the urban life

here's a photograph that I just snapped of my urban host family. Sorry about the quality... man, I thought I had a better camera than this! (haha) 

Hello all!

This update is a bit later than I anticipated. Our internet connection here was jeopardized when a ship’s anchor ripped up 2 important cables…

Anyhow, here I am! I’ve been staying in Nairobi with a host family. My family is very hospitable and I find it to be pretty easy to integrate into their lifestyle because it’s really quite similar to life in the US. My siblings are all older than I am, though two of them are home for the occasion and my other sister has just arrived today to visit. The biggest adjustment? Leaving the house at 6:30 so I can get through the traffic in time for my 8:30 class. Traffic is a bit rough because development hasn’t kept up with the population growth/immigration.

All is well here:  classes are normal and tomorrow we’re visiting the city market and going to the Karua forest. Last week we went to Kibera which is the one of the largest slums in Africa, if not the largest. It was a powerful experience but after watching the movie “Slum Dwellers” (which is a documentary on Kibera …actually I can’t be sure that that is the name), I was even more blown away. I’m not doing a very good job explaining but this could be because it is late at night. (And yet, I am determined to get this email out!) I guess all I can say is I’ve never been so thankful for clean water and our sanitation systems/waste disposal systems.

SO anyways, one more week in our homestays before life starts getting crazy again… next time I talk to you all, I’ll be in Amboseli!

Hope you all are doing well!

Love,
Em

monkey business

I thought that being in the city would mean that I wouldn't get to see any animals... well, I was wrong!

We had a troop of monkeys that visited us just the other day :)

a little monkey scurrying across our neighbor's gate

 the little imp contemplating what he'll do next

this guy had just been lying down on top of the roof keeping watch or something. There were at least 5 monkeys total hanging around our houses!

Visiting the Hadza!

This week we went to visit the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer community in Tanzania through Dorobo. I had a really great time and enjoy getting to know some of the people living there. We were able to do all sorts of amazing things with them. They taught us how to make arrows, how to shoot, and also took us hunting. We also taught each other dances and songs at night and were able to have a long conversation with them as a group. 

These people were so inspiring and interesting to meet. They believe in only taking what they need from the land at that moment in time and do not fret about the future. (So this means in the morning, they only gather food for the meal they are going to eat right then and there, and later they will gather food again when they are hungry.) They are very happy, proud people and get enough food and water to satisfy themselves despite living in a region that only gets about 400 milliliters of water per year. Incredible. 

Dorobo (and other NGOs) are working with the Hadza at the moment because there is a major land crunch in Tanzania. Much of their land has been encroached on by other ethnic groups (because there are simply too many people) and as a hunter-gatherer community, their land is absolutely necessary for their survival. So they are currently working to establish a Hadza Conservation Area to ensure that their land does not get any smaller. I was really impressed with how culturally respectful Dorobo's tourism program was and how they really work to satisfy the desires of the community. I would highly recommend this opportunity to anyone, if anyone's headed to Tanzania :)

 making arrowheads using a cold nail and a hammer! 

teaching us how to shoot! I managed to shoot an arrow pretty far and just missed the target. yahoo!

 a typical acacia landscape

almost done with our hike across the Yaeda Valley! Unfortunately, we had yet to climb up the side of the valley (on the right) and it was starting to get really hot!

 putting pegs in the side of the baobab so we could climb it! 

 Looking over the Yaeda Valley

sunset after climbing the baobab

 some old Bushmen/Hadza cave paintings in a baboon's home

me climbing the humongous  baobab! I was so nervous! 

Look mom! I made it! 

Mt. Longonot

 The landscape approaching Mt. Longonot (the volcano is on the right)

 on top of THE VOLCANOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooo!

see the path (on the right) going around the rim? you could walk all the way around... 

but we didn't because of the fire (see the cloud on the far side of the rim)

it was certainly a dusty hike!

A nice picture of us on the rim of Mt. Longonot.

the city life and some excursions

Hello friends!

This week was the first week of classes in Nairobi and I was able to choose two electives. I decided on a Biodiversity course on the Conservation practices in East Africa and a gender course. I was planning on taking a History course but ended up finding the gender course to be interesting and low key so that’s that!

This weekend, we cast off our student persona and became full-blown tourists! We climbed Mt. Longonot (a volcano) in the Rift Valley! Either I’m in terrible shape (which is a total possibility; I eat so much here!) or else it was the elevation because I was EXHAUSTED going up the volcano and usually I’m okay with that sort of thing. But anyhow, I made it! And along the way, we saw a handful of zebras in the distance and one giraffe standing all by himself on the rim of a smaller, nearby crater.

This morning a group of us went to the Giraffe center in Karen (where we’re staying). So we spent the morning feeding and mooning after giraffes. THEY’RE SO COOL.

This week has been a bit stressful and it will only get worse because all of our assignments are due soon because (dunn dunn dunn DUUUUUUNNNNNNN!) we’re leaving for TANZANIA in a week! Tra lala!

At the moment, I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do for my 4-week IDS (independent study) at the end of the semester. I was thinking of doing Organic Farming stuff or something with A Rocha but am still undecided.  


That's all for now! Kwaheri!

More on Meru

Greetings! I hope all of you are doing well!

I’ve just returned from my rural homestay in Meru which is an agrarian community near Mt. Kenya. I stayed there for about a week.

I really enjoyed my stay in Meru even though most of the time they spoke Kimeru (which I can’t understand) and the fact that I was full 24/7. They follow the food pyramid… and by that I mean they mound their food into mini-mountains on their plates and eat it ALL. They made fun of how little I eat in comparison and told them I would eat like they do if they allowed me to work on their farm! I did get to weed for a couple of hours on their farm one day (with a big ol’ panga which is this knife thing which they use for everything) and spread fertilizer on their coffee plants on another, but other than that, I didn’t get to do too much manual labor because I was a guest and they thought I was more fragile than I am. It was a week of trying to break down stereotypes. Who knows how successful I was!

So to give you some idea as to what it was like, my family had a two-acre shamba (farm) which grew foods like bananas, papayas, pineapples, mangoes (my favorite!), maize, beans, kale, tomatoes, tomato fruits (a different thing), macadamia nuts, cassava, and coffee as their cash crop. (Adam, I was thinking of you when I got to visit their coffee factory!). They also had 4 sheep, 2 goats, a dog, and a loveable cow that was going to have a calf sometime this month.

These people were really into religion (4 hour church service! and prayers even before tea sometimes), politics (right now they’re all riled up about the Ocampo 6), farming, and family. I met so many family members and friends and they would quiz you on their names in front of everyone.  Yikes! Needless to say, I paid very good attention during introductions! Everyone was very pleasant and very excited to meet me. I made it through the week with only two marriage proposals which is small in comparison to other girls from the semester,  so I feel good about that (Don’t worry Mom, I did not accept them!).

For those of you who are excited about the animals, the only animals I saw were livestock, birds (one was a really bright purple!) and we saw some baboons as we were riding in the bus back to Nairobi. 

my rural homestay

A look at some of the trees in at my rural homestay: 

banana on the left, mango on the right (see the fruits?) yumm

You can't really tell but I had just walked through some intense mud (hence the rolled up pants)!

in front of the coffee shelling machine