Saturday, November 30, 2013

Africa Part 3 – Safari in Masai Mara

The airstrip
After Ngumbulu I had one weekend in Kenya before my flight to South Africa. After some considerations, I decided to use this weekend to experience some more “real Africa”, and go on Safari (Another option was the beautiful Indian Ocean city Mombasa). So from Nairobi, I took a small plane Friday morning to Masai Mara national park. The airport in Masai Mara consisted of a gravel airsrip, and that’s iit. Never seen anything like that. Not even a building, quite funny.

A 4WD car and 2 Masai people picked me and 4 other people up and we drove to the camp. On the way we already saw zebras, different antilopes/gazelles, elephants, giraffs,  and a lot of lot of wildebeest. I had never seen them before, so first I didn’t even  know that word, so Wikipedia had to help me so that I found the Norwegian word (gnu), so now I know what it is. (That was the case with many of the animals and the English names by the way) And I had no idea that it existed so many of them. There are like millions of them. And each year at this time the travel to Serengeti in Tanzania for Christmas vacation, and actually stay there until june/july. Then they come back to Masai Mara national park again. They were all over the place, but still, the guide told us, it was actually rather few, because a lot of them had already crossed the Mara river on the way to Serengeti.

The camp we were going to live in was a small camp, place for about 20 people. And it was a tent camp. But it is the most luxurious tents I have ever seen. Really amazing. Everyone had their own tent, with a big bed, table and chairs, bathroom with water toilet, and shower. Really nice!! Then there was a restaurant tent, a library tent, a bar, and outside it was a fire place, and a couple of relaxing places with chairs, couch and hammocks. Really nice! And good food in the restaurant! Since we were in the middle of the park, surrounded by wil animals, we were not allowed to walk away from the camp. But if we wanted to go down to the river (some hundred meters away), a couple of the masai people, that also guarded the camp, would follow us, so we could see crocodiles and hippos.

My tent
In the camp I could finally have coffee again too. The funny thing however, I would never had believed that about myself, was that I still preferred the tea-milk-mix…. And I who loves coffee, and don’t like black tea… Very funny….

The two next days we were out on game drive with our 4WD. In addition to the animals I already mentioned we saw baboons, wart pig (Pumba), mongoose (Thimon), buffalo, impala, eland, Thomsens gazelles, black rhino, cheetahs (Gepard), hyenas, lions, a lepard hidning, ostrich, vultures, storks, jakals, foxes, serval, termit mounds (They are huge), and a lot of birds. Amazing, and funny and incredible! Like being in the middle of the movie Lions King… We also had picnic breakfast on a small hill, overlooking the savannah and the river. So beautiful! 

In the evenings we were sitting by the fire place, drinking, talking, and listen to the African night, and the animals… During the nights we could also hear the hyenas and the hippos making noices around our camp. (But it was not scary as we were well guarded by the masai people.)

Me and my Masai guard :-)
It is also fascinating how all these wild animals live together, and are lying on the savannah pretty close to each other, although the lions, for instance, would eat the zebras, wildebeasts and antilopes if they were hungry…. But as long as they were not hungry they didn’t bother the other animals, and the other were not afraid either. (The zebras would know if they were in danger, the wildebeasts are simply too stupid to be really afraid) Quite amazing…..

Wildebeasts crossing the river
Some minutes before we left the camp on Sunday, we could also witness an amazing sight, that we actually had searched for the last days. A thousand of wildebeasts crossing the river, just in front of our camp. Trying to survive, escape the stream, the crocodiles and the hippos and come over to the other side. That was probably my most exciting happenings of them all from my stay in Masai Mara.

Sunday evening a left Kenya, going to Cape Town and South Africa…. So next episode will follow from the point where the cold Atlantic meats the warmer Indian Ocean….. and were the black and white people live side by side, with all the opportunities and challenges that gives….



  





Relaxing...:-)



Rhino






Wildebeasts in the sun rise...
Lepard has got a wildebeast

   



Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Africa Part 2: A very different way of living – Ngumbulu


Finally, the travel report from my stay in the village Ngumbulu is here. I am now in South Africa, but I will start with telling about Ngumbulu anyway. (Some of you have already got a report in Norwegian, but I will now try with a shortened English version too, for all of you non-Norwegian-speaking people…And excuse me for the not very good English...and that the pictures are a bit unorganized... ) Ngumbulu seems already like a long time ago, although it is only a couple of weeks.

Living in Ngumbulu is totally different from all I have experienced in my life…And it was an amazing and interesting experience.


After the hike in Mount Kenya, I met Samuel and his family in Nairobi. Samuel manages all the development projects in Ngumbulu.He is from there, but he also lives in Komarock, just outside Nairobi with his wife and 4 children and house keeper. I spent the first weekend with them in Komarock. Although for most of you, regarded as a pretty simple and small house (Mainly one room, plus three bedrooms, and bathroom), it was a big and luxurious house compared to houses in Ngumbulu. Didn’t do very much during the weekend, staying in the house (walking outside alone wouldn’t be a very good idea), relaxing (Although doing almost nothing is not very relaxing for me). But nice anyway, very nice family!

Monday morning we went to Ngumbulu. Ngumbulu is a small village, you can barely find it on google maps… Although small, in area it is quite large, there are houses spread over a large area, so not densely populated. If you want to see more about how it all started, check out www.aidinaction.no. The houses are all pretty similar. They consist of an outer wall of red bricks, and a roof. That’s it, more or less… Although some have a bit bigger houses. Samuels house is situated a little bit outside “village centre”, together with the houses of the other five brothers, and his mother, like in a sort of small community . A guesthouse (for me) is also at this farm. The standard of these houses seem to be somehow above average standard in the village. Normally every farm has one house for the kitchen too, because they always cook with fire, and then it is good to keep it in an own 1-room-house. And between all the houses, it is a very very beautiful courtyard, with a large purple tree. When at home, we sit in the nice wood chairs under this tree, or around the fire place in the evenings. By the way, it seems like chairs are more or less the only furniture here. They don’t have tables…

Although the village recently has become electricity, that only goes to the centre, so most houses don’t have it. They don’t have water either, but the 3G network works very well here..:-) (seems to be more important than indoor water and electricity) The development centre though, which is the centre and office for all the projects here, and newly opened has electricity. So they had a couple of computers for instance. Some of the work I did here was teaching basic computer skills. That was quite challenging mainly due to very slow internet connection (mobile modem) and slow computers. In the centre they also have a poultry, a bakery, some plants etc. This was were I always started my day here in Ngumbulu.

The kitchen
The first thing to experience here was the African Time. Things happen or are done, when they are done…And there is no hurry. Making a plan that implies a specific time doesn’t work (Most people don’t wear watches). That makes planning somehow different than usual and it has to be done in another way. When asking about when, or also, how long or things like that, you always get funny answers like yes, or something else, but seldom/never an actual time, duration, length… Always vague answers, also to most other questions. Quite fascinating…

Things here aren’t very efficient…. but very relaxed. At the same time, that isn’t necessarily only wrong, or bad. It is simply a life without stressing. And many people here probably also have other expectations to life than what we have, and then they don’t need to be that efficient for instance. Hakuna Matata, no problem, it will be OK. That is the attitude for everything. And it is a good attitude! ;-) Anyhow, things have changed the last years. Although not efficient, most people here have now a great willingness to work, and are working more and harder then in previous time. And this willingness is surely more important than efficiency. I tried to be relaxed about everything too. It mostly worked really well, actually. Except for one day, when we were out of the office, and suddenly we were stucked a place for more hours, and I wasn’t prepared for that, and had forgot my knitting things…. A hard time, but I survived… :-)


When they saw me knitting by the way, they found that very funny and interesting, and were impressed (All asking how much I sold the products for),and wanted to learn. So I also had “knitting school” during my time here. They had a facinating optimism and self confidence when learning. First, we switched using my knitting needle. But when day, I wanted to try to buy someone for each of them. So me and another, we walked (of course) to the next “city”, 8 km away (There are not many cars in this town, no buses, but quite a lot of motor bikes, so part of the way back, we had a “motor bike taxi” (They sometimes drive eith up to 5 people on one bike). In the town, I didn’t find correct knitting needles, but I found something that was almost good, and then I also found a metal worker. He did a good work, and finally we got something looking like knitting needles…. :-)



But back to the time. Ngumbulu lies almost on equator. This means that sun rises shortly before 6, sun sets about 18.30. And that makes the frame of the day. You wake up with the sun, and start the day, you can’t work when it is dark. So in the evenings there is fire, eating, stars at the African sky (nice, idyllic and a little bit magic mood), talking (mostly in ki-kamba, so I am sitting there, having no idea what is happening), and then bedtime. Doesn’t matter if you are a child or a grown-up here. You fall asleep when and there you fall asleep, simply like that.

And when it comes to eating; I get a lot of food here, although in Africa….. And I like the food here very much, specially the Kithera, which is maize and beans, mixed with salt and butter, possibly pies sometimes. Else, we ate typically rice, potatoes, ugali )like polenta, maize porridge), tomato, possibly goat or hen or cock. For breakfast, default was white bread, butter, and sometimes egg. I am not a big fan of white bread, and this is also not a traditionally breakfast, but that is more the “luxurious” breakfast here. It is difficult to explain that white bread is not my thing, but I managed to make “witabix-porridge” quite often, and then I was very happy… Traditionally, and sometimes now too, they had millet porridge, or kasawa (arrow root), for breakfast. Both these I find very good. Unfortunately I mostly didn’t have that here.

And then of course the tea. Kenyan black tea, made with milk and water (and sugar). mmm ;-) At least, when I after a couple of days manage to stop the sugar in the tea. Yes, I love this tea-milk “mix”, I don’t even miss coffee, which is very strange and unexpected, since I love coffee and actually don’t like black tea… (But taste changes, apparently, like the swiss cheece…) But the normal version here, with sugar, I find quite unsavouriness…. But that’s obviously how they like it here, and they think I am quite strange, which prefer it without sugar…

The primaty school in Ngumbulu
By the meals, you can also notice the “ranking” quite well. For instance, I am sitting there, watching the other are preparing, serving etc. And also the men, and the higher ranked do that, because other people are actually employed to serve you. I don’t feel 100% comfortable with it, but it is how it works here. Before each meal, they always come with a mug of hot water for washing our hands. And then we start eat, and since we have all washed our hands, eating from same plate, and with the hands (sometimes we did that) is not a problem. In general, making a mess by eating, losing remnants on the ground etc doesn’t matter here (Neither inside or outside) . We (they) wash afterwards…

On my birthday however (by chance) , I was allowed to help a little bit… with the tool they got and use, which is a knife, not very sharf, and that’s it more or less, peeling and cutting vegetables with that, in the air, no cutting board or table is a bit challenging actually…:-)

The children in the school are
coming towards me
The ranking is also very evident in the schools. The pupils have very much respect for the teacher. And when I visited the schools, the children were partly shy, partly full of respect, and a little bit afraid. They were approaching me slowly, all together, getting closer and closer, the nearest ones being pushed from behind, until they were quite close, an amazing sight…

So, back to the work days here… The first two days we did a lot of walking, looking at/showing me all the projects around. Planting of papaya, mango, moringa, eucalyptus etc… Making dams, bore holes, visiting the children centres, and schools that are being build (Deeply respect and honour to Anne Louise!!) What made a deep and huge impression was going to see the river, or “river”, as there was no water flowing there, just some dribbling, two metres below the river bottom (see picture..), and people walk these 3 km each day, to get water from here…. I really hopes it starts to rain soon!! (Or hopefully it has already started) Else, many will starve… The plants need the water, and the people and animals too.
The river....
Collecting water
from the river...








We walked for some hours and kilometers per day, but still very calmly. After all the walking, I was asked if I was tired (I guess I was supposed and expected to be that) When I said I wasn’t tired at all, I am quite used to do quite much more per day, they found it a little bit strange…They suggested I was maybe used to flatter terrain, which made me smile, in my opinion, you can barely get it flatter than here… :-)

At the centre we also had a biking day (Of course baking about 160 scones is a full day project involving a couple of people), and test production of papaya juice, where I was considered the expert on that…

After couple of days living in Ngumbulu, I realized there are no dangerous people or animals here, and since I anyway was awake before 6 every day, and the work started later (no stress, also not in the morning), I took a morning jog. People found me (again) very strange doing that. There are no runners here, there are no point of running like that, just for nothing. ) In Kenya, you’re probably either one of the best runners in the world, or you don’t run…) But sometimes I partly got company of children on the way to school, and one day I got company of a little small barefoot boy, running the whole morning tour with me (Also chasing away some stray dogs). He had no problem keeping up with me on the running :-)

Another morning, it suddenly came a short and heavy rain when I was running. It got very slippery, almost like soap or ice, and very muddy. Although I also fell once, I felt cleaner than in a long time after this morning run…. I was used to wash myself with wet napkins. Occasinally I had some rain water available. I am in general not very “fastidious”, but after 2 weeks in Ngumbulu I was really longing for a shower…

Life in general changes here when it rains. First, they all start to collect water in all buckets etc that they have. Then you use the opportunity for washing, clothes and house. This is no more important than going to work (Anyway, you wait going away, for work, until the heavy rain has stopped (wouldn’t have worked in Trondheim….) No point hurrying. Also, the rain really destroys the roads.

Weekends was also working, but more calmly, and also church of course. The people here are Christians, and in general “more” than us. I think religion, and the solidarity and unity and hope this represents is more important for people having a more unsecure life… The people in rich and developed countries doesn’t have the same need for it, it seems so at least. So each Sunday, it is church time. (And there are often more ceremonies during the week too) I went too the church too, the African Inland Church, in Nairobi and in Ngumbuulu. An experience, and very different from what I am used too. Much less organized and structured (as the African life in general), sometimes as if it was not planned at all, just impulsive. For instance, in Ngumbulu, the pastor suddenly aska me to present myself, and then he ask if someone has an English version of the bible, I can borrow for the rest of the service. It is a lot “happier” service, it has more rhytm, a lot of music, singing, and dancing. It is very nice I think. And they are re ally good at it! Wow, they have impressing dancing skills, and rhytm. In Ngumbulu, we suddenly had a song that also I knew; Head, shoulder, knees and toes…:-)

The church room
In Ngumubulu, it turned out to be a long day in church, but it wasn’t only the service. But there was an somwhow unnoticeable transition from the serice, to a church meeting/voting, and then to dance practice. So I never found the occasion to go out from the church. But at some point during the practice, I realised it was OK to go out (There were no other left in church, only the people practicing). Outside, I met the pastor, and then he invited me to have lunch with him and some of the other church leaders outside the church.( We had Ugali) Besides, the church is also just one big room, with a roof, and chairs inside, that’s more or less it.

Else, I also had birthday during my time in Ngumbulu. I didn’t have any celebration (Don’t think grown up people have that here. I mean not everyone know they birthday from the older people so…) But the two other women in the office celebrated me a little bit the traditionally way, and that is washing the person having birthday. Washing means throwing a bucket of water over you, while singing the birthday song, a quite unique birthday celebration for me! :-)

After two weeks, my time in the nice and pretty quit village Ngumbulu was over. I was getting used to the life here, to the funny, slowly way to walk, to the people and the culture, but at the same time longing a little bit for some more “action”… At the end of the week we went back to Nairobi (Ready for Safari), coming straight into the big traffic jam there…. Wow, cars everywhere, no one following the rules, all cars having bulks, and a lot of queue. So glad I don’t have to deal with that daily…. Life in Ngumbulu is a lot easier, nicer, more pleasant and less hectic...

That was life in Ngumbulu. A good village, and a lot of nice and friendly people. I will come back. Who will join me next time?

And the travels report from Africa are to be continued, next chapter Safari in Kenya, followed by ocean, mountains, surfing, wine, working etc from South Africa….
Super market in Katangi

The toilets
Getting water from the bore hole







Sunday, November 3, 2013

Africa part 1 – Mount Kenya and life in Kenya

Nairobi
My 6 week long Africa stay started on Monday morning, the 28th of october. I arrived Nairobi Airport early in the morning, ready for visiting Mount Kenya. After meeting the guide, some repacking and of course some waiting, we headed for the city Nanyuki. I soon learned about “African time”; No hurry, no stress, and Hakuna Matata (no problem, det årner seg…) In Kenya, we don’t think, we live, one Kenyan told me. I think I have just left one of the world’s most organized and structured country, and arrived in a quite unorganized and unstructured one:-) However, both with bad sides and good sides.

We drove to Nanyuki in a 10-passenger-bus. The bus system here works as follows. You go to the bus station, and find a bus going to the city where you want to go. When the bus (10 passenger) is full, it will drive….Not easy to do exactly planning then.. .:-) But it works well, there are a lot of people travelling with the buses. There are some normal public buses too, but that takes really loooong time…. I have heard. (However, near Nairobi, there are the Nairobi public buses, and it exists two different types, so you can choose; Either the noisy, with high music, driving fast, breaking all the rules, or the slow and silent one, following all the traffic rules, but that need much more time to get to the destination.)

The road took us through a couple of villages and cities before arriving the destination. Since the main road goes through the cities/villages there are speed bumps for slowing down the traffic, and I have never experienced such steep speed bumps before.. Not possible to pass them faster then maximum 10 kmh… Other things I noticed along the road was quite a lot of goats, sheeps and cows (Which were pretty thin I think), and that price of fuel is almost 4 times the price of milk, so we shouldn’t complain about our fuel prices at home I guess…. :-)

Vegetables and chipati
Early afternoon we arrived Nanyuki. The city lies on Equator. We stayed the night in a hotel here. And I got the first taste of Kenyan food here. And I love it :-) Chapati (a sort of pancakes), Mataha (peas), ugali (corn), beans, and a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, and the fish Tilapia. For breakfast we also have a porridge from millet – mmmm. The bathroom in my room had a shower, almost just above the toilet, quite funny :-) but it doesn’t seem unusual in this country …:-)

The next the 4-days Hike in Mount Kenya National Park (or climb as they call it here, although it is not anything near climbing…:-) ) started. It was me, a Kenyan girl, our guide, and two porters/cooks, and in addition some more groups along the way. The People here are by the way incredible good in English, although I do need to get use to this Kenyan English dialect… :-) They learn it in school, or also even earlier at home. So since I am quite use to speaking german, and not English, as my foreign language for the time being, it is almost as an English language course for me going to Kenya.

Camp
On the way to the top, Pt Lenana, we lived in camps on the way, consisting of not-well-isolated huts. Wow, it was cold… I froze so much during my first days in Kenya, not very logically maybe…In the huts, there were people from Kenya, America, Australia, and other European countries, but no one froze as much as me from Norway (during evenings and nights in the hut)….Not even the Kenyan girl travelling with me who never had experienced lower than 11 degrees Celsius before… and almost no one was less bothered by the heat during daytime:-) One of the evening, shortly after 20 o’clock when I was talking (talking not yelling, yes) with two german guys, one of the other hikers came from the room and asked us to be quite, she wanted to sleep, at 20 o’clock… I found that a little bit early…. (Didn’t want to go into the cold sleeping bag to early) The huts had fire places, but it wasn\t allowed to make fire in them anymore. At least we hd warm (and very very good!) food, tea and hot chocolate. But except for that, it was a very nice hike. I saw lot of new trees, plants, flowers and animals.

Sun rise in Mount Kenya, 6 o\clock in the morning, 4985 m
And the third morning, just at sun rise, 06 o’clock (Luckily we only needed to sleep in the cold huts until 2 o’clock the last night…) we reached the peak, 4985 m. A wonderful view and sun rise at the top!!!

After that we went down another route, a route that almost no one hike, so there were only us and two other hikers, nice :-) And the route is the nicest one, going along a canyon, and some small lakes. We slept the last night in a camp at 3000 m where it was also allowed to make fire in the fire places – so nice! :-) Outside the camp, we saw mountain antilopes, ilan (a sort of antilope too), and waterbucks – very cool. We also saw footprints and droppings from elephants and buffalos, but they were hiding in the forest. The two days before, we also saw the white, hairy Columbus monkeys, and a lot of rock hyrax (marmot like animals)

The last day we walked a couple of hours, before 4wd took us the last part back into sivilisation. If I hadn’t seen it myself I would never had thought that the land rovers could drove on this “road”. (And if I had knew how slowly and difficult it was, I would have asked to run behind or in front of the cars instead of sitting inside. If it is possible to run or hike, I prefer that rather then driving car. But it seems to be the opposite opinion of the Kenyan (and maybe other) people too; If it is somehow possible to drive, than that is preferred before walking….:-)

The village I live in in the weekend,
outside Nairobi 
I had a very nice hike in the Mount Kenya Park. I had some problem keeping the speed down, so I didn’t walked away from the other, but else it was good (Except for the freezing). A little bit surprising, I barely felt the altitude (Maybe I have got partly acclimatized in the Swiss Mountain the last year….), no problem at all (except that it is colder when you get that high). Back in Nairobi, I was met and welcomed by Samuel and Mary. We went to their live in home in a village just outside of Nairobi, where I spent the weekend. A veeeery easy and calm one. That’s how the weekends are I learned, not exactly what I am used to, my legs are calling they want to run….:-) Although the houses are smaller and not that equipped as home in Europe, they all have TVs, and the TV is on all the time, quite amazing. On Sunday we went to church, it started at 9 o’clock, so we left the house at approximately 9.20:-) (The African time…), driving 7 people in a Toyota Corolla.

I have had quite a lot of time the last days (on the huts during the hike and in the weekend), so, of course, I have been knitting a lot. And the Kenyan people find that very very funny, but also nice and interesting. And I have started drinking tea, actually, the last days, almost only tea, except for some water. Kenyan black tea with hot milk, but it is actually quite good. And the next thing the Kenyan find extremely funny is that I prefer the “milky tea” without sugar…. They are really laughing when they see it:-) But the Kenyan people are really very nice! :-)

Monday morning I will arrive the village Gombolo (or Ngumbulu in Kenyan), where I will work the next week. That is a much more remote and less developed village. Will be exciting and interesting. I am looking forward to the next week, and in 1-2 weeks you will hear from me again I guess :-)

Vibeke

More pictures: Pictures