So a few days after my last post, it was Dan's time to fly home along with the two volunteers we've been travelling with since we got to Kenya - Jessica and Jared. This was the weekend of the 12th-14th. We were initially intending on visiting Hell's Gate National Park on the Saturday but we couldn't find anyone that knew exactly how to get there, and we decided not to go because unless we were sure of how to get there and back, it would take more than a day. That wasn't an option, so we opted to stay in Nairobi for the weekend until everyone caught their flights. We all went souvenir shopping on Saturday in central Nairobi, and started at the Masaai Market. This place is quite the experience. Set in a parking lot, this large open air market has almost every square inch covered by vendors selling their wares, most of them sitting on the ground. These people love to bargain, and you will rarely ever get a fair price here as so many tourists pass through, but it's worth the experience anyway. Jared and Jess were smart enough to bring items to barter, however, and got a few nice things just by trading pens, shirts and I think Jess even traded a flashlight for something haha. I got suckered into buying two tall skinny masks here, though I did get the price down to something approaching reasonable. I bought a lot of stuff in other shops with very fair and set prices, however, and shipped most of it home. We may have an African themed basement once we renovate it with all the stuff I bought as well as souvenirs my dad already has from his jobs in Africa.
I took my first bus ride alone to Mombasa on Sunday night, which was kinda sad, but I'm glad that I had friends with me for the first month to adjust to the life here. I feel I can survive on my own for a couple weeks until they send the promised 4 new volunteers to Ukunda, which I also refer to as my home on the coast...or my home away from home :)
I went back to the children's centre on Tuesday of last week and brought the kids 30 plates which I had bought the day before. They were extremely happy to have them and started yelling out the colours of the plates in class as the teacher pulled them out. Many of the kids got the colours wrong the first couple of tries, but the older ones helped them out and they got it right after a few times. I'm pretty sure the porridge we made here was contaminated, and I was quite sick the same night. I didn't eat much the next day but it improved on Thursday..so I thought nothing was wrong. When I again felt terrible on Friday, I went to the local clinic hoping that it was nothing serious. I seem to have a bacterial infection in my stomach which I have been given antibiotics for, but it's been so annoying. I haven't done much for the past week and haven't been back to work since last Tuesday. I'm feeling better and better though and I think I'll be ok to go back to work tomorrow.
That's all for now :)
Cheers
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By the way, I don't think I ever mentioned in my blog that the initial orphanage we were supposed to be working at fell through when we got here and we in fact didn't even get to work there a day. The European owners said volunteers were not a "viable" option, and so our host family found us the placement at Chanukeni Children's Centre. Should have corrected that a long time ago, but I've been a little busy of course and didn't notice hehe. Oh, and I'm not living at this centre, because it's not really an orphanage..it's more like a daycare centre; I live with my host family in Ukunda (Mama Tracy and her cute little daughter Tracy)Mothers here are generally referred to by their child's name.
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