Little angels

I have come to enjoy being a teaching assistant at the TAPA educational centre. The school currently has two classes: baby and nursery classes. The nursery class students who passed the recent end-of-year exam will be going to the new pre-unit class in the next academic year. This will be their last class in the school before they graduate into the mainstream Kenyan school system

The kids are truly amazing especially if you consider the difficult circumstances under which some of them live and the fact that they thrive in spite of this. I want to share what I love and appreciate about each of the kids I've worked with in the nursery class. They are aged 3 - 5 and are the ones I've spent the most time with in my time at TAPA

I've tried to avoid playing favourites but I'm sure you'll detect from my tone that I do have favourites amongst these lovely gems I choose to call little angels

Dennis: very studios and takes himself quite seriously, certainly for a five year old. He prides himself in being one of the best students in the class and he sometimes rushes through tasks just to prove this point. He is also very playful and always up for running around chasing nothing in particular

Ruth: is the best student in the class. She has neat handwriting, an amazing memory and is, without doubt, a step ahead of the rest of the class. She is quite shy though and can usually be caught sneaking a smile or glance at one of the adults. She is a very sweet child

Kwamboka: wants to be the best and is not far from being exactly that. She is very competitive and is the one person in the class who will, without fail, raise her hand screaming "me! me! me! Teacher, me!" at every question that is posed to the class. Its amusing to watch her get so frustrated when she gets a piece of work wrong and has to do it all over again; she can't forgive herself. It probably doesn't help that she is the teacher's daughter and therefore presumably feels under pressure to be the best. She is blessed with a beautiful smile

Raymond: is quite mature in his looks and mannerisms. He has a quiet confidence that makes me smile. He is also a very good student and is especially good at math

Emmaculate: very quiet and likes to focus on her schoolwork. Its so cute that at tea time each day, without fail, she takes out her packed snack, splits in two and walks over to the next class to give the other half to her younger sister. I think she's adorable

Felix: great smile, easily distracted and very playful. He cries easily too, which for some reason I find endearing. He doesn't do too badly at schoolwork either though that could improve if he concentrated a bit more

Vera: very pretty girl; equally shy and introverted. She is also very bright and has the best handwriting in the class; handwriting I think is pretty rare for a four year old. She also has a beautiful smile, which she usually displays on eye contact

Walter: rarely speaks and strangely likes to play with his spittle. He can usually be found on his way to the bathroom to wash his hands. He is also easily distracted, which affects his schoolwork

Jane: the most easily distracted child in the class and also likes to distract her peers. She will usually be caught picking a fight or right in the middle of one. With assistance, she is able to complete all her schoolwork with a huge, gorgeous smile on her face

Bravin: is the youngest in the class and understandably the smallest sized. In a stampede, he is the most likely to be trampled upon but you can't stop him getting right into the middle of one. He loves thumb wars and has an infectiously naughty smile. He is very bright and at age 3.5, can count (and write) up to a hundred, add, subtract and knows the alphabet by well. He has very squeezable cheeks that i usually have to resist the urge to grab

Bruce: always comes to school wearing a girl's winter hat, which gives him a cute, innocent look that deceptively masks his naughty tendencies. We keep a close eye on that one! When he is not being naughty, he is very studios and a sweet child

David: very shy, odedient and soft-spoken. Struggles a bit with schoolwork and is very easily distracted. He has very good pictorial memory though, we discovered the other day. I also noticed that when he's alone with his friends, he is actually very animated and has a great smile

Violet: great smile and loves to play! We have winking contests; well she blinks or covers one eye with a finger and I wink. It's quite hilarious. She also likes thumb wars. She is obsessed with producing neat work and will ask for the eraser (which they disturbingly call rubber) every other minute; there aren't enough erasers so we have to share a few amongst them. She is best friends with Vera and they sit and whisper things to each other and giggle lots; I smile, shaking my head in wonder at the specifics of their chats

Faith: very quiet and easily the class loner. She has a lovely smile though and once you get her to engage, is actually a great kid. She struggles with schoolwork, which I don't think helps with her ability to socialise

Godfrey: big doleful eyes that speak before he opens his mouth. He's blessed with a toothless smile for the moment (okay its not actually toothless, he's only missing a few front teeth). He's bright and is usually in a hurry to finish his schoolwork so he can get to some quality playtime

Wycliff: is the best looking boy in the class and I'm certain sometimes that he is fully aware of it. He has intelligent brown eyes that just tug at your heart. He will break a few hearts someday, that's for sure. He's a very good student though he can be quite frisky at times

Elvin: I actually forgot about her. That is how quiet she is. Very lovely child with the most genuine and beautiful smile. You will usually find her with her head on her desk quietly watching life go on around her. I'm sure i've heard her speak no more than a handful of times. She is very bright notwithstanding all this and takes her schoolwork very seriously


School ends this week which makes me sad as I doubt I will be seeing any of them before I head to Mozambique next month. I will surely miss them

The impromptu Uganda trip

My host home in Nairobi is quite popular amongst Fadhili volunteers who are placed on projects outside Nairobi. My hostess’ splendid hospitality has earned her a good reputation so when people need to come out to the city for shopping and such and need a place to stay, its her name that usually comes up. Near enough every weekend, and sometimes weekdays, we have someone staying over that isn’t an “original” housemate. A few weeks ago we had a young lady come through who had just returned from a trip to Uganda where she bungee jumped and went white water rafting on the Nile and made it sound excellent. It didn’t take much convincing for all 10 of us staying at the house to sign up for it.

On the evening of last Thursday, we eagerly hopped on a bus from central Nairobi, for what turned out to be an eleven-hour bus ride. The roads between Nairobi and Jinja (the town we were going to in Uganda) were not exactly smooth so we were in for a bumpy ride. The bus was reasonably comfortable (picture a standard coach bus) and we even had more leg room than one would on most economy flights. I was still battling with the flu and hoping to get some rest on the bus ride so it was fairly irritating when a bunch of Kenyans, who we had the misfortune of sitting next to, decided that they would talk and laugh loudly for nearly five hours of the journey. They spoke in a mixture of Kiswahili and English and from what I could gather it was lets-scoff-at–the-West-Africans day. Of course that did not sit well with me so it wasn’t too long before I told them to be quiet (took a lot of composure to do it politely). They took their time but did shut up eventually. We got to Jinja at the crack of dawn and thankfully, there was someone there to take us to the campsite we were going to be staying at. The site was on a cliff overlooking the river. Further upstream, there was an even bigger cliff over which the bungee jumping was to take place.

Uganda is a beautiful country and though the car ride from the bus stop to the campsite was fairly short and it was quite foggy, the lush green foliage, beautifully red earth and the strings of hills in the horizon did not escape me. The air was so fresh and the view from the bar at the campsite was just spectacular: the Nile river at the bottom which just seemed to go on forever, foggy hills meeting the skyline and the cliff on the other side of the river was scattered with beautiful homes that I admired albeit enviously.

Some of my group opted to bungee jump; now for those of you that know me well, you will know that I would NOT in a million years contemplate a bungee jump. I mean why would I consciously jump of a cliff? Don’t care if I’m being harnessed properly, just the thought of jumping off is alien to me. So I was designated the role of camerawoman. I caught them all on camera jumping, one after the other and it started to look like fun. Then my left eye started to feel itchy and funny and an hour later I could barely keep it open. It was swollen and red and streaming with tears; think someone mentioned conjunctivitis (my hostess’s adorable 10.5month son had an eye infection the week before and I do play with him a fair deal so it was not that outrageous to have caught one). I contacted my emergency medical service, a.k.a. my sister, the pharmacist and she recommended something that would put me out of my misery. Someone volunteered to go drug hunting for me and ended up being away for much of the day. I had to keep my eyes shut the whole time cause it was just too painful to keep them open. Finally, at about 4pm she turned up. I applied the drug and it started to feel relief almost instantaneously. I was feeling down though because everyone was in such good spirits and there I’d been, lumped up on the couch pretty much all day. So, at dusk that day I made the bold decision to bungee jump with the sunset in the background in tandem with one of the girls in my group. I was fine walking up to the top of the cliff but I started to panic a bit once I was tied up and had to shuffle right to the edge to be pushed off. I held on tightly to my mate and next thing I knew I was flying down, eyes shut, screaming like a 6 yr old and wondering what the hell I was doing. Must admit that after the initial downward surge, it started to feel good; we bounced around a few times and next thing I knew, we were in a boat, on our way back to dry land. It was short, exciting and downright crazy! I enjoyed it but not sure its an experience I would want to repeat, but who knows? With my eye feeling much better now, I made it an early night as we had a reasonably action-packed day of white water rafting ahead. They showed us a video of the group that had gone out on the Nile that day and it looked like a ton of fun. We spent the night in bunk beds; 4-tiered bunk beds, 15 of us to a room. It was quite the experience; after some chatting and chuckling, we finally fell asleep

We were on the river the next day by about 10am clad in life jackets and clothes that we hoped we wouldn’t lose in the rapids. The rafts were of the blown up plastic kind. Each raft had a guide (an experienced rafter who would save us if anything bad happened and would teach us a thing or two about how to navigate the river) and we were each equipped with a paddle. There were also a few kayakers in the mix, who would also assist with rescue if it came to it. After a brief paddling lesson and instructions on what to do in the strong rapids, we were on our way; in my case with one and a half eyes! The fun began almost immediately; we went through a grade 3 rapid (the rapids that we encountered were graded 1 – 5, with grade 5 rapids being very rough and in some cases with fairly steep waterfalls) after which we attempted a boat flip! Our guide (a fun Ugandan guy) basically tipped the boat over and we were all in the water. We went through 11 rapids that first day, with a lovely lunch break on an island in the middle of the river some time after rapid number 5. Our guide was quite the joker: straight-faced, he pointed out buffalos (actually cows) grazing in nearby plains, referred to croaking frogs as mini hippos and told us that he’d lived on a tiny island right in the middle of the river which had nothing but grass and gigantic tree on it, for 10 years. Apparently he slept right under the tree! (yeah right! but he said it with such a serious look that we almost believed him) Between rapids we enjoyed the calmness of the river, the gorgeous scenery and went swimming. And I kid you not, we were not half way through the day before my eyes were pretty much fully recovered. I reckon swimming in the Nile healed me, biblical style. Who said miracles were not possible?

We were done rafting for the day by 5pm. We camped at a site close to the point of the river where we’d stopped. It was actually a lot of hard work rowing all day and battling with the rapids. There’d been a few bruises and scrapes through the day and one of the girls from one of the other rafts (who is my housemate actually) got a broken nose when someone (another housemate of mine) fell on her whilst they were going through a rapid. We had a splendid dinner that day: grilled beef, chapatti, rice, breadfruit casserole and pasta. Drinks were also aplenty that night. The campsite (I never really found out the location of it) had no electricity so after dinner we retired to a nice cozy fire out in the open and admired the beautifully starlit night. It was fantastic!

The second day of rafting was more chilled. There was a lot more swimming and admiring the scenery than dealing with rapids. There was one grade 5 rapid in which we raft surfed; it was basically a huge wave against which our raft was precariously held with a huge risk of being tipped over any minute; you did not want to get caught in that wave and one girl from my raft fell into it and was sucked in for a while and came out looking petrified; it was crazy and scary but too much fun! Some of the guys also did some individual river rafting after we were done with that. That was fun to watch but me alone with water that rough and a surfboard just did not sound like a good idea. We had lunch on some nearby rocks after that bit of excitement; I sadly fell, pretty hard on some slippery rocks, which of course added to my repertoire of bruises and scrapes.
After 2 days of fun, bruises and such we were ready to head back to the main campsite. We had drinks, dinner, hot showers and called it a day; well I called it a day, the others opted to have a drinking session which ended on a morbid note for one of the lads cause he was so sick. I was never really into that sort of fun, plus it seemed my flu had started to gain momentum again after spending so much time in the water. The second day ended up being a lot colder than the first. I wasn’t complaining though; figured some medication and sleep would set me straight hence the early retirement

We woke up bright and early the next day, flu still nice and strong, to catch the bus back to Nairobi. The 11-hour bus ride felt twice as bumpy as the ride into Jinja; think it was the same route though. We got into the bus station at about 7pm and caught another bus to take us home.

I enjoyed the Uganda trip very much notwithstanding my poor state of health. I hope to go back there some day for a more lengthy stay and maybe even to try my hands at kayaking down the Nile.

Safaris: are they really like “The Lion King”?

Long before I arrived in Kenya, I knew I wanted to partake in the quintessential safari experience. I would have even tried it whilst in Zanzibar but the prices that were being quoted out there were far too outrageous. So of course, I was going to hop and skip at a reasonably priced option once I got here. Now, we were having a discussion at the house the other day, since some of the housemates that were here before me had already been on safari trips (I really ought to stop calling it that as “safari” is Kiswahili for “long journey” so adding the word “trip” is rather redundant). According to some of them, going on safari was like being in “The Lion King”; now that’s a comparison I hadn’t heard before. For you Disney lovers out there, you have to agree with me when I say that Lion King has to be an all time favourite. So that comparison just cemented the fact that I had to experience this adventure firsthand and decide whether or not it was a fair one. So, brimming with excitement and bright-eyed with expectation, I embarked on this adventure last weekend. I will now attempt to relay my experience to you and let you decide if it really is like “The Lion King”.
Day 1 – Friday 10th July
I left the house bright and early to head to the Fadhili office where I was to meet other enthusiastic safari chums and get on a bus to head towards Maasai Mara (essentially the safari district). By way of background, Fadhili has a safari service, which is what I signed up for. Each weekend, volunteers are driven out to the Kenyan countryside to see animals of all kinds in their natural habitat (those who sign up for it obviously). I signed up for the 4-day safari, which included a day trip to the infamous Lake Nakuru and a 3-day stay at the Maasai Mara National Reserve.
Soon after I arrived, two American ladies (also volunteers) turned up and announced that they were going on the same trip as me. We soon found out that the group going out on safari that day was going to be just the three of us; I was abit apprehensive about this as well as it turned out that they were sisters in law who were volunteering out in a remote village in Maasai-land (though we did end up getting along fairly well). The next are of concern fact was that Fadhili had outsourced our trip to another safari company as it was only 3 of us and since there is a big group going out next week, they’d decided to give the safari team a weekend off. Now, as we understood it, half the fun of the safari experience was having a fun, charismatic guide and the Fadhili guy is that and more. We had no idea who this new guide was, so we just prayed that things would work out. In any case, it was just the three of us so we planned on just telling him what we wanted to see if we thought he wasn’t delivering the goods. It turned out that not only was he uncharismatic but he also appeared stoned and soon enough started to make inappropriate comments. It was still three against one so we were not that perturbed. We commenced our drive to the countryside; the plan was to go to Lake Nakuru first, spend the night at a hotel there and head out to Maasai Mara the next day. The drive was uneventful save a stop to stretch our legs at a spot that had a splendid view of the Rift Valley. It’s possibly the largest valley view I’ve ever seen and the road we were driving on was close to the cliff below which the valley lay. We got to Lake Nakuru around late afternoon and soon made our way to the animal reserve. It wasn’t long after we drove into the park, with the roof of our van partly open that started spotting baboons (which have the most grotesque looking rears, a stark contrast to their cute faces), warthogs (with me screaming “pumbaa” in the background which of course scared them away), zebras, impalas and gazelles (both of the antelope family), giraffes, water buffalos, some lionesses with their cubs (who were so very cute; we were no more than 5 metres away from them) and white rhinos. We made our way to the lake itself where we saw far more flamingos across the water than I have ever seen in my life. It was truly picturesque; there were also some very huge pelicans amongst them (I hadn’t actually seen pelicans before) and a few other birds whose names escape me now. Dusk soon came upon us and we retired to our hotel where I had a room to myself (for the first time in 6 weeks; abit eerie actually). There was a hot shower as well, woohoo! Dinner was not particularly exciting but I hit the sheets with a smile on my face cause all in all it was a good day
Day 2 – Saturday 11th July
We had a reasonable lie-in and didn’t leave the hotel till about 9.30am. The drive to Maasai Mara was fairly long although Kenya’s countryside is beautiful so at least we had good scenery to go with it. We drove through fields and fields of acacia trees, saw several hills; villages and settlements cropped up sporadically; we drove through some small towns which were usually a cluster of shops and houses. The roads were a mixture of tarred ones and dirt (very dusty) ones. We did a stopover for lunch in a town called Narok, which was halfway to Maasai Mara from Nakuru. We arrived at our campsite in Maasai Mara around late afternoon. The tents were semi permanent, had comfortable beds and even hot showers (again! yay!); it was all very exciting. We threw our bags down and headed for the National Reserve (which was very nearby). That afternoon we saw ostriches, more water buffalos, more impalas and gazelles, hartebeests (also of the antelope family but a lot bigger than the rest), wildebeests (strange-looking things; they have faces like cows, horns like deer, manes like horses and bodies shaped like those of donkeys; they are quite unattractive. Once a year, around late June/early July they migrate from Tanzania into Kenya, where the grass is apparently greener and head back to Tanzania around September/October; we saw flocks of them throughout our time at the Mara and even though the migration is complete they still move in large groups), birds of all sorts, elephants, more zebras, more giraffes, more lionesses resting and a leopard (which our guide pronounced “layoopard”; we were quite excited about this as one hardly sees them in the Mara. Tired and in much need of grub and some rest, we headed back to campsite. We caught a great view of the sunset juxtaposed against some hills. Dinner was excellent: rice, chapatti (hurray! You guys must be sick of my chapatti rave by now), nyama choma (Kiswahili for roast meat; goat meat in this instance), vegetables and lots of tea. We retired to bed (after nice, long, hot showers) around 8.30pm but it was so worth it as we were quite tired and had a rather early start the next morning
Day 3 – 12th July
The day started with breakfast at 6.30am: sausage, toast, pancakes, eggs and lots of tea. We were hoping to see a hunt of sorts today, as we’d pretty much seen most, if not all the animals that inhabit the Mara. After driving around for about an hour, we saw a bunch of lionesses, think there were six of them in total, feasting on what used to be a wildebeest. Right next them, a lion lay majestically (he was quite a sight to behold; flawless coat and a huge, glorious mane; I was thinking this simba (Kiswahili for lion) does look the part of “king of the jungle”. Once the lionesses were done eating, he ate the leftovers (only fair as the lionesses usually do the hunting and with wildebeest aplenty after the migration, its now feasting season for them). When he was done, the vultures took over the remnants of the feast, fighting amongst themselves for the leftovers; feisty, greedy things they are! The stench of the dead beast and stale blood became strong and we headed to another part of the Mara. We soon saw some cheetahs resting in the fields, good-looking animals they are; closer to cats than lions; if only they were not so menacing! Of course with a van of women, we had to stop right in the middle of the wild for a loo break, very alert and on the lookout for lions and such; needless to say it was a hurried affair for each of us . We had lunch at a safe spot and some frisky monkeys nearby offered some amusement. Another source of amusement for me, and it had started to build up since the start of the journey, were the sisters in law who were now very comfortable around me and were taking to bickering and taking shots at each other in the way that only people with familial ties can. It did get a little nasty at times but I did well to stay out of it. They were two grown women after all. Anyway, once we were done with lunch, we were off to see the Mara river, which serves as home to some hippos (boy do they smell bad) and crocodiles (very big ones I might add). We then went over to see the border between Tanzania and Kenya; on the Tanzania side was the Serengeti and of course we were in the Mara on the Kenya side. Near the border we saw a black rhino (if only its rear; they usually live in the forest as they feed on shrubs and roots of trees). We saw more of some of the animals that we’d seen over the last few days during our drive to exit the Mara. On the way out, our guide announced that we had the option to go see a Maasai village where a donation would be required of us (we understood this to mean that we could give any amount out of the goodness of our hearts but soon found out that there was actually a “fixed” fee for seeing the village – we paid far more than any other volunteers, certainly the ones I live with, had paid before). Seeing the village was quite the experience for me: the Maasai people are very simple and live in houses (well huts really) made of mud and sticks. The men are usually cattle herdsmen (we soon found out that in families, the father decides, rather randomly, who gets to go to school and who gets to herd cattle when the boys are still young). The village grounds was covered in cow dung, which meant that there were flies everywhere, more flies than I’ve ever seen in one place. They are so used to the flies that the children’s faces and bodies are covered with them and at any one point there are at least thirty flies hovering around one person. The children traipse around in dishabille while the mothers cook, etc. Apparently the Maasai choose to live this way as it’s the way their forefathers lived many years before them and its one of the few cultures that has remained unchanged for centuries. We were welcomed into the village with song and dance, which was nice; shown around and soon ushered to the curio stand where we made some purchases. After that, there was quite an embarrassing exchange, which highlighted that the “donation” was actually fee; we made the payment and were on our way. Frankly the experience was quite disturbing for me; I couldn’t get over the kids with flies! I mean all they have to do is clear up the cow dung on the ground, burn a few leaves from the forest, which act as insect repellent and that would take care of it; why would they choose not to?? With that rather morbid end to our day and a cold and flu creeping up on me (I wasn’t sure if my new friends, who admitted that they were recovering from an infection, or excessive inhalation of dust was to blame for this), I hit the sheets soon. I didn’t sleep well cause the flu got pretty bad that night

Day 4 – 13th July
Yet another early start today: 6.30am with no breakfast, we headed straight to the reserve. I did well to take more medication before heading out as what was a sore throat last night was now turning into a cough that came with a nice headache. Anyway, not long after we drove through the gates of the reserve, we spotted a lion and lioness that seemed hungry. We (and a host of other people) hovered in our vans waiting for them to attack a bunch of wildebeest, which they appeared to have been eyeing for a while. After about a 20-minute wait, they charged at the wildebeest (it was really exciting to watch) though they did not get there in time to attack any of them. It was worth it though. Now after seeing some of the animals umpteen times, we were over it! So we drove back to the campsite, had some breakfast and got in the van to drive home. I was pleased at what I’d seen during the 4 days; the illness kind of put a dent on things towards the end but at least I got to sleep most of the way back home. By mid afternoon we were back in Nairobi. I had enough energy to run a few errands but soon found my bed and called it a day

All in all, safari was fun for me! I will leave you to decide if it was deserving of the comparison my housemates made to “The Lion King”