Giraffes, Kazuri and 'The Drop Off'

Today is my third official day in Kenya and I am already in love! Even though I have been here for hardly 36 hours, I feel like a week has gone by.

I arrived at the Nairobi airport Sunday at 6:30 am, and waited 7 hours to meet with the program directors. But while I was waiting I met a very nice Swedish couple who were planning a safari to Tanzania and a Sudanese man who played cards with me for 2 hours in the airport café. Eventually I met up with three girls from my program and the program directors, Bwana Jamal and Mama Mary. We took a pimped out magenta matatu (named Jazz) to a place called Karen just outside of Nairobi. We are staying in a hostel/convent/compound called Mary Ward in for the first couple days of our orientation. It is beautiful here, with hot pink and purple flowers everywhere. There also is a baby cow tied to a tree in back of the hostel that is really sweet, but loves to chew on my skirts.

Yesterday we spent our morning at The Giraffe Center, which was about a 10 minute matatu ride away from our hostel. As we arrived, one of their 9 giraffes was giving birth to a calf! We were able to hand feed and kiss and pet the giraffes. The Center is part of the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife and exists to breed and protect the Rothschild species of giraffe, which is extremely rare. In addition to giraffes, they had several warthogs! After spending some time playing with the giraffes, we went on a short hike through the natural sanctuary. We followed a rough path covered in red dirt through a preserved forest area, and is the same path taken by the giraffes. Eventually we came upon their 'antisocial' giraffe named Betty, who is about 10 years old. When Betty saw us she started to approach us and our guide quickly pushed us down a rocky path telling us to "run and hurry!" away from angry Betty, because he "did not like the look in her eye."

Daisy and Jock
Giraffe Birth!
twiga!


pumba!

After we finished our tour of The Giraffe center, our matatu took us to a bead factory nearby, called Kazuri (which in swahili means something small and beautiful). Kazuri is a project that begin to help single mothers in Kenya. All of the bead-making, glazing, firing, and stringing is done by 300 single mothers. We toured the entire factory, and saw women forming the beads as well as some pottery and animal figurines from a dark gray clay and painting elaborate patterns on the dried beads. The woman who gave the tour said that they produce around 30,000 finished beads every day. Although they export most of their products around the world, there are currently over 100 women on a waitlist to work at Kazuri because they have not been having many foreign purchases recently. The necklaces and pottery is gorgeous! You can visit their website to see better pictures of their bead and pottery: www.Kazuri.com.

women painting and threading beads
painted beads before firing

This morning, we did an exercise called "The Drop Off". We were placed in groups of 3-4 people and dropped off at different locations around Nairobi for about 3 hours, and were told to find out as much as we could about the place by talking to different people.

On the matatu ride to Nairobi City Center, we drove right by Kibera, the largest slum of Nairobi and the second largest slum in all of Africa. Kibera has existed since 1918 and is a home to around 1 million Africans. It was an absolutely amazing site. We drove through forested and lush areas, with many outdoor gardens and nurseries. Then, upon rounding a corner, we the view was filled with gray and brown tin roofed huts. It was an amazing contrast. There were many people walking around, carrying a few goods to sell, and there many chickens running around.

on the road to Nairobi...
First view of Kibera

My group was dropped off near the Nairobi's Women Hospital and the Gender Violence Recovery Center (GVRC). The center was founded in 2001 to treat women and children affected by rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence. For all walk-ins to the center, they provide free PEP (post exposure prophylaxis) to prevent HIV/AIDS, emergency contraception, and counseling services. In addition, the Nairobi's women hospital provides prenatal, gynecological, and maternity services. It is a very modern facility, and the only health center in all of East Africa that specializes in women and children. This past year, the GVRC provided for 2805 individuals, 2357 of which were rape cases. We met with the public relations manager of the GVRC and NWH and received a tour of their facilities. We entered one of their recovery wards and met a women named Tilli who had suffered severe domestic violence and had been in the hospital for over 3 weeks. She was badly beaten, had burns covering 25% of her body and was in need of skin grafts. She was very quiet, but was kind enough to let us meet her and introduce ourselves.

After wondering around the area a little, we were picked up by Jazz (our magenta matatu) and shared stories. The other groups visited Jomo Kenyatta Hospital (and non-profit and the second largest hospital in all of Africa), Chuokikuu cha Nairobi (The University of Nairobi), the Nairobi train station, and the site of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy.

Today, I also learned about a really interesting thing called Mpesa. This is a program (supported by Safaricom and Zain) that allows people to hold and send money with their cell phones by simply texting it to another phone number. Next to all of the Visa ATMS you will always find a Mpesa station, where you can transfer money to your cell phone. This program started in Nairobi, and is becoming popular in other countries as well.

So far I having been having an amazing time, and love Kenya. There are only 15 students in the program, and we all come from different schools and have very different majors and interests, which makes our group discussion really interesting. I really like everyone in the program, and we have all bonded very quickly. I also love the academic directors, Jamal and Odoch.

My internet access has been very sporadic, so I will be blogging irregularly. Please check in, if just to look at the pictures!

Kwaheri!