Typical Day

Thought I would write about my typical day here in Kenya

I wake up at 7 or earlier because it gets light at 6.30. First thing I do is feed Purrsistence the rescued stray cat as she is always waiting for her breakfast. There is not really ‘hot’ water as such in the house for a shower but the temperature is fine because it’s normally 25 degrees Celsius or higher here. You can get most western foods here easily so I have weetabix or marmite on toast for breakfast, though the frequent power cuts mean there is not always fresh milk!

We have a large water filter in the house which we fill up with tap water. I don’t have to any washing as Janet, the office cleaner, comes to the house twice a week to do all our washing by hand in the bath. With 4 girls in the house I really don’t envy her.

I can never forget my keys here as there are 2 padlocks to unlock to get out of the house. We live in the nice area of town – Section 9 – and there are lots of trees. This is where the better off Indian immigrants live and there is a Sikh, Hindu and Jain temple in Thika.

If I go to the supermarket I’ll go before work as it’s only a 5 minute walk away and I have time in the mornings because I don’t have keys to the office, which has even more padlocks.

I tend to walk the 15 minutes to work together with the other volunteers and we go right through the centre of town. Its always busy in the mornings and lots of people say "hello, how are you" to us in a very high pitched voice (because weirdly that is how they think we speak) or just shout mzungu (white person) as we pass.
We get to work for 9am. The office is on the 3^rd floor of an office block shared with KIM (Kenya Institute of Management) so there are always lots of students around and it gets very noisy in between classes, even though we are on the floor with the library! The office has 2 rooms (the main office and the KCLAW legal aid office) which are at the front of the building accessed via another iron gate and with a balcony between them so its nice to stand outside and watch Thika street life from there.

Nancy, the administrator, and I spend the day together updating the current year’s accounts or working on next year’s budget. There are frequent visitors to the office (clients for legal aid, students / parents asking for help with school fees or street kids). Nancy acts as interpreter from Swahili or Kikuyu the local language if needed.

Nancy

For lunch we’ll either go out to a restaurant (which everybody does here) or to the Interim Care Centre to eat with the boys. Restaurants are cheap (£1-£2 for a full meal) so I’ll have tilapia fish with rice or beef stew and chapati for lunch. If we go to the ICC Jane the House Mother will have cooked a massive pot of beans, rice or ugali (maize cooked in water – fills you up!) and if we are lucky chapati. I’ll buy my veg at the market from Veronica who runs the stall we go to. We always go for a fresh juice too. 20 bob (15p) for fresh mango, passion fruit or avocado juice. This has replaced my coffee fix which is just as well because coffee here is a sachet of Nescafe and hot milk (not the same as a skinny latte).

At 4pm I go to ICC for reading club with the boys. All secondary school lessons are taught in English in Kenya so they need to be able to read and write.

The boys are a very mixed standard but they all enjoy the individual attention. It’s my favourite part of the day.

I go back to the office and most days Eleanor & I are joined by two school girls who like to come by and say hello after school. Their older sister works on the street so Eleanor wants to encourage them to say and school so they sit and draw pictures for an hour while we work.

I leave work between 5.30 and 8 depending on whether I am trying to get things done. Some nights I will go to the gym for aerobics. The gym is called Pole Pole which means Slowly, Slowly – ironic as the classes are really fast and unlike the UK full of very co-ordinated men. On Thursday Eleanor hosts a film night at her flat as an AfCiC fundraiser and we watch a pirate DVD (readily available here for 40p) on a projector. Other nights we might go out for dinner for an Indian or to a bar for chicken & chapati or we may just stay at home and watch endless episodes of Sex in the City on DVD (we have every single episode).

Joseph the security guard arrives when it gets dark and is outside the house all night. It’s not really safe to go out on your own after dark (or rather it’s best not to) so we’ll take a tuk tuk or Joseph will walk us where ever we need to go.

There are a lot of mosquitoes in the house so I have a mossie net over my bed, which is always entertaining for the cat. I go to sleep earlier then at home – probably because I get home from work earlier!

 

 

Transport in Kenya

I thought I would write a post on the transport here in Kenya as it is so different to home

Boda Boda
This is a bicycle with a padded seat on the back. Thy are surprisingly comfortable but I haven’t yet worked out if ladies are supposed to go side-saddle or not.
They cost 20 bob to go anywhere in Thika and can be used for goods as well. I even saw a sofa on the back of one once.

Tuk Tuk
More enclosed than the Thai or Indian versions, these cost 50 bob to go anywhere in Thika. We use these as taxis.

Matatu
These people carriers are the buses of Kenya. They have 12 seats but they fit 16+ in (and chickens and luggage). If you bum doesn’t fit over the gap in the aisle between seats you sit on a plank. They only leave when full so sometimes you wait for an hour before it leaves. There are also ‘pimped up’ versions with flashing lights, playboy stickers and very loud music – best avoided!

Mount Kenya

This weekend I spent 4 days climbing the 4,985m trekking peak of Mount Kenya. It’s the second highest mountain in Africa but it’s supposed to be a harder climb than Kili because you have to scramble at the top. Plus far fewer people climb it so you are mostly on your own which is really nice.

 

I had been recommended a guide and was supposed to be joining a group, but the others didn’t turn up for some reason so it was just me, Ibrahim the guide, the cook and a porter. We started at the gate at 2,200m and took 3 days to reach the top. We stayed in mountain huts which were basically wooden sheds with dorm rooms. They had no heating and were freezing! Luckily I had a good sleeping bag unlike a lot of people who seemed to be shivering in all their clothes in some thin sack.

Peak Lenane, the peak I climbed

Although I wasn’t in a group I met some interesting people. Nick, an Australian who was climbing the technical peak (i.e. requires proper climbing with ropes), seemed to have climbed everywhere and gave me Diamox (a drug which helps acclimatisation) which I’m sure is the reason I felt fine ascending 3000m in 3 days. Kyle, an American who had been working in Ethiopia with the Peace Corps for 2 years, was cycling from Lake Assal in Djibouti the lowest point on the African continent to Kili in Tanzania, the highest point. There was also a group from the British army there for training who were camping. They told me it had got down to –20 at night in their tents.

We went up to the peak at 3am to be there for sunrise. It was freezing (the water in my bottle froze) and exhausting but worth it.

 

At the summit with Ibrahim

Tiwi Beach

Last weekend Sarah, Eleanor and I went to Tiwi beach, south of Mombasa. It was a 12 hour overnight bus journey to get there on a very dilapidated bus but it was worth it for the beautiful empty beach we found when we arrived.

We camped on the beach which was great, except it was very windy and I thought the tent might blow away at one point. At least it was cool at night though. The sea was really warm and we ate fresh coconuts and mangos.

On Saturday night we went out to a few bars at the next beach along which was much more of a resort. We went to a beach bar for gin and tonics, white wine and bacon and camembert salad - felt like we were on a proper holiday! The next bar was more interesting though. It was a club full of middle aged western men sitting on their own and young Kenyan girls dressed up to the nines, looking stunning who were attempting to pick them up. More interesting were the middle aged western couples who were each looking for a young Kenyan. I wish I could have taken photos for my blog because I couldn't stop staring!

Sunday night was more relaxed - a fish bbq on the beach and a camp fire.

Finally the power cut is over...

My blog posting has been thwarted today by a power cut which means I cannot connect to the internet or get on with work. These happen everyday here, though often only for a few minutes. Hopefully this one won’t last long and I’ll be able to upload this……

This week I’ve been having meetings every afternoon with each department to set the budgets for next financial year. It’s been contracted process as the charity is being restructured next year and some departments have been merged or split. Each meeting takes hours here as there is always lots of discussion in any case.

I also spent a morning with Anne, one of the social workers, visiting her outreach cases in a nearby town called Ruiru. We first met a single mother who has 3 daughters and who has been kicked out of her in-laws home after her husband died. This is quite common in Kenya. Anne is trying to get her two eldest daughters into school so we went to meet a local head teacher to arrange an interview for the girls. I was quite a celebrity in the playground. In one classroom all the children wanted to hug me.

We then went to visit a landlord of one of the boys that AfCiC help. He’s 16 and since his elder brother moved away hasn’t been able to pay the rent. The Landlord has been holding off but can no longer afford to, so Anne arranged for AfCiC to pay the rent so he can stay in school.

Our last visit of the day was to the Outreach clinic where homeless children can come and play one day a week and get lunch. It’s from these boys that AfCiC will get their bi-annual intakes for the residential programme at the ICC. A lot of them are under pressure to join gangs so it’s good to keep them occupied one day if possible. A mother and grandmother also brought their 2 daughters to meet Anne to see if she could help getting them into work. They want to train as hairdressers. Even though every women seems to get her hair restyled every second day here the set up costs are really high so Anne suggested they train as tailors instead. The family will need to find someone that can train them and ideally pay for the machine, but AfCiC will help with contacts and advice. It was an interesting morning.

The power is now back! I am going to the beach at Mombassa this weekend so will write more next week.

Masai Mara

At the weekend Ann-Katrina and I went to the Masai Mara. We saw lions, rhinos, a cheetah, hippos, crocodiles, buffalo, zebra, eland, wildebeest, gazelle, giraffe, zebra, warthogs and a tortoise.
Here are a few pictures taken with my small digital camera, so the ones from my SLR should be really good.

Glue

This is the glue that the boys sniff. They buy it from the shoe sellers in old plastic bottles. About half our intake of boys at the ICC are addicted and a few have run away because it is banned at the centre. It absolutely reeks.