Jambo to all. I do believe I last left off in Nairobi and a whole lot has happened since, let me tell you (prepare yourself for the book that’s about to follow).
Started off by meeting the group at the airport, a bunch of fun people so it’s going to be a good semester for sure, and then loading up everyone into four extra large land cruisers for a four-hour drive to the Kilimanjaro Base Camp. The rules of the road that I’m pretty sure I described in my Nairobi post applied to this highway…in the sense that there were really no rules. People passing left and right, goats in the middle of a three lane pass, random police road spikes (that had nails about 6 inches long mind you), yeah it was a fun ride. At one point our driver (who happens to be the mechanic here) decided to pass on truck and as he moved over this massive 18 wheeler thing came rumbling around a curve straight at us…a quick acceleration and a swift slide squeezed between aforementioned truck and a van in front saved us from certain catastrophe.
However, the terror of the highway (named Mombasa Highway, look it up…the facts are scary) was offset by the chance to view the country and even some wildlife. Giraffes were particularly abundant, as well as zebra, ostrich, goats, cattle, monkeys (which happen to run all over the camp), and even a puppy. I took many pictures but unfortunately due to the poor bandwidth here I can’t upload them to facebook…
So here I am, at my home for the next month and a half. Let me tell you, this place is excellent to the fullest sense of the word. I mean, I wake up with a perfect view of Kilimanjaro through my bandha window (a bandha is a small 4 person cabin with a thatched roof) but as great as that is, it hardly compares to the nights here. The stars are so vivid and plentiful, it’s impossible to not see the Milky Way, and the sounds of everything around really flares up the ole imagination as to what could possibly be the source. So far we’ve had orientation (will tell later), many introductions to the staff, a pick up soccer game with the staff, and a trip into the nearby town for market day.
Based on my experience with Nairobi market I was somewhat dreading another exposure without any knowledge in Swahili, but it turned out much different than prior. Because I wasn’t the only foreigner I wasn’t singled out and hounded like before and also the community knew we were students so instead of trying to sell us everything they actually talked to us and made us feel welcome. I actually teamed up with a new friend named Lee (she had taken a Kiswahili course last semester=golden) and we navigated our way around trying to detach ourselves from the SFS group caravan. Eventually we did and rather enjoyed ourselves. There was this one guy that I was particularly impressed by (unfortunately we were advised against bringing our cameras otherwise I’d have multiple of him) because he was walking around carrying what he was trying to sell. I realize this doesn’t sound too impressive, but this guy must have had roughly 80 items to sell and they were dangling from his arms, balanced on his shoulders, strapped to his legs, you name it…but what I loved was that this guy had about 20 different types of hats all balanced on top of his head as he wove his way through the throngs of people. Yeah, the Mad Hatter (as I’ve dubbed him) was quite a sight.
As for the title of the blog, the mothers at the market were absolutely determined to sell you anything beaded that they had made. And if you caved into one then twenty would swarm to get you to buy something else. They learned pretty quick that I wasn't going to buy (sign language is key in these circumstances) but I rather enjoyed myself watching a colleague struggle to run away from a pack of 10 constantly around him. He literally was running out of room to hold things because he kept buying hahaha. I may have even sent one or two mama's his way when they came up trying to sell to me...but mum's the word on that (not exactly kind of me but it was quite entertaining).
Alright, I’ve saved the best for last. Orientation, or in other words, what can kill you here and what to do in case you ever have to deal with these situations. The infectious diseases and parasites were really interesting (especially the descriptive tale of Salmonella from the evil cookie dough) but I must say the snake section stole the show. Black mambas, Green mambas, Egyptian cobras, Red spitting cobras…I can’t remember any of the others. Yeah...some good stories accompanied these guys too, like the Black Mamba that found it’s way into one student’s sleeping bag or the Red spitting cobra that dropped from the ceiling of the bathroom almost on top of a staff member that had just dropped trough. Yup. Let your imagination’s run with that.
Like I’ve said, the internet can’t really support uploading pictures so I’ll have to save them until I’m back (or somewhere with a more reliable location). There was plenty more that happened in these past two days…I’ve only alighted the better parts. Tomorrow we start our classes, which will be weird because it doesn’t feel like any classroom setting…ever. Focusing will be difficult. More to come later.
bird
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