The ISP continues...

It’s been about 2 weeks in Kisumu, and I still really like it here. It’s a much more manageable city then Nairobi – you can walk around the whole downtown in less than an hour and after only about 2 days, I knew my way around (and I’m awful with directions – I still get lost in DC sometimes…). My 3 roommates and I usually cook dinner about 4 nights a week, usually some sort of carb (pasta, rice, bread, etc) and fresh veggies cooked in various ways. And I was talking before about how cheap it is – all the veggies for a meal for 4 usually don’t cost us more than $3. And fruit is also just as cheap, and so good and fresh. Even going out to dinner doesn’t cost us too much – if we pay $6 for a full meal, we are seriously splurging. What am I going to do when I get back to the states and I can’t get a whole meal for under a $1?! I’m not looking forward to it… And just to give you a taste, here is the view of the sunset over Lake Victoria from our balcony:

And my ISP is also going great. I am working with the Kisumu Innovation Center of Kenya (KICK), and they have been great so far. They have about 30 artisans working for them making handi-crafts that they export to the US, Canada, Australia and a few European countries. They have basically taken me on as an intern, and part of my time is spent doing various odd jobs for them, like sorting through products to make sure they are of good quality, taking pictures of products, etc. But my major project is doing Artisan Profiles of most the artisans. The manager and I made up sort of a questionnaire and I get to go around to the artisans and interview them. I’ve done almost 20 so far, and it’s been so interesting. They are all really open to talking to me, something that I was worried about, being that I am a white American female. These profiles serve a dual purpose – I am using them as raw data for my ISP and KICK is working on making a website (don’t worry, I’ll post the link when it’s done) and a section of that is going to be the profiles of all the artisans so that buyers can see them. Pretty cool, huh? It’s really comforting to know that the work I’m doing is not only benefiting me, but that KICK will also get something out of it.

As far as what I am getting from the artisans, that has been the most interesting part so far. Thankfully, they all speak English, and most speak very well, so I don’t need a translator. They are all really smart and all have a lot of talent. Many of them come up with the products themselves and then bring to KICK who help them to perfect the product. KICK then markets them to these companies like Ten Thousand Villages, Oxfam, and other smaller ones that (hopefully) buy them. For example, one of the guys I was talking to today harvests and dries hyacinth, a plant that is taking over Lake Victoria, and uses it to make paper, frames and books that are absolutely beautiful. And he does the whole process himself – getting the plant from the river, drying it, making the paper and then making the final product. A lot of them also train women they know to make various things to market and sell. One of the questions that I ask them is what KICK can do to help improve their lives, and everyone so far has said the same thing – more orders. The way it works is that KICK gets an order from a company, finds an artisan that can fill it and pays him/her 50% upfront. Then, upon completion of the order, the artisan gets the remaining 50% (this is pretty standard practice in the Fair Trade world). So if there are no orders, than an artisan does not work and does not get paid. Many of them also work doing other things, so there is some income when they don’t have orders from KICK, but many of them have said that they prefer working for KICK because the wage is better. The second most common answer to the question of what KICK can do to help them is more training. Some of them want training in painting, wire work, and even computer design or management training. The bottom line is that they all just want work. They want to do everything they can so that they will get more orders from KICK and continue working for them.

One of the most interesting questions that I ask them is whether or not they know a lot about Fair Trade. About half know at least a basic idea, which is good. But there are some that do not know anything about it at all and some also give me a very elementary definition, mostly using the words fair and trade in the definition. Something like, “Yes, yes I know. It is when the people who are trading the products do so in a very fair manner.” And then when I follow up asking them if they would like to know more about it, every single person has given me an emphatic yes. Even though they don’t really know what Fair Trade means, they can see that with KICK they are treated better, paid better, are given more artistic license, and perhaps most importantly, can support their various family members through school, with food, medicine or other necessities. Many have told me that with KICK they were able to save money to go back to secondary school (which is not, and has never been, free in Kenya), send their children or siblings to school, pay their rent, and one even told me that he makes enough money to “spoil” his nephew – which most likely means that he can buy him clothing and shoes that aren’t tattered and food that is more than just the bare essentials. So even though they don’t understand what Fair Trade means, they know that it is helping them, and understandably, they all want to know more about why it is helping them. I talked with Isaac, the manager of the company, about doing a mini workshop on Fair Trade for the artisans, and so we are planning to do it next week. It’ll be a little daunting giving a lecture on Fair Trade to the artisans (I’ve never even given one to other students), but I think it will be a really interesting learning experience and I am especially looking forward to the Q&A session afterwards – it’ll be interesting to see what kind of questions they ask and what they want to know more about.

All in all, it has been very encouraging to hear their answers. From their hunger for work, to the benefits they have seen through Fair Trade to their creativity it has been a great experience. I was really worried that I would find the opposite – that Fair Trade is just a name that doesn’t actually make much of a difference. But luckily, that has not been the case. Working here has been a great inspiration for me, and I’m so excited to take the inspiration and momentum back to GW and GWSFT next year!

An interesting weekend, for sure

I know that last time I said I would talk more about KICK and my ISP, but I'm putting that on hold until next time so that I can share with you all my wonderful weekend...

I took a break from ISP and had one of the coolest experiences yet in Kenya. As some of you might know, Barack Obama is Kenyan. His father was born and raised here, in an area about an hour or 2 from Kisumu. His grandmother still lives in that village, and this weekend 3 others in the group and I got to meet her. Yes, you read that right. We met Obama's grandmother. It was so awesome. She is about 85 and still alive and kicking. She still does all the work in her farm, takes care of her household and is totally still there mentally. She speaks Duhluo (the Luo language) and Kiswahili, but no English. We showed up at her house completely unannounced, yet she still welcomed us in and spoke with us for about 2 hours. She talked to us about Obama’s father, about him and also asked us about ourselves. Our translators were SIT’s home-stay coordinator who lives a few villages away and a friend of his who is principal of a local school. We thought that they knew her and had worked it out, but this was actually not the case. And when we apologized to her for just showing up, she said that since we were the Senator’s guests, that we were welcome at any time. And since Obama and his father have the same name (which isn’t uncommon in Luo culture), he was always referred to as “the Senator”, which we all thought was kind of funny.

She told us about Barack (the father) and how he was always so smart and had such determination, and how Obama has the same characteristics. He wasn’t that close to his real father, who died in the late 70’s. Oh, I also saw his (the father’s) grave, along with the grandfather’s – they are buried on the family compound. But he is pretty close to the family. The first time he came to Kenya was for his father’s funeral and he has been back multiple times since. He also flew his grandmother to D.C. for his inauguration into the Senate. I was not aware that he had been so many times, and had kind of thought that his last trip was just a political ploy. But it was good to hear that this was not the case. The first time he was here was as an undergrad (I think), and he stayed for about a week. He is in pretty regular communication with a cousin here, who then gives the news to his grandmother and the rest of the family. He has visited pretty regularly since then, and even took his wife to meet them before they were married. The grandmother told us that before he makes and really important decisions, i.e. running for the senate or for the presidency, he consults them. From what she was saying, he sounds like a great guy with a good head on his shoulders. And yes, I know that this is how any grandparent would talk about their grandchild, but it seemed really genuine from her.

She had pictures of the whole family around the sitting room, and many included Obama. One of them was him on his first trip here helping her to carry her vegetables to the market. There were other more formal family pictures, as well as an “Obama for Senate” sign that he had signed for her. There were also other family members, his father, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. The house itself was really nice – well built with electricity. The chairs and couches were really nice and there was even a TV. I got the impression that the family has always been relatively well off, by rural Kenyan standards at least. It seems like they are a family that has always been really hard workers and really determined to get what they want. Despite all this, it struck me how self-less this woman was. Apparently, she told Obama that he should do whatever he can to help the people of Kenya – not just her area. The main things that she kept talking about were development (I got the sense that she meant in terms of infrastructure – roads, communication, schools, etc) and medicine. The 4 of us are studying different things – mal-nutrition, medicine, politics and trade, and she told each of us that she wanted us to come back when we graduated to help the people in the area. She also wants me to come back and help her improve her business of selling vegetables. An offer I would have gladly taken her up on, but once again, school gets in the way. Oh well, maybe next year. By then maybe we’ll go from being the Senator’s guests to the President’s guests. One can only hope…

It was a pretty surreal experience. She told us that the US Ambassador was coming on Monday, and I couldn’t help but wonder what this woman’s life will be like if Obama does actually make it into the White House. Picturing her walking around the White House made us all laugh a little bit – an old African woman who has lived her whole life on her farm in Kenya getting waited on hand and foot by White House Staff. It would be pretty awesome, I think. I know the primaries are still a long way out, but after our talk with her, I think I have finally decided where my loyalties are this election…

The rest of the weekend was pretty good as well. We stayed for 2 days with home-stay coordinator, and it was an interesting experience to say the least. He has 2 women, about 20-ish years old, which is actually pretty typical here actually. I was a little upset at how they were treated – they were definitely treated as the hired help. And since they are women, they are treated a little worse. Nothing terrible, but their hard work was not appreciated at all, and they are definitely taken for granted. Unfortunately, that is also not uncommon here. Men are definitely superior, and that has been one of the hard things to get used to. Seeing the way they treated these women was just another reminder of that that I could have done with out. The house itself was also interesting. It was a very nice house, but there were some major design flaws. Like not having screens on the windows and having fluorescent lights. Oh, and just in case that didn’t let in enough bugs, they would also leave the front door wide open in the evening. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many bugs in one place in my life. And above the walls of the rooms, the ceilings were completely open throughout the house. So when the house help decided to turn the radio on (loudly) at 6:30 in the morning on Saturday, it might as well have been right next to my bed. Oh, and as if all that wasn’t enough, there were about 792 rats running around on the rafters above our heads. I was waiting for one to fall on us all weekend. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Staying in the house was definitely an interesting experience…

Despite all this, we did have fun. On Saturday night, our host arranged for a traditional Luo musician to come and perform for us. He played an instrument that is kind of like a guitar, but has 8 strings and is played in a sitting position, with the instrument on the ground. He sang mostly in Luo, but had a few songs in Kiswahili, with some English thrown in for good measure. He sang about Kisumu, Obama, women, and Idi Amin, the former dictator of Uganda who was a really great guy (ok, so sarcasm doesn’t really work in this medium – but speaking of him, you should all see The Last King of Scotland). Because of course, why wouldn’t you sing about an oppressive, tyrannical dictator who killed thousands of his own people? There were also a lot of friends and family in the room, and they all thought all of his songs were so funny. But the humor of Amin, getting a woman pregnant then leaving and getting drunk all the time was kind of lost on us 4 Americans. I don’t know, but Kenyan humor is something I still don’t fully understand. But other than his choice of topics, it was a pretty cool show and he was kind of (ok, really) drunk of Kenyan moonshine, so if nothing else, we could always laugh at him.

Like I said, there were about 20 other friends and family members in the room, and for some reason I had a really harsh realization during the performance. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of these people were infected with HIV/AIDS. The area we were in has by far the highest HIV rate in Kenya. This is largely due to a highway that runs through the village that is the main route for transporting oil from the coast of Kenya to the inner African countries. As a result of all the truckers, prostitution in the area has skyrocketed, and with it the HIV rate. That coupled with the extreme poverty in the area (for a variety of reasons), and we were told that the rate in the area was 65%. I think that estimate is a little steep, but it’s probably around 40% or so. So with 20 people in the room, that means that anywhere from 5 to 10 people in that room probably had HIV. It was a sad thought, and I’m not really sure what brought it on. I obviously don’t know for sure if anyone in the room was infected at all, but just the possibility was enough to shock me and bring my mood down a little bit.

And on that note, I’ll wrap up. Sorry to leave on such a morbid note, but I promise, my next entry will be much happier!

And so it begins...

...ISP that is. But for now, let me catch you up on what I have been doing for the past week or so...

Last time I left off, I had gotten back to Nairobi from Tanzania. After the trip, we had about 4 days in Nairobi before leaving for ISP . These days were not very exciting, so I'll spare you all the boring details. I spent most of it writing a final paper, getting ready for ISP and getting some last minute details in order. Like I said, not too exciting, so we'll just skip right on to Kisumu...

Jen, Kelsey, Monica and I left for Kisumu on the 8:30 am bus on the 12th. Normally, the bus takes about 6 hours, but for several reasons, this one took longer. The first reason for this was getting stopped by the police. There are a lot of police check points on the roads, so this wasn't that big of a deal. But after about 15 minutes of not moving, people started getting a little rowdy. Normally you barely even stop for these check points. So we looked out our window to see our attendant surrounded by about 5 or 6 cops who were yelling at him and hitting him. We were a little freaked out and not really too sure how to react. The people on the bus seemed upset (for obvious reasons), but not too worried so we just sat there and waited. Some one told us that they were stopped for not having the right uniforms or something, but in reality they just wanted all the money they had collected that morning as a bribe. This is really common here - the police are pretty corrupt and if will often pull people over on bogus charges just to get some money from them. Pretty awesome, huh? After a few minutes, the attendant got into the back of the police car and they drove away. Our driver was still out there on his phone, but thankfully, they didn't arrest him. So he got back on the bus and we drove off as if nothing happened. Pretty crazy start to the trip, huh?

Then, about halfway through the trip, another cop got on the bus and we got a little worried again. But he was actually a good cop. Apparently, one of the women we picked up at a later stop didn't want to pay and was causing a big fuss. So the cop got on and told the woman that she had to pay just like everyone else and stayed there while she did. Nice change from the last cop we encountered. Other than those 2 incidents, the ride was pretty normal. There was a lot of truck traffic, so that added to the time as well. Oh, and another interesting thing about the ride was how many trucks we passed. There are no highways here, only 2 lane roads going both directions. But if the car/truck/bus in front of you is going slow, you can pass them. At any time. So there were a few close calls with on-coming traffic and a few passes around blind curves that kind of freaked us out a little, but I guess thats just the norm here. And we made it safely, so i guess it all worked out.

Pretty much, Kisumu is great and we have a really sweet set up. We are pretty much in a suite - 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a big balcony that, all of which can be completely closed off by a door that we can lock. One of the rooms is huge, so not only do we have 2 beds in there, but we also have a sitting area with a couch/extra bed, a coffee table, chairs and a TV. And all for 600/= a night (about $8.50). The balcony is also a great people watching spot, and I find myself just looking out onto the streets a lot, which can bring up a lot of mixed emotions. But its also a great way to pass the time. All in all, I love the apartment/hotel - and I actually have an area where I can unpack! I have been living out of my bags since February, so you can imagine how nice it was to finally put them to the side, even if it is only for a few weeks. My roommates and I have cooked for the past two nights, which is also really nice. Although depending on what you're getting and cooking, its almost actually cheaper to eat out sometimes, which is pretty ironic. But even cooking for ourselves is cheap - we made a stir fry last night, and for all 4 of us, the veggies were only about $1.50 - crazy, right?

And all the staff at the hotel are so friendly - they all love us and are really happy to have us. And some of them ask the most bizarre questions. Like today when I told one of them that I was from the States. His next question was "oh, so you know Madison Square Garden?" I said yes, I do know it. And his response was "Oh, so then you know the wrestlers? So they really shed blood there?". Wrestling is pretty big here, so that wasn't too weird to be asking about that, but it was still kind of funny. And I didn't even get into the whole wrestling is fake thing, because it just wouldn't have been worth either of our times to try and figure that one out. Oh, and another funny thing about Kenya (and Kenyans) is that they have no real concept of nationalities outside of Africa. I mean, they understand what it means to be British or American, but I could tell someone that I was from France, and they wouldn't question it, despite the huge American accent. I'm pretty sure I could even tell someone I was from Argentina and they would buy it. I'll have to test out that theory and let you know though...

Anyway, getting back on track, the manager at the hotel is our favorite. Her name is Diana, and she is so nice. Like I had said, we got there on a Thursday afternoon, and on Friday afternoon, she had us over to meet her (almost) 3 year old son and husband. Her son was so cute, and pretty well behaved, despite a strong mischievous streak. And her husband is also very nice - he talked a lot about America and the differences between the 2 countries - a very common topic of conversation for us. But she comes up to our room to say hi on almost a daily basis and always takes care of us. She is even going to show us how to make chapati (an amazing traditional Kenyan food) soon, so that's something to look forward to.

But other than that, we have spent the last few days just getting settled here. We all started work on our projects today, and I am looking forward to seeing how all of our projects develop over the next few weeks. Its a lot to take on, but something that should be good for me/us. Next time, I'll go into more detail about my project and the work that I am doing, but for now I think I'll cut it off here. Hope all is well with all of you - and keep the emails and the comments coming - I may not always respond, but that doesn't mean that I don't love reading them!

Tanzania - Part 2

So to continue with where I left off, we got back to UAACC on the afternoon of the 4th and just relaxed, showered and did some laundry until dinner. We didn’t have anything planned after dinner, so after some technical difficulties, some of us watched the first half of Malcolm X while others headed to bed. While we were watching the movie, UAACC’s band Warriors from the East started practicing, and they provided an interesting background to the movie. They are a reggae band that is absolutely amazing. I guess I should stop here to explain that most of the staff at UAACC is Rastafarian, and so the fact that they were playing reggae was not a huge surprise. I was a little shocked to see so many Rasta’s in Tanzania, but that might also just have been a result of where we were staying. Either way, they had this amazing band that served as an interesting background to the movie. After we turned the music off, Karen (another girl in the group) and I decided to go and watch the band rehearse for a little while. They weren’t very hard to find, and were on the roof of one of the buildings in the compound. They loved the fact that we wanted watch, and even gave us instruments to play. Ok, so they might have just been tambourines but whatever. We were still a vital part of the rehearsal. Sitting on the roof was a little surreal. I kept having to remind myself where I was – in Tanzania at an amazing center surrounded by an incredible band who was pretty much giving us a private concert on a roof at about 11 at night – all less than 12 hours after having been in Maasai land for an amazing few days. Like I said, surreal to say the least. I really wanted to stay awake to see the end of their rehearsal, but as I was literally falling asleep in the chair (while playing the tambourine), I decided to head to bed.

The next morning was a typical African morning. We had planned to see some of the programs that UAACC has, but the woman who was supposed to show us around wasn’t there since it was Easter (Easter’s like a week long holiday here – I don’t really understand it.). So we ended up just hanging out all morning and talking, journaling, reading, etc. It was a little frustrating to not be doing anything, but kind of nice at the same time.

After lunch, we piled in the vans and went to an orphanage for some community service work. There was a little confusion as to what we were actually supposed to be doing, but things got worked out and we spent a few hours there painting doors, cleaning walls and floors and playing with some of the kids. They didn’t really tell us much about what the orphanage was all about, but I guess that’s not really too important, huh?

We headed back to UAACC for dinner, and afterwards had a discussion with the center’s HIV/AIDS education group that was fascinating. They first put on a skit for us that we didn’t really understand (it was in Kiswahili). Then we got to have a discussion with them which started out by us asking them a little bit more about what they do and how they get the messages out to the community, etc. They also asked us about how the disease is viewed in the states and how sex ed works. From there it got a little interesting…some of the questions they asked were:
-How can a condom protect against HIV since it was invented before the disease was an issue?
-Where did HIV come from?- Something about salt being able to escape through condoms and how this was possible (I think a large part of this one was lost in translation – we still don’t really get it)
-And my favorite – something about how when women wear skimpy clothes they are bound to get HIV because men can’t control themselves.
It was a little disheartening to hear some of their questions – I had kind of assumed a certain amount of knowledge about HIV/AIDS from them since they are the ones educating the community about it. But I guess that was a bad assumption on my part.

The next day we had planned on going to the International War Crimes Tribunal where we were going to see the trails regarding the Rwandan genocide. I was really excited to see it, but when we got off the bus, we were informed that it was closed for the day since it was Good Friday (damn Easter ruining our plans again). Apparently someone had checked if it was going to be open and was given the wrong information. So we changed our schedule around a little bit and were given the morning to explore the town of Arusha. I was really disappointed, but it was actually an awesome morning. I went with 2 friends from the program to an ice cream parlor, and then to a book store. After that we decided that we didn’t really want to shop anymore so we just walked around a little bit.

After a few minutes we found a park that led us to a playground – this was kind of shocking since playgrounds aren’t really something that you find all over the place in Africa. But we decided to take advantage of it and played around a little bit. I was a little upset to be wearing a skirt – not really conducive to playground-ing. But I still managed to make it work. A little while after we got there, we were joined by 3 young kids who were so cute – probably ranging from 5 – 8. We ended up playing with them for a few hours. The best part was that they didn’t ever ask us for anything. They were just so happy to be playing with us that that was all they wanted. And when we did by them some cookies, they split them equally between each other with out even a hesitation. Pretty great kids, huh? I kind of wanted to take one home with me, but I’m not sure how the officials at the airport would feel about me smuggling a kid back to the states…

We meet up with the rest of the group and spent the afternoon at a snake park – a little random, but interesting I guess. Snakes aren’t really my thing, and neither are zoos, but it was still pretty cool.

This was our last night with UAACC, which was pretty sad. We all really loved it there! But it was kind of cool, because the band that I was talking about was having their kick off concert for their East Africa tour that night. So we all went as an SIT sponsored event! It was a pretty cool show – like I said before, the band was awesome and has such great energy. The private roof-top show was definitely a lot cooler, but seeing them perform live for a bigger audience was also pretty sweet. It was a great show and a great conclusion to an amazing trip. I wish we could have spent more time there, but the next day it was an early morning wake up to drive back to Nairobi and all the pressures of SIT – papers, discussions and in a few days ISP (!).

Panthers Goats and Beads - Tanzania part 1

As I thought, I'm breaking up this trip again. So with out further adu, here it is, part one:

We are staying at a place called the UAACC (United African Alliance Community Center) near a city called Arusha. It was started by Pete and Charlotte O'Neal. They are both Americans who were members of the Black Panther party in the middle of its prime. Pete started the chapter in Kansas City. He is here in Africa living in exile and hasn't been in the states since the 60's. The reason for this is the result of an interview he gave in which he said he wanted to storm into congress to take someone's head. And when the interviewer asked if hem meant that literally, he said yes, I do. About 3 weeks after this, he was brought up on charges of transferring a gun across state lines and was facing 15 years in jail. So instead of doing that, he moved to Africa - first to Algeria then to Tanzania. He has mellowed out a lot since his Panther days and while he still has the same ideas and beliefs, he realizes that there are more productive ways to attaining them. So he started the UAACC which does a lot of community development programs and education type things. He also started a clean water project where he helped install a water pump near the village so the families could have clean water close by. Its a pretty amazing place - a large compound with about 20 people living on it and room for about 20 students as well. They have students here all the time serving as interns and pretty much always have student groups around for one reason or another. Everyone is so amazingly welcoming and open that we all feel right at home. Its been great to just talk to everyone here, from Pete to the volunteers to the people who work here - they are all just such interesting people. And the food is fantastic (very American), we have free internet and a crazy amount of movies to pick from in our down time as well as a basketball court. I kind of fell like we're at summer camp, but its definitely the coolest summer camp ever.

The first day we were here we went on a safari through the Ngorongoro crater - its a collapsed volcano that has grown over with brush and is about 12 miles wide. There are all different types of animals in there and even a lake! Between driving there, getting over the crater wall, driving around inside it and getting back, we were there the whole day. We got to see monkeys, elephants, zebras, wildebeests, lions, hippos, random birds, ostriches, and a few other that I can't remember right now. The whole day was pretty cool, but the coolest part was at lunch. Our academic director (AD) had told us to be careful because there were eagles around who might steal your food. I didn't really take it too seriously, so I was just eating and talking like normal. Then all of a sudden this thing flew in front of me and before I knew what had happened, my food was gone. An eagle had stolen it right out of my hand! The only mark he left was a little scratch on my finger - its amazing how precise they are. I'm kind of hoping the scratch will scar because I think that can beat most scar stories hands down.

The next morning we had a dancing workshop at UAACC and learned a traditional African dance. It was a lot of fun despite how ridiculous we all looked. After lunch they let the nearby residents come in and they had a traditional dance show that also featured us doing our dance. I'm not sure how well that went over, but it was fun at least. We also had to do some kind of American cultural thing, and despite the hard time we all had agreeing on something, that went over really well.

As if all that wasn't cool enough, the next few days were so much cooler. We left for Maasai land on the 2nd, and staying with them was one of the coolest things I've ever done. We drove about an hour and picked up Ngoingoi, our Maasai guide on the side of the road. We turned off the road at a seemingly random spot and drove for about 10 minutes. How he knew where to go we had no idea - there were no paths or road that we could see but despite that we were still making turns and headed in a definite direction. We got to our campsite and spent the rest of the day setting up and getting familiar with the area. We toured Ngoingoi's Boma (compound), met his family - his 2 wives, siblings, son and parents and got to see their houses within the compound. After that, we went for a walk to gather herbs for tea and then helped them prepare the tea. I really wanted to like it, but it pretty much just tasted like dirt to me. But at least I tried it, right? Later that night, we had a chance to talk to some Maasai elders who told us (through 2 translators - one from Maa to Swahili and then from Swahili to English) a story about hunting lions and how every group of warriors has to kill at least one lion. First they cut off the tail while it is sleeping and then they run after it and kill it b spear. And the first guy to hit it with his spear becomes a huge celebrity and may have upwards of 10 girlfriends, some of whom he "might happen to sleep with" as we were told. They also asked us a bunch of questions - mostly focusing on animals and what kind of animals we have. They were surprised to hear that there were any wild animals, because according to them there is no place in America where we haven't built over the wild - aren't the stereotypes funny?

The next day was really amazing - we woke up really early to see the sunrise over Kilimanjaro. Jealous? Don't be - we didn't see anything. It was super cloudy and by the time we got to where we were going, the sun had already risen. So yes, it was really cool, but not as cool as I had hoped. After that, we helped milk goats before breakfast, and definitely got shown up by the Maasai in the milking department...

And then it got even better. After breakfast, we went to Orpul - a sacred site where the warriors go to sacrifice animals (goats and cattle). What did we do here you might ask? That's right - we helped the warriors sacrifice a goat. It was absolutely crazy. And in Maasai culture, the blood is one of the most sacred parts of an animal, so of course they can't slit the throat like in most cultures. So they hold it down and suffocate it. That's right. It was a little weird to watch, but they do it with so much respect for the animal that its hard to find it totally disturbing. Then we got to help them skin and butcher it. And they use every part and are so precise about it all. Some of it they eat raw (the heart, the blood, the liver) some they roast and everything else the boil in a soup, which is actually pretty gross (shocker, huh?). The whole process took about 2-3 hours and it was so awesome, and kind of gross all at the same time. We also got to hang out with the warriors and take pictures with them - which they loved. They loved wearing or hats and sunglasses and using our cameras - and it was really cool to see someone in full Maasai garb using a camera and wearing sunglasses (google them and you'll understand why).

After the goat sacrifice, we spent the afternoon going to their grazing lands, playing traditional Maasai games and learning more about them in general. We also got to dance with them that night, which was so intense. Their dancing involves a lot of jumping and chanting, and the only light around was from the full moon. Probably the best dance party I've ever been to. Oh, and as if that wasn't cool enough, they walked us back to our campsite too - we definitely felt pretty baller having the Maasai escort us back.

The next day was our last day with the Maasai. Another huge part of their culture is beading - everyone has beads and they are all really symbolic. So we got to sit with some of the women and bead with them all morning and learn (again, through 2 translators) what all the beading meant. It was fun to spend time with the women, we really hadn't gotten too much of a chance to do that before this. And watching them make all the intricate jewelry they wear was so awesome (again, google it and you'll understand).

Sadly, we had to leave Maasai Land after that. We spent a few more days at UAACC, but I'll save those days for the next blog entry - its getting kind of late and this one is already pretty long...