Margo's Visit

Margo visits the Mwangatas and ofcourse, they loved her just like we do !!



Giraffe at Tsavo West Park


Lava flow at Tsavo West


Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background with it's tiny snow cap





Entrance to Tsavo West Park, Serana Lodge



Here we are on the last day of Safari reading the Mammoth Times!












Watering hole for elephants at Tsavo East Park






Dear friends;

Margo & Kyle are flying back to the States today. They have been here for almost 3 weeks and it has been a wonderful visit. We did a four day safari; visited Tsavo East and West and also the Amboseli National Park that is right next to Mt. Kilimanjaro. If you remember, that is near where I did my initial training for Peace Corps. It was interesting to be back in that part of the country as the newly paved road into Loitokitok was a delight!!

Here are photos of our safari that hardly need any explanation!

The Kenyan schools are closed for the entire month of December. It has been a perfect time for me to have taken a vacation as the last 2 weeks of November are consumed with testing and I was unable to hold my regular classes. Later this month I will go to Nairobi for a workshop with a non-profit group I am doing some volunteer work with. The group, Kenya Education Fund, was started by a former PCV and is focused on finding American sponsors for youth wanting to attend secondary school here in Kenya. I have really enjoyed having the opportunity to travel around to schools near my site and meeting lots of dedicated students.

OK - that is it for now. Must go get ready to take Margo & Kyle to the airport. Look for another posting in late January.

LOVE FROM KENYA!!

Mary

My beautiful daughter who is coming to visit in November!

To the left here is Patrick, my interpreter for my Life Skills classes that I have in two primary schools. Actually the students (4th grade) do understand some of my English but it is very, very helpful having Patrick along to make sure they are getting the content of the lessons. We discussed STD's and Tuberculosis in this particular session. Remember, as I have mentioned before, you can have a wide age distribution in any class. Am sure there are at least 15 year olds in this 4th grade class.


The photo above and on the right shows sisal being dried. Since Kadzinuni is situated above and around a huge sisal plantation, the locals use the crop in many different ways. I am not sure if they purchase it from the plantation or if they harvest at night! But truthfully, many people have sisal plants around their own homes; I won't think the worst here. They use sisal as a heavy twine to repair things and make furniture, etc. Behind the sisal in the photo are two types of beans grown locally. They dry them for use during the dry season. The left hand photo is of a beautiful red starfish that can be found here.





Dear Friends;

I am not skilled at blogging - I see that my last entry has photos on top of one another and some cut off. What to do?? I am a disaster with this but won't give up just yet.

The photo above and to the right shows a solar cooker that I have purchased. Kenyan women, in rural areas, do all their cooking over a wood fire and then to make matters worse, they build that fire inside a mud hut with absolutely no ventilation. I show them the black soot on the walls and tell them "this is what your lungs now look like". But still, getting them to switch to a solar cooking method will be difficult if not impossible. Yes, it is hot and sunny here but once you put that solar cooker out, you realize how many clouds can pass over during the day! I will continue to try the cooker as I do know some people have had great success with it.

The photo above and to the left shows tobacco growing. Not many Kenyans smoke but enough to make growing the crop profitable and smokable! Is that a word?????

OK - enough for now. The monkeys are playing over head and the fishermen are out in full force. I am composing this blog at Pope's House which affords me a spot on a cliff over looking the beach. A beautiful day with a delightful ocean breeze.

Mary
PS By the way, heard Sarah Palin speaking in Reno ----heard this over the BBC. Are people really listening to her? She sounds pathetic here in Kenya. Wonder what Kenyans think of her. No one on the coast has heard of her!!

BABY CANADA HAS ARRIVED! MORE ON KENYA LATER!

This "edition" will begin with a short tour of my home at Kadzinuni. The more I talk with other volunteers, the more I realize how nice my living situation is. Here is the outside of the house, showing the small garden I have started - some vegetables, some ornamental stuff.

Above see my livingroom, kitchen and bedroom.





This past week was the Kenyan National Book Week. I planned a few contests and held an awards ceremony for the end of the week. So ---somewhere in this blog you will find photos of the ceremony, attended by all the school children, their teachers, and local "dignitaries" - even the press attended! Yes, you are correct - I still haven't figured out how to wrap the script around the photos or how to move photos around the page. If you can easily explain this to me, please send me an e-mail: mcanada62@gmail.com.

So - above the Book Week photos you will see me with Rahema Mwangata, harvesting cow peas at their family garden. Then there I am on the barrier reef that runs along the east coast where I live. The other two shots are just random views of the villages at Kadzinuni.

I keep very busy with managing the library, teaching 5 classes at two primary schools, doing follow up visits in conjunction with the distribution of free mosquito nets, and, lastly, the running club. I will return to the States the first week of August next year. I hope to have time to see a bit more of Kenya when Margo and Kyle visit in November.

Bye for now -----

Women living with HIV/AIDS - showing off some of their crafts that they produce through their group - an income generating activity. This group is in Mombasa.


Kenyan youth love to do gymnastics on the beach.

Mary and her running club!!

Here is the tree house I slept in ----see story below about this experience !



Here is a shot of a beach volleyball tournament that another volunteer and I organized. All school children here wear uniforms.


Dear Friends;

I am currently attending a Peace Corps workshop at a fancy beachside resort. Your tax dollars at work - once again!! So I have electricity, running water, and a flush toilet. I am loving it. It has been a full moon and I can clearly see the ocean from my patio (connected to my room). Monkeys run all around the grounds and the beach is a great place to run - I run every morning. But now this situation will end on Friday and it will be back to my usual living situation. Well, I will be ready as I actually do miss it. The slow, calm life style can be very alluring!

Now for the story about the tree house -----not too far from where I live is a national forest that advertises that it has a tree house you can rent and sleep in overnight. There is an elephant watering hole not far away and if you are lucky, you will see them come to drink. Hey - sure sounds fun to me!! So I sign up -----unfortunately no one mentioned that the tree house is 6 km from the entrance to the forest AND you have to walk inside a huge electrified fence to get to the tree house ----yea, it is electrified to keep the elephants and cape buffalo inside! Also, forgot to tell us there is no water, food, toilet, shower, etc. -----just the tree house that is missing a few steps and is in need of repair. BUT the elephants did arrive, at dusk; you did have to peer around some foliage to watch them but it was still rather exciting. They made lots of elephant type noises and came over rather close to the tree house. However, I am not recommending this as a trip for Margo and Kyle and I to take when they visit in November.

The photo of the women was taken during a field trip taken during this Peace Corps workshop. We were looking at crafts made by the people in a support group. I purchased a hand knit dress for baby Canada which she potentially would wear when she is about 4! Kenya is full of support groups just for people who have been diagnosed as being HIV positive. I think the groups function very similar to support groups in the US. One of the big problems is trying to get both the women and the men of an HIV couple to participate in a group. Couples where one partner is HIV positive and the other is HIV negative are referred to as a discordant couple. It creates many, many problems as you can well imagine. Kenya's population is 93% HIV free and 7% HIV positive ----the way to reduce the spread is to educate the 93% and make sure the 7% doesn't spread the virus.

I have friends coming in 10 days. Geneese and Bill - I went to college with Geneese and we have stayed friends all these years. I am excited to have them visit.

Till next time friends -

Mary

Feeling Fine

THIS WAS WRITTEN A MONTH AGO AND I FORGOT TO PUBLISH IT!! SO HERE IT IS NOW

OK - I am now totally recovered from both of my leg injuries. I am so relieved to be able to walk everywhere and to participate with the running club.

School is now out of session and the month of August will be a bit relaxed for me. I will work on lesson plans for next term. I am adding a "Chill Club" program for grade 7; I can do this in English and so will not need an interpreter. Chill Club is conducted in many Kenyan schools and is an HIV/AIDS education, awareness program for teens. Grade seven can even have an occasional 20 year old attending, so HIV education is very much needed at this grade level. There are few students under the age of 15.

Since recovering, I held a beach volleyball tournament with another PVC. It was a big success. Even though the beach is visible from Kadzinuni and not a great distance away, some of the participants had never been to the beach! Some kids were more interested in practising their gymnastics!

I also took a one day trip to the Arabuka Forest. Spent the night in a tree house in the hopes of watching elephants at a watering hole. Well, the elephants did show up but it was almost dark and also there was thick foliage obscurring the view. But the elephants made very loud elephant noises which made the experience fun. To get to the tree house you must walk 4.5 miles inside a high electrified fence (that keeps the elephants and cape buffalo inside). We walked in with a guide but the walk out was fast with some looking over shoulders to see what was around you.
I was with a Kenyan who seemed very concerned about the situation and made me almost run out the entire way. I am including some photos here of the tree house.

I took my Kenyan family to the Mombasa zoo - they had never seen any of the big African animals. It was really a wonderful day. I am having some computer problems right now and so will close by adding a couple more pictures from around my area. Well - that isn't happening so will close for now!

I

Since I still am right here in the hospital, and almost fully recovered, I decided to make use of the electricity and send a bunch of pictures. So, starting from top left: children in my village, a group of women attending a "People Living With HIV.AIDS" support group (I showed them how to plant the sack gardens that are in front of them), the woman carrying the large piece of wood on her head is probably about my age!, these people are attending a burial and the deceased is being buried right in the village next to other graves - the older graves serve as benches!, more darling children with their teenage uncle, children with their homemade cars, more friends, and lastly, kids reading in the library. Hope you enjoyed these photos! MARY

Dear Friends;

A lot has happened since I last recorded an entry. First of all, my leg injury healed just fine. My time spent in Mombasa went be quickly as several other PCV's visited me and one day I even journeyed down to what is referred to as south beach. I decided I am way too old to return to the scene there!

I received the shipment of books from Leeann Wood without any trouble! Perhaps some of you reading this donated books that are now sitting on the shelves of the Kadzinuni Community Library. Please except my heartfelt thanks as the library is being used regularly and the project is a big success. My other news, as shown above, is that Carrie & Dan Meyers visited me in early June. It was so great that they could see how great the library looks and how the donated books really filled the shelves. I just can't thank everyone enough for the book donations. And the quality and condition of the books was amazing; many were brand new.

While the Meyers were here, we visited Lamu Island, a small island slightly north of Kadzinuni. It is a very old Muslim town; there are no cars, only donkeys. The "streets" are very narrow which gives the place a bit of old world charm. But all in all, Lamu was not our favorite place; we all agreed we should leave a day earlier than planned and went to an official Kenyan "Important Bird Area" where we stayed in an eco-tourist camp. Carrie was very excited to see her first wild flamingos!! I think Carrie & Dan felt it was worth the effort to come to the coast of Kenya to visit me. Maybe, just maybe, they will convince some more Mammoth friends to come over??? Oh, I just decided to include the photo of Carrie trying on a dress in a shop on Lamu ---shows off the colors that Kenyans dress in!!

Currently, Kenya is experiencing World Cup madness. Last night America lost and so are out of the competition but really they did make a good showing. I have become very fond of football/soccer. You can really see the plays being set up while our football, just men in huge uniforms jumping all over each other!

That is it for now. The rainy season is still here and with it cool temps which suits me just fine!

Come Visit Me!!

Mary