Harambee

A rock formation in Hell's Gate National Park

Welcome back, everyone!

First of all, this blog post will be shorter, as I try to update more often. Also, I encourage anyone who reads this to also go over and read the blogs of my teammates! It'll definitely offer a more complete (and more-quickly updated) picture of what I'm doing this summer!
Bethany Roy - bethany-kenya.blogspot.com
Kenna McWhirter - kennainkenya.blogspot.com
Nick Herrmann - nick-kenya.blogspot.com
Bailey Myers - lifeinkenya.blogspot.com

Fischer's Tower

Lake Naivasha and Hell's Gate 

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to embark on a trip to Lake Naivasha and Hell's Gate National Park with Kenna! The other three members of my team elected to stay home, so our dynamic duo set out for Naivasha at 8:00 on Saturday morning. In America, from Nyeri to Naivasha would be about a 3-hour drive. So, with waiting on matatus, and the state of Kenya's roads, it was a 7-hour trip! Our mood wasn't fantastic when we checked in at our hotel, but it was drastically improved with a boat trip around Lake Naivasha.

Giraffes, Kenna, and I!

On our boat trip, we got up close and personal with some hippos, scared some birds, and then got the opportunity to go on a short walk in the forest. By "walk," I mean that we were within thirty feet of giraffes, zebras, and antelope! As you may be able to see in the picture above, there were around six giraffes within a fifty-feet spread. It was amazing to be so close to such big animals. That night, we went to bed early, because the next day, we were up and moving by 6 a.m. The reason? Rock climbing!

After summiting the tower on my climb!

Traveling around the Naivasha area was done mainly be mountain bike, which was an adventure in itself on Kenyan roads! Kenna and I met Joseph, our rock climbing guide, and biked five kilometers into Hell's Gate National Park. There, Kenna met some Canadian friends that she went on an expedition to a gorge with, while I met my new friend: Fischer's Tower. Fischer's Tower is a 25-meter-tall volcanic plug, named for the British explorer that met his death at the hands of Maasai warriors, who trapped him against the rock formation. Fischer's Tower was also the site of my rock climbing for the day! As I had never been rock climbing outdoors before, this was a new experience for me, and trust me: indoor and outdoor rock climbing are nowhere near similar! I climbed six routes up the tower, culminating in The Groove, which was a route centered entirely around a minuscule crack in the rock. I had a blast, and am now even more excited for the rock wall coming to Kansas State next year! After these adventures, Kenna and I left the park, and traveled back to Nyeri for more work at the center.

Harambee

The national motto of Kenya is "harambee," which means, "all come together" in Swahili. In practice, harambee is the act of contributing to something greater to yourself, whether it be a community service project, raising children, or anything else that helps someone else. I am reminded of harambee in the outpouring of support that I've received on this trip. I wanted to use this post to offer my sincere thanks to everyone who has assisted me in making my way here. If you're reading this, you've probably helped me in some small way, whether it was by a financial donation, an inspirational message, or even by the act of reading this blog. I'm comforted and awed by the number of people that my trip is reaching. Beyond the people and children here in Kenya, I've had over 1,200 page views on this blog itself! Special thanks go out to my family, my friends, International Service Teams, Kansas State University, and everyone else who played a part in making this dream possible!

The Kenyan shield

In that spirit, I've also had many people ask me in what ways they could help the CYEC. First of all, the Center is not an orphanage, but a center for street children and those in need. Most of the kids here actually do have parents, albeit parents who can't care them. Therefore, adopting a child from the center isn't an option, but there are many other ways that someone could help! If monetary donations aren't your style, the Center is always looking for different avenues of help, whether it's promoting them on Facebook or online, becoming a pen pal for a child, or finding out other ways to help. Otherwise, the Center's website is www.cyec.org, and on their page, they have a donation button. If you feel like donating any sum, small or large, the CYEC is a 501(c)3 organization, so that sum would be tax-deductible. On a larger scale, the Center is in constant need of supplies. Common items like shoes, toothbrushes, school supplies, and clothes are always in short supply. Finally, the biggest way you could help a child from the Center is by becoming a sponsor. In Kenya, the school system is only free until 8th grade, after which point it costs for further education. A sponsor pays, in part or in full, for the education of a child, and even beyond that, if possible. If you are interested in sponsoring a child, I encourage you to contact myself at chanceberndt@gmail.com, or the Center, at the contact information listed on its website. 

Tutuoanana,

Chance

Sunset on Lake Naivasha

Life in Kenya: The Good, The Bad, and The Elephants

The view from my doorstep at the CYEC

Welcome back to the new sensation that’s sweeping the nation: Reasons Why Chance Hasn’t Updated His Blog!


1. Waterfalls. They take precedence over computers.
2. It’s hard to tell small children that you’re too busy to play soccer.
3. There’s no way my parents would be wondering what I’m doing. 
4. Writing or watching pirated DVD’s for 50 cents: which would you choose?
5. Computer chargers love to break when you’re two hours away from the nearest Mac store.

So I’m sorry, everyone, and once again, I’ll try to update more often so that I won’t have to write essays like I am today! In this installment: Thomson Falls, leadership workshops, and an elephant orphanage.

The Mau Mau Cave 

Schedule

Living at the CYEC has been an exercise in patience, to say the least! I mentioned “Kenyan time” in my last post, and what it means is this: any time you think something is at a particular time, it’ll be an hour or so early or late, or postponed to the next day. There’s not the sense of urgency and planning that there is in the USA, and it’s probably been the biggest change I’ve had to get used to while being here. I was asked to give an explanation of my day-to-day life, but I can’t, because no two days have been close to the same! As I mentioned in the last post, I get up around 7-8 a.m., have some breakfast, and embark on whatever adventure we have for the day. Sometimes, this entails remodeling a shop for the kids, planning out a leadership program for the prefects at the center, or instituting a reward system of points for good behavior. Other times, this entails sitting for three hours, waiting for one person to show up so we can do something. Yes, it gets frustrating. The afternoon is the same news, except with the addition of kids around 4:00 p.m., which is admittedly awesome. There’s nothing like walking through a group of eight-year-old children, and having them all yell “Gitu!” and follow you. Since Chance is hard to pronounce for Swahili speakers (I’ve been called Charles numerous times), my nickname for most of the kids at the center is “Gitu.” I’m curiously okay with this nickname, because in Swahili, “Gitu” means “strong,” or, literally, “giant.”

My new jersey at the Gor Mahia game!

Meals and Food

            With the meal plan that we’re on at the Centre (It’s the British spelling!), we can eat all three meals a day with the kids. That means that for breakfast, it’s bread slices with tea. Lunch is a mixture of white rice, and some kind of bean. Supper alternates between rice and “ndengu,” which is a type of pea, or “ugali” and “skuma.” “Ugali” is cornmeal, left to soak until it becomes the same type of texture as mashed potatoes. “ “Skuma” or “sukumawiki” is stewed kale. “Sukumawiki” literally means “stretch the week,” because skuma is so cheap, you can eat it all week if you’re broke! You might think, “Chance, with these simple foods, surely you’re losing weight?” Try again! One interesting fact about Kenya is that there are shops EVERYWHERE. They are much smaller then what we’d think of, mainly little stands, but they’re very handy, because they usually have a completely random assortment of items. At the one across from the Centre, I can get oranges, eggs, cooking fat, laundry detergent, cell phone minutes, toilet paper, spices, and whatever else came by on trucks for that day. The exchange rate is eighty Kenyan shillings to one American dollar. The average cake, cookie, and piece of fruit goes for about five shillings. You can do the math! Other delicious Kenyan foods that I have tried have been “nyama choma,” which is barbecued goat, “matoke,” which is a type of banana that tastes like a potato, “chapatti,” which is a fried bread similar to a tortilla, and “mandazi,” which is a sweet cake similar to a doughnut. With all of these new foods, and the lack of a gym within 100 kilometers, I’ve had to resort to running on country roads and random sets of push-ups to keep some semblance of shape! I guess it just means I’ll have something to work for when I get home!

Feeding time at the Elephant Orphanage

Weather and Location

            Surprisingly enough, the average weather at the Centre is 70 degrees ,with slightly cloudy skies. Nyeri, the town closest to where we live, is situated in the middle of the Aberdare mountain range. Our elevation is about 5,000 feet, which makes some days downright chilly! An interesting side effect of being on the Equator is that my skin doesn’t tan as all, as Kansas sun is harsher during the summer than Kenyan sun is. It rains for a short amount of time almost every day, which leaves everything nice and green. The Centre is in Thunguma, which is basically a collection of small shops and houses along country roads. Nyeri is only about a couple of miles away, and is where we do most of our shopping. Nyeri is two hours north of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

Me being....well, me, at Thomson Falls

Weekend Trips

            My team and I have been able to travel to cool places around Kenya almost every weekend, and they’ve definitely been some of the highlights of my trip so far! Our first two weekends in-country were spent hanging around the Centre, which is an adventure in itself. On the weekend of June 8-10, we went on a trip to a cave near Nanyuki, Kenya, which was used as a center for rebels during the Mau Mau Uprising against the British during colonial times (I’m getting into the history here). It was about an hour-long hike either way through elephant stomping grounds and lush forest. Unfortunately, the only animals we saw were birds, lizards, and bugs! The view of the cave made up for it all, with a huge overdrop, framed by a nearby waterfall. Speaking of waterfalls, the next day, we traveled two hours to Thomson Falls, which I can only describe as breathtakingly beautiful. You could view the falls from the top, where I took some fantastic photos, but the real adventure was climbing down to the base of the falls, and standing in the spray of the water! The valley, the falls, the trees and water… It was one of those times I just stood and thought of how lucky I was to be in this scenic country. This last weekend of June 15-17, we traveled back to Nairobi to take in the city. Friday, we spent most of our time at a juvenile center for young offenders in the city. I had the chance to play soccer and speak with quite a few of the youths, and the main impression they made on me was how similar they would be to anyone back home. The kids at the juvenile center, the kids at the CYEC, the kids I meet back home in Herington… If not for the color of their skin and the language they speak, they could be interchangeable. That night, we ate at Havasha, an Ethiopian restaurant, which will be marked in history as the place I fell in love with goat meat. On Saturday, we walked to the Maasai Market in downtown Nairobi, which is a huge bazaar of crafts and goods. Haggling is expected in Kenya, and I had to bargain my hardest to get a good deal on all the presents I bought for people back home! That afternoon, I found myself cheering on the home team at a soccer game for a team based out of Nairobi. Their name is Gor Mahia, and they beat the rival Tusker team 3-0 in penalty shots! I’ve never made so many friends, so quickly, as when I purchased and wore a Gor Mahia jersey in the middle of the stands. After sampling some of the local nightlife that night, we made our way to the elephant orphanage the following day. The foundation that runs the orphanage saves baby elephants and rhinos from the wild, until they are grown enough to care for themselves. You haven’t lived until you’ve run your hand over a elephant as tall as your shoulder, which is being bottle fed by a park worker!

Whew! If you’ve made it this far, you’re either a good friend, extremely bored, or Grandma. (Hi, Grandma!) As I promised last time, I’ll try to update more often than I have been! Thanks for reading, and don’t be afraid to comment or ask me any questions that you may have about the CYEC or my travels.

Kwaheri!

Chance

Thomson Falls. The rainbow is real.

Starting Off With a Bang

Hey, everyone!

           Let’s get something out of the way at first: Kenya is awesome! This past week and a half has been mind-blowing. I’ve learned so much already, and I’m anticipating that the rest of the summer here won’t be too bad, either. Brace yourselves, though, because I have a lot to talk about, so this won’t be a small post by any means.

The Journey to Kenya

           After my last post, my team and I immediately boarded a plane headed for Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. While that flight was only an hour and a half long, it was still exciting as both the biggest plane I’d ever been on, and the second flight I’d ever had. We touched down at DFW around three in the afternoon, and after an hour, boarded our jet liner headed for London, England. This flight was very cool, as an 8-hour international flight is much different than your standard trans-American flight. We were given two different meals, and every seat had a personal TV for you to watch shows, movies, listen to music, and view the flight path on. I couldn’t barely sleep at all during this flight, which took a weird path. To take advantages of some strong winds and other super-important airplane stuff, our flight path took us all the way across America, across the Great Lakes, and into Canada, where we finally turned and headed across the Atlantic Ocean. We breezed the tip of Greenland, flew over Ireland, and finally touched down at 7:30 in the morning local time… and 1:30 in the morning Kansas time.

We had about an hour and a half at Heathrow International Airport, until we boarded our second long flight from London to Nairobi, Kenya. I’d love to tell you about the sights and countries that I had on this flight, but for one, I was seated in the exact middle of the plane rather than the window. Secondly, I fell asleep for 7 hours out of the 9-hour flight. Before I knew it, we had finally touched down in Nairobi at 9:00 p.m. local time, or 1:00 p.m. Kansas time.

Besides the traditional excitement of traveling to new places, my flight was made interesting by the people my team and I met on the way. One woman, Diana, flew with us from Kansas City to Nairobi, so we shared every flight. She had an 11-month-old daughter named Zoey, who, as you can imagine, was extremely cute.  On the U.S.-London flight, I sat by an Indian man named Vikram, who was returning to Mumbai from a jeweler’s convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico. On my final flight, I sat next to a native Kenyan with a name I couldn’t hope to pronounce or spell, who told me much about the local culture and places we needed to visit.

Nairobi

            When we finally touched down in Nairobi, we went through customs, and attempted to get our baggage. Unfortunately, three bags out of our ten were delayed on the flight, so we would have to wait until the next day to retrieve them. We grabbed a shuttle to our next destination, the Kenya Comfort Inn in the middle of the Government District in the city.

We went to sleep, and the next morning, we had the good fortune to meet Paul, the Director and driving mind behind the CYEC. He’s one of those few people you’ll meet whose charisma is obvious in everything that he does. He's incredibly inspiring, and to hear about his life's journey was amazing. We had breakfast with Paul at Java, a local coffee house that had good toast, and better coffee. After talking with him for a while, we walked for about an hour around the city, and he showed us some of the sights, and helped us get our bearings. After lunch across the street from our hotel, we met Chris, a former youth from the center who is attending university in Nairobi. Chris led us to a museum and snake house, where we made some new, scaly friends. That night, we went to a foreign film festival, where we watched a Swedish film. It was especially strange to be watching a Swedish film, with English subtitles, in the middle of Kenya, but we made it work. For the finale to our first day, we made our way to an Ethiopian restaurant where we met back up with Paul, for some of the best food I’ve had anywhere. If you ever are lucky enough to eat Ethiopian food, the shekla tips will not treat you wrong. Fun fact about Kenya: the drinking age is 18! Alcohol is just an expected part of Kenyan culture here, and it’s no big deal to people having beer or cocktails at 12 in the afternoon. In particular, there’s a beer called Tusker that may be bigger here than Budweiser is in the U.S. While I had an amazing day, it was eye-opening in some ways. On that day alone, we saw a youth in the street who was either passed-out or dead, countless street children, beggars, and cripples, and the other expected symptoms of a society where poverty is a serious problem. You could glance around, and see those that were unemployed, those who lived on the street, and those who made a living hawking street goods and preying on tourists. You had to have your wits about you, or you would be taken advantage of.

The next day, Chris took us to a local giraffe park. The ride to the park was an hour long, and like the previous day, it was sobering to see the stark difference between poor, rich, and white. After going to the park, and kissing some giraffes, we watched a show called Bomas, which was traditional songs and dances from African culture. When the show ended, we met up with Paul one more time for dinner. We decided to go to bed early, because the following day, we would be going to Nyeri, to actually settle in at the CYEC.

Nyeri and the CYEC

           

            The ride to Nyeri was long and eventful. We started on our way out of the city, then stopped for lunch and animals at the Blue Post Hotel. Hotels aren’t places to stay here, by the way, they’re just restaurants. The Blue Post had quite the cool assortment of animals, and we also got to see a beautiful waterfall while we were there. The ride showed us the Kenyan countryside, which was bursting with animals, plants, and color. Like the previous day, though, you could see how to most people, having the leisure time and money to travel would be an unreachable dream. You could see the poverty, or what we think of it in the US, everywhere. It was even one of the first things I thought of when we actually arrived at the CYEC in Nyeri. I looked around, and I saw the broken windows, the dirty walls, and the way some things were broken down and in disrepair. It took one day for me to realize that the real value of the center wasn’t in any of the facilities; it was in the people that work there. The staff, the older youth, the kids… Everyone here is completely inspiring, in their own way. Most of the kids are from homes and families that can’t care for them anymore. Some of them are straight from the streets. Some are even from jail. And all of them are doing so much better, because of the efforts of the people here. There are 96 children here in 8^th grade and below, and around 25 in high school and beyond.

As for volunteers, there are quite a few from Penn State University. Some others are from Australia, Finland, and other parts of the U.S. We arrived here on Monday, and for the past week, we’ve been working on everything from remodeling rooms and buildings, to helping run an open house for the center, to our main project now, which is setting up a system inside the center that will basically be an entire economy based on doing extra jobs, earning credits, and spending them in a shop.

As I mentioned earlier, the kids at the center are the main part of our days! I get up around 5:30 or 6, go on a run, and walk with the kids to school. After breakfast at 7:30, we start on the projects for the day. We have lunch anywhere from 12-2, and the kids return to the center from school around 5. We get to play and have fun with them until about 7:30, when they have workshops. Dinner is anywhere from 6-8, and bedtime for this guy is around 10. It’s been hard, especially since so much is actually on Kenyan time, which means everything is very fluid, and the schedules are nowhere near as set or easy to understand as ours. I’m doing my best though, which includes trying to find the time to write posts like this! I’m going to try to keep updating at least once a week, so that all my posts won’t be as huge as this one. Keep an eye out on my Facebook for pictures from my trip, and this summer will fly by before I know it.

Tutuonana,

Chance