Tourists

We’ve had our first visitors! My father and his good friend stayed for 11 days, and finally we had an excuse to see more of this beautiful country. We travelled to Lake Nakuru National Park, spent a great day there and saw an incredible amount of wild animals. Lion, leopard, zebras, buffalos, baboons, warthogs, ostriches, rhinos, flamingos (this is the lake that is world famous for its hundreds of thousands of flamingo that usually live along the shore), and at least four different types of antelopes as well as birds with names I don’t know. Truly an amazing experience to get this close to wild animals without any fence but our car between us and them.

In addition to seeing wild animals, we drove up the sandiest, dustiest road I’ve ever driven to get to Menengai crater, a huge, volcanic crater. Maybe it was the sand and dust in our eyes, clothes, mouths and car that made the following decision for us, ‘cause when we reached our next stop, Lake Baringo, none of us wanted to leave after only one night to get back in the car. And even without the sand it wouldn't have been diffucult to make us stay longer: In Baringo, we found the most wonderful place I’ve ever seen In Kenya: An island in the lake, and a tented camp on it. Great service, all meals included and panoramic view of the sunrise from our beds. No cars or donkeys (or even music!) on the island=silence! Only birds were heard except human voices. Amazing.

The pictures show, besides wild animals, my father jumping across the equator line, my father and Odd Kristian outside their tent/hut on Island Camp; George, Inga, Odd Kristian and me in Nakuru National Park; a bird next to our breakfast table on Island Camp; me, Odd Kristian and my father by the pool (the brownish water in the background is Lake Baringo); the sunrise seen from my bed in the tent.

A typical Kenyan home

This is the home of Ruben, his wife and five children, they live in a typical home in a Kenyan village. The main building (only shown from the inside here) is where they sleep and have visitors - and it is common to decorate the walls with newspaper. Both for isolation and just to make it look nice. The building of clay is the kitchen where they store food and utensils and have a fireplace. The last building is a storage room for maize, and in the "basement" is where the goats stay during the night.

Ballgames

This week the two schools that Ingeborg and I work at competed against each other in a number of ballgames. It started in the morning and didn't finish until late in the afternoon. They played football, netball, handball and volleyball, boys and girls on seperate teams. Extremely hot outside, I was happy I was not the one who had to run around the field for hours.

Dance!

Finally, we found a place to go dancing in Kisumu! It really doesn't matter that the songs they play were popular in Norway 12 years ago, or the fact that the majority of the girls going there are prostitutes - the atmosphere is still great. The girls on the picture are not prostitutes however - they are two sisters who went shopping at the supermarket for their mother, and stopped by to dance on their way home. The third sister is taking the picture.

International Women's day!

For the first time in my life I actually celebrated March 8th properly. I attended two meetings and held a speech at one of them! The first meeting was held at school and was for the girls in class 6, 7 and 8. That was the one I spoke at. Shouldn't really brag too much about that, wasn't excactly a speech to remember, but I did it! The second one was for all the women in the village, and many men attended also. Quite ironic, however, that all the speakers at the women's meeting were men. And when half the crowd was asked to leave their seats in order to give room for some visitors (also men!), only women were asked to go and sit on the grass. The men remained in their seats. Didn't take any pictures yesterday, so you just have to imagine the scenery. In Norway, women fight for equal rights for equal work. In Kenya, their main concern is the many rapes that happen to girls and women each year. Since 1997, more than 20000 rapes have been reported in Kenya. And as a nespaper states, "that is just the tip of the iceberg". The good thing is, that there is a lot of talk about it, and even in my school the girls are taught what to do and where to go if they are raped. The horrible thing is that to them, being raped is much more likely to happen than to girls in Norway.

The land of tea

We are in the land of tea. Everywhere you go or walk around our village, you come across tea plantations, smaller ones and really big ones. This week we had the opportunity to visit the nearby tea factory and see the entire process from start to finish. We also had the chance to ask any questions we wanted to, and they were happy to answer us. The factory is owned by the many tea farmers in the area, and they elect a board of eight members who make all major decisions concerning the production. The farmers also share the profit made each year between them, and the whole process seemed very democratic. From top left and going clockwise in the picture: 1: The fresh tea leaves are brought to the factory every day in large bag, each containing 10-12 kg og tea leaves. 2: Me, Joyce and the supervisor. The tea leaves are spread out to dry for 16 hours, in order to remove some of the moisture inside the leaves. 3: Crushing the tea leaves several times, to activate some chemicals that is already inside the tea which will make the tea taste as tea later. Nothing is added. 4: The tea is left for 1,5 hours and during that time it changes colour from green to brown. This is because of the chemicals in the tea. 5: The tea is dried inside a big heater to stop the process of maturing, if that is the right word. It is quite similar to wine I suppose. 6: The tea is "washed", they called it. Cleaning it might be another word for it. 7: The tea is sorted into different qualities, depending on how fine it is or how clean. This is tea ready to be put in water 8: The manager, our driver, our coordinator, me and our factory guide outside the building. 9: A great cup of tea!