still interested?

Now that it has been a full 6 months since I returned from Kenya, I have realized that there are several people who have asked me about my posts.  And as I read over them, I say, hey, I'm not such a bad writer!  I am committed in my time at home (ha ha ha) this summer, I am going to work on updating my blog with the stories of the time I spent at the hotel before I left Kenya.  I am also working on editing the movie that I took while there.  By the end of the summer, I should have a finished piece of work regarding the movie and I would love to share it with anyone who wants to watch it.  I am also going to continue efforts to raise money for the Walk Children's Center.  So far, my students and I have raised over $1000 for the center.  If you have neat and interesting ideas about how to raise money for my kids over there, please let me know!

Another interesting thing. . .I was contacted by a writer of SmartMoney magazine who is doing an article on "volunteer vacations."  She interviewed me, that has been a few months ago, but last I contacted her she was still gathering research. . .so stay tuned I'll let you know if I get quoted.  I did not speak well of i-to-i (the volunteer organization that I used) in that interview,  because I was very upset about some issues that I feel that could have handled better.  Like the fact that they called my mother before they called me when they cancelled my project for my safety.  My mom, thousands of miles away, could only worry about me at that point.  Not cool to me.  I also have been in a bit of a battle about getting some of my money back, but that's another story.  I am appreciative of the way that they made my first trip to Africa feel safe and planned.  I couldn't have made the trip without that security.  I mean going to a foreign country by yourself is quite scary!  even when you're 30!  I am a little nervous about the article since I have been reading recently that the writer doing the story was called on the carpet pretty harshly about how she took a story out of context about affiliate marketing.  We'll see how well she represents me and my words.

You will notice that I have included some pictures from my safari trip in Kenya as well as a picture of the Walk Children's Center and my friend Luke with a couple of the kids.  If you would like to see more pictures, just shoot me an email (toniw@alumni.duke.edu) and I will send you an invitation to my photos on Picasa.  Most of my pictures are also posted on facebook.

So. . .yeah I've been saying it for 6 months. . .but here it goes again.  STAY TUNED for more posts about this amazing adventure that changed my life in more ways than I can ever measure.

~t

I went to Kenya?

So I am in disbelief that I have been back from Kenya for 3 months. It is crazy to me to think that I spent that time half way around the world. It feels a bit like a dream. I said that I would come home and write about the last few days of my trip and add the journal entries that I wrote when I was away from the computer, well. . .I got back to the states and life took off! I still want to come back to these posts and update them. In the meantime, I have started inquiring about another trip to the motherland. This time to Tanzania. My family is not to crazy about the idea, but one thing I can say is I am convinced that I am not "through" with Africa. I don't know if I will ever be, but the circumstances of my time there in December have made it so that I feel extremely unfinished. I got work to do.

still tuned in. . .

Well, I'm not in Africa anymore. I am at my mom's house where I am enjoying the speediness of dial up! It is good to be home. It is good to be with the people that I love. I have so much to write about. I was away from a computer for much of the time after we were taken to the "safe house" following the post election violence. As a result, I wrote in my journal rather than on my blog. At some point this week I will transfer those experiences to this blog so I can have everything in one place, so stay tuned!

Just wanted everyone to know that there is more to come about this Kenya story and when I get home, I will also post pictures!

Thanks for all of your well wishes and prayers. I am home. I am safe. Now, please remember to pray for the people of Kenya. I have been quite surprised since I made it home at how hard it is to find news about Kenya on TV. I finally realized why. . .there seems to be good news which is not too good for ratings. It seems that the opposition party have called off the rallying and are looking to have some peace talks with the government. They are still in dispute about whether or not they need a mediator for those talks, but it looks promising and life seems to be getting back to normal. Of course there is still lots to clean up, but things are looking up.

more to come.

election results

So Happy New Year everyone! I do have to brag and say that I made it to the New Year before most of you that are reading this. It was quite an eventful new year. In my last post, if you remember I complained about boredom. Well, things heated up right after I posted that. My friend that was in the internet cafe with me decided to head home without the rest of us. About 2 minutes after she left she came running back in saying she was told to "find a safe place." It turns out the people were starting to fight in the streets due to impatience awaiting the election results. Things heated up from there, by the time we headed home the streets were almost deserted except for the street kids. The next few days almost everything stayed shut throughout all of the town (and I thought I couldn't get any more bored, now we couldn't go anywhere!). All throughout Kenya you have probably heard about the violence. The media's job is to make the world scared. It actually is not as bad as they make it out to be in most of Kenya. However, because the volunteer program that I am working with is based in the UK they heard all of the bad news and ordered all of the volunteers to Nairobi in case they needed to quickly get us on a flight home. So, I'm here. Right outside of Nairobi where the volunteer organization wants me to play the "waiting" game to see if things change. I've been trying to book a flight because I am not good at waiting. It is going to cost me around $600 to leave early. Don't know if I'm going to do it or not. Those of you reading this, don't worry about me. I don't feel as if I am in any danger here. The media has hyped this thing up too much. I just don't want to be here if I can't do what I came here to do. My safari was cancelled, the school where I was meant to volunteer has been closed. I don't want to sound as if this trip is a "wash" it has totally been an amazing and wonderful experience, I just don't understand why I need to stay if I am going to be sitting in a hotel room for a week! Anyway, keep your fingers crossed that I figure out what to do soon. In the meantime, I can't call home because there aren't many places to buy minutes for your phone. I've used all of mine on the phone with the airline. I am hoping that they will call me back. I can't even send text messages. If you want to contact me, then you will have to call me. a little frustrated now, hoping with all my heart that the next time I write to you there will be some resolution to my situation here. Keep your fingers crossed.

~t

Boredom

It can get to be quite boring around here believe it or not. Mary Deborah, remember we were going to make sure I had sudoku books and Diversity Committee I should have brought that work to do. Because things are kinda in shut down mode until the election results happen there is not much to do in Nakuru. The Children's Center that I came to help has been closed since Monday and will stay that way until after new years. I have done a day trip up to Lake Navaisha which was an adventure and quite enjoyable, but financially, I can't really afford $50 trips everyday. So we sit around the house and listen to my ipod. Yesterday we bought some video cassettes (my house has no DVD player) from the Supermarket. My roommate Luke had the brilliant idea of ordering Pizza and drinking beer while watching our movies. Well, every Kenyan in our house is glued to the TV screen watching election results (it feels like the Gore/Bush campaign of 2000) the way the results are trickling in. I totally understand why they want to be watching that, but I have to say that we were disappointed that we weren't going to watch our movie, but hey, we still had Pizza coming, right. . .nope. Wrong again. The Pizza place closed at 8pm and we didn't call until 8:30. So no Pizza. And since I hate beer. . .I didn't have that. I thought at least I could be happy for my roommate who would get to enjoy his beer. Well, he had put the beer in a plastic flask and stuck it in the refrigerator to get cold. By the time he drank it he said that it tasted like throw up. We ended up going to sleep around 9:30 after listening to Dixie Chicks, Traveling Soldier about 200 times and oh yeah we threw in the Nickelbeck song, Are We Having Fun Yet?

I always brag that I don't really know what boredom is because I can always find something to do. . .well, after being here this week, I will never say that again.

Election Day

So today is election day in Kenya. I have found out that this means everything is shut down. The grocery stores, the shops on the street. Everything except the hotel that we spend our free time in and the internet cafe. Even my trip to the Masai Mara has been postponed until next week due to the elections. I was quite upset about it. But apparently, since they haven't had many elections here (They had the same president before this one for 24 years!) It is a HUGE ordeal. People need the time to wait in long lines. However, before I leave here in a couple of weeks (as a matter of fact in the next couple of days) they might have a new president. There has been some fighting and rioting in Nairobi, the capital city. I am about 3 hours from that. They are hopeful that the election results will be peaceful and if not, I am hoping that things will have calmed down by the time I leave in 2 weeks since I have to fly out of Nairobi. Those of you who pray, pray for a peaceful government in Kenya. It has been quite interesting to hear about Kenyan politics while I have been here. There has been campaigning in the streets. Even up where I live, which is mostly farming and slums. There are posters and hats and signs everywhere.

Kenya has many political parities, but some of them get together so that they end up having 2 major candidates much like we do in the states. The race is between the incumbent president Kibaki and another guy whose name is escaping me right now, but his party is the ODM party and it uses an Orange as its symbol. Being one who loves politics. . . it is quite neat to see how it operates in a different country. Everyone on the street has their view as to who they think the president should be. Personally, I am hoping that Kibaki is reinstated. He has been president for 5 years, and under his leadership he has made primary education free (if you can afford the school uniform). He wants to work on secondary education (high school) in his next term. Of course the other candidate is saying the same thing, but Kibaki has proved that he can do it. I think most of the problems in Kenya will be made better with a better education system.

Election day. . .Yet another side to Kenya. I am so lucky to be experiencing this trip even if I am dying to have a cookout burger and milkshake :)

Raise the Roof

This entry will be about my first Safari which I went on this past weekend. I wanted to wait until after my second safari which I will go on this weekend because it's supposed to be even better. However, I can't wait. So I'll write about the first one and then after this weekend I'll write about the next one.

On Saturday a little van picked me an my roommates up at 7AM. We headed to Lake Nakuru National Park which is only about 5 minutes from my homestay. As a matter of fact, since we are on a hill at my homestay, we can see the lake from the house. We paid $40 US dollars which I thought was a bit high for the park admission, but had been told it would be worth my money. And boy, was it. When we got into the park, the van driver told us that he was going to "Raise the Roof." You probably have seen pictures of little vans with raised roofs taking safaris. What an experience! First we saw baboons, then White Rhinos, and then thousands upon thousands of flamingos. They were beautiful! I wish that this computer cafe would let me download pictures, maybe one day I will find the one downtown that will, otherwise you will have to wait until January to see the gorgeous pictures. Unfortunately, I don't think that pictures will do this park or our adventures of that day any justice. There were zebras grazing within feet of our car. And buffalo. My new favorite animal is the giraffe. We only saw one of them, but boy was he beautiful. I also liked the Black Rhino. Black Rhinos like to hide in the bush. We were lucky to see one. I spotted it before anyone else. When he noticed our van he took off proving that just because you are big doesn't mean you can't be fast. Some people in the van didn't even get to see it he was so fast. Later we saw a dead buffalo. Our driver told us to pay close attention, because the lioness who had killed him was bound to be around. And what did we see underneath a tree waiting for the lion to come. . . you guessed it. . . a lioness!!! Our driver said that we were quite lucky because most of the time tourists don't get to see the lions at Nakuru. The tour lasted for about 3 hours. We parked and got out on top of a cliff with breathtaking views. We took pictures of rare birds, an eagle, a baby white rhino. . .It was amazing and well worth the time and the 40 bucks. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any Hippos. Even after going to the hippo pond and singing, "I want a Hippopatamus for Christmas." The hippos wouldn't emerge from the water. . .too hot for them.

Later that day the fun didn't stop. We drove up to the Menengai Crater. BREATHTAKING!! and then we went to Thomson Water falls where there was a wedding taking place near the falls. Lastly we stopped by this place called the Equator. Yeah, you guessed it, the real thing. There was a guy there who did a water demonstration which showed how water flows in opposite directions if you are above the equator or below the equator. It was quite fascinating.

So this weekend I am doing the ultimate Kenyan Safari. Me and one of the people on the project are going to the Masai Mara! We are so excited. It is a 3 day safari. We are supposed to be able to see ALL of the Big 5 on this trip! (I wonder if my Swahili class can remember what they are!). I will take lots of photos and video!!!!! And of course I'll write here about it.