We are headed home! Sort of...The itinerary from here is as follows:
> 10 PM flight from Prague to Dublin
> stay in Dublin airport (dinner plz?) We are definitely stealing pillows from the plane.
> 11:30 AM May 1--short flight to Shannon, Ireland, then on to Boston
> long weekend in Boston
> 5/5 head to SF
> get Papalote burritos
> tool around in Livermore
> BBQ Sunday 5/10
We hope to update the blog at least once more with a "Harper's Index" full of trip stats. Here's a taste:
Number of days of constant contact we thought it would take for one of us to injure the other: it depends on whom you ask, but something like 13 (14 is our all-time record, pre-trip, for days spent in the same city since college)
Number of (medically actionable) inter-party injuries: 0
Looking forward to seeing all of you, boring you with pictures, and alienating you with inside jokes,
Kyle and Audrey
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
4/27 -- Ah, Luxury!
Hi Friends,
Our days of persistent body odor and frustratingly slow Internet connections are over, at least for now. Even while Kenya is fresh in our minds, we find ourselves adjusting quite readily to our current conditions: freshly showered, email inboxes near empty, and luxuriating in our Bulgarian classmate Maria's apartment in Sofia. Audrey may even get a haircut!
But fear not--we will not be selfish with the dividends of these pleasures. While you cannot smell our freshness from afar, rest assured that we have something for you. Throughout the blog (but mostly from Kenya onward) we've posted new pictures. I don't know what kind of obnoxious updates Google gives you (does it email you every time I correct a spelling mistake?), but perhaps that will provide some clue to where we've changed things.
Actually...to make this easier, here's a list of photo-updated posts:
"and also, I have ringworm"
"kenyou believe it?"
"mzunguhowareyou!?!"
"3/24 -- The Food"
"3/10 - 4/7 -- Catch-up"
"Hakuna Matatu"
"4/19 -- Where the Hell is Qatar?"
Also, for our nerdiest followers, I've prepared a Google Map of our travels. It is here:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=103895095176064955611.0004638dcac2fde3e417b&ll=36.597889,153.28125&spn=106.068209,316.40625&z=2
We leave for Prague Tuesday morning (local time) and head to Boston on April 30. We're almost home!
<3
Kyle
Our days of persistent body odor and frustratingly slow Internet connections are over, at least for now. Even while Kenya is fresh in our minds, we find ourselves adjusting quite readily to our current conditions: freshly showered, email inboxes near empty, and luxuriating in our Bulgarian classmate Maria's apartment in Sofia. Audrey may even get a haircut!
But fear not--we will not be selfish with the dividends of these pleasures. While you cannot smell our freshness from afar, rest assured that we have something for you. Throughout the blog (but mostly from Kenya onward) we've posted new pictures. I don't know what kind of obnoxious updates Google gives you (does it email you every time I correct a spelling mistake?), but perhaps that will provide some clue to where we've changed things.
Actually...to make this easier, here's a list of photo-updated posts:
"and also, I have ringworm"
"kenyou believe it?"
"mzunguhowareyou!?!"
"3/24 -- The Food"
"3/10 - 4/7 -- Catch-up"
"Hakuna Matatu"
"4/19 -- Where the Hell is Qatar?"
Also, for our nerdiest followers, I've prepared a Google Map of our travels. It is here:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=103895095176064955611.0004638dcac2fde3e417b&ll=36.597889,153.28125&spn=106.068209,316.40625&z=2
We leave for Prague Tuesday morning (local time) and head to Boston on April 30. We're almost home!
<3
Kyle
Sunday, April 19, 2009
4/19 -- Where the Hell is Qatar?
If you can't answer this question with even some precision, don't feel bad. For most people in the US (and probably much of the world), the small, 850,000-person country of Qatar is as mysterious as other unknowns like Latvia, the Gambia, and Micronesia. Protruding out into the Persian Gulf on a small abutment from Saudi Arabia, Qatar is a socially stratified, Muslim oil monarchy (if I can use those descriptors without unfair labeling.) As I write this, I know no more about the country than what I've just described, but I know that I like traveling there.
We are currently [well, we were when I drafted this...now I'm at a ten-minute-a-go free Internet station] aboard Qatar Airways flight 533, as "economy class" flight to Doha (the capital) from Nairobi. Next [soon, now that we've passed nearly all of our twelve-hour layover] we connect to Istanbul, Turkey for a couple of days before going on to Bulgaria and Prague. Anyway, I think QA didn't get the "budget travel" memo, because the meal we just ate was a strong candidate for registration at that most exclusive of URLs: TheBomb.com. We're talking lamb and eggplant curry over rice with a lox-and-potato salad (strange, but G-rate) and a slice of tiramisu floating in a tangy passion-fruit jelly. Oh, and deese (decent) red wine. Damn, girl.
Of course, beyond the food, this has all the trappings of a low-cost flight: cramped seats, lame TV entertainment, and a guiltily silent guy sitting next to me who I suspect is the source of all the farts I've been inhaling. But it's still a sweet ride relative to recent travel options we've availed ourselves of.
When we staggered out of Kisui before dawn on Thursday, the plan was to take a ferry across a portion of the lake, a bus by paved road (what a luxury!) to Kisumu, and a train to Nairobi. The ferry leg unfolded nicely, but the matatu (which waited, engine running, while we filled up on a breakfast of mandazi and tea) was forced to drive in roadside ditches for about 45 minutes as we looked on enviously at the road as it was smoothed and manicured in anticipation of its imminent paving. I slept fine (and comically, apparently, my face squished against my backpack) until we hit the pavement and suffered no greater discomfort than mutinous kneecaps.
We arrived in Kisumu before noon, and Mina took charge directing the group and telling taxi touts to take a hike in her nearly fluent Swahili.
After some diversions and group strategizing, we arrived at the railway station and were told that the overnight train would not be running. Residents of the infamous Kibera slum (PC term is 'people's settlement') removed one kilometer of railroad track that passes through their area to protest a webbed variety of government policies. Much as we admired their activism, we were not pleased by the prospect of spending 1500 shillings more than we'd planned to take an overnight bus instead of what we hoped would be a restful, booze-washed train ride to Nairobi.
Somewhat seasoned bus riders, Aud and I slept well on the bus eve as our fellows languished sleepless. At one point--you'd have to ask one of hte waking for details--we were held up for a time by a jackknifed diesel tanker. Apparently the people of the surrounding village materialized at 2 AM to collect the spilt fuel by the bucketful, soaking their clothes and soiling their water buckets to get a share of the valuable spoils.
Once we arrived in Nairobi we headed (after another round of mandazi and tea) to the Rudolf Steiner School in a suburb of Nairobi called Mbghati. From what I gather, Steiner is a dead but much venerated German Renaissance man from some time in the early 20th century who had a lot of ideas about a variety of subjects. His ideas about education and child development are the basis for Waldorf education (of which our YIP fellows are devotees). It seems that other ideas of his (the color blue stimulates creativity, right angles in architecture harbor dark spirits) have also been adopted as part of the package called anthroposophy. Long story short, staying at the (out of session) Steiner school was a low-cost, wonderful respite and a peaceful way to end our stay in Kenya. I'll leave it to Aud to describe our excursions from that sanctuary of Steinerist devotion...
-Kyle
Clarissa, Audrey, and Mina, all pretty at a bar on the eve of Aud and my departure for Turkey:
We are currently [well, we were when I drafted this...now I'm at a ten-minute-a-go free Internet station] aboard Qatar Airways flight 533, as "economy class" flight to Doha (the capital) from Nairobi. Next [soon, now that we've passed nearly all of our twelve-hour layover] we connect to Istanbul, Turkey for a couple of days before going on to Bulgaria and Prague. Anyway, I think QA didn't get the "budget travel" memo, because the meal we just ate was a strong candidate for registration at that most exclusive of URLs: TheBomb.com. We're talking lamb and eggplant curry over rice with a lox-and-potato salad (strange, but G-rate) and a slice of tiramisu floating in a tangy passion-fruit jelly. Oh, and deese (decent) red wine. Damn, girl.
Of course, beyond the food, this has all the trappings of a low-cost flight: cramped seats, lame TV entertainment, and a guiltily silent guy sitting next to me who I suspect is the source of all the farts I've been inhaling. But it's still a sweet ride relative to recent travel options we've availed ourselves of.
When we staggered out of Kisui before dawn on Thursday, the plan was to take a ferry across a portion of the lake, a bus by paved road (what a luxury!) to Kisumu, and a train to Nairobi. The ferry leg unfolded nicely, but the matatu (which waited, engine running, while we filled up on a breakfast of mandazi and tea) was forced to drive in roadside ditches for about 45 minutes as we looked on enviously at the road as it was smoothed and manicured in anticipation of its imminent paving. I slept fine (and comically, apparently, my face squished against my backpack) until we hit the pavement and suffered no greater discomfort than mutinous kneecaps.
We arrived in Kisumu before noon, and Mina took charge directing the group and telling taxi touts to take a hike in her nearly fluent Swahili.
After some diversions and group strategizing, we arrived at the railway station and were told that the overnight train would not be running. Residents of the infamous Kibera slum (PC term is 'people's settlement') removed one kilometer of railroad track that passes through their area to protest a webbed variety of government policies. Much as we admired their activism, we were not pleased by the prospect of spending 1500 shillings more than we'd planned to take an overnight bus instead of what we hoped would be a restful, booze-washed train ride to Nairobi.Somewhat seasoned bus riders, Aud and I slept well on the bus eve as our fellows languished sleepless. At one point--you'd have to ask one of hte waking for details--we were held up for a time by a jackknifed diesel tanker. Apparently the people of the surrounding village materialized at 2 AM to collect the spilt fuel by the bucketful, soaking their clothes and soiling their water buckets to get a share of the valuable spoils.
Once we arrived in Nairobi we headed (after another round of mandazi and tea) to the Rudolf Steiner School in a suburb of Nairobi called Mbghati. From what I gather, Steiner is a dead but much venerated German Renaissance man from some time in the early 20th century who had a lot of ideas about a variety of subjects. His ideas about education and child development are the basis for Waldorf education (of which our YIP fellows are devotees). It seems that other ideas of his (the color blue stimulates creativity, right angles in architecture harbor dark spirits) have also been adopted as part of the package called anthroposophy. Long story short, staying at the (out of session) Steiner school was a low-cost, wonderful respite and a peaceful way to end our stay in Kenya. I'll leave it to Aud to describe our excursions from that sanctuary of Steinerist devotion...
-Kyle
Clarissa, Audrey, and Mina, all pretty at a bar on the eve of Aud and my departure for Turkey:
Hakuna Matatu
This phrase would translate, we think, to "no matatu," which, though a cute play on the famous "no worries" slogan popular in East Africa, would have made for a boring time in Kenya. Maybe a safer, less stressful trip, but certainly a more boring one. Matatus are the engmatic, omnipresent public transport in Kenya, whisking passengers to virtually any imaginable destination in a blur of unfiltered exhaust and garish paint.
A matatu is a fourteen-passenger, sliding-door van that occupies a strange semi-public role in providing transport. The crew consists of a tout and a driver. The tout's job is to collect fares from passengers, make change, and hang precariously out of the open sliding door to aggressively usher new passengers aboard...even if the van is already full. (The volume of the vehicle, rather than its allocation of seats, is the relevant constraint on its capacity. Touts often install riders in the aisles, each buttcheek hugging a different seat edge, while the touts themselves take to hanging by their fingertips onto the van by the sliding door track. Even the volume of the vehicle is fluid: just open a couple of windows.) The driver's job is to emulate a massless, frictionless sphere moving in ideal space; that is, to drive in a way that conserves as much inertia as possible (and wastes as much fuel as possible) while still accomodating the ambulatory needs of passengers. Also, he gets bonus points based on the aggregate amount of shit he is able to scare out of passengers and the number of lanes he is able to imagine on a narrow, crowded road. Overtaking other vehicles on hills is also desirable.
The speed of a matatu is strictly governed by the federal government's mandate that all public vehicles install a mechanical speed governor that limits vehicle speed to 80 kilometers per hour. This means that matatus travel at 80 kph...always.
Matatus are specially outfitted for their unique transport role. Most have two different horns: a low-pitched, rapid-fire sound used to convey sentiments like, "I'm passing you," and "get out of the way"; and another, a normal horn primarily used to attract the attention of would-be passengers. lnside, many have taken the precaution of padding the ceiling to account for cramped conditions and bumpy rides. But you won't be likely to find a functioning seat belt anywhere in the van.
Don't get us wrong: matatus are not all business. To keep the regular passengers entertained, many matatus have fluorescent night-lighting, and most have high-performance speaker systems that blast a delightfully groovy and recognizable plethora of R&B Top 40 and mid-90s pop music. One recent ride began with a trifecta of "What is Love?" continued with some song about how love is a rocket, and wrapped up with Rick Astley's hit "Never Gonna Give You Up." [Yes, we got Rick-Rolled in a matatu. For real.]
In addition to the music, many matatus are themed. Sometimes this involves glitter paint and custom upholstery, but at a minimum 9it means decals all over the exterior of the vehicle and the windows. The best ones have a consistent theme throughout, like some of these winners:
The Britney Spears Matatu
The UB-40 Matatu
The T-Pain Matatu
The Lil' Bow Wow Matatu
The Prison Break the TV Show Matatu
The Numb3rs the TV Show Matatu
The Al Pacino Matatu
The Vin Diesel Matatu
The Arch Nemesis Matatu
The Nice Guy Matatu
The Safe Journey Matatu (good joke!)
The Zion Destiny Matatu
The Black Sugar Matatu
The Barack Obama / Yes We Can Matatu (x6+)
The Michelle Obama Matatu
The Sasha Obama Matatu (there are at least two of these...)
It's hard to believe we're going to miss traveling this way, but BART just seems mundane now.
<3 Kyle and Audrey
A matatu's slogan, painted on the rear glass. Seems morbidly optimistic.
View from the back of a matatu:
A matatu is a fourteen-passenger, sliding-door van that occupies a strange semi-public role in providing transport. The crew consists of a tout and a driver. The tout's job is to collect fares from passengers, make change, and hang precariously out of the open sliding door to aggressively usher new passengers aboard...even if the van is already full. (The volume of the vehicle, rather than its allocation of seats, is the relevant constraint on its capacity. Touts often install riders in the aisles, each buttcheek hugging a different seat edge, while the touts themselves take to hanging by their fingertips onto the van by the sliding door track. Even the volume of the vehicle is fluid: just open a couple of windows.) The driver's job is to emulate a massless, frictionless sphere moving in ideal space; that is, to drive in a way that conserves as much inertia as possible (and wastes as much fuel as possible) while still accomodating the ambulatory needs of passengers. Also, he gets bonus points based on the aggregate amount of shit he is able to scare out of passengers and the number of lanes he is able to imagine on a narrow, crowded road. Overtaking other vehicles on hills is also desirable.
The speed of a matatu is strictly governed by the federal government's mandate that all public vehicles install a mechanical speed governor that limits vehicle speed to 80 kilometers per hour. This means that matatus travel at 80 kph...always.
Matatus are specially outfitted for their unique transport role. Most have two different horns: a low-pitched, rapid-fire sound used to convey sentiments like, "I'm passing you," and "get out of the way"; and another, a normal horn primarily used to attract the attention of would-be passengers. lnside, many have taken the precaution of padding the ceiling to account for cramped conditions and bumpy rides. But you won't be likely to find a functioning seat belt anywhere in the van.
Don't get us wrong: matatus are not all business. To keep the regular passengers entertained, many matatus have fluorescent night-lighting, and most have high-performance speaker systems that blast a delightfully groovy and recognizable plethora of R&B Top 40 and mid-90s pop music. One recent ride began with a trifecta of "What is Love?" continued with some song about how love is a rocket, and wrapped up with Rick Astley's hit "Never Gonna Give You Up." [Yes, we got Rick-Rolled in a matatu. For real.]
In addition to the music, many matatus are themed. Sometimes this involves glitter paint and custom upholstery, but at a minimum 9it means decals all over the exterior of the vehicle and the windows. The best ones have a consistent theme throughout, like some of these winners:
The Britney Spears Matatu
The UB-40 Matatu
The T-Pain Matatu
The Lil' Bow Wow Matatu
The Prison Break the TV Show Matatu
The Numb3rs the TV Show Matatu
The Al Pacino Matatu
The Vin Diesel Matatu
The Arch Nemesis Matatu
The Nice Guy Matatu
The Safe Journey Matatu (good joke!)
The Zion Destiny Matatu
The Black Sugar Matatu
The Barack Obama / Yes We Can Matatu (x6+)
The Michelle Obama Matatu
The Sasha Obama Matatu (there are at least two of these...)
It's hard to believe we're going to miss traveling this way, but BART just seems mundane now.
<3 Kyle and Audrey
A matatu's slogan, painted on the rear glass. Seems morbidly optimistic.
View from the back of a matatu:
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
3/10 - 4/7 -- Catch-up
Hi All,
Sorry for another extended radio silence...Internet access here is really unreliable, even worse than in Homa Bay. We are at this moment in the town of Mbita, but we stay about 4 km away in a village called Kisui. I can't say this with any authority, but Kisui might be one of the poorest, most disease-stricken places in Kenya. The Suba District (in which Kisui and Mbita are) has the highest HIV rate in Kenya-- one in three adults is HIV positive. There is no electricity in our village, and power comes only from big 12 V (a la car battery) units that people keep charged for some electric lighting at night.
We are working at the Mina Academy, the two-year-old project of a German woman named Mina who visited Kisui doing some volunteer work. Moved by the poverty and need here, she decided to do some fundraising in Europe to build this school and try to begin a community development project. The school provides pre-schoolers with pre-education, breakfast, lunch, health checks, twice-weekly baths, and perhaps most importantly something do to five days a week. Like many community-based projects, Mina struggles to get the community to invest as much as she has, but there are some very dedicated members of the school's executive committee. We have spent the last week and a half turning unused land into a more verdant and hospitable place: we've dug a garden and are building a fence for it, we've cleaned up the yard substantially and built swings for the children, and just yesterday we built the mud walls of a (mostly) natural-construction house for future visitors.
Like we've said, Internet access here is a bit of a chore, so I hope you'll be satisfied with this brief post. FYI, our plans are as follows: leave Kenya 4/19, fly to Istanbul, spend a couple of days before taking a train to visit our beloved friend Maria in Bulgaria, then head to Prague for a couple of days before heading to Boston on May 1. Then to San Fran sometime the week of the 4th, at the end of which will be the Welcome Back Audrey and Kyle BBQ Bash and B'nai Mitvah, a celebration of our triumphal return to the US. This is slated for the 9th of May, to take place in Livermore. Aud will send out a suitably enthusiastic and ludicrous e-vite ASAP. All our blog readers are invited, except for Willow. And Will...but he probably can't read anyway.
OK, lots of hugs, love, and probable intestinal worms,
Kyle and Aud
The whole crew enjoying dinner:
Mina, giving M'zee and Mike an impromptu yoga lesson:
A strikingly colorful day at the house:
Sorry for another extended radio silence...Internet access here is really unreliable, even worse than in Homa Bay. We are at this moment in the town of Mbita, but we stay about 4 km away in a village called Kisui. I can't say this with any authority, but Kisui might be one of the poorest, most disease-stricken places in Kenya. The Suba District (in which Kisui and Mbita are) has the highest HIV rate in Kenya-- one in three adults is HIV positive. There is no electricity in our village, and power comes only from big 12 V (a la car battery) units that people keep charged for some electric lighting at night.
We are working at the Mina Academy, the two-year-old project of a German woman named Mina who visited Kisui doing some volunteer work. Moved by the poverty and need here, she decided to do some fundraising in Europe to build this school and try to begin a community development project. The school provides pre-schoolers with pre-education, breakfast, lunch, health checks, twice-weekly baths, and perhaps most importantly something do to five days a week. Like many community-based projects, Mina struggles to get the community to invest as much as she has, but there are some very dedicated members of the school's executive committee. We have spent the last week and a half turning unused land into a more verdant and hospitable place: we've dug a garden and are building a fence for it, we've cleaned up the yard substantially and built swings for the children, and just yesterday we built the mud walls of a (mostly) natural-construction house for future visitors.
Like we've said, Internet access here is a bit of a chore, so I hope you'll be satisfied with this brief post. FYI, our plans are as follows: leave Kenya 4/19, fly to Istanbul, spend a couple of days before taking a train to visit our beloved friend Maria in Bulgaria, then head to Prague for a couple of days before heading to Boston on May 1. Then to San Fran sometime the week of the 4th, at the end of which will be the Welcome Back Audrey and Kyle BBQ Bash and B'nai Mitvah, a celebration of our triumphal return to the US. This is slated for the 9th of May, to take place in Livermore. Aud will send out a suitably enthusiastic and ludicrous e-vite ASAP. All our blog readers are invited, except for Willow. And Will...but he probably can't read anyway.
OK, lots of hugs, love, and probable intestinal worms,
Kyle and Aud
The whole crew enjoying dinner:
Mina, giving M'zee and Mike an impromptu yoga lesson:
A strikingly colorful day at the house:
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