Dear Lonley Planet Travel Guide (or, The Charm of this Continent)

Dear Lonley Planet Travel Guide,

In your Kenya Edition on your travel guides, you point unsuspecting travelers to climb Mt. Kilimambogo and promise them that, after the 9km hike, they will experience "amazing 360-degree panoramic views" that are surely not to be missed. You also note that the the flora and fauna (including numerous buffalo) are incredible and not to be missed.

I would like to propose you change this entry to read as follows:

"The 9km hike will lead you to an incredible, breathtaking 360-degree view of cell phone satellite towers surrounded by shrubbery, including numerous grasses and ferns. This amazing view is only accentuated by the humming of the electric generators and the trash heaps at the top of the mountain. The wildlife is stunning, as you will see many moths, butterflies, and ants."

Yours sincerely,
Emily Tanner

....No but really. We paid Ksh2,100 (which, though not a lot in American money, is quite expensive...more than it cost to purchase my cell phone) to enter and hike this park (in total, 18km round trip!) and convinced ourselves that the view would make the overwhelming hike bearable.... it was all we could do to not burst out laughing at the top! As Anna, one of the volunteers, said "That is the charm of this continent." I could not have said it better....nothing is as you expect, and thus everything is expected and you cannot be surprised by disappointments or frustrations or anything that happens. An email from my mother - and the many comments on the last post - made me aware that I may have sounded negative in the last post...it was not my intention, as I tried to say that I am trying to stay positive and learning a lot in this trip thus far - I expect the bad things and the frustrating things and have learned to laugh at them and expect them. Its not "bad" - it is simply very very different. The views from the middle of the hike (about 4km up) are incredible and the guide told us - on the way DOWN of course - that this is the best view in the park...we just laughed and laughed.

Monday, resting from the journey, I did kitchen work and hung out around WWB. Tuesday morning I started doing some work with the WWB microsavings project. They have a pretty cool project here - women in surrounding villages each contribute ksh70 per week, which totals to 3640 per year, after which they are awarded 10% interest to make their savings total ksh4000. Once they reach this total they can get a loan for ksh4000 and use it to begin a business - buy a cow or goats or basketweaving supplies, etc. They have a year to pay the loan without interest, after which their balance incurs 10% interest. They have no set due date, however, and if they become inactive with their saving, they can come back at any time to reclaim it. I have yet to find a really helpful way to jump into improving this project so for the time being I am working on organizing the filing. All records are handwritten on notebook paper, and it is difficult to tell which accounts are closed and which are open. Imagine a bank keeping its records of savings and loans on sheets of notebook paper, written by hand, in one binder, and accessible to anyone who works at the bank. So I am making forms to print that have a space for the name, village, date, saver number, and just a lot of other such information, so they can fill them out but in a more organized fashion. I will have to buy tabs and file folders and all the office supplies but I think I can make the filing system better. Working in offices has finally paid off I guess.

Tuesday - yesterday - was Kenyan Independence Day or something like that (I expected them to have some sort of lesson or remembrance of the holiday but they did not....so I will have to look it up what its all about). The kids stayed home from school so we had planned a sort of "game day" for them, but Zach, the orphanage manager, instead had them doing some work and chores to help out. The kids here work SO HARD and they are never complaining about it....their average day is to get up and go to school (all that are older than primary school are leaving by around 6 I think) and they stay until 4 or later. They return and do housework or chores, or have about an hour or so, until 6:30, of free time. At 6:30 they have night classes or do homework until 8pm, and then dinner, prayers and bedtime. The elder children help the younger ones the whole time. It is quite sad to see how little playtime they have.

So yesterday after they did chores in the morning, we brought out beads and string and made bracelets and necklaces, then played hide and seek. Then they did more chores and had dinner. It was a far cry from a "day off" but they certainly enjoyed the bracelets and the game.

The kids rarely have the means to go to the doctor and get a checkup, so each of the volunteers pitched in Ksh1,000 to send all of them to get a general checkup, HIV test and stool sample. Today we took the 9 oldest children, which was a DISASTER! Scheduled to leave by 7:15, we finally had the children and their school bags together by around 7:50AM. Geoffrey had come by the night before to bring new volunteers and his large van was there so we were thinking he could drive us to save time. So getting permission took another 10 minutes, all the while we keep losing the kids as they don't want to go to the doctor. Finally we get into the car and realize it has a flat tire. So we all pile out, change the tire, and begin piling back in. Then we realize the car won't start. Remember now we have 9 children that are arguing, pulling away, running away and otherwise not listening....by the time we left (now walking) it was after 8:40. The charms of this continent..."on time" and "appointment" mean very little here.

The walk to the hospital was nice, as the older kids are less open and less likely to play with volunteers (they don't want to look like babies) so we got to get to know them a little more (and tease them about school crushes and such, they were so funny about it). When we got to the hospital, one of the oldest girls absolutely refused to get any tests and began to cry. Something about hospitals and her mother (remember, many of these kids are orphaned by HIV/AIDS) and we felt it better not to force her. The other kids lined up and one by one got blood drawn. The nurses do not wear gloves, there are sick people everywhere, and the whole hospital is sort of open air...there is nothing sterile about it. But that is what they have.

I am happy to report all the children are thus far HIV negative, which is a really wonderful thing, considering their parents. I have heard conflicting things about the HIV status of the children here, so we all make it a point to wear gloves even when just putting a band-aid on a kid...its a risk we do not even consider in the US but it makes one very nervous. So it is great to learn that at least these children are healthy. Tomorrow we take the younger ones - 24 of them - and it is going to be chaos. If this morning was difficult, I cannot imagine trying to get 24 children (aged 2-8) to get blood drawn...wish me luck please.

This weekend, myself, Morgan and Rory (another volunteer) plan to travel to Thika to take a weekend away from the orphanage. We are hoping to stay at the Blue Post Hotel which is a nice place and fun for travelers. I will be able to post again then - and perhaps maybe some pictures!

Thanks for reading and I hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of June :)