Sorry it’s been so long. Let’s see, what’s happened recently? International Women’s Day is March 8th, but since it fell on a market day, we decided to have our Women’s Day celebration on March 9th. We had a women’s health day at Assisi Clinic with people from Marie Stopes (a family planning clinic in Kisii) providing free family planning services. We mobilized the community and had over 65 women and 10 men attend the event. Many of our group members came, along with women who were getting immunizations for their children. We talked about the importance of family planning and other women’s health issues like STIs, breast cancer, and cervical cancer. Assisi’s support group sold their alternative nutrition recipes while people waited for services and they also performed skits on gender relations and the importance of family planning.
By the end of the day, the Marie Stopes team had provided 8 depo-provera injections, inserted 9 norplant implants, removed 2 norplants, performed 9 tubal ligations, and 26 cancer screenings. There were still women who wanted services by the end of the day, so we’ll be having another day in May. The day was really successful, and I can’t wait to do another.
The next week I was in Nairobi to help plan the pre-service training for the next public health group that arrives in June and then I had a meeting to plan the girl’s empowerment camp I’m attending next week. I had a few days back at the office before I left to go on my last vacation before I go home. I went with some of my girlfriends up to Lake Turkana, which is far up North. It took us a few days with stopovers.
We were pleasantly surprised at how much the places up there have grown since my travel book was written. The book made it seem like there wasn’t much there at all, but the supermarket in Lodwar had cheese, meats, and good snacks… We went to Kolokal, a small town on the lake, and stayed at a great place that allowed us to cook our own food. It was really really really hot there and I would have preferred to sleep outside at night if there weren’t bugs.
We went to the lake one day to negotiate a boat ride to Central Island, a volcanic island/national park on the lake. After verifying the fuel costs and seeing that the captain wasn’t profiting so much, we gave in and went. The island was beautiful and seemed so untouched by humans. The only problem was, there was no shade. The only trees were ones that were thorny and didn’t have much for leaves. We saw a crocodile that was swimming in a lake in one of the craters and a huge amount of flamingos in another one of the crater lakes.
Another day we went to Eliye Springs, which wasn’t that impressive spring-wise, but had beautiful white, sandy beaches with palm trees on the lake. Our taxi was late picking us up because our ride there had caused 2 flat tires (or “punctures” as they’re called here). After he fixed them we went on our way back to Lodwar. Within 30 minutes we got a puncture. The driver quickly put on the spare and we were off. 10 minutes later, we got another puncture. Uh-oh, now we didn’t have another spare. We were out in the middle of nowhere on a road that doesn’t have public transport. Luckily we had cell phone service so the driver called someone in Lodwar to send another spare on a motorbike to reach us. We sat and waited for about 45 minutes when another small taxi drove by us and offered us their spare. Turns out it was the mayor of Lodwar, yay! The driver put it on and we were off! 10 minutes later we got ANOTHER puncture. YES. THREE PUNCTURES!! FIVE, if you count the two we got on the way there. So, we waited yet again for the man to come with the tire from Lodwar. Finally it got to us and we made the driver go really slow so we wouldn’t get another. We made it back to Lodwar alright and vowed to check the tires of any vehicle we ever get in in the future. Oh, the adventures of traveling in Kenya….
We stopped over in Kitale, as we had done on the way there. The first night we were there we searched for an Indian/Chinese restaurant that was listed in my travel book. Turns out it had gone out of business so we asked the waitress. She told us the Sikh Union had food like that, when we asked her where it was she said to just take a taxi. We didn’t feel like taking a taxi so we went to a closer place that was pretty good. On our way back we decided to find a Chinese or Indian place. We asked around and were directed to a place called Pinewood. We went there and they had an amazing-looking Chinese menu. When we ordered, however, they told us they didn’t have any of the food on the menu, that it was from the previous owners. We were really sad so we asked them if they had heard of the Sikh Union. We asked them to call a taxi and in about 10 minutes a guy showed up. Turned out he worked for the Sikh Union and they had sent him to take us (for free). The place was great and not only did they have Indian food, but they actually had all the Chinese food that wasn’t available at the Pinewood place because they were the previous owners. We had a great meal, the waiter recommended me a dish that wasn’t even on the menu and it was really yummy. We asked them to call us a taxi to take us to our hotel and asked how much it should be. He told us 200KSH but they took us out to the same truck we had taken before. When we pulled up to the hotel we said “200KSH is ok?” He hesitated so we worried he was going to ask for more. Instead, he said, “they just told me to drive you and didn’t say anything about money.” We couldn’t believe he refused the money! We were so shocked and happy with our Sikh Union experience, so anyone out there going to Kitale, go to the Sikh Union!
After Kitale, we made our way to Naivasha to go to Hell’s Gate National Park. It’s the only park you can bike through because there aren’t so many dangerous animals. We stayed in a cabin and were able to cook food on their stove. We actually cooked our own food pretty much every night to save money and we made friends with the kitchen staff at most of the hotels that way. We rented bikes and probably biked around 20-25 kilometers total on the day we went to the park. The park has gorgeous rock formations and we saw lots of zebras, antelope, and baboons. At one point we hiked through a gorge with a guide and saw lots of cool things, including an area where they filmed with Angelina Jolie for Tomb Raider!
I had a great time and it turned out to be more of an adventure than a vacation. But, we have lots of stories now.
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