New Beginnings

Haven't had the chance to upload many new photos, but here are some good ones I didn't get to share from our safari in Amboseli, followed by a few new things! I can't believe it's been two weeks since I got to Kenya....seems like I've known these people forever already! Trying to live day by day and enjoy every little bit :)

no, your eyes have not deceived you.... this is indeed a baby elephant smiling
:)

just keep truckin'

om nom nom

oh ya know, just some casual yoga with the elephants and hippos. 

quite possibly the cutest baby elephant everrrr!

as promised! the creeper hippo

We are fully into the swing of classes now. Last week, we had two outdoor lectures on top of different hills overlooking the beautiful landscape in Kenya. On Wednesday the 8th, we were right outside camp on a hill that is surrounded by agricultural fields in the foothills on Mt Kili. There we had our Swahili and Social Culture class and learned about the history of the traditional Maasai. Basically, their past of nomadic pastoralism  (i.e. grazing their cattle, sheep, goats all around the land) and farming for themselves is a much more feasible option for land use rather than the commercial agriculture they are now attempting (lots of sun+little rain=not good conditions for crop growing). Our lecture the next day was just outside a small town and was based on the same concept, but with more of an ecology focus. Once again, the soil type, climate and weather patterns of the Amboseli ecosystem are not compatible with agriculture, but try telling that to these people who want to make money off of selling crops...the problem is that everyone is doing it, so the land is being converted to all crop fields, which is in turn increasing the amount of human-wildlife conflict (remember the elephants & other animals I told you about that eat the crops?) and crazy dirt devil dust tornados spinning around everywhere. These are huge issues all across Kenya, particularly now because it's the dry season.

Twister: East Africa!
 (jk, these are actually relatively harmless dust devils that we see almost everywhere....there's lots of dust here. my white socks are now mostly brown and our feet at the end of each day are coverd in dirt!)

Jen, myself and Paige during our break from one of our field lectures

During lecture, 4 little boys from the town climbed up the hill to listen and even though I’m sure they didn’t understand anything our professor John Kiringe was saying (besides the words Kilimanjaro and Amboseli) they sat quietly and attentively listened.  It's so cute-- all of the small children here wave frantically as we drive past and  they yell “Mzunguli!!!” in their high-pitched adorable voices (translation: "my white person"—actually a term of endearment... or so we’re told. haha). They (and everybody else in Kenya) like to stare at us. Makes me feel like a celebrity.

These are two little girls that Paige and I met on a walk to do a Wildlife Ecology assignment. The brands on their cheeks show that they are Maasai. So beautiful!

That afternoon after class was over, we walked over to the secondary school just down the road from SFS.  Tara had arranged with their principal for us to come watch them in their school's Olympics sporting event.  When we showed up it was kind of awkward because we weren’t exactly sure what was going to happen…as my friend Carey said, it was like a middle school dance but instead of boys and girls awkwardly staring at eachother, it was three headed dogs. And we were the three headed dogs. But before we knew it, we were all talking amongst the students and making friends.  It is a boarding school for both male and female students aged 15-20’s, although they remain separated in classes.  I met tons of different people (got a few marriage propositions and was also quite frequently asked why I didn’t have a boyfriend).

I did manage to remember one person's name; a girl named Shantel, who was 16, approached me right away and was soon my friend, showing me around and asking me questions.  She was full of questions and even braided my hair.  Everyone wanted to touch our hair, and kept calling us all beautiful, which is funny because we all think they are absolutely beautiful. Shantel told me that they wake up every morning at 4 am and have ten lessons a day. They have tea for breakfast, are given lunch and dinner (all very minimal—lentils, cabbage and ugali, which is this horribly tasteless cake-like thing with zero flavor but all the Kenyan’s looooove it).  It was so inspiring to listen to these young girls who want to be scientists and are just so motivated and excited about learning, despite their long school days, while I sit in my three two-hour classes and get tired or bored (really, its only in environmental policy thatI get bored though).

my friend Shantel from the local secondary school. she braided my hair for me!

On Sunday, we had a Wildlife Ecology lecture off-site. We hiked up a hill and sat overlooking the beautiful landscape of Chyulu hills and mountains in the distance. It was hard to lose focus because it was so relaxing to just stare out and start daydreaming. The sounds of Africa are amazing too; you don’t really hear any cars or factories, but rather cow bells dinging as the livestock graze,  baby goats bleating, Maasai mamas shouting and little kids playing. The breeze is so fresh and the sun so perfectly warm. If I could bottle up the sound to revisit at a later date, I would. I already know I will miss this when I’m back in the city surrounded by cars and busy people and buildings. Everyone here waves and says hello or comes to shake your hand, and I know I will miss that genuine kindness when we get back to the states.  

I've said it before and I'll say it again....I am obsessed with the trees here!

Monday was a non-program day (despite the fact they scheduled one class from 8-9 in the morning—we’re all already beginning to dread our Environmental Policy class…thank god there’s only a few classroom lectures left). I spent the rest of the morning working on our first assignment: for Wildlife Ecology we have to make two behavioral observations and do a write up for each.  We also had a very brief Swahili assignment of writing a short story. Learning a new language is way harder than I thought, especially one so drastically different from English and Spanish.  I started learning Spanish in kindergarten so it has always came so naturally to me…needless to say, attempting to learn (and RETAIN) Swahili is frustrating.  It is a very cool language though! Hopefully I’ll start catching on soon -- especially considering we have a “home-stay” with a Maasai family on Friday! It's not a traditional sleep-over home stay, but rather a day-long experience where we get to learn about and participate in their daily activities such as cooking, fetching water and slapping cow dung on the boma.  Hopefully they know enough English to make it not too awkward (or whoever else I’m with knows more Swahili than I do?)

On Monday afternoon, we went to the local Mbirikani clinic to donate blood! Last week we agreed as a group that we wanted to donate blood at this local clinic that's about 30 minutes away. The reason being, our friend (and my banda-mate) Taylor got extremely sick that day we went to Amboseli (remember when I said I had acute sun poisoning? She had legit sun poisoning, and had a reaction to her malaria meds along with respiratory problems) and ended up having to be taken to the clinic because she was not in good shape.  She's actually currently having some complications so we are praying for her to get better soon! Anyways, when she got back, she spoke so highly of this amazing clinic that our SAM, Tara, had also told us about during orientation (it is where anyone would be taken in the event of needing medical attention). The Mbirikani clinic is fully funded by a woman from Chicago and is absolutely amazing. All the workers are trained in the US and their services are completely free to everyone.  One of their main focuses is diagnosing, treating and providing counseling for HIV/AIDS patients.  They also offer basically ever service under the sun….did I mention it’s all free?

Tara is very close with the doctors there, and we were given a behind the scenes tour of the facilities while we waited for the line of patients to be taken care of.  Then 23 of our 27 students got our vitals taken, blood tests and donated blood! This was a huuuuge step for me (if you didn’t already know, I’m absolutely terrified of needles) but I refused to let this selfish excuse prevent me from giving back to the community. (Side note to my parents and any other concerned folks: this clinic was very clean and followed all standard protocols). I am O+ (universal donor—woot woot!!!) so I can be happy knowing that made a difference and saved someone’s life today!! I like to think of it as a reverse souvenir. I was nervous beforehand but only let a few tears roll--which is great progress from when I got my 6 pre-travel shots at the UST Health Clinic.  This was my first time donating blood so I wasn’t surprised that I was super lightheaded and practically passed out afterwards, but the amazing staff took great care of myself and the many other students who were faint after donating blood in the Kenyan heat.  My fellow students were also beyond caring and it was an overall awesome experience.

This afternoon we went to the primary school for our first Community Service Day! I will write more about that next time and try to do a "Day in the Life" of me post for those of you who have been asking what I do each day and what we are eating, etc.! 

Much love from Kenya!