Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Two Weeks in Kenya, Part 1

On August 1st, my good friend Jordan and I arrived at JFK international airport to embark on a two week journey to Kenya. In true American fashion, we decided to hit the McDonald's for a late pre-flight lunch. From the U.S. to Frankfurt, as well as from Frankfurt to Addis Ababa, we were on Lufthansa Air flights, which was really nice for the most part. I'd definitely fly with them again internationally. We did end up with some slight delays because of the weather but we were lucky enough not to miss any of our connecting flights. En route to Kenya I finished a really interesting book titled "Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower", by Michela Wrong. It was a fascinating though disturbing book about corruption, inequality, tribal/ethnic differences and how they've tied into Kenyan politics over the past few decades. Perhaps I was immersing myself in cynicism prior to even entering the country?

After taking an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, we deboarded the plane and went in search of passport control and my checked bag. As we were attempting to enter immigration/passport control to officially enter the country, we were stopped by a lady who asked to see our vaccination records. Jordan had researched necessary vaccinations months prior to our trip and on the website, it says nothing about needing to present vaccination records to get into Kenya, unless you are coming directly from a country where Yellow Fever is a problem. It also said that Ethiopia is one of those countries, but if you are only going into the airport, you don't have to get the vaccination or have your vaccination records. Jordan, who is course always more prepared than me, had her records and presented them to the lady. The lady turned to me and asked me about mine. I explained to her that I didn't have them but I had not come from a country that had Yellow Fever. We politely argued with her over what she was telling us versus what's actually on their website and after a few minutes she basically told me to go ahead but next time I come to Kenya I should have my vaccination records. Needless to say, I shook my head in amazement as I walked on to get my visa stamped. It didn't take long for me to revert to 'in developing country' mode.

Chris, better known as CTG, was waiting for us at the airport but before I could greet him with a glorious embrace, I had to find my checked bag. I stood at the luggage carousel and waited...............................and waited, for a good 30 minutes or so before I started talking with a few other people who I noticed also anxiously waiting, about the fact that our bags appeared to be nonexistent. Eventually we were helped by somebody who worked for one of the airlines or the airport, and we filled in paperwork for missing luggage. The gentleman assured us the luggage was not lost, it was just missing and that it would turn up. Luckily, I had brought most of my expensive and important stuff in my camera bag, as well as a change of clothes in my extra small backpack. I reunited with CTG and Jordan and before hopping into a taxi, we exchanged some money.

Our taxi ride to the hotel wasn't too long and we were pretty tired from 24 hours or so of traveling. We caught up with Chris a bit and discussed our options and concerns over the missing bag (which in addition to my clothes, sandals, toiletries, etc. also held two liters of oh so delicious root beer, root beer which poor CTG hadn't had the pleasure of tasting in a long time). CTG had our trip planned out day by day so we made some adjustments and decided to do a few things in Nairobi the next day, that we originally weren't planning on doing until right before we flew back to the U.S. The early part of our day on August 4th was spent wandering around the city, lookin for food and drink, and searching for a local airline office where we could purchase tickets needed towards the end of the trip. We ate lunch at an upstairs cafe overlooking the street. Lunch consisted of beef stew, rice and some vegetables. It wasn't spectacular but it certainly wasn't terrible. Kenyan food has a lot more flavor than Mongolian food but not quite on the same level as Khmer food. :)

Moving on, we managed to land our plane tickets, just barely and soon after we received a phone call that my bag had arrived at the airport. Needless to say, we were all relieved. After picking up my bag from the airport we had dinner at what is apparently one of the most famous restaurants in Nairobi, called 'Carnivore'. Carnivore is set up similar to a lot of Brazilian meat/steak houses in the U.S. You pay for your dinner, sit down, and they bring you skewer after skewer of different varieties of meat and you eat as much as you can. The meal was a bit pricey (for us at least, I think it was somewhere between 20 and 30 bucks) but we wanted to see what the hype was all about and it came highly recommended by my friend Jessica, who had traveled in Kenya previously. The restaurant was full of tourists/foreigners and was bustling. After having some beers at the bar and waiting a bit for our table, we sat down, ready to gorge. Over the next hour and a half we were served some salad and side dishes, bread and some potatoes, and then tried a variety of different meats and cuts, including crocodile, ostrich, bull balls (AKA rocky mountain oysters, which oddly enough I never tried in Colorado), camel, lamb, and different cuts of beef, pork, lamb, and I believe goat. The majority of the food was delicious and we left satisfied, but we planned to eat the majority of our meals at cheaper establishments for the rest of the trip.

The next day, CTG let us know he had a surprise for us. After securing our plane tickets we hopped in a cab and went for a ride. After driving around for a little bit we made a stop at a giraffe preserve outside of Kenya. Depspite the school bus full of obnoxious tourist kids (and by kids I mean, these kids were probably all in high school) throwing food at one giraffe's face and repeatedly screaming it's name while trying to get a picture of it licking them, it was a nice experience. After the giraffe visit we had the pleasure of visiting an elephant/rhinocerous orphanage. The elephants, of which there were many, were obnoxiously cute and fun to watch. Here there was also an obscene amount of tourists, hugging the rope to get up close to the animals and pretty much ignoring the workers who were trying to explain a little bit about the orphanage and the animals. Basically the orphanage rescues baby elephants and rhinos whose parents have been poached or hunted and takes care of them until they are old enough to be out in the wild on their own. There was also one rhino but he was huge, not quite as small as most of the elephants. Below are a few pics from the orphanage.



The rest of my Kenya pictures can be viewed at these links:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.633251806863.2125758.72206395&l=a83178afd5&type=1

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.633430773213.2125820.72206395&l=2d77a737f1&type=1

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.634112102823.2126064.72206395&l=b56d541d94&type=1



After enjoying part of the day with awesome animals, we took a matatu (large van with a crazy driver, stuffed full of people and stuff, very similar to our mikr vans in Mongolia) to a campground called Fisherman's Camp right on Lake Naivasha. More on that and the rest of the trip as soon as I can get through my notes and pictures. :)

Monday, August 1, 2011

Matt Becker, African Adventure 1.0

I'm sitting at home, AC on full blast, pretty tired after a fun but exhausting weekend, mostly spent drinking beers, catching up with friends from Peace Corps and making new friends and acquaintances. It's been about two weeks since we moved into our apartment in New York City and I'm about to leave again, this time for a two week trip to Kenya. Like most of previous travel experiences, it never really hits me that I'm going somewhere until I'm on the way there. Right now, I'm sitting here thinking 'I'm going to Kenya tomorrow. Cool." but tomorrow when I'm on the plane it's going to be more like "Holy crap! I'm going to Africa! To Kenya! Awwwweeeesssoome!".

I've lived in Asia for over two years, been to the Middle East briefly and I've traveled extensively around the continental United States. I've never been to Africa but so many countries on the continent have interested me, have made we want to go. I think that as I've spent the last few years working in development and education, and as I've decided to make the transition into human rights, humanitarian assistance and conflict resolution, I've always known that I'd end up in the Middle East or Africa at some point. This is only a two week trip, mostly for pleasure, to visit a friend who's there with Peace Corps, to experience something new and different for a short time before graduate school starts but in a lot of ways I feel like it's just going to be a preview, a small view into a country that I could end up working in sometime in the not too distant future. I'm reading a book right now, called "Our Turn to Eat", about Kenya, which came highly recommended by Chris, my friend who is there now. It's pretty interesting so far and it's helping to educate me on some of the current woes Kenya is facing, perhaps to understand the root causes of many of the country's struggles with corruption, before I arrive there.

I've been back in the U.S. since September and I've been itching to do some international travel for the past few months. My bags are packed, I've finally got a a nice camera with which to document my trip and my friend slash traveling companion Jordan is here. Jordan has never been to Africa either but has traveled in Europe. We're both nervous and excited and we're both happy to know that we have a good friend and a great host/travel guide to show us around the country he's been living and working in for almost two years. I have about 40 gb worth of memory cards in my camera bag so you can believe I'll be taking and posting up a lot of pictures of this adventure.

24 hours from now we'll be on the first of three plane rides that will take us to Kenya. I can't wait. :)