April 29, 2008 - SURPRISE!

SURPRISE - I am home in America! I didn't tell my parents that I was coming home and when I showed up at their front door yesterday afternoon (after travelling for 25 hours or so) they could not have been more (happily) surprised. A special, special thank you to my friend Kate for picking me up at the airport in Boston and driving me to Plymouth.

I basically came home for this visit on our tax rebate (thank you, George W. Bush...wow, never said that before) and because I have a few weeks of nothing to do in between my volunteer contract at UNICEF and my paid contract which is scheduled to start on May 19th. I think I win for best early mother's day and father's day gifts! I will spend the next 2 weeks visiting my family and friends in Boston and New York. I'm quite sorry that I won't be able to travel more and see everyone I know and love in the US, but hopefully I can at least talk to many people on a much cheaper phone call. My trip was very smooth - from Nairobi to London, a 6 hour layover in London, and then from London to Boston. On my second flight I was upgraded to Business Class which was SUCH a treat! Let's hope that happens again :) Kristoffer is also really, really busy at work so, while we will miss each other, he was extremely encouraging and supportive of this trip (he even talked me into it!).

The other amazing news I can very happily report is that yesterday I recieved a final judgement from T-Mobile regarding the phone bill for $7,000 that I have been protesting because my sim card was stolen in Nairobi. T-Mobile agreed to absorb the entire bill!!! The battle is over, thanks to many, many people in NYC who were petitioning T-Mobile on my behalf, and I have never been more relieved in my life. It was a hard lesson to learn, but believe me when I say that we are a lot more cautious in Nairobi since that happened.

Kristoffer is back in Kenya working hard and I am on a very happy vacation here. If you want me to call you, please email me your phone number because I lost all of my numbers when my sim card was stolen. You can also call me at my parents' house if you have that number, or email me and I will send it to you!

LMW

April 27, 2008 - American Religion

The weather in Kenya has become sort of interesting. It is raining more than it was before and not only at night, so that usually it is cold and rainy in the morning, sunny and warm/hot in the afternoon, and then cold at night with rain again. You sort of need to be prepared with layers and rain gear at all times.

Kristoffer and I are feeling better this weekend. I seemed to recover much more quickly than he did, and he actually had to see a doctor to get some antibiotics for his infection. Our week was not a normal week because of getting sick - we didn't go to the gym or eat too much, and we were both pretty tired at work. For me, I finished up a big project I had been working on for my boss at UNICEF. I am happy because even though I am a volunteer, my name is going on the project as the editor (and partial writer, to be honest). I am told that is a big deal and will help me secure future work there. My new paid contract - after all this time - was sort of stuck and not going anywhere, and last week my boss started the process again and I am told it will go through in the next few weeks. For Kristoffer, rising global food prices are making his job very difficult these days.

I had a funny experience at work this week. One of the women in our office, a program administrator, was singing at her desk, apparently a Christian song. I must have been bopping my head along to her music or something and she said, "I like to sing Christian songs; they make me feel very calm," and I said, "That's really nice." Then she said, "Oh! Are you a Christian? Do you go to church?" and I said, "Yes, I am Catholic and I do go to church," and then she said, "Oh. I thought all Americans were Jewish. I didn't know any of them went to church." Isn't that so funny? She didn't think in a country of 300 million people, that there were any Christians? I think she forgot that we were colonized by the same people.

Sorry there isn't too much else to report. Hopefully next week we will have more to say now that we are feeling well again.

LMW

April 22, 2008 - Misery Loves Company

I have recently realized how little I have posted on the blog this month. The thing is, once you have lived somewhere for awhile and are into a life/work routine, it seems a lot less interesting to write about! Do people really want to hear about the mundane details of our life?!

Things in Kenya are pretty calm these days – the political agreement has been all sorted out and now the government needs to get working to help all of the displaced Kenyans living in horrible camp conditions. Otherwise, we are really enjoying our recreation center membership – the pool is really nice and relaxing! We are watching a lot less TV because of the time we spend there (except for American Idol on Tuesday and Thursday nights for sure). I am sure you know that a Kenyan won the Boston Marathon yesterday – no surprise there! There is one particular tribe that Kenyan marathoners usually come from, called Kalenjin, and they are amazingly fast!!!

The only other news I have to report is that Kristoffer and I have both been home today with a stomach bug. It is hard to tell whether it is something we ate or if one of us picked up a bug and gave it to the other. The reality, though, is that we have only moved from the bed to the couch back to the bed back to the couch (with a lot of complaining involved) and both still feel pretty crappy at the end of the day. We’re hoping that it is only a 24 hour bug and that we are okay tomorrow. Today is the first day we have been really bummed that we haven’t hired a housekeeper – it would be really nice to have someone take care of us since we have never been sick at the same time before!

Kristoffer says:

Since we have nothing new to report, let me tell you about my driving experience on Saturday. Saturday morning I left the house at 9:30 and went to the UN to meet up with 2 drivers who were taking a World Food Programme Toyota Land Cruiser to the WFP’s mechanic on the other side of Nairobi. I wanted to use that mechanic because I am tired of dealing with sketchy characters and I thought this would be a guy I could trust if the WFP uses him. I was supposed to follow them and they were taking a shortcut through some dodgy neighborhoods of Nairobi so they specifically reminded me to lock my doors and roll up all of my windows, which we always do anyway. I thought it would be a piece of cake following the Land Cruiser because it was quite old – but boy! Those Toyotas can really move! The female driver drove like she was competing in Formula One! The 45-minute drive really pushed my driving skills to the limit. I didn’t want to be lost in the middle of some sketchy slums so I drove cow-catcher to cow-catcher (that is a joke for the Danes), which means I drove bumper to bumper no matter what it took. I cut off a thousand other cars and didn’t lose sight of the Toyota. When we finally arrived, the Kenyan driver stepped out of the car and said, “Wow, Kristoffer! You can really drive! You drive like a matatu! I am very impressed. The Mzungu [white person] can drive!” That is when you know you’ve been in Kenya too long – when you start to drive like the insane mini-buses! It was a milestone for me having always stood in the shadow of my brother, who can master driving any vehicle known to man. It was also probably a good thing that Lisa wasn’t in the car with me clutching the dashboard and gasping with every turn.

Also, Lisa and I have officially come up with a system for categorizing the ever-growing potholes around us on the streets of Nairobi.

1. Pot hole – not deeper than 1 foot and can be passed by a skilled driver without any major damage to the car and/or passengers in the car.

2. Ditch – not deeper than 1 foot but very wide and takes up the entire lane; cannot be passed, the driver must drive through it. The ditch will always get a huge gasp out of Lisa when we are in it.

3. Crater – unlimited depth and extreme width; it takes up most of both lines and however the driver chooses to handle the crater will be at extreme risk to vehicle, passengers, pedestrians, and other vehicles as well.

Good thing I am such a good driver! –KW

Ok, so that’s all the news from Nairobi. Writing this blog is officially the most activity we have had all day in our stomach-flu state. I think we need to take an evening nap now.

LMW

April 16, 2008 - Belated Easter Weekend Pictures

I have been trying to post these pictures for a few weeks now, but the internet always ruins my intentions. Today, however, the internet at the UN is fast enough to upload them - so here are belated pictures of our Easter weekend. Sorry there aren't more pictures of us, but we don't really look any different than we used to and it is more interesting to take pictures of animals than of each other! Hopefully the formatting posts correctly - sometimes blogspot gets a little crazy. Enjoy :) LMW



All around the Mt. Kenya region you can find signs like this telling you that you are on the Equator. I think it is very cool to be directly standing on that imaginary line!












This is a beautiful view of Mt. Kenya from our room at the first lodge we stayed at over Easter weekend. It doesn't look like an easy climb, does it?











Horseback riding in the forest - believe it or not the pictures from this angle came out better than from our other side!

Kristoffer was a little bit better at horseback riding than I was, but neither of us are yearning to do it again any time soon.

This is an eland, the largest antelope, which I fed at the animal orphanage we visited. I forget how long he had been at the orphanage; most animals are reintroduced into the wild but he has a bad leg and, therefore, will remain at the orphanage. There is a lot of space there and he is well cared for.







This is a Mountain Bongo - the most endangered antelope found in the central region of Kenya. They are known for their enormous, twisted horns and their white stripes. In person, this animal is quite striking.











Obviously, I am riding an enormous turtle here. I tell you, it was more comfortable than you'd think! He didn't seem to notice I was even on him because he was after the corn-on-the-cob that the guide was feeding him. Not only was he the oldest turtle (approx. 150 years) I've ever riden, but also the fastest (approx 1/2 mph - just kidding)!





These chimpanzees live in an enormous conservancy after being rescued from Burundi and Rwanda; they are not native to Kenya and this is the only place in the country to see them. They are fascinating!









This chimp looks like he is just waiting for someone to bring him a drink before settling in to watch football or something! We laughed so hard when he assumed this position; we were betting as to whether he would put his hands behind his head, but he never did. Following his rest, he start grooming a friend.








Here are two rhino we saw grazing. They are such huge animals...you really don't want to get in their way! When we were in Naivasha in December we learned that rhinos have no perifory vision - so they can only charge in a straight line. If they are coming at you, step aside and run in a different direction!








Our Easter Elephants! Our camera died while we were watching them so we don't have too many pictures, but believe me when I tell you that they were so, so beautiful. You can see part of a baby elephant behind the big one on the right.

We are so happy that we finally saw them. Now all we need to do is see some lions and we will have covered "the Big Five". I think we both felt that these elephants are the most amazing animals we have seen.

April 15, 2008 - Action!

So there has been a lot of action in Kenya in the last week. First, Kristoffer and I have taken action at the gym! Other than the mistake we made of sitting by the pool for 15 minutes without sunblock (can you say Lobster #1 and Lobster #2? - we forgot that we are nearly on the equator!) our experience at the gym is going well. I am enjoying aerobics classes and Kristoffer really likes to swim. We are sort of in training because before this year is over we intend to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro (and I, for one, definitely need to be in better shape to do that!). It is nice to have a routine of going to the gym after work.

We also took action to be more social! We are pretty much home-bodies over here, but that is doing nothing for our social life. On Saturday night we went to a really fun party thrown by a Danish guy Kristoffer knows (it was actually a birthday party for his wife, but we didn't know that). There were a lot of Danes there - I think they are taking over Kenya! And when you meet new people in the expatriate community you ask them their story (why they are here, what agency they work for, etc) and then you tell yours, so the time flew by as we exchanged stories a few times and learned about other people's experiences here. And the party was so fun that I spent most of Sunday recovering from it :)

On Sunday, the government finally took action and came to an agreement on a Cabinet of 40 ministers (plus the President, plus the Prime Minister). It is good news that they agreed to something, but it is not good news that the Cabinet is so bloated and that the government seriously increased its own paycheck. People have mixed emotions and I think there is a lot of distrust between the government and the people now. Only time will tell if this arrangement will work.

Yesterday we woke up in the morning to hear of violence in the city; we first thought it was in reaction to the new Cabinet, but in fact it was not. There is a large gang in Kenya called the Mungiki; they are essentially the Kenyan mafia, are known for doing the government's dirty work, and are loyal to the largest tribe in Kenya, the Kikuyu. Their leader is in prison and last week his wife was unexpectedly and brutally murdered. They claim she was killed by the police and so they launched violent protests yesterday in certain areas of Nairobi and elsewhere (although nowhere near the UN so we are safe). They blocked roads, killed a random driver on the road, burned tires, shot at and stoned cars, etc. The police killed 11 of them yesterday and so far two of them today. They are not only protesting the wife's death but are also hoping to force the release of their leader from prison. They are an extremely dangerous group here in Kenya and some people with whom we work were actually unable to get to work yesterday because of the trouble they caused; people are afraid of the Mungiki to the degree that one of my colleagues is not staying at her home anymore because she lives in an area with a lot of Mungiki activity and she doesn't think she is safe. They don't seem to be targeting anyone in particular, they are just angry at everyone in general. Now, I am not writing this to scare anyone - please don't be worried about our safety, we take every precaution we can - but rather to show that life in Kenya is action-packed and changes constantly. Every day there is something new to observe or learn!

My job is going well and, while it is taking longer than hoped (no surprise there), some progress is being made towards processing a consultant's contract for me at UNICEF. Kristoffer's job is also really good these days; it is hard for us to believe that we have been here for over 4 months! We are very happy that we get American Idol on Tuesday and Thursday nights, although we are weeks and weeks behind the live version in the US (and, of course, I love it a bit more than he does), but yesterday was a true highlight when we flipped on ESPN after work to find the last 2 innings of Sunday's Yankees/Red Sox game! It didn't matter that it wasn't live, it just felt so good to watch the Red Sox play, especially because they won - it was almost like being at home!

The rains have started again, now later at night and throughout the early morning, but our afternoons are quite lovely. We hope this blog finds you well and that spring is beginning wherever you are.

LMW

April 8, 2008 - Political News

You may have heard in the news today that protests and demonstrations took place in Nairobi. I just wanted to assure you that they took place in Nairobi's slums and we were not close to them at all, and also that we have not heard any reports of fatalities. The situation is getting more tense, though, and the country is fearful of what a continued political deadlock will mean for the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) who want to return home, and for possibly renewed violence.

The issue at hand is this: Kofi Annan brokered an agreement between the government (PNU) and the opposition (ODM) at the end of February, and the agreement implied that there would be equal power-sharing between the two parties. There has been significant difficulty, however, getting both sides to agree to the make up of the Cabinet. Already, President Kibaki had the largest Cabinet in Kenya's history at 34 ministries (with 34 ministers, 34 deputy ministers, 34 permanent secretaries, and 34 of many other positions). In order to reach an agreement last week, a "bloated" Cabinet of 40 ministries (et al) was agreed to. The public has been very upset about this because taxes will need to be raised in order to pay the salaries of all of these new people, and because it makes Kibaki and Odinga (the Prime Minister designee) look like they are just fighting to give all of their friends important jobs (which they are). So everyone thought that they had this agreement of 40 ministers in the Cabinet who would be announced two days ago, but then everything fell apart when both sides started accusing each other of changing the composition of the Cabinet and changing their public stance, etc. At this point, ODM has refused to continue talks with the government until they meet some demands (firing the 17 ministers appointed in January and starting the Cabinet negotiations fresh) and the government is bad-mouthing ODM all over the place.

So here we are: deadlocked once again.

We are watching the situation closely, and are otherwise doing well. Kristoffer returned on Saturday night from his week in Rome, when he finally got to see the Sistine Chapel, and bearing appropriate gifts for his wife who was left to fend for herself all week. And fend well I did! This week we have joined the United Nations Recreation Center (gym/health club) because the stationary nature of life for us here is driving us crazy! I have never been one for the gym, but I really feel the need to move so I will give it a try and, lucky for me, I have a very enthusiastic partner. The center has a gorgeous pool, nice equipment, and a variety of classes - hopefully it will become part of our routine here and maybe we will make friends there too (friends? what a concept!).

LMW

April 3, 2008 - Working (for free) and Paying Bills

Happy April and Happy 7th Birthday to my nephew, Michael. I called him for his birthday and he asked me if I was coming home for his party. When I choked back tears to tell him that I was too far away to come to his party, he was like "Ok. Bye." Clearly 7-year olds have bigger fish to fry than aunties who live in Africa!

Since my last blog some interesting things have happened. First of all, it hasn’t rained once in Nairobi since I wrote the all about the “long rains”, mutant-sized pot holes and my rain bug enemies. So weird! The weather has been alternately cold and hot this week so I almost feel like I am in New England! Other parts of the country, though, are having serious floods which are really bad.

Yesterday my boss brought me with her to a really important meeting; in fact, I would say it is one of two supremely important meetings for education in the country. It is a three-day budget workshop for Kenya’s public education system (K-university) for 2008-2009, attended by government officials, development partners (such as UN agencies, USAID and the development organizations of other countries like England, Canada, Switzerland, and Japan), and other education stakeholders like the teacher’s union. There were close to 200 people there, not including the press, and the Minister of Education opened with a lengthy speech about Kenya’s achievements in recent years, such as increasing the number of children enrolled in primary school, as well as its upcoming challenges, such as the fact that there are 1 million Kenyan children who do not attend school at all. All Kenyan speeches are lengthy, by the way. I learned a lot about the system and the fiscal policies supporting it here. Specifically, the country faces the challenge of quickly rebuilding 38 schools that were burned to the ground during the recent violence, 65 schools that were completely looted/devastatingly vandalized, and over 40 educational offices that were looted! That is in addition to the fact that over 100,000 children and 1,350 are displaced, living in camps, and in desperate need of support. By the end of the conference tomorrow, the budget will be tightened up and expanded to meet these needs.

I met some really interesting people and got some political “gossip” during my lunch with a UNICEF colleauge and two people from the Ministry of Education. They were discussing the stalemate over Cabinet positions for the Coaltion and which members of government funded the post-election violence. The Cabinet dilemma was subsequently resolved today after Kofi Annan - “Kenya’s Daddy” – lectured the President and Prime Minister to make decisions like adults. I was interested to learn that my colleague, who is Somalian-Kenyan, is married to a Harvard-educated lawyer (also Somalian-Kenyan) who was just elected to Parliament for the first time in this past election – a very interesting time to be a newcomer! It was a little bit hard to follow the conversation in a noisy cafeteria because Kenyans talk so softly and have very thick accents to which I am still tuning my ears, but I did my best and found myself understanding some of what they were talking about. After my political orientation at lunch, the conference was broken down into groups. Unbeknownst to me, my boss had signed me up to keep minutes and produce a final document for one of the them. This would have been fine if she had told me that she signed me up for this job…but she didn’t! So, I didn’t know that I was supposed to be doing anything for the group and this led to a very awkward misunderstanding between me (lowly UNICEF volunteer) and a high ranking government official from the Ministry of Education. Whoops! While I appreciate that she has a lot of confidence in me and trusts me, I did ask my boss not to secretly sign me up for anything again! The conference continued today but I had work to do for her back at the office so I did not attend. I did really appreciate the opportunity she gave me though; it was both a professional and a cultural experience for me.

As for today, before going to work I had to pay our bills. This may sound strange to you, but here in Kenya we don’t get a bill in the mail and then send a check back to the company or have the funds electronically taken out of our account. Oh no, the country is not quite there yet. Some people go to the post office and pay there where they have an electronic way of transferring funds to different companies. But since we all know how I feel about the post office, Kristoffer and I usually go door-to-door to the electric company, water company, and cable company to pay our bills (luckily, the internet company will come to us to receive payment) as most Kenyans do. Even though Kristoffer is away this week the bills are still due! So I called a taxi this morning and went door-to-door paying bills for 90 minutes before going to work. I even paid for next month in advance just to save us a Saturday morning of sitting in traffic to pay bills! It is so annoying!

Because I use the same taxi company all the time, all of the drivers know be my name. Every time I call for a cab the guy answers the phone with “Good Morning Lisa! How are you?” This morning there was some kind a mix up and 3 taxis showed up at our apartment at the same time to pick me up! It was really funny and I have no idea how they figured out which driver “got me” because they were speaking in very fast Kiswahili. Anyway, I thought it was really funny that my driver really likes Kenny Rogers and we listened to a Kenny Rogers tape as we drove around paying my bills before going to the UN. He rewound the tape three times to listen to the song “Lucille”, which I didn’t realize was such a popular hit over here in Kenya (considering I have never heard in the US!). He didn't seem to like "The Gambler", my personal favorite, that much.

I had a really busy morning and attended my second meeting for UN Spouses (aka “the wives club”). I tried to recruit more people for Book Club and everyone seemed to just love the idea, but we’ll see how many of them actually read the next book! Then the meeting sort of took a dive for me because the topic was MENOPAUSE, which is not something I can really identify with just yet. They even brought in a nurse to make a presentation and some of the women shared their menopause stories. I am sure this was useful to many 40+ year-olds in the large group of 26 women, but I was also relieved that there were more non-menopausal faces in the crowd than at the last meeting and they also seemed at odds with the presentation.

I am really happy that tomorrow is Friday! I am attending a different meeting on behalf of my boss where I will give a brief report on the state of post-election violence education in the country. I will be supported by two colleagues from Save the Children (United Kingdom) who will report on their activities in the field. Should be interesting! I am trying to make myself indispensable to my boss, so as to secure my future at UNICEF for as long as I want one. At least I hope that is what I am doing!

The best news is that Kristoffer comes home from his amazing week in Rome on Saturday night. I can’t even remember the last time we went an entire week without talking on the phone, but this week we did it. Thank God for email! And I am sorry that we’re still having problems uploading picture but someday you will see our Easter Elephants – I promise!

LMW

March 30, 2008 - The Long Rains Have Come

I am so sorry that I have not posted our Easter pictures yet, but the rainy season has started here and when it rains (usually from about 6pm through the morning) our internet connection does not work! Also, since the rains started our internet connection has been much slower, even when it is not raining, and the website has not been able to upload the pictures. I will try to post them on the UN compound sometime this week because some of them are really great! In addition to slowing down our internet connection, the long rains are absolutely destroying the roads of Nairobi. There have always been pot holes in the roads here, which we have learned to navigate well because we mostly drive the same roads, but within the last 2 weeks of rain the number of pot holes has more than tripled along with the size of the pre-existing pot holes. Now everyday is like an obstacle course as Kristoffer navigates the new holes in the road (some of them are 3 ft. wide!). And if we thought it was scary to drive in the company of Kenya's crazy matatus (mini buses) in good weather, believe me when I tell you that the fear is amplified while driving in torrential rain! The final thing to report on the long rains is that with them have come this crazy type of moth - which I unaffectionately call "rain bugs" - whenever it rains. They have long papery wings, they are attracted to light during the rain, they have somehow managed to get into our apartment even when we don't have any windows open, they die very quickly and leave their wings all over the place, and when we leave the house in the morning our stairwell is covered in them. ICK! I am not a fan of these rain bugs and hope that maybe they are plentiful at the start of the season but will all die off and leave me alone!

On Thursday of last week we received a yellow slip in our mailbox telling us that another package was waiting for us at the post office. Of course our previous experiences left us pretty jaded about going, but we also knew that the post office was charging us for storage so on Friday afternoon we headed into Nairobi's busy downtown during a torrential rain storm. I am very happy to report that we had our best post office experience to date! They quickly found our box of Easter goodies from Kristoffer's mom and we breezed through the following layers of bureaucracy very quickly. Kristoffer practiced his Kiswahili on the postal workers, which they found very entertaining, and we were out of there in 20 minutes. Of course, with the rain and the Friday traffic, it took us over an hour to get home...but at least we had Easter chocolate to eat on the drive!

The other event of this week for me was my first book club meeting yesterday morning. Four women had committed to participating but on Friday three of them cancelled on me, so I went to coffee house hoping that someone showed up! To my delight, one woman did come and we ended up having a lovely conversation about both the novel we read and being a "UN Spouse." The woman is very involved in helping UN spouses find work in Nairobi and she was really impressed that my volunteer work at UNICEF is so quickly turning into a paying job. She is Bulgarian and her husband is German, so she has 20 years of experience in what people here call an "international marriage"; she could really identify with the challenges, sacrifices, and compromises that are unique to international couples and she shared her experiences being in Nairobi for the last two years. I think in the end it was a blessing for me that she is the only one who showed up, but we are hoping that next month we have a better turnout!

Kristoffer left for his week-long WFP conference in Rome at 1am this morning; I have the week to remember what it was like to live alone! In NYC, where I lived alone for the better part of 4 years, I was always so busy with my work that living alone never felt too lonely, and I always had the telephone to keep me constantly connected to my family and friends. Here, I don't have any lessons to plan, papers to grade, or people to call so I think it will be a more solitary week than I am used to. But I am sure that will only make me more grateful for Kristoffer's normally-constant presence in my life and I will be happy to welcome him home next week.

On the political scene in Kenya, the new "coalition" government made up of PNU (the President's party) and ODM (the government's opposition) members with power-sharing between the President and Prime Minister-designee is at a stalemate one month after Kofi Annan brokered the power-sharing agreement. Both sides cannot agree on how to share the many ministries in the country and have not made progress in days, even going so far as to ask Kofi Annan to come back to help them. I think he turned them down, because really he cannot rescue them every time they disagree on something - these are big boys who need to grow up and become the leaders they claim to be. While the violence is at a minimum in the western part of the country (and there is always some violence over land and cattle at this time of year) and Nairobi seems very much back to normal, there is a lot of tension about the delay in true power-sharing. Sadly, there are still hundreds of thousands of people in IDP camps throughout the country and last week 3 women died from exposure to the cold and rain. The sooner the government gets its act together, the sooner they can increase aid to IDPs.

Hopefully I will get new pictures posted on here soon. I hope you have a good week!
LMW

March 26, 2008 - Easter Weekend

Our Easter Weekend was pretty interesting. We had some really great moments and added to our collection of Kenyan experiences.

On Friday morning we drove from Nairobi to a town called Nanyuki at the base of Mt. Kenya. It was about a 3 ½ hour drive to our hotel called the Mt. Kenya Safari Club. We didn’t know (because it is not on their website!) that the resort was being renovated, nor did we know that all of their activities were not included in the cost of staying there. So…our first impression was that it was over-priced. We didn’t realize how rare it is to find a lodge with rates that are inclusive of safaris and other activities like the one we stayed at in Naivasha after Christmas. Anyway, we decided to give it a try. The food was good and our room was beautiful, with a big fire place that you really need because at 7,000 ft it is very cold! What I really loved was that we were staying exactly on the Equator – so cool! We made the most of our time there, including early morning horse-back riding with some other guests (a nice Iranian family) and a visit to their animal orphanage. Both this hotel and the orphanage were founded by the American actor William Holden and the orphanage, unlike the one in Nairobi, actually does release rehabilitated and orphaned animals back into the wild. I rode and fed a giant 150 year-old turtle (over 360 lbs!), fed an eland (the largest type of antelope), an ostrich and many monkeys! Kristoffer fed the turtle and the monkeys but was not as into the eland and ostrich (I agree with him that ostriches are super freaky). The orphanage was such a great place for little kids to interact with animals – the few little ones we saw there were super cute. I should also mention that the snow-capped Mt. Kenya is one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. Another time when we have 5 days to climb up and come down, we hope to have that experience. It is the second highest mountain in Africa, at over 17,000 ft (5199 meters), and does not look like an easy climb...but perhaps it could help us “train” to climb Kilimanjaro. In the end, we had a nice time at the Safari Club (but still think it was over-priced).

After our orphanage visit on Saturday morning we headed to another lodge about 30 minutes west of the first place, still near the town of Nanyuki, straddling the Equator and in view of Mt. Kenya. It is called “Sweetwaters Tented Camp” and is located on its own game reserve, made up of about 30 really nice tents furnished like hotel rooms with a restaurant, bar, shop, etc. in a regular building. Unfortunately, because we weren’t exactly ahead of the game when it came to planning our weekend, they didn’t have any available tents. They did, however, have a random room (dare we say staff quarters?) where we were able to stay inexpensively. The food was pretty good but the best part of this place was that we could go on as many game drives as we wanted! We spent about 4 hours on Saturday driving around the park enjoying the animals and hunting for two in particular: elephants and lions. This was the first place we have been in Kenya where there actually are elephants so we were really psyched. Sadly we had no luck finding them on Saturday, but did enjoy some cool birds, tons of baboons, 3 rhinos, many types of antelope, and zebras and giraffes galore. They also have a Chimpanzee Sanctuary which is hundreds of acres of land for about 50 rescued chimps; there are no chimps in Kenya as they are native to Burundi and Rwanda. We could have watched them for hours – they are amazing and SOO much like us!

Sunday morning and Happy Easter! We decided to get up before everyone else and started on our game drive at 6am. By the time we needed to head back for breakfast around 8:15 we had seen more of the same, not to mention a breathtaking sunrise over Mt. Kenya, but no lions or elephants. Especially because it was probably our 7th or 8th game drive with no lion sightings, I was so frustrated! Luckily, as we were almost back to the camp, Kristoffer noticed down the path to our left a herd of elephants! Easter Elephants for us! When we got closer there were about 15 elephants, including 3 pretty small babies. They were enormous and amazing and completely made our weekend. Two of them crossed the road behind our car so close to us! We watched them eating for a while, completely fascinated by their interactions with each other, before we headed back to eat a champagne Easter breakfast of our own.

And of course, what would Easter Sunday be for me without going to church. Luckily, the lodge advertised that it had a 10am “mass” on site; I was happy about this because the closest Catholic Church was at least an hour’s drive away and I assumed it would a non-denominational Christian service of some kind, which would perfectly suit my needs. While Kristoffer worked on changing a flat tire, I headed to the “chapel” (also the pool house). I found myself with 15 Kenyans (3 of them preachers/ministers) from a nearby town and no other hotel guests, although one man did briefly join us a little later on. As it turned out, it was a Born Again Christian service that I attended. With such a small group, it was one of the most joyful church services I have ever been to with A LOT of singing and dancing. At first I sat on the outskirts of the group mostly watching and listening, but at some point one of the women came and took my hands and started dancing with me. Then, she led me to the center of the circle where she and I danced in the middle of the group. I know this sounds a little strange, but it was actually pretty special and didn’t feel uncomfortable or weird. The part that was awkward for me was later in the service, after all of the preachers had talked for a long time, members of the congregation were asked to “testify” and after a few women had gone I was asked to speak. Yikes! Of course, there was a translator going back and forth between English and Kiswahili, but Catholics do not usually get up in the middle of mass and testify so I was not quite on my game! While the other testimonies involved singing and a lot of passionate talk about being saved by Jesus, mine went a little something like this:

“Good morning…Happy Easter…my name is Lisa and I live in Nairobi…I am a Catholic Christian…Jesus has been very good to me…thank you for letting me be part of your service…Asante Sana (thank you very much).”

As lame a testimony as that was, I did receive a round of applause. After the testimony came gospel readings and sermons. I lasted a total of 1 hr. and 45 minutes before I had to go to the bathroom (and didn’t quite make it back to the service) but I know that it went on for at least 2 ½ hours. They were the most energetic Christians with whom I have ever had an experience, and it was actually pretty nice for Easter Sunday. Let me tell you, they could not have been more thrilled with Christ’s resurrection! Anyway, after church Kristoffer and I took another short game drive before lunch (sadly, no lions) and then decided to go back to Nairobi.

The rest of our weekend was very relaxing with some movie watching, good food, and generally enjoying not having to work! We saw “The Bucket List” with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, which we would highly recommend. Yesterday and today have been really busy at work for me (which is why it has taken me longer than usual to get this blog up!) and Kristoffer is getting ready to leave on Sunday for a week’s conference at the WFP headquarters in Rome. Sadly, I can’t go with him so I will be all alone in this big country (hint hint: if you want to visit next week that would be OK by me).

We are happy to have expanded our view of this country and hope that everyone else had as nice a holiday weekend as we did (although you probably didn’t see any elephants, so probably our weekend was a little bit better than yours). Pictures of our weekend will be in the next blog!

LMW

March 20, 2008 - Mount Kenya

I would like to say that we are going to climb Mt. Kenya, Africa's second highest peak, this weekend, BUT it takes 5 days to go up and come down the mountain and we only have 4 days this weekend. So instead of climbing it, we are just going to go stay at a resort near it. As I mentioned before, our hope was to go to the island of Lamu in the Indian Ocean, but we tried to make plans too late last week and all flights in and out of the island were already booked! So a resort near Mt. Kenya is the best we can do on short notice, and we are looking forward to an Easter weekend of relaxation, beautiful scenery, and great animal watching.


We have had a busy and interesting week at work. Kristoffer's office is working on their "Country Programme", which is their strategy for the next 5 years. It has been a difficult and drawn out process but is pretty much done now. Kristoffer feels like it is a boomerang - every time they send it on to a higher level it comes back to them with more comments and changes to make...so I should say that they hope it is done now! Kristoffer and his colleagues have been dealing with a difficult manager as well; it would be safe to say that he is learning a lot about working with different people in addition to his WFP-specific knowledge. As for me, I have developed a really great working relationship with my boss, Aminata: a Malian woman who is American-educated and has worked at UNICEF in Nigeria and Kenya following careers at the both the World Bank and the University of Illinois. She trusts me and respects my views, even though I am very new to the world of UNICEF, and she takes every opportunity she can to teach me all the things I don't know. The job she wanted to give me, unfortunately, needs to be filled ASAP and my paperwork is taking too long to be processed in NYC. So...that job is going to someone else and when my paperwork is complete Aminata will create a position for me based on her needs and my skills. She believes there is room for growth for me at UNICEF, which is nice for me to hear.


Based on my work and recent conversations with Aminata, I have decided not to pursue teaching in Kenya at this time. I was officially offered a position at the international school here, but the workload was more than I desire right now and the position would definitely be for one school year only. I know from experience that the best part of the first year teaching some place is when you can use everything you developed in your second year at that place! I also feel really attached to the post-election crisis, and working to improve education for thousands of displaced children in the country. I am getting to know more people at UNICEF, which makes me feel more like I belong there, and so I think I will try it for a bit longer and see where it takes me.


The other aspect of this week for us has been dealing with "customer service" issues. Basically, we feel as though we can't trust anyone we deal with in Nairobi because it seems as though everyone is out to take advantage of us in some way. First there was the phone repair-guy(remember he stole my sim card and left me a $7,000 T-Mobile bill?) and then came our carpenter, who built us 2 bed frames 6 weeks ago that our beds did not fit in and since then has not followed up and fixed our bed frames. This week we took our car to be serviced and the manager at the car place was extremely skeezy, leaving us with scratches on our car and indicating to us that he was barely paying his workers anything. It took us three visits before he followed through on all of the work we agreed he would do. At the same time, we bought a printer from a computer store at a local mall. We were sold a "brand new" HP printer that had empty ink cartridges and no installation disc. When we brought it back to the store, we were given new, in-the-package ink cartridges that turned out to not even fit the printer! They also gave us a bootleg installation disc that still did not work. They clearly sold us a "brand new" lemon! On our 3rd, or was it 4th?, trip to the store, we exchanged it for another printer. I have not been brave enough to try to get it to work but I might go somewhat postal if it doesn't! It is also hard to barter here for goods - just the fact that we are white, not to mention that we drive a car with diplomatic license plates, means that all sellers increase their prices for us by at least 300% and it takes FOREVER to haggle them down to prices that are only 100% inflated. The place we discovered that sells the best fruit, for example, will just not give us a good price!


We are having a really hard time accepting the fact that we cannot trust people here until they really, really prove to us that they are trustworthy. We are open-minded and accepting people, which has not previously been a negative quality, but here it is something we really have to watch.


That's all of our news from this side of the equator. Now you won't hear from us until after the holiday weekend so we wish you an extremely Happy Easter weekend if you celebrate it, and a really nice long weekend if you don't!


LMW

March 17, 2008 - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

"If you're Irish, step into the parlor, there's a welcome there for you...and if your name is Timothy or Pat, as long as you come from Ireland there's a welcome on the mat..."

Ok, so there aren't that many Irish people here in Kenya and I did not hear one mention of St. Patrick's Day at work today, even though I was wearing green pants (well, army green...but still green). I am sure that my mother made corn beef and cabbage, as she has done every year of my life, while listening to Irish CDs, which luckily my sister's kids like to dance to because I know she is babysitting them. Today I fondly remembered St. Patrick's Days in college: friends of mine doing "car bombs" at Faegan's on Marshall Street (I won't name names, you know who you are), and my one day a year to drink Guinness. I remembered the year I lived in Cambridge and my friends Joanna, Erin and I spent St. Patty's Day dancing and cracking each other up at "the Black Rose", my favorite Boston bar. Finally, I remembered 4 years of dressing up like some kind of new-age leprechaun, dancing around my NYC classroom to my own version of the Irish jig, and offering extra credit to students who brought me green presents (gum, socks, pencils, air freshener, un-ripe bananas were a few of my favorites). Today didn't quite compare to any of that, at least not in the Irish sense, but at least my memories kept me company.

Kristoffer and I are doing well here in Nairobi, gearing up for a 4-day Easter weekend. We hope to go away to an island called Lamu, but we waited too long to make our plans and as of last week all of the flights to the island (no cars allowed!) were booked. We are hoping that somebody cancels tomorrow and we can get their plane tickets! If not, we are thinking of going to Mount Kenya, just a few hours north of Nairobi. My sister, Christine, went back to Washington, DC on Saturday night so we are now family-less in Kenya. She was really thrilled about sleeping in her own bed after 2 months of being in Africa and dealing with her own cockroaches instead of ours (yes, there are cockroaches in Kenya). We believe that our next visitors will be Kristoffer's mom and step-dad for 3 weeks in July and we are practically counting down the days!

I have two websites to share today that I have been meaning to post. The first is a charity website connected to the WFP. If you go to http://www.freerice.com/ it is a vocabulary website: for each synonym you correctly identify, 20 grains of rice will be donated to the World Food Programme. I do it almost everyday for a few minutes - some of the words are REALLY difficult! A friend of mine in the US told me about it months ago (thank you, Kathy) and a friend in Denmark recently made a comment about it on our blog (thank you, Peter), but I haven't remembered to post it until now. It is a specifically great tool for English teachers/tutors: SAT prep while giving to charity!

The second website is something that one of my NYC students (thank you, Scott) emailed me when he found out I was moving to Kenya. It is this completely ridiculous and silly song about Kenya (ridiculous because it talks about tigers in Kenya and there are obviously no tigers anywhere in Africa). Sometimes I have hard moments here; for example, every time we have a power outage - which always happens when I really need or want the electricity to be working (when I am baking or doing laundry or paying a bill online...or watching a critical moment of "24") - I am known to shout, "Damn you, Kenya!" But then when the electricity turns back on I will click on this website and literally crack up for a few minutes and then I will feel better. I hope it brings a smile to your face too: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!
LMW

March 13, 2008 - Merry Christmas and Happy Easter

Kristoffer and I were thrilled that last week we received a notice in our mailbox of a package from Denmark waiting for us at the post office! This week we were thrilled again to have a package from the US waiting for us. Two packages!! Because he was away all last week and because the post office closes at 5pm, we were not able to get to the post office until yesterday when we left work early to make it in time.

When we arrived at 4:40pm we thought we had won the jackpot; because it was so close to closing there was nobody else waiting for a package and we thought we could breeze right through the bureaucracy. This feeling even lasted for a few minutes when we didn’t have to show each item in each package because they really wanted to close the post office and nobody wanted to bother with a full customs investigation.

The package from Denmark was our CHRISTMAS package from Kristoffer’s mom and step-dad mailed to us on December 12th. Kristoffer’s mom had already filed an insurance claim with the post office, assuming our gifts were stolen. As it turns out, the package from Denmark arrived a long time ago and was sitting in the post office for weeks and weeks, but we never got any notification until last week. The package from the US was an Easter package from my parents and my sister Meghan mailed around February 12th.

This is probably a really boring story so far, but the fun began when they told us our “storage” fees for not picking up our packages “on time”. The post office claims to have sent us many notifications of the Danish package, which we never received, and they were charging us Ksh 2,650 ($43 USD) for their trouble to keep our package sitting on an old shelf in their mail room all this time. Are you kidding me?!?! For the American package, which we had only received notice of 2 days earlier, they were charging us Ksh 350 ($6 USD). Now…we are not cheap people, we don’t like to cheat anybody on paying what we owe and we even believe in financial incentives for people to behave correctly in society, but $48 to pick up two packages of presents that people sent us?!? No way. That is just not fair.

Kristoffer had a very polite conversation with a nice postal woman about how it was not our fault that we didn’t receive notice of the package and that Kristoffer’s mom thought the package was stolen. The woman wondered who should take the blame then, because she could supposedly prove that they sent notices to our UN mailbox well before we received them (although she couldn’t show us the notices in that moment because, of course, the office was closing). I mostly stood or sat with steam coming out of my ears, trying not to say something inappropriate.

In the end, because everyone was done working and the woman clearly didn’t want to deal with us anymore, she knocked the charges down to Ksh 1,100 ($18) and let us take our packages. Granted, it was still SO CORRUPT that we had to pay anything at all (it really felt like paying a bribe) but she would not let us take our packages without paying something AND they were nearly locking the doors with us inside.

Luckily our bad mood ended when we got home as we celebrated both Christmas and Easter, laying all of our treats out on our coffee table to admire and eat and enjoy (books! cd! linens! candles! Christmas ornaments! Easter decorations! candy and food and more candy!). Thanks to our families for being so generous, and for providing us with another fabulous experience at the post office for us.

LMW

March 11, 2008 - Pictures from Kristoffer's Mission

This is Kristoffer scooping bowls of food (rice and split peas) for children at one of the schools he visited. They eat out of these bowls every day with their fingers. The food Kristoffer is serving is cooked in an energy-efficient stove, which is still very rare here. They are expensive ($1,500) but the WFP is trying to find resources to put them in every school because they can save up to 70% of the current fire wood used for cooking in schools right now.

This is Ikeny, a SFP Field Monitor who trained Kristoffer on his first monitoring mission to Garissa, Kenya.

He is holding a bag of "wheat soya milk" which is a fortified morning snack for pre-schoolers. This particular bag, as you may or may not be able to see, was a donation from the government of Switzerland.

As opposed to the energy saving stove above, this is a three-stone jiko which most schools have and which is very inefficient. In many schools, children are required to bring a piece of wood to school every day to cook the food and, believe it or not, this is a huge burden on their families. Even when they do have enough wood, having enough water is an extreme challenge in the arid districts of the country.






This is a classroom in a mixed-gender Muslim school. You can see some teaching materials hung on the walls and that the classroom is very crowded.














This is a classroom at an all-girls Muslim primary school. Classrooms as full as this, or more ful, are very common here with a teacher shortage of 60,000 teachers between primary and secondary schools. This classroom is well-constructed and textbooks are available to the students.






This is also a classroom in a mixed-gender primary school. You can see on the blackboards in the back the students are learning basics such as days of the week, shapes, colors, and months. All teaching in Kenya is conducted in English, except for language classes in high school (obviously).
Much to Lisa's dismay, the back left part of the blackboard has the word "Wednesday" spelled incorrectly (Wensday)...but Kristoffer has reminded her that it is a really hard word to spell!






At the all-girls school, the children are lined up to receive their lunch. At this school and others, the children were fascinated to see a "Mzungu" (white person).









Here is a "water donkey" making 4 trips a day to provide water from a bore hole 2 km away to one school at the cost of around $8 a day.











Here are Kristoffer's new favorite animals - camels! It is hard to imagine that another animal could rival Kristoffer's passion for giraffes, but it seems that the camel has become a strong challenger. In Garissa, and other towns near the border of Somalia, Kenya is like a desert and the camels are many among its inhabitants. Too bad we can't have pets in our apartment!









Last but not least, this is our favorite picture. Look at these pre-school boys! Kristoffer showed the smiling one in the green and orange his picture on the camera. He was fascinated. It is likely that he had never seen a picture of himself before! He is just so cute :)



KW & LMW

March 10, 2008 - Donate to the WFP

Somebody (my friend Joanna, thank you) asked on our blog recently how people could donate to the WFP in Kenya like Drew Barrymore did. Don't worry, you don't have to donate $1 million - any and all donations make a difference!

If you would like to make a donation to the WFP go to this website: https://www.kintera.org/site/apps/ka/sd/donor.asp?c=7oIJLSOsGpF&b=3930733&en=rvKVL4OQJeLOL3MRLjJRI3PPJnL9IfOTImK2JhNVLfLQI5PWLzH US citizens can make a tax-deductible donation right on that page and non-US citizens will be directed to WFP.org's online donation site.

On the website, there are is a drop-down menu that lets you choose where your money will go. If you don't choose "greatest need", which gives the WFP discretion to use your funds, one of the options says "School Meals/Fill the Cup" which would direct your donation towards school feeding programs in Africa, possibly Kenya. There is another option on that menu that would feed internally displaced people (IDPs) from the Kenyan post-election crisis with your donation. There are other options, such as Darfur, as well.

About 7% of your donation will go towards overhead/administrative costs and the rest will actually get to WFP programs. Our next blog will include pictures of the children that the WFP is feeding here in Kenya from Kristoffer's trip last week (there is a teaser below). Maybe you will be inspired to donate - it takes only 25 cents a day to give one child a meal.

This picture was taken at an all-girls Muslim primary school on the border of Somalia. For many girls whose families may not value their education, the main reason their parents send them to school is for them to be fed. These girls are lining up to receive their lunch which, depending on which part of the country you live in, consists of either rice or maize. Because this part of the country is completely arid, when the WFP cuts the budget they are not at risk of losing their school feeding. Schools in parts of the country that are only semi-arid, however, are in danger and it is likely that enrolment will drop if children aren't provided with food, especially for girls whose parents will just keep them to home to work or contribute to the household in some way.

KW & LMW

March 9, 2008 - At the End of the World

The road is as red as the dust in the air. The dry season has left all rivers as san dunes, few remaining water points are attracting caravans from a far and we see hundreds of camels gathering at a dried-out lake where two people are digging for water at the deepest point for their animals. We continue on the rust-sand road which seems to continue forever. People holding several camels along side the road signal to stop but our security vehicle continued; we are in UN Security “phase 3” areas and this is no place to stop. The people did not want a lift, they did not want money or food they wanted water - a highly valued commodity in this part of the country. We are moving along the Somalia boarder where we reach our final destination about 22km from where the US bombed last week; a school supported by the World Food Program (WFP).

Last week I monitored schools in the totally arid district of Garissa, 6 hours east of Nairobi. This was a monitoring training for me as I was accompanied with WFP’s field monitor for the North Eastern Province, Mr. Ikeny Kapua, a Kenyan from the Turkana region of Kenya where the people live as pastoralists similar to the Masaai. Ikeny taught me every aspect of the school feeding monitoring process and a great deal about the life of a pastoralist. Every day we were escorted by security, including our own driver and the area educational officer of Garissa. Driving through the most remote places of Kenya, I learned all the challenges of the school feeding program and primary education in Kenya.

Our visits are surprise visits and the Head Teacher (Principal) is not informed in advance. This sometime means that the Head Teacher will hide or leave the school immediately when he sees the UN Land Cruisers approaching. On average, the schools are not keeping their feeding records as they are supposed to and both attendance and hygiene are major issues. Attendance records are not kept on a daily basis and in some schools even the Head Teachers haven’t kept attendance records since December. This makes it very difficult to track if the right amount of food is being consumed everyday and it confirms that the national attendance produced by the Kenyan Ministry of Education is not adequate. The good message is that feeding is ongoing, children are being fed, the schools are trying to cope with all of the issues on their level and I think they are doing an ok job. We have to keep in mind that lack of teachers is the overarching issue, with a shortage of at least 60,000 primary and secondary teachers nationwide. One school we visited had over 550 students but only 7 teachers! This factor alone explains a lot. So we speak nicely to them and try to show them respect. The challenge is that there are so many issues we should address: records, attendance, storing of food, measuring food, kitchen cleanliness, the cook’s hygiene and procedures, the feeding of children and more.

The school feeding program is a reason for parents to keep their children in school, especially the girls. The daily feeding is known to increase enrolment, stabilize attendance, and therefore increase learning. Moreover, the food is an essential nutritional supplement for the children. When we are at the school we speak to the students and I had a chance to ask them a few questions. So what did I ask? I asked how many of them where sleeping under a mosquito net, and while only about half of them answered yes there was a definite awareness of malaria among them. Garissa is very prone to malarial mosquitoes and I, of course, was on malaria medication all week. I got about 15 bug bites so I’m really glad I took the medicine! The second question I asked was how many of them children had eaten breakfast in the morning. Not one child raised his/her hand. I realize now how humiliating these two questions were for them to be asked but, in my defense, it is important that I understand the living conditions of the people of Garissa. These people live in huts, some of which are built of clay but more than 75 percent of them don’t even meet this standard. Normally they live in a space with sticks in the ground and very little roof or shelter.

After spending a week in the Garissa I have also become fascinated by camels. They are amazing animals with a constant grin on their faces. They looked to me like they were royalty as they walked in silence moving one row of legs at the time. When they get scared they run in a crazy way moving their legs in what seems to be a completely random way. It looks very funny. And, by the way, camels don’t carry water in the hump. The hump is pure fat, very tasty and doesn’t need to be cooked (spoken like a true vegetarian!). The hump is a real treat for children, so I am told by my Turkanan colleague.

The training from Mr. Ikeny was excellent and I really enjoyed spending time with him. We spent three nights at the Dadaab refugee camp (made up of mostly Somalian refugees) where I played volleyball with our Kenyan colleagues. I was the only white man in the staff camp and they tried to teach me some Kiswahili. I am determined to master this language but it will take me a while to engage in daily conversation. Right now I can only pick out a few words here and there.

My white skin was of particular interest in the schools we visited. I asked Ikeny several times if this attention was normal because all of the children were surrounding us and staring at me. He said that no, they normally pay attention to the car. Some of them looked at me like they had never seen a “mzungu” before, or perhaps it just happens so rarely. The children looked at me as I have never been looked at before. There was an incident where we where interviewing the Head Teacher outside the clay kitchen because water was just delivered by donkey. The cost of the water for the school is close to 10 dollars per day, which is a lot of money in that region especially. Ikeny was asking the Head Teachers questions as I filmed her and during the interview the children had recess. They all came storming to the kitchen and surrounded us. So I was holding the camera with about 300 children starting me down.

I had a great time and I am so happy about DREW BARRYMORE, who donated one million dollars to the Kenyan school feeding program on Oprah last week (I know Lisa already wrote about that). With the rising oil and transportation costs, not to mention the inflating food costs, the WFP is struggling and if we don’t experience a considerable rise in donations we will need to decrease the number of children by at least 200,000 in 2009.

Note to my father: an armed UN convey such as ours hasn’t been hit by bandits in years so I felt and was very safe. We only traveled during the day and reported to the radio office via our huge antenna every 30 minutes.

KW

March 7, 2008 - It's Official!

It is a little weird to put it in writing, but we received documentation today that we are now legal diplomatic residents of Kenya. I suppose renting an apartment and buying a car and having furniture made and all of the other things we have done should have tipped me off that this was for real, but for some reason the two little stamps in my passport have really made all the difference. I'm not totally freaking out about this, but maybe a little bit.

To help the reality sink in even more, my boss, who is the Chief of UNICEF's Education & Youth Services Sector, asked me to apply for a short-term consultancy (that means a paying job) after only one month as a volunteer. My work permit will take a few weeks to process but, if all goes well, I will start as soon as that is taken care of. Right now I have been collecting data from field officers on education services in displacement camps and schools hosting IDP children and then I analyze the data, write reports on the data, and attend meetings about the data on a daily basis. I also do A LOT of editing of other people's work. For my new (paid) position I will become one of the field officers! I will be working in Nairobi and Central Provinces (Central is a small province north of Nairobi) and, basically, will visit slums and IDP camps to monitor and evaluate the education situation as well as the UNICEF education interventions in those places. For one week a month I will travel with a driver security and a security officer (but usually no other UNICEF staff), and Kristoffer hopes to arrange his monitoring and evaluation (M&E) at the same time so that we aren't missing each other at home. Part of my job will be to recommend what actions the UNICEF Education Sector should take in the future, and to correct any mistakes that have been made. I expect to see a new side of Kenya and feel great about the prospect of directly impacting the education of some of the poorest children in Kenya.

Assuming it all works out, it is an exciting and interesting opportunity for me to learn new skills and broaden my experiences here. I will work on a 3-month contract first so that if I don't like the job or it isn't a good fit, I can still get a teaching job for the fall. If I do like it, then the contract will be extended and I will increase my chances of getting future consultancies at UNICEF. I am happy that my boss has enough confidence in me to think that I can do this job well, which is a very new kind of work for me to do. I also consider myself to be pretty brave in taking this job because it is definitely outside of my comfort zone.

Kristoffer has been on his field visit since Monday and comes home tomorrow (Saturday) night. I think he has seen and learned a lot more in this week and I am really hoping that he will write a blog to share his experiences and pictures. Christine and I did pretty well without him this week (taking lots of taxis!) and it was really nice for me to have her here. She will actually be here for one more week.

The saddest news is that we bought "24 Season 5" on boot-leg DVD from the Indian market here in Nairobi. We got through the first 23 episodes with NO problem...but then episode 24 was all screwed up so that we could hear the episode, but the visual on the screen was actually the first episode of the season. SO FRUSTRATING! Christine even went back to get another copy, but it had the same problem! So this afternoon we actually sat in the living room with our eyes closed listening to episode 24 and trying to figure out what action was happening during all of the music. I suppose when you buy a 24-episode bootleg DVD for $5 you have to be willing to accept that the disc is not perfect, but I will admit that it would have been really nice to see the episode!

LMW

March 4, 2008 - Drew Barrymore

So you may have heard by now that Drew Barrymore announced on Oprah yesterday that she is donating $1 million to the World Food Programme's (WFP's) School Feeding Programme (SFP) in Kenya. This is where Kristoffer works! He is actually out on his first "field visit" to eastern Kenya for this entire week (not too far from the Somalia border where the US launched a missile attack yesterday - "Have a good day at work, honey. Watch out for missiles!"). He will be meeting with District Education Officers and visiting schools where WFP feeds children to evaluate how the programs are going, where the needs are, etc.

Barrymore's money comes at a really crucial time for the WFP because the powers-that-be have cut the SFP's budget for next year so that instead of feeding 1.2 million Kenyan children, they will probably only be able to feed 850,000 or 900,000 at most. Her money, hopefully, will be able to offset some of the budget cuts. I think the idea behind the budget cuts, although the current administration doesn't seem to value the program as much as other programs, is that the government should be increasing their spending on the program as the WFP decreases its investment. Unfortunately, since the SFP began in Kenya in the '70s, the government has not increased its role and is not giving any indication that it will do so at this time.

The reality is that hundreds of thousands of children in Kenya, especially in the Arid and Semi Arid Lands (ASALs) of the country, attend school because that is the ONLY place they get fed! We aren't talking 5 course meals here - they get rice or maize! If the SFP is cut and schools don't have money to feed children, enrollment will drop significantly as more parents keep their children home to work. I believe the WFP is one of the, if not the, largest humanitarian organizations in the world and they do so much good work; but it will be truly devastating for the poorest children in Kenya, and for the education system in general, when the budget is cut next year.

Maybe Drew Barrymore will inspire more people to donate?! She has actually been to Kristoffer's office twice in recent years to meet with his office mate, but sure enough that was before we got here. Maybe she'll stop by again :)

LMW

March 3, 2008 - Flower Pots and Scaffolding

A lot of people have emailed me that they love seeing pictures on our blog, so here are a few more random ones. This is our apartment building and we live on the top floor. Our car is the white one parked in front of the camera.

This is a beautiful sunset from our balcony. We do have a very nice view, but because of the "u" shape of the building it isn't very private to sit out on the balcony so, sadly, it is an under-used feature of our apartment (although we do have comfortable balcony furniture).

This is some of the furniture we had made; obviously for our living room (we also had a kitchen table, chairs, bed frames, and a desk made). It is pretty bright fabric, our second choice because our first (somewhat less bright) was not available. The cushions are a bit too soft for my bad back, but we are otherwise happy with it.

This picture was taken from our kitchen window of the construction behind our house (causing our apartment to be SO dusty!). I took this picture because scaffolding here in Kenya cracks me up. They are just long tree branches tied together - it looks so unsteady and yet everyday there are guys sitting out there on the scaffolding painting or something. Scaffolding is like this is everywhere, not just in our back yard. It is totally crazy.

This is an infamous "matatu", as it passes us into on-coming traffic on a major road in Nairobi. You can see 3 people sitting across the back of the bus - most matatus legally seat 11 passengers (9 in back and 2 up front) but will ride with 14 or 15. Most traffic accidents involve a matatu in one way or another, and in fact just driving yesterday we saw an accident that looked like a matatu ran over and killed a little boy.

This is a picture of a flower pot "store" in Nairobi near our apartment. Because there are so many outdoor nurseries, there are a lot of places to buy various pots outside as well. The part that cracks me up is that at night they don't put any of the pots away. I wonder why people don't steal the pots every night! Kristoffer says they have security at night to catch thieves, but I have never seen security so they must be really well hidden. In a city where there is a lot of crime, I wonder how the flower pots stick around for so long!


LMW

February 28, 2008 - Big news in Kenya!

In the "Emergency Operations Center" where I do my work at UNICEF, there is a TV that we keep on news channels like CNN, BBC, or Al Jazeera throughout the day. I suppose that during the first days of the emergency it was extremely necessary for updated news as the situation was changing so rapidly, but now it is just sort of for our own convenience, entertainment and distraction. Four of us were sitting at our laptops working while the news buzzed in the background a little after 3pm today when the "breaking news" music started playing. We all turned our attention to the TV as soon as we heard the word "Kenya" because Kofi Annan had just announced that the government and the opposition had reached a power-sharing agreement!

They finally made a deal! That's right! We had to wait 2 hours more, but at 5pm we watched it live on TV as President Mwai Kibaki and the Honorable Raila Odinga signed a power-sharing agreement to end the political stalemate. In the last few days it has been so tense here, and it truly could have gone either way (the other way pretty much being civil war). Kofi Annan had given up talks with party negotiators in favor of dealing directly with the two leaders, and the media has increasingly reported on militias being trained throughout the country to begin fighting as soon as the talks break down. Needless to say, with the news of an agreement we could almost hear a collective sigh of relief throughout the country.

The agreement essentially gives Raila Odinga the position of Executive Prime Minister and establishes that he will be Head of Government while Mwai Kibaki, as President, will be Head of State (I am not yet sure which one is Commander in Chief). It established a 50/50 Cabinet giving both parties equal power. There were lots of details about how the Constitution will be amended, Parliament's role and how the government will be structured in the future. The bottom line, though, is that progress has now really begun.

The negotiations are not over, as tough issues of land and equity still need to be addressed, but the most immediate problem between these leaders, who many people felt were holding the country hostage (Kofi Annan included), has been addressed. Now we just need to see them implement the agreement as it was intended. The press conference was sort of funny because Kofi Annan and the President of Tanzania, who is the new Chair of the African Union and had arrived yesterday to support Kofi Annan and put additional pressure on the leaders, gave comments congratulating everyone on their hard work and leadership. Leadership?!?! Are you kidding? If they were real leaders, these old men and their cronies would have put their selfish interests aside and resolved the issue 4 weeks ago! I suppose Annan had to say such niceties, as he must be so thankful that the country didn't plummet into total chaos again, but I did find the camaraderie somewhat comical. Kristoffer says that it feels like that Southwest Airlines commercial in the US which says, "You are now free to move about the country."

That doesn't mean that all violence is over and the country is back to a normal level of security, but it certainly gives us hope that we are heading in that direction. All 4 leaders who spoke today encouraged people around the country to support the agreement, remain calm and not to act on any disappointment or anger they might feel about whatever their party conceded to reach this agreement (remember that Kenyans have extreme party/tribal loyalties). I suppose time will tell if the people heed these guidelines and begin the healing process.

We have seen no dancing in the street yet, but Kristoffer thinks our guards were smiling a little wider than usual when we arrived home tonight. It was actually very cool for us to sit with a random group of people (the office became crowded because of the TV!) and watch this pretty significant moment in Kenya's history as it happened live. In the room there were: 4 Kenyans, 2 Americans, 1 or 2 French guys, and a Dane. Not too shabby, eh? I think the best reaction out of anyone was from this one Kenyan guy who walked into the room and said, "What's going on?" When someone told him, "They're signing an agreement," he responded, "Oh Shit! That's serious!" Serious indeed!

The next few days will give us a better picture of how this power-sharing government will play out in real life, as opposed to just on paper, and how the people of Kenya will respond to a coalition government. For us, if this agreement makes everyone safer and facilitates more and quicker assistance to Kenya's displaced population (estimated at UNICEF to be well over 1 million people, despite the media's figure of 600,000), then we wish for nothing but its success in the coming months. Cheers to Kenya today!

LMW