Muriega

Hi everyone,

(This is being written in word and pasted in again, so some stuff may not make sense if I think I spoke about it in the last post but didn’t)

It’s time for a new blog post. First off, this should be the midway point of my time at the orphanage, which I wasn’t happy about, I like it here so I am staying for an extra four weeks, which means that I still have 8 weeks left. For the grown ups reading this, don’t worry, I have enough anti-malarials, it just means that I will have to find extra a little bit earlier in Asia than I thought, I might even try to get more here.

Everything is going great here, apart from a lot of the kids being sick recently. There’s been a big change over in the volunteers that are here recently, only Sabrina, Doug, Alena, Ann and Devon are still here from when I first arrived. Hannes and Maria left a couple of weeks ago and Amanda left last Tuesday. New volunteers are Anne, from Oz, Jarka, from Slovakia, Ben, from Uganda/Belgium, Mila, from Spain, Lara, from Germany, Cassie, from America, Ana, from Spain, John and Danny, brothers from America, and Jens and Melda, a couple from Sweden, which brings me to Henrik’s comment, under 21’s football is irrelevant where ever I am, doubly so here.

The last few weeks I’ve been helping Njeroga (said Jeroga) a lot on the shamba (farm). Harvesting beans, weeding the maize, watering the crops, which is very tiring, you have to drop a bucket into a well, let it fill, which is faster if you can make it hit the water upside down, and then pull it up on a rope, pour it on some crops, then do it again. Some days it’s worse than others, as the wells can dry up and you have to go to one further away to fill your bucket. Me and Devon have also been stirring the cow poo on alternate days so that it doesn’t build up and dry out, which means it takes longer and you have to do bigger loads which means your more likely to have it splash up into your face or on your clothes or whatever. We also discovered just yesterday that one of the taps in the pipe to the kitchen has a leak, which should hopefully be fixed soon. The guy that they paid to do all of this biogas stuff, Francis, doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. The first time we managed to fill the biogas chamber he came to connect the stove and decided there was a leak in the pipe because the gas wasn’t coming out in the kitchen so he immediately started smashing stuff up to get to the pipe, efficient for a Kenyan, apart from the fact that he just hadn’t turned the taps on and there wasn’t a leak or blockage at all. Then he stole Hannes’s torch, which I am determined to get back, or at least steal something of equal or more value, when he comes to fix the leak he created while trying to fix a leak that wasn’t there. Also we’ve just started to clear the area that we are going to use for the animals and tool sheds. When the orphanage started the animals were kept away from the buildings a little, but as it’s expanded it’s kind of grown around the animals, so the pigs, cows, goats, chickens and ducks are now right next to a lot of the volunteer dorms. So these are all going to be moved out of the way. Yesterday morning we had to cut down two trees that were in the new area, and because we didn't want stumps there either we had to dig down and axe/machete through the roots, then eventually we pulled it over with a rope.

Last weekend me, Doug, Amanda, Danny and John went to Naivasha (spelling may be wrong) on Saturday, then on Sunday we went to Nairobi and came back to the Orphanage on Tuesday Morning. We set off to Naivasha pretty late, but we got there just in time to do a boat ride on the lake and see some Hippos bobbing about and yawning. We also saw some fish eagles, and our boat driver bought some fish from some fishermen (not sure if they were supposed to be fishing or not) and then put something in them to make them float, whistled for the eagles and threw them into the water to make the eagles swoop down for them. Later we managed to have a few beers and some food that didn't have maize or beans in it, so that was good. While we were eating hippos were coming out of the water and up to the electric fence, I got some photos, but it was pretty dark, so I'm not sure how good they will be, I kept trying to get closer, but there was a man there who was telling me off. On the Sunday we got up early and rode our rented bikes to Hells Gate national park, we stopped for ages at the first lot of zebras that we saw, then we went around the corner and there were loads of them. We also saw warthogs, buffalo, gazelle and monkeys. I got a flat tyre, but we managed to find some people to fix it near Hells Gate gorge. We didn't see any giraffes, which was a little disappointing, but it was still a great day, we even chased ostriches. Next we headed to Nairobi.

When we got to Nairobi we wanted to stay at hotel Africana, because it was fairly cheap, we didn't know the way, but we did have a map to work it out. I foolishly accepted the request of a man to lead us to the hotel (he obviously wanted money, but i didn't mind giving him a little if he got us there), he took us the wrong way, so we just started following the map, and despite us telling him we didn't need him, he continued to follow us around. When we got to the Africana they didn't have any water, so we headed towards the marble arch in a very roundabout way, with this guy still refusing to leave us alone. By the end of the walk I was just swearing at him, telling him to go away and that he was useless at his job, but in much more colourful language. He almost definately understood me, but his whole thing for being there was that he didn't understand "go away" so he couldn't really get cross without breaking the act. Amanda tried the more polite approach of "Sir, please leave us alone, we know where we're going" , which unsurprisingly didn't work. He left us when we got to the door of the marble arch. Doug reeled off his speech about us working for an orphanage, so we got a good deal at the marble arch anyway.

The next day we went to an orphanage for baby elephants and rhinos, it also contained the most white people I have seen in 4 weeks. It was really good though, they had lots of baby elephants that walked about and you could touch them and stuff. Then they got a baby rhino out and it ran around lots and spun in circles, they said it was born prematurely, so John assumed it was retarded, I don't think it was, it was just messing about. After donating to the animal orphanage we went to carnivore, a restaurant that lets you eat as many animals as you want. The selection was sheep, cow, pig, chicken, turkey, ostrich, crocodile (disappointing) and maybe others that I can't remember.

On the Tuesday morning we waved bye bye to Amanda as she went to the airport, and the other four of us went and sat on matatus for a couple of hours to get back to the orphanage.

John, Danny, Angie and Ashley are going on a safari this weekend to the Masai Mara, for $200 (American) each, when the guy came a few days ago to pick up half the money from them 10 of us organised to go for the same price a week after, but then last night he phoned Doug and said actually it'll be $270 for you guys, Doug said we'd all discuss it, but no one wants to pay that much, as he said $200 first, so when he comes to pick the guys up early tomorrow I'm going to get up and tell him its $200 or nothing. We shall see how that goes, I think he'll just agree, he doesn't want to lose $2000 worth of business to someone else. I'm making sure i'm the one to speak to him though.

I also think I've decided to go to Thailand after Kenya, and then back to India. Geographically it makes sense to do India first, but I think rural Kenya straight to India will be a bit too much, especially with my extra 4 weeks here.

I think that's everything I need to say, so I'm going to go buy some fruit and possibly samosas or sausages and then get the Matatu back to Punda.

Bye all.