Coming Soon...

With only a week to go in East Africa, there are three posts that remain to be written: a post on my final project, an Ultimate Frisbee tournament this Saturday between all the teams a friend Olle and I have organized in the area (over 120 participants!), a final reflection on working in Kibera, and a reflection on my time in East Africa. These will come later next week, when hopefully I’ll have time between shopping and packing, the main priorities before getting on the plane on Tuesday.

Until then, enjoy the updated blog!

Rafting the Nile

My final desired trip before I left East Africa was to go white-water rafting on the Nile River. In the first weekend of November, Aron and I jumped a bus for Jinja, Uganda; met up with our friend Tara at the bus stop on the other side, and met our friend Sarah who was in the area for business at the adventure office.

View from campsite

Through Nile River Explorers, for $125 (the most I’ve ever spent in a single weekend) you get three meals, housing for a night, and not to mention a full day of rafting on the Nile River.

And not just any rafting. During the course we were on for the day, we hit twelve grade four and five rapids, the largest you can legally go down. The four of us, plus two more Americans who filled our boat and our guide, flipped over three out of the twelve rapids, and I managed to fall out an additional two times.

When we were done rafting for the day, we were taken to the backpackers campsite on the mouth of the river for dinner and drinks. The place was filled with fellow rafters and campers who simply enjoyed the extremely affordable lodging. The evening was spent playing cards and sharing stories with many newly made friends. At 9:00 pm they showed a slideshow of pictures of the days events, and then a collection of video footage the company took as well. It was a lot of fun to watch our boat take its spill, over and over again.

Sunday we took our time waking up and heading out of camp. We took a cab the 10 kilometer walk to town, where we left our bags at the adventure office and then walked around Jijna, a quaint old colonial town with beautiful architecture and friendly people. After lunch, Sarah headed back to work and Tara and Aron headed to the airport to catch their flight home, so while I waited for my bus, I walked down to Lake Victoria, just to say I saw it.

Around 6:00 pm my bus came around, and arrived back in Nairobi at 5:00 am. I headed back to the house and got some sleep before being at the office at 9:00 for my last week of work.

Lake Victoria and old Colonial house

Nairobi Halloween

My expectations for the holiday were not high- considering I was on a continent that didn’t acknowledge the holiday, not to mention the American culture tied to it. That, of course, didn’t stop me from enjoying every minute of it.

A great benefit of working in Africa’s largest slum is having Africa’s largest second hand market at my fingertips. Never has costume shopping been so much fun.

I decided on Velma, the clever mystery solver of the Scooby-Doo gang, before diving between the stall aisles because the simplicity of her outfit combined with the global acknowledgement of the character. Within twenty minutes I had five different orange “full-necks” (turtle-neck) to choose from, and finally decided on the one I had been able to bargain down the most. I bought the second red skirt I found and a pair of red socks. With my lense-less GPB sunglasses and my hair “cropped” short, I was ready for the night.

We began at Josh’s house, where he and his roommates hosted a Halloween pre-game. Although a fun time, I was disappointed with the costume turnout: only about 20 of the 50 attendees dressed up, an unexpected minority. Most of the night was spent making small talk about life in Kenya with the collection of young expat professionals. Interesting, but a much exhausted topic.
As the party bus rolled up around 11:30 to take us out for the night, a few of us decided to stop by the Frisbee party first. I had received an email from the host two weeks prior, but waved it aside, knowing the crowd would be a bit older than I and obviously could not be as much fun as the younger group at Josh’s.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. We showed up to a drunken mess of a dance party rocking out to a playlist mixed with oldies and new Top 40s in the backyard. And in case awesome dance party didn’t automatically make it a great party, EVERYONE was in costume. Once again, the Ultimate community proved itself as one of the best to be a part of.
Hours of dancing and a few chicken fights later, we should have called it a night. Instead, we met up with friends at a club, managed to loose everyone I was put in charge of, and then called it a night.

Moral of the story: You can be 32 and AWESOME. Fun doesn’t have to end with graduation. And I love Halloween.


African Jack-o-Latern carving. Almost as great as the real deal

Diani Beach Music Festival

A few weeks ago my friend Josh half-seriously suggested we jump on a bus and head to the Diani Beach Music Festival, a chance to listen to some of Kenya’s greatest music on one of Kenya’s nicest beaches. I half jokingly agreed.

So on Friday Oct 23 Nicky, Josh and I got on a bus headed to the coast, concert tickets in hand, and that’s about it. It wasn’t until we arrived in Mombasa at 6:00 am that I began to seriously think about our plan. Because of the festival, hotels jacked up their housing prices, and because we were all poor college students/recent grads, we decided to skip on the whole accommodation thing. The plan seemed flawless until I started falling asleep before the weekend even began, and all I wanted was a bed.

Things changed though when we finished the voyage from Mombasa to Diani. Getting out of the taxi and walking onto the sand made me realize who needs a mattress when nature provides the world’s softest elements?

The day was spent lazing by the waterside listening to great music and sipping on cocktails (home-made with ingredients from the super market across the street and not the beach bar). Over twenty young expats had come up from Nairobi, and throughout the day I made many new friends when not tossing the Frisbee or swimming in the Indian Ocean.

Nicky, Josh and I literally danced the night away, and were surprisingly not the last ones on the dance floor. During the closing act, Jam Sandwich- a British cover band, I would estimate there was close to 1,000 people singing/shouting along to the music. And come 4:00 am, 500 of those souls were still partying hard. I was impressed. Personally I made it until 5:00, and slept the final hour while we waited for our taxi to come pick us and take us back to Mombasa, put us on a bus, and head home.

Stupid and naïve way to travel? Probably. Worth it? Definitely.