Kisumu na Kakamega Forest: hippos and treehouses!

After several more weeks with the kids doing much the same as previously, organising things for them, I decided I needed a bit of a break. Between Monday and Thursday this week I went on my first solo adventure when I travelled to Kisumu. I wanted to go here whilst I was still staying at the home, as it's in the opposite direction to where I intend to travel when I finally leave. So at about 9am I was sat on the shuttle and by 12.30 I had arrived. I got a taxi to my guesthouse as I was so disorientated on arrival but after that I had a whole afternoon the explore. There's not much of Lake Victoria to see from the centre of town, though I wandered down over the rusting railway tracks to have a little peek of the water. that evening I arranged for a boat trip out on to the lake. I spent the rest of the evening watching football with a character called Collins (as seems to be everyone, the local Tom or Jack-no abuse please toms or jacks...) He was telling me about names and tribes and the press, which was interesting.

By 6.30am the next morning I was leaving the hotel. I got my first ever motorbike taxi a mile or two up the road to where the boat was going from. I spent about an hour on the water, first looking at birds and seeing the sun come up, although it was a little cloudy, then we found a group of hippos grazing by the water's edge. There were about 4 females and 1 or 2 youngsters milling about peacefully. We kept a respectful distance but it was still a great thing to see and I got some nice pictures. This one was not the best one to pick but hey ho.



After this we pulled alongside a local fishing boat to see the catch and some of the indigenous fish. They had a quite a few including a HUGE lungfish still very much alive and breathing of course!



We headed back to the shore and I was back eating breakfast at 8.30. At 9.30 I had arrived at Kisumu museum. Not only did they have some interesting displays of tribal artifacts- fishing traps, headdresses and many more- they also had an example of a traditional Luo settlement (the local tribe) as well as poisonous snakes and two huge Nile Crocs in unfortunately small pools. It was on pretty, wooded grounds just out of town and a really lovely way to spend the morning.

As I wandered back towards town I came across a large market with locally produced souvenirs. Don't worry- I bought a few presents! Any demands for gifts to be directed to the facebook account:p! It was really nice to see but everyone wanted you to buy something from their stall and there were about 40 little wooden huts! I moved on again, this time to the rather upmarket Kiboko Bay Resort- It's an expensive hotel/camp type place right on the lake shore but nonresidents can use the pool and restaurant. After my meal the sun went in and with a view right out on to the open water just metres away there was a strong breeze coming off the water. I still went for a swim though. Not SO warm but quite funny to watch the Kenyan reaction to the crazy Mzungu girl swimming outdoors in the 'freezing' weather! After this i went back to the guesthouse and in the evening was taken to some local music. This was a scary outing and it poured but it was fun to see the boy racers in luridly painted matatus with neon lights to match the paintwork and loud music blasting down the streets.



The next morning I felt I had done all I needed to do and got a bike and a matatu to Kakamega town. The guidebook was pretty shady on how to access the forest and there was no map of Kakamega town which is really busy and untouristy like Eldoret. This was rather daunting and I almost came home, especially when I phoned up the lodge and the number was wrong, but eventually, after some food I pulled myself together and just took a chance on a particular place to go, getting a bike there, which took a long time, and my body ached trying to sit up over the bumps with my big backpack on. Luckily, it was the guy's local area and he took me right up to the door of the place I wanted to go, honked his horn, and one of the forest guides came ambling up the path to explain my options. I arrived at 2.30, by 3.30 I had set out on a short walk (2.5 hours) introducing the forest and some facts about it. It contains 400 species of butterfly and 7 monkeys, of which I was the 3 most common. The blue monkey, the black and white colobus and the aptly named red-tailed monkey which looks as though it might have been painted that way! It's also one of the only rain-forests at altitude. Where I stayed was 1400m above sea level, the top of the hill was 1770m.

My room was in a wooden hut on stilts looking right out at tree level. There was no electricity so I wrote my diary by the light of a kerosene lamp and got dressed the same way in the morning. By 7.30 I had set out on a 14km hill walk. After first winding through the forest trails in the dark and damp, the view from the grassy hill was incredible. The way was scattered with big black lumps of volcanic rock like giant milestones. Looking across the forest canopy, water vapour rose up through the trees betraying the winding path the river took through the trees. After a rest at the top of the hill we headed back by a different route. There is a small man made cave halfway down which was created by attempts at gold mining during the 1920s. Despite only being 70m long it was home to 2 species of bats, with a population of approximately 300. No matter how much i reminded myself how good their sonar is, it was hard not to duck as one went whistling past your ears, much as I like bats.





I arrived back about half 11 and my lift back into town arrived around 1,though requested at 12. Luckily though, I was sat outside waiting at 12 because all at once I heard a lot of rustling in the tree behind me. Right next to my room, a whole family of colobus monkeys poured out onto a bare-looking tree right in the open. I was able to watch them feeding and jumping for a long time. I'd seen a few in the forest but here were about 8 of them right under my nose. It was the perfect end to the trip.



I headed home via bike and then matatu. The matatu was a nightmare and stopped every few seconds to offload this or that and pick up people. I had a worrying moment halfway back, when what had been a packed bus was almost empty. We stopped by the roadside and the 'conductor' spoke to the guy from another bus. i heard the word 'mzungu.' The man leaned in laughing as said, 'you, we've done a trade, you're going with this guy!' Despite a few moments of worry, I arrived home very safely as we came into Eldoret right past the home, and I shouted 'stop, stop, hapa!' as we passed the bright blue and white dairy shutters. As I walked back up the drive, lots of the kids ran to meet me shouting 'Elena, elena!'(that's about how they pronounce it!) I'd really missed them all!

Next week I'm going to begin teaching at the school. It has a really good reputation nd the kids seem nice. Shall keep you posted on how that goes. 3 more weeks and then I'm off travelling. 6 weeks and I shall be home.

Love to all xxx

9th February

So I have been away for 4 weeks (yesterday). Missing people at home and also feeling like, although we are helping and working hard at the home, what is more needed is money than time or help and we can do nice things as we have been doing, making lines on the football pitch, painting, clearing out etc but it won't make a lot of difference if i stay 8 weeks or 10 especially when other volunteers are on their way. I have been reading up on where I want to go and realising that I don't want to rush my way around or spend most of my time traveling from A to B, so am considering taking 3 weeks to do my own thing. This weekend was really successful as the weather held. On Saturday I played a LOT of football and was embarrassingly outrun by 11 year olds but it was great fun, to be fair we played for nearly 2 hours non-stop. I have never played or watched so much football in my life. Kenyans LOVE football, as do my Dutch friends, and the sports channel is the easiest thing to switch on when we have some time to watch tv.

On the Sunday, as we had re-dug and filled the long jump pit we were able to hold a little Lewa athletics competition. We had 4 teams- the buffalo, elephant, lions and leopards, and they did a ball throw, long jump, 50m sprint and 400m run. The kids all had their faces painted with coloured stripes and everyone over 4 years old competed and had a great time. The Buffalo won and then kids from all the teams went on to the finals to win individual titles. They were REALLY great.



After this we played a hilarious game of catch with blindfolds and also performed a little drama/sketch show with several acts including one where Judith and I dressed up in their school uniforms to take the mickey out of the way some of the kids get dressed in the morning. She put everything on perfectly while I put everything on inside-out, back-to-front and in the wrong order. It went pretty well, and I think they understood most of it. The kids have since been doing impressions of me "this is how YOU put YOUR uniform on." They are really funny and ask great questions. They are also good pickpockets and I am still having to keep tracking down my watch, sunglasses, room key, hair bands and goodness knows what else.


In 2 weeks time we hope to have a talent show and I really want to do some dancing with some of the older girls. We have discovered that the boys are great at drumming and so will make shakers, drums from bins and pots and other instruments. Fingers crossed it will be as big a success as this weekend! We also hope to decorate a room in the building which will become a baby/indoor play room for when the weather turns. It's quite a project so hopefully we can get started asap, when Phyllis has time to help us get paint and other materials.

Would really like to hear from everyone at the moment, 4 weeks is feeling like a long time. Sending lots of love once again, El xxx

Post, the second.

Hello once again. I have been having a lovely day today as I am off once again, woke up without an alarm at about 7 and had a leisurely sorting out of my bedroom before breakfast and my washing. (Which took about 2 hours!) Have had a busy week with a team of 7 people from South Africa staying for a week, I moved rooms before we went away and have just moved back. It was nice to meet some new people and we had a little more help with the jobs that needed doing. It's very quiet now it's back to the usual little group. We have been painting a part of the kids' playground this week which was as yet unpainted, and it looks pretty cool now.




Thankfully these updates can be a little quicker now that I've got the first couple of crazy weeks out the way, I really appreciate that people let me know they had read the previous post even without pics :) We got a lift to town today on the back of the truck-type vehicle Phyllis drives which was lovely as it's so hot at the moment. Not such a beautiful picture but I think u get the feeling of it :)



Have been looking forward to getting on the internet all week now I've got my camera cable but I have to work out how to do everything and then the pictures are uploading v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y! Anyway, I think it will be a little while before the next excursion and I am having a good think about what I want to do at the end of the trip, I'm going to have to choose carefully as there's a lot to see and do.

Once again much love,

Ellie x

The story so far...

I finally arrived at Lewa Children's home near Eldoret at 11am on Wednesday 13th January 2010 having left my house and snow covered garden at 3pm on Monday 11th, over 40 hours earlier. By 3pm on my day of arrival I had been introduced to the babies (and even been weed on 3 times due to no warning about lack of money for nappies...) Some real nerves set in as I walked through check in at Heathrow- the 3 months loomed up like a lifetime- one of the rare moments when I dislike being alone- but once I was through I felt quite settled and prepared for a long wait. The flight left at 7pm, arriving 8 hours later at 6am local time. I emerged blinking into the sunlight having not slept more than 30 minutes, but successfully met my contact who helped me buy a sim card/credit and showed me where my flight up to Eldoret would leave at 4pm and the little cafe where I was supposedly going to wait for 8 hours until check in.

By 9.30 (2.5 hours and 2 cups of tea later) I was bored with my battered copy of Monday's times and felt more comfortable in my initially daunting new surroundings. A woman who had been sending off tours all morning came over to me for about the 3rd time and asked where and when I was flying. She explained that there was plenty of time for me to go on a private tour of the city and I could be brought back well in time for my flight. It would also mean for me that my heavy bags were locked safely in the boot of a car instead of being on my back or sat between my feet. In the end I paid only $45 for the 4 hour trip.

Firstly I was taken up to the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage inside Nairobi's National Park but the journey was at least as interesting as the place itself. The first sight I saw leaving Nairobi airport was the herd of giraffes right by the road side behind the 3 layers of fence which mark the edge of Nairobi's national park. A strange sight but I suppose it went well with the woman riding a push bike in the wrong direction around the first roundabout I came to and the people running across a busy 3 lane carriageway. Large cars, matatus, buses, minibuses, trucks and motorbikes weave in and out of one another. The airport is on a main road lined with large companies the majority of which were assciated with the car industry (although the cars on the road had mostly been reconditioned overseas).

The Elephants were to be found up steep winding mud tracks inside the Nairobi National Park. My sharp eyed driver ( a little ironic as he was also cross eyed) pointed out warthog, baboons and buffalo, not to mention a terrified squirrel crossing the road. Visiting time for the elephants (11-12am) was also feeding time and the young elephants (3 groups of gradually increasing size) jostled for milk and attention from the keepers who seemed to know each elephant both by name and by nature. One of the keepers who spoke was really worth listening to.

A few facts I gleaned for your interest:
The baby elephants are kept under close supervision at night in horse-like stables under large blankets because they are prone to pneumonia. This is almost impossible to treat in elephants because they cannot cough, their lungs being attached to their ribcage, thus no symptoms show until too late.
They are fed on formula milk as cows milk is too fatty. We were told with extreme seriousness that these particular creatures recieved "S-M-A Gold" which gave a few westerners a laugh.

Anyway after taking some lovely pictures I returned to the airport via 2 viewpoints (and some much needed lunch). The first point was over an iincredible expanse of slums. Liz Scott who I stayed with for the first night said they were caused mostly by young men coming to the city to find work and having been unable to do so, finding themselves unable to afford the flight home. The second point was in stark contrast, over a ceremonial park next to government buildings which seemed to have had a role in protest for freedom from colonial rule.

My flight to Eldoret left dead on time (amazingly I now come to think) and I was finally able to sleep for a few minutes. I was picked up by Paul Scott and had dinner with him and his wife, in which time I learned quite a bit about the country and the area. Driving back to the house through Eldoret was interesting as every other building had a sign proclaiming itself a school, college, polytechnic, university or other miscellaneous educational institution. I had a lovely long sleep and the next morning was taken up to Lewa. After my first afternoon of exploration and introduction I helped Phyllis ('mummy'/'MAH-MI' to the 100+ children) with dinner and sat dwn to eat with Joss, the Dutch farmer who has been there since 1993, a Japanese volunteer who teaches PE at the Kip Keino school which the primary age children attend) Phyllis, and one of the children who rarely leaves her side. We had bolognaise- not very Kenyan I suppose but lovely nonetheless. The day starts at 5.30 here and so some time was needed to adjust tot he new timescale, temperature and altitude. this was done within 3/4 days with only 1 dizzy spell and a few afternoon naps!

The day after my arrival a Dutch couple arrived. They are both in their early twenties and speak excellent English, and we have since spent much time together. The 3 of us arrived and will leave at about the same time- really useful as we all had similar questions to be answered. It seemed much more necessary to provide breakfast and explanations for Swahili for 3 rather than just 1. Phyllis asked that we help at the busiest times- mornings and weekends- but otherwise could make our own schedule. So far an average weekday is as follows:
5.45 Wake up
6.10 quick cup of tea and then helping about 30 older children dress for school washing, moisturising and dressing the small children. (Toddlers- about 25 between 2 and 4 years old!)
7.15 Walk children to school
8.15 breakfast and prepare for the rest of the day
8.45-2pm Aside from a quick tea break this time is spent on activities with the oldest pre-schoolers and helping with chores around the farm, such as raking, weeding, picking seeds and on one occasion putting cheese in a bath...
4-6pm Homework help and entertaining all the children until dinner time.
After this we help with dinner and when we sit down to eat the day is pretty much over. Bedtime is usually at 9.30 ready to start over again 8 hours later.

Working with the pre-schoolers is difficult as myself and the other volunteers have much mor experience with the 5-15 age group. These children speak almost no English and try and talk t you a lot in Swahili- especially when they are crying (which is frequently). This makes it much harder to understand or solve the problem. They also have no concept of sharing which makes games difficult and even when colouring in the instinct is just to hoard as many crayons as possible rather than to colour (very understandable in their circumstances but frustrating for us). We are however making progress and getting some good things out of them. Thee is a lot of crying on the way but it will make everybody's life better in the end.

On Thursday (21st Jan) We had our first day off and first 'adventure' with the Matatus. The lady on the gate helped us to stop one and pay and a stereotypically packed bus with loud music and stickers pulled over. Judith (the Dutch girl) sat the whole way on my lap with her partner Rob behind us. We overtook almost everything as is the norm and the driving was almost as sketchy as it was on the way home but it was quite a laugh this way. Getting off at the matatu stand was not so nice as we were not expecting to be surounded by crowds of men shouting "sister, sister, mzungu, where are you going? Nairobi? Nakuru?" Once in town we paid about 50 Kenyan Shillings (about 40p!) for an hour and a half online and had a large coke, chips and beef burger in a friendly cafe recommended by our Lost Planet guide books (thank you Julie) for the equivalent of 2 pounds 50. This was mostly an uncomfortable first day in town as we looked very pale and lost but we have been twice since this time and thankfully felt much better.

Friday was lovely as there was a brilliant breakfast laid on for visitors, after which we were invited to attend a Thanksgiving day presentation at the school where we were able to watch the children singing, dancing and reciting poems. There were awards for good exam results and a nice lunch to follow. There was originally the suggestion that I would be assistant teaching but it seems the need is greater at Lewa- bad news for all my smart shirts! Hopefully though, at some point we will all be able to visit for at least a day; we also want to go to the dairy.
As most of the children at the home are boarders we have only those under 13 to look after at the home. Aside from the 30 aged 5-13 and the 25 toddlers there are 10 babies- lots more little ones than he home usually had. Many of the children were simply found abandoned as babies but there are of curse lots of other horror stories.
The kids find Judith's and my 'long' blondish hair fascinating, as all the children at the home have their heads shaved periodically and the women working there have it short and/or braided. They also love being picked up, carried, thrown in the air, racing you and generally anything which requires lots of energy. The kids all want to be picked up, hold your hand or sit on you and don't seem to understand that you have only two hands and not enough space for 30 people on your lap! I've even got used to not wearing mascara- I put some on after a couple of weeks and it looked strange, despite wearing it every day for the 2 years previous.

Anyway- after only taking one day off in 2 weeks or so, and having several South African volunteers staying for a week Myself, Judith and Rob felt okay to take a few days out. After dressing everyone yesterday morning (Thursday 28th Jan) we took a coach to Nakuru to visit the lake and put up in a 'hotel.' We had a lovely meal that evening and managed to arrange a safari in the National Park. We were up early and set out in a jeep with our driver at 6.30. We had 6 hours in the park and it was simply amazing, we were very lucky seeing lots of impala, buffalo and baboons, colobus monkeys, zebra and even rhinos and a leopard! You can see herW.e how close all of this was. Just WOW.

These are some of the famous flamingos, even though there are hardly any compared to usual due to low water levels, which makes that salt concentration too high for them to feed >>

We have all rediscovered why we came on this trip, especially as Nakuru is a friendly relaxed town compared to the 'untouristy' Eldoret in which we ourselves seem to be the main attraction. W have had lots of time to relax, to go online, to eat out. It would be nice to get a bus a little later tomorrow (we will probably leave at 11) as there is somewhere I would like to visit, but even if this is not the case, today could hardly have been better. I can't even begin to describe the park, you will have to wait for the photos!

Here's one from 'Baboon Cliff'

Happy Birthday Mum! Wish I could be there... well, I wish you could be here really!

Much love to all. Missing you already. Keep in touch x