Late Post from Lamu

This video is from a dhow ride we took on Lamu. We were headed to a floating bar to watch the sunset. Bob Marley, on a boat and a floating bar...this was one of my favorite memories from the trip. Close scrutiny of the video would reveal that our captain couldn't carry a tune in the bucket he was using as a drum. No matter, on that boat ride, he might as well have been Bob Marley himself.

Untitled from Ashley Petersen on Vimeo.

Dance Lessons

A few friends came over on Friday for pizza and drinks. Pizza and Drinks turned into dance lessons and dance lessons turned into a full fledged dance party. When the electricity in our apartment ended up going out, we were ready to hit the town.

Dance Lessons 2 from Ashley Petersen on Vimeo.

Things I Love About Nairobi: Public Transportation

Ok...public transportation isn't just one of the things I love, it is absolutely my favorite thing about Nairobi. The Matatus (15 passenger vans that are usually transporting a minimum of 25 people) don't have seat belts, doors that close, or adequate head room. However, the sacrifice of these amenities is easily made for bumping reggae/hip hop music, black lights, flat screen TV's playing music videos, and drivers that don't look a day over 14. Not to mention, each matatu has a name. Some of my favorite names so far: Shut up and Dance, Beyonce, Baraq, Assassin and Glory to the Lord. At a matatu spot on any given day their are typically 10 to 20 vans with young guys (I call them spotters) standing at the door yelling where they are headed. Once you figure out which van you need to be in, you climb in and over anyone who happens to be in your way. Reggae blaring, the spotter hops in as the van drives off. Matatu drivers are notoriously

reckless and will literally drive down the wrong side of a divided highway if it means passing up a few lanes of traffic. The spotters hang out the side of the van holding up on their fingers the number of spots open. There are always at least two spots left, even if someone is sitting on your lap. Getting anywhere on public transportation in Kenya is a great adventure, not even being sarcastic, I love it. On our long bus journey from Lamu I had fallen asleep for 15 minutes and awoke to find 30 people standing in the aisle of the bus, a baby in my friend's lap and three live chickens pecking around under our seats. The bus in the above picture is named " Rock University Graduates" and had an actual guitar welded on the back of it. Public Transportation =Amazing.

Things I Love About Nairobi: The Corn Cob Mystery

This post is the first in a series I will be calling "Things I Love About Nairobi". The corn cob mystery has been troubling me ever since the first week I arrived in Kenya. Everywhere you look, there are corn cobs laying on the ground. You can imagine the ankle rolling hazard this becomes in such a dense city. With so many corn cobs, I started to look around for people actually eating corn on the cob. To this day, I have seen hundreds of corn on the cob sellers but only one person actually eating corn on the cob. One person, hundreds of corn cobs. Are corn cobs some sort of ancient styrofoam, an accumulation of this one person's habit over the years? Is there an underground, corn-on-the-cob-eating fight club that only takes place in the alleyways and shadows where I can't see? Whatever is really behind this mystery, it is just one of the intricacies that I love about this city.

Lamu Paradise

Those of you keeping up may have noticed my absence from the blog last week. The coast was calling and we took some time to answer. For our vacation, we headed to Lamu Archipelago off the north coast of Kenya. The hectic bus, matatu and ferry rides (deserving of their own post) were well worth the paradise we encountered on the island. This is, by far, the most unique place I have ever been. The pictures hardly do it justice but enjoy!

Camels just chillin on the beach waiting for unsuspecting tourists like us to come along.

No cars on Lamu, just donkeys. This sounds like an enchanting idea until a donkey drop gets stuck between your foot and flip-flop while walking through the streets at night.

The local telephone booth graveyard.

It was an interesting experience to try and enjoy the warm weather while also respecting the local Muslim culture. Lots of scarves.

Dhow riding...pole, pole (slowly, slowly)

The street in front of our house

A little health comm theory....I actually am doing work over here.

This is one of the posters we are going to take to the schools to test tomorrow. The kids are all really worried about diseases so we are using that threat to entice them to wash their hands. The campaign title will hopefully be "Wash Away Diseases" and the messages will all work toward building self and response-efficacy....empowering the kids to believe that they can wash their hands and that washing their hands will actually prevent them from getting sick. This poster says "Washing your hands is easy" and gives the steps to washing hands the right way.

Kibera

The rest of the team is working in Kibera, an informal Nairobi settlement. Below is the video they put together as an update for Rotary. The conditions in the slum are hard to handle. There are no toilets so the residents poop in bags that they throw anywhere they can, kids are running around in raw sewage and burning trash with no shoes. This video does not even begin to give a full picture of the horrible conditions people are living in but it is a start. Also, a little overview of the project.

Tigers in Kenya

I forgot to mention that all of last weekend's shenanigans were a result of meeting up with some fellow Wittenbergers here in Kenya, Stephen Uhle and Jacob Schmalze. In fact, my old boss at Witt was the one who gave Steve that flag...the omniscient Linda Beals. It has been nice to have these guys around. I got to enjoy dinner and gellato with them at their fancy Nairobi apartment last night and their are many other adventures in the works. Got to love Wittenberg connections half way around the world.

This is Africa

My fellow travellers and I have embraced the phrase "This is Africa" from Shakira's popular World Cup song and turned it into an Acronym "TIA". Since Nairobi is a rather big city and we are living relatively comfortable lives, it can be easy to forget that we are actually in Africa. We reserve use of "TIA" for those times that really remind us exactly how far away we are from home. On bad days, the phrase becomes "TIFA". This weekend was 100% "TIA" and 100% awesome. (Insert cheesy, Shooter McGavin double point here) But seriously, it was amazing.

On Friday, a few friends and I headed up to Lake Naivasha about an hour outside of Nairobi. After a windy, mountian drive complete with death-defying truck passing on a two lane road, we were glad to crack open a Tusker and head out for sundowners on the lake. We all piled into a friend of a friend's (thats the way it works here) boat, went hippo watching and then drove out to an island called Hippo point for a bonfire. I did my best to act cool as we came upon a herd of hippos. Everyone here seems to have a hippo attack story and is quick to remind you that they are the most dangerous animal in Africa. We were 30 feet away from them...no big deal or TERRIFYING, you decide. While bonfiring, we very quickly ran out of firewood, forcing us to pile back in the boat to head to the same friend of a friend's bar. It was an amazing night. Each new person we met was more welcoming than the last.

Saturday morning we woke up, enjoyed a wonderful breakfast at the bar and headed out to meet our group for a day of hiking and camping. We hiked the gorge in Hell's Gate National Park where we saw wild zebra everywhere....new favorite animal. The mountains and the park reminded me a lot of Colorado, minus the zebra. It was so nice to be out of Nairobi. I am definitely not a big city girl. Saturday night we made a traditional Kenyan dinner around the campfire. The Americans taught the Kenyans about roasting marshmallows but I don't think anyone was very impressed. We told ghost stories over a few Tuskers and headed to bed.

Sunday we spent walking around the Crescent Island Nature preserve where we were literally 10 feet away from zebra, giraffe, wildabeast, gazelle....it was incredible. We even saw a baby giraffe that was just born in April. I guess this really is Africa.

Soap Making

If you have been following the blog, you know that I am working on a hygiene campaign for a local school. The focus of the campaign is hand washing and one of the most important parts of hand washing is using soap. It seems simple, but at a school where running water is a luxury, soap is not exactly readily available. Coincidentally, we got wind of a women's group in one of the slums who is making their own liquid soap and selling it for profit. We tracked them down and made our way to the Korgocho slum so we could learn the art of soap making as well. After getting ahold of a woman named Tina (soap-maker? booking agent? we weren't really sure) the day before, we set out in search of our soap-making lessons with nothing but the hard to pronounce name of a church (Careo Bungy??) and the promise that we would meet a man there who would take us into the slum. Kenya does not cease to surprise me. All according to a very vague plan, we were dropped off at the church, met by a delightful man named Bernard and guided to what turned out to be a soap-making workshop for the community. We had told the soap-maker that we would pay for the chemicals she needed to teach us....turns out we were the workshop sponsors. We were introduced to all the teachers and parents at the local school, shown a video about hygiene in Swahili and then taught how to make soap. Now we can teach the teachers at our schools too. Hopefully this will make hand washing sustainable. No worries, I will run a soap-making workshop when I get back to the states so all of you can learn :)

Happy and You Know it

Happy and You Know it from Ashley Petersen on Vimeo.

Of Course I've Met Barack Obama

Well hello again. A lot has happened since my last update. This picture is from a school visit that my colleagues at Ecotact, Rina and Gerald, and I did last week. We are building a hygiene campaign for Kirangari Primary School. During our visit we conducted focus groups, hung out with the kids and just observed daily life at the school. As you can see, we were a big hit. Hundreds of kids were following us around during their recess, telling us stories, singing us songs and asking us questions. The teachers said that they were excited because they don't see many mzungus (white people). When the kids found out I was from the U.S. their first question was "Have you met Barack Obama?". I was tempted to make up a story about how we were best friends but opted for the truth instead..got to set a good example and all. The school is in Kikuyu, named for the tribe that is from that area. It also happens to be the tribe of Barack Obama's Kenyan relatives. See how much I am learning here?

The visit to the school was a blast but it was also very sad to actually sit down and talk to the students. Their biggest concern was about diseases. We had so many questions about tuberculosis, typhoid, and HIV from tiny children. I am not sure I even could have pronounced tuberculosis when I was their age. There is just such a heightened level of awareness about those things here. I am really glad that I can be a part of something that has a chance at improving the quality of life for these kids and teachers. Right now, all the kids and teachers use pit latrines that are in really poor condition without any running water to wash their hands. Soon they will have toilets with running water for drinking and washing their hands. Happy day.

Kiswahili Lesson for the Day

Asanti = Thank you

Mathare Freestyle

The boys in this Mathare youth group all freestyled for us about sanitation and their lives growing up in the slum.

Jambo Sister....

Well, we have made it through our first week here in Nairobi. Our group is moved into our new apartment and aside from a few water/electricity issues, all is running smoothly. The first week working in the Ecotact office was extremely interesting. I am the only one from my group there all the time so I am learning a lot about Kenyan culture and trying to pick up some swahili. The Ecotact staff is friendly and lunch is prepared every day with tea at 10 and 4. My first lesson in culture was all about Kenyan time. Whenever someone wants to set a meeting, they laugh at me when I ask "what time?". I am always told that there are only two times...morning and evening. It is an adjustment but also very relaxing to not feel rushed.

Yesterday I met up with a friend of a friend here in Kenya, Stephen Rigby. I was very proud that I was able to find my way around our neighborhood by myself to meet him! It was nice to talk with a fellow American who has been here a while about how different Africa is from the states.

The food here is amazing...we have been to a lot of really great restaurants and nothing is too expensive. The local beer is Tusker...I have already had my fare share and am sure it will be my savior after one of these long work weeks. Every Sunday a Masai Market sets up in the parking lot outside of the mall by our house. There are tons of booths with African masks, bags, jewelery and decorations. Everyone tries to get your attention by saying "Jambo sister" and offering to trade you for something (anything!) that you have on your person. Today a man offered to trade me for my hair tie on my wrist. Of course by "trade" he meant my hair tie plus 500 shillings. Today I bought two beautiful bags for 600 shillings, about 8 dollars. I can't wait to buy everyone at home presents. I miss you all and hope to talk to you soon!

Ash

All my bags are packed and managed to get here in one piece

Hello Friends and Family,
I am pretty sure my grandma is the only one who is going to keep up with this blog
(and maybe one of those people on Facebook who never to talk to you but you know look at your pictures). Regardless, it might be nice to keep track of the happenings over the next two months I am in Kenya. Here we go...

The trip to Nairobi was extremely eventful. I arrived at the Cincinnati airport intending to fly to Detroit in order to connect to a flight in Amsterdam.. Due to flight delays and changes, I left Cincinnati on a flight to Paris...in first class. This flight was amazing, 4 different meal choices, complimentary everything, plush blankets, fully reclining seats and an adorable flight attendant to gently wake me up for breakfast in the morning. This must be how people who have more than $100 in their savings account feel every day. Delightful to say the least.

After rushing through the Paris airport to catch a connecting flight in Amsterdam, I met up with the rest of my group and, coincidentally, the man who is going to be my boss for the next two months, David Kuria. We all boarded our final flight to Nairobi together and settled in for nine non-first class hours.

My luggage did not make it to Nairobi but I gave my temporary address to the airline and it showed up two days later without having to talk to a single person on the phone. It might have given me a few gray hairs but it was more efficient than anything I have experienced in the US.

Our first few days we have spent getting used to Nairobi and the time change. I kissed a giraffe at the giraffe preserve this weekend. It was so amazing seeing them up close. We are living in an area called Kilimani. For right now we are staying in a guest house but will soon be moving to a beautiful apartment. I didn't realize that my Nairobi digs were going to be such a step up from real life in Denver...no offense to the Vine street ladies.

Today was my first official day at Ecotact (the company hosting my internship). Ecotact builds a product called ikotoilets. I will be working with the ikotoilet model in schools and developing a communication campaign to get students to maintain good hygiene. It sounds simple but many of these students are accustomed to using pit latrines and very rarely wash their hands. Poor sanitation and water conditions kill thousands of children in Kenya each year. I am very excited to be working within the schools and have a great partner at Ecotact. I am even learning some Swahili... Karibu means welcome. We can all learn together.

This was a long post. I will try to be better about writing so that you can hear more stories and less lists of events. I miss you all so much already! (Grandma stop worrying) Keep me updated on everything going on at home.

Ash