their children are facing. They should be praised for beeing so brave that they bring their children out to the community, for being so brave that they bring them to school. There are few that is. The feelings were mixed. In the middle of all this poverty and unhappyness, this school represented a hope of something better, something good people are ready to work hard for.
After leaving Matare behind us we moved from the dark side straight to the opposite. We drove trough the centre of Nairobi and ended up in one of the wealthiest parts of Nairobi. The houses were enourmous, the roads broad and clean and the people few. But we just drove through to a shopping mal to look around for a bit. But I didn't feel like shopping. Buying unnecessary things for lots of money didn't feel like the right thing to do when you just had seen all the people in need of it on the other side of town.
Have to go to sleep now if the rooster is going to wake me up again. Really need some sleep!

// Nora

Day 6 - Our trip back to Nairobi and some random thoughts.

2010-01-12T23:50:00.000+03:00

Today we drove 6 hours back from the beautiful Taita Hills to the crowded Nairobi. There wasn't that much action even though one of the jeeps decided to get a flat tire in the middle of the highway. Apart from that, pretty boring... During our very long car drive some random thoughts appeared in our heads;

Random thougth nr 1: We are in Africa, not in the Western countries
Maria and Crista bought some hair masks in order to protect their hair from the strong sunlight. They didn't however think of the fact that the hair masks were meant for afro hair. They used it on Saturday evening, and still today (Tuesday) the protecting oil hasn't worn off. The hair is greasy and stiff, haha....

Random thought nr 2: Running water, not always running
Monday morning, everyone needs to visit the toilet and the flush is not working in any of the toilets. Neihter is tap water nor the showers.
Monday evening, all covered in sweat and Safari dust, no improvements. Solution; wet wipe shower...lovely!
Tuesday morning, still no success. Now the toilets are rather smelly and we are even worse...still coverd in Safari dust, as the wet wipes failed us. Pleasent bus ride with everyone.
Conclusion: do NOT take running water for granted....ever.

Random thought nr 3: Passport, anyone?
As we got closer to Nairobi and got stuck in the traffic jam, salesmen started to gather around our bus. They were selling everything from peanuts to pillows and safari hats, even fake passports! So: if anyone is in a need of an identity, please inform us and we'll bring one for you. However, you will have to change your skin colour to South-of-Sahara-black. But that wouldn't be a problem, no shower for a few weeks and you'll be there!

Random thought nr 4: "Raha condoms- pure happiness"
In Swahili raha means happiness, and in Finland raha (=money) also generally equals happiness (or so is the common thought). Even though most of the Africans do not have that much money, they still have raha. In Finland we have raha, but that doesn't necessarily equal happiness.

Salesman in the traffic jam

Our bus

// Sofia and Crista

One picture says more than a thousand words

2010-01-12T22:42:00.000+03:00

Because of this picture our school principal has promised me the art schoularship.... :) It was supposed to be posted at the same time with the Day 5-post, but there was a problem with the internet connection.

//Sofia

Some pictures!

2010-01-12T09:13:00.000+03:00

This is two lokal children that my friend from Cannon Kituri photographed with my camera. They lived on one of the farms that we visited.

the farmkids loved to be photographed, and would follow us for the whole walk repeating "take picture of me", just as this little boy did.

Here are the girls' dormatory in the Canon Kituri school we visited. Hanna, Faustine, Joyce and a couple other girls posing on the Joyce's pink bed.

Some of the children living on the farms we passed, and who decided to follow us for most of the walk.

Here posing with Nora infront of a maize field.

Day 4

2010-01-12T09:03:00.000+03:00

This was wrote Saturday at 22.00, after dinner and an exciting day!

Today was the most giving experience so far. At nine, after spending some time blogging at the local net-cafe', we jumped in the jeeps and headed for Cannon Kituri School. I met the students for the first time, since I was one of those who arrived to Taita yesterday. We walked around looking at everything intresting and talked with the students. Some were locals and seemd to know everything about everything, atleast about the agriculture. We got to take a close look at how bananas, coffee, beans, broccoli, tomatoes and of course corn is grown. The most intresting thing was though, to talk to the local farmers, some only spoke Taita so the teatchers from Cannon Kituri translated.

Everything was so green, and the steep hills, with terasses to keep the soil in place were amazing to look at. Local kids, who saw as walking by, followed us on our trip, and their little beautiful faces lit up with joy when they got to pose for our cameras. Although everything was so intresting, it was still a long walk and really hot for us cool Finns, so we got pretty tired. My friend from Cannon Kituri laughed at my red and exhausted face, he said he was cold although he was wearing a shirt, a wool-west, a woolshirt and a scarf...

I spent the rest of the day at Hebron, but some of the girls went to the local market and bought some mangos and passion-fruits (they were actually avocados, but we found that out later, so it was a waste of money (very little money though, 5 shilling/"mango", because avocados grow in Hebrons backyard).

I have to go to sleep now, all the new experiances are really making my head feel heavy, my nose with new smells and my ears with new sounds. Have to give them a rest.
// Nora

Day 6 - Safari day

2010-01-11T22:38:00.000+03:00

Just to let you know: we are alive! Our car stopped working a couple times more, which forced us to walk for a bit, cram into everyone elses' cars, and finally leave the overheated car in Voi, to pick it up later. But beside this, our day was amazing! We sat on the roof of our jeep, enjoyed the sun (with 50s sunscreen on, of course. We all learned this the hard way ... All I can say is AUTCH), and saw lots and lots of animals (impalas, waterbucks, gasells, dik-diks, elephants, giraffes, and one group even saw cheetahs, to name only a few. More about animals later on.) We're sorry for the terrible update lately, we've hade so much to do, and do to heavy rain there hasn't always been internet connection. But tomorrow we're leaving for Nairobi, and once we get there all the blog posts ( and pictures and videos!!!) that have been written these past days, but have not been published yet, will come up!
So, good night from, once again, a sweaty and dirty team Kenya (we have no running water here whatsoever and everyone got extreamily dirty of all the sand today...). We're all sad becouse this is our last night in Taita Hills, and at least I loved every second here. The view, the locals ... Oh well, got to make the best out of it (ie sleep) . We'll update tomorrow night from Nairobi. Think of us in the sweaty bus tomorrow. Hugs to all our wonderful (36000!!!) readers!
//hanna, nora and ica

Help, stuck with the lions!

2010-01-11T16:33:00.000+03:00

I just got a message from Kenya saying:

We, Ica, Hanna, Eero, Kari, Jouko and Nora, are right now in the middle of nowhere, on the savannah 20 km from the nearest civilization. Our car just broke down. Jouko just saw lion pawprints in the sand so there's lions nearby... Great. And yeah, the roofwindow won't close.
Mums and dads please don't panic, someone is coming to pick us up. I hope...
Nora

Day 5 - Lost in a rainforest called Ngangao

2010-01-10T19:06:00.000+03:00

Early in the morning we got an unpleasant surprise - the shower six girls are sharing doesn't work before 7 a.m. And there is no way for six girls to shower and eat breakfast in one hour. Well we survived, and
left only a little late (one hour...)

After a bumby ride the cars took us up the hill to the gate of the rainforest, called Ngangao. We were thrilled by the sight. Two local men showed us the most interesting sights in the forest, meaning two giant mother trees and this enormous stone which had a cave underneath. I'm mean they were Huge! We felt like cave people...

Can you believe it, we made it all the way through the forest to this open spot on the top of the hill, without any (serious) accidents. The view was incredible, so surreal very hard to describe. We could see everything from there. Too bad it was a little bit cloudy, otherwise we would have seen Kilimanjaro!

After the visit in the forest we went to Canon Kituri high-school, the same school with whom we had worked before. But this time we said goodbye to all our new friends, Kwaheri!

The food-market in Wundanyi was visited once again by us. The more we bought the more expensive everything got. But we didn't complain, because compared to Finland these prices are nothing. Now we are heading back to our Lodge Hebron to have dinner with our bags full of passsion fruits, pineapples, mangos, oranges and beans. I'm telling you - nothing tastes better than the fresch fruits of Kenya.

Well this is all unbelieveable, I hope you could all see the things that we see!

// Emilia and Micky

P.s. they keeping the internetcafe open just for us..!

Day 3 - How not to get to Kenya in 10 days

2010-01-09T09:39:00.000+03:00

1. Make sure you don't have any flight tickets.. if the case would be, that you then somehow anyway end up with tickets you should do this, like we did.
2. Lose your passport, money, flight tickets and vaccination card (but find them in the last minute after causing a heart-attack to everybody you have called)
3. Be on time at the airport just to find out that........
a) plane will be approximately 50min late, but you still have a slight chance to be on time to your connection flight
b) Be told that you have to leave the aircraft because the airport you're flying to is closed for about 4h due to a snow storm
c) When you are finally allowed to enter the aircraft again you sit down and are anxious to leave..(.beacause you still might have a chance to get to catch the connection flight because also it might be delayed because of the bad weather).. only to find out that the plane will be even more delayed because of a technical problem. And the technical problem is caused by the cold air that the airplane had to wait in because of the delay. Ironically the problem was that the cooling liquid had become too cold and we had to spend time on the airport waiting for them to warm up the cooling liquid again..( what?!)
4)Stress and panic so much that you almost are mentally so exhausted that you could just collapse and turn back home
5)When you are at the airport make sure you get lost (that didn't happen to us.. but just if you want to be 100% sure you won't make it)
6) When you have arranged your new connection flight, a hotel room for the night and everything seems to be ok..leave the airport with good beliefs, grab something to eat and let your carry-on luggage be stolen.
7) Go to the police station, make a report, take the last bus to your hotel and sleep for a few hours.
8) Oversleep in the morning and miss your new connection flight.
Fortunately we didn't oversleep and made it to our plane (even though everything else actually happened). The stolen luggage was returned, and after manymanymany hours we all made it to Nairobi, Kenya. One thing you can also do is to not get in touch with your contact person when you arrive at your destination. But that's another story.

// Maria, Nora, Crista, Sofia, Emilia (and Julia)

Day 3 - the Nature

2010-01-09T09:36:00.001+03:00

Wundanyi is absolutley stunnig, the terrain is all about beautiful excotic trees and steep hills. We visited the small town in the morning, and we met some local people. It isn't very far away but we still got a quite nice picture of the surroundings. It's green all over the place and we even found our Lodge's backyard well interesting. There's an avocado tree, no two actually.
Wundanyi is a bit up the hill, which means we saw the most terriffic wiew on our way up. It's like from a movie, very hard to explain its beautines. We are in the tropical zone, which means the place is full of excotic surprises for us. We got thrilled when we saw a banana tree in town and all the palm trees all around. There are even a couple banana trees on our yard!
On our way to the local school, Canon Kitori, we all fell silent. The slopes are so steep that the locals uses terass growing. So what we see was fantastic, nothing we are used to back in Finland. The road was very bumpy, but we were comfortable in the jeeps, amazed by the wiew. Everything is green and the air is humid. We still have so much to absorb, we must stay awake every second so we won't miss any interesting plant or tree.

//Mikaela

Day 3 - The People

2010-01-09T09:36:00.000+03:00

The first impression we got of the people, was that they are very beautiful, especially their faces and the shape of theirs heads. Most people are so friendly and happy. Everytime when we got lost the people was always so helpful. We would be so lost without them.
The local peoples' impression when they see us is shock, happiness or they great us waving and smiling. Usually it is the kids or the younger men that great us.
Well today... we went to the Canon Kituri secondary school. The students are from 12-20 years old and everyone of them can speak english. They were all so nice and sweet. We got to know 12 students and they who showed us around.
Some of the students are rich and live in Mombasa or Nairobi but go to school here in Taita hills and other live here in Wundanyi, were Hebron, the place we live, is.The economical difference is pretty big. When we walked in we all felt like animals in a zoo being wathced. Before they saw us, it was very quiet but as soon as they saw us a huge mumbling came arose from the class rooms. Most girls talked with a low voice to us so it was hard to understand them but in the few days we have been here we learned to understand their english accent. The other male students that didn't show us around behaved like girls, giggled and were shy. :D
The smaller kids are so cute. They often say hi and ask how we are today which is adorable. When we drove back from the school two small boys ran after the car and wanted to be photographed. Some of the people don't wan't to be photographed like an older woman that we bought mangos of. The excuse was that se thougt that here clothes were too ugly and old. some people,on the other hand, just love being photograped.
I hope you get some kind of picture of the people that live here :D

//Amica

Day 3 - 18.30

2010-01-09T09:28:00.001+03:00

YAY! Our wonderful Team Kenya is finally reunited - Maria, Sofia, Emilia, Crista, Nora (and Julia, one of the finnish students) have arrived! Blog post about their adventure is coming up NOW!

//Hanna

Day 4 -Good morning!

2010-01-09T09:20:00.004+03:00

Since blogging at the internet café(where we ALL(yes, everyone's arrived)are sitting right now, soaked by the rain on our way here.....) is very slow (not expensive at ALL though, like 60 cents/hour) we decided to blog from the computer we have with us, so now we're gonna insert the text we wrote yesterday night.
This was written at 18.00 yesterday:
Day3
So, at the moment I'm sitting on the couch in our dining room, looking out at the beautiful yard nand the breathtaking mountain view through the window. Pauline, the cute 11 year old girl living here, and the house dog Soffin, are not far away, based on the noise. I'll have to show you pictures, they're so cute! (both Pauline and the dog).
The rest are in their rooms, waiting for the dinner to get ready. We just got back from Canon Kituri Secondery school, where we met the students ... exciting! But Ica will tell you more about this in the next post!
Soonsoonsoon the other girls will arrive and we can't wait to see them(!!!!).
Now we're moving down to the boys room.... okay, it doesn't matter, since you're not getting this streamed live. But I just wanted to let you know we're moving downstairs to the basement full of (boys and) bugs! Geckos, ants, mosquitos.... you name it.
We figured we probably haven't told you very much about Taita Hills, where we live right now. So posts about that coming up in a second!

//Hanna