Swim, drink and be merry (warning though, don't swim and drink)

Jambo, fellow mzungus :)

Right now: Sitting in a little cyber cafe in Old Town with an old-school bottle of coke and lots of muslim teens watching rap videos on Youtube. Don't know if it's because i'm in holiday mode, or in a foreign country but there is so much shocking things happen to my senses every minute of the day that I end up crashing into bed early with all energy completely drained. I guess i've had a lot of time to think about how things are different to home (i.e. talking to strangers on the street is encouraged here), how people live on such little money (around $3 a day) and what you want to change when you eventually get home. I think coming to a place like Kenya makes you look deep inside and realise what you should really be doing with your life. I think its finally hit home.

Anyway, enough deep and meaningful stuff for now! Here's some things that i've been doing:

• Sometimes I buy some mangos from one of the street carts, cut them open and eat them on the beach or the college oval where men practise soccer. Its messy but sooo good.
• Only had a couple of classes on Friday, and they were from the cerebal palsy and deaf schools. To be honest I was scared of teaching disabled children how to swim, as they have different rules and physical restrictions, and being in the water is all physical. I had nothing to be scared about, the kids were so beautiful and only wanted to relax in the water. I forget how good it is to feel weightless in the water. Even just giving them goggles and holding things underwater was fun for them. My favourite group were the deaf children. Being half-deaf myself I found I could connect with them real quickly. I didn't need to shout or yell at them, and found I could use my vast 'charaze' skills to teach them ("Don't jump" was shown by hand movements, deep water good, shallow water hurt head!). Was one of the best experiences i've had as a teacher.
• Njeri, Jenny (ex-volunteer), her boyfriend and I had drinks after work at this little rooftop bar above a busy mall. Cheap drinks ($4 cocktails!), laughing and bad dancing.
• Was going to Tsavo East and West for a safari this weekend but the other volunteers changed their minds (it'll be too expensive just on my own, so joining a group next weekend).
• Went with Jenny to visit an orphanage she used to volunteer with. About 45 kids - babys to teens - in the one house, its like a giant family. The older kids loved listening to my discman (The Black Keys and Kings of Leon were the favourites) and the little ones stroked my hair and played with necklaces. Very cute kids and well behaved. The people who run the place are legends, it can't be easy.

Security situation is interesting.. So the news is that two men were detained in Nairobi with information on terrorist attacks planned for Mombasa this week. The police then found 15kg of bomb stuff in Mombasa and its been a bit unsettled here. The popular westerner hangouts, like City Mall Bamburi and Nyali Cineplex have already got good security so thats ok. Its the places at night like nightclubs/pubs that people are worried about. In May the Bella Vista Club was bombed and thats a pretty popular bar for young people. So for now, not drinking out on the town or staying out later than 7 on my own, for now at least. Was really looking forward to going up north to Lamu but its just too risky at the moment. I'd rather have my life than see a funky little beach town. I'm going to go down to Tiwi Beach or Malindi instead.

So thats about it for now. Photos coming in on Wednesday..can't wait!

Kwaheri,
Beth

Officially settled.

Its been over a week now and Kenya is definitely growing on me every day. Photos coming very shortly! As you all know I only take photos with the old 'vintage' film camera, so one more shot and I can get it developed (some will show various kids blurred faces, as they couldn't figure out how to work this strange camera with no screen)
Anyway, here's some of the interesting activities I've done thus far:

• About 10 minutes walk and a matatu-ride away from the flat is Bamburi Beach. Absolutely beautiful beach with golden sand similar to the Gold Coast, but with coral reefs that surround the beach and look like they go on for miles. Some parts of the shore is seaweed-dense, so the swimmable parts are filled with teenagers and families wanting to cool off from the heat. I got there with a good book and my discman, but only to be approached by many potential kenyan suitors who wish to hold my hand and take long walks on the beach with me. After (sometimes harshly) telling them I do not wish to be married to them and have their babies and oh, go on their fishing boat for a reasonable price, I found a good spot and chilled out. I did end up chatting to a decent kenyan bloke who played an acoustic guitar and thought he was Jack Johnson. He told me all about the area and was eager to teach me swahili words. I may have found myself a swahili teacher every time I step on that beach now!
• Went to Haller Wildlife Park yesterday. It was pretty much a kenyan version of a zoo. Lots of wild animals roaming around and just a stone wall between you and them. It used to be a limestone mining site but then this dude Haller came along and thought 'If I put some bushes there and a large lake there, animals could soo live here'. And it worked out pretty well.
• Old Town. You may have seen parts of this interesting place in the movie Inception with the dreamy Leo. There's lots of old buildings and car/people chases (in the movie). Ngeri and her brother took me to one of the oldest swahili restaurants in Mombasa and we had fried fish with rice and this nice curry. I forgot to mention it's incredibly rude if you don't wash your hands before eating over here so every restaurant/cafe/fast food joint have one near the tables. And all soft drinks come in retro 'curvy' glass bottles (once you're finished with the bottle, the restaurant/cafe/fast food joint bags them all up, sends them back to the factory where they sterilise them and re-fill for more soft-drink useage. Talk about funky recycling!)

Anyway, I have been up to lots more - including buying longer shorts because aparently my mid-thigh running shorts make some people uncomfortable (they obviously haven't been accustomed to butt-cheek shorts here yet) - but I am tired after 5 hours of lessons today and need to chill out and read the Harry Potter book that one of the little boys said I must read.

Hope all is well over in Australasia (including Melbourne, heard about that shake!!) and i'm glad Karise won The Voice because she reminds me of Janis.

P.s. thanks for the cd's Wills, have kept me sane on the 1 hour matatu rides to the pool every day.

Over and Out,
Beth

If you hear someone say mzungu in swahilli, it means white person and they're talking about you.

Started my first full classes. I had about 25 4 year olds for my first class and freaked out a bit. Some had floaties on their arms, some not. Before i was there, the teachers would put these floaties on all the kids, pop them in the water then watch from the poolside. A bit different to Aussie eah? My first instinct on seeing this was to divide the class into two groups, take the floaties off half of the kids, sit them on the wall and teach them swimming like I do back home. Easier said than done. The group was too large so a lot of time was spent on taking kids swimming individually. Some of the kids cried (probably thinking 'whats this crazy lady doing to me? give me back my floaties!!'). I felt very exhaused after doing this for 3 hours, so as soon as I got back to the house I sent an email to my guardian angel/swimming mentor Tracey England to give me some help. Then I passed out for 8 hours.
She replied with heaps of tips on handling big groups of little kids and some ideas for swimming lesson plans. Next day, the lesson plans are working a treat. Trick is to keep the floaties on for now and do lots of group activities. And have some fun! I'll eventually take floaties off them in a few weeks.
Some days its beautiful and sunny here (up to 35degrees) but others its cloudy and rains a bit and the schoolsdecide not to come in because they think its cold??!
I also taught some 13-15 year olds in the afternoon. I worked with their current coach, who said he learned a lot from me which was cool. Two other coaches have approached me and want me to help them with their swimming squads. One squad was a bit too advanced for me (the kids had just come back from winning some Sub-Sahara Championships representing Kenya!) but it was great to learn from their coach and see what drills he does with them.

In non-swimming related news:

• Getting my way around the place with these mini-buses called matatus. Basically they stop at random points on the road and yell out the destination like "Bamburi!" or "Ferry Docks!" and you jump on and bang on the roof if you want to get off. Its pretty cheap, around 50 cents a trip. The drivers compete with other drivers to have the dopest-looking van, painting random english quotes on the back like "I got my mind on the money and the money on my mind" and installing deep bass speakers into the back seats. Yesterday I spent 1 hr getting into town with BOOM, BA-BA BOOM rattling in my ears.
• Don't really like travelling around in the dark anywhere. I'm not being racist or anything but the other day I was standing by myself waiting for the matatu and suddenly a man smiles with his white shiny teeth and scares the crap out of me. Didn't even know he was there.
• A lady fell out of a moving taxi the other day. She rolled up into a little ball and people started crowding around her and the taxi driver was yelling at her. In any other circumstance in my home country I would run right up to her and check she was ok, see if she needed medical attention. But as this is a foreign country to me I thought I may get myself in trouble so kept walking. Felt a bit guilty, but gotta use my common sense a bit here.
• Some families over here use a regular taxi driver who they call when they need to do lots of erruns. Ours is Davis. Its about $20 for the day. He took me to Bamburi Beach the other day I hadn't eaten so he took me to an outdoor restaurant on the beach. So many white tourists there!Part of me felt comfortable being around people who looked like me (hadnt seen another white person for about 5 days), but the other half of me felt like I shouldn't be there. It wasnt the real Kenya I was used to at all! Very unfriendly and everythings three times as expensive. I like the streets of Mombasa now, the smell of meat being smoked, noisy matatus and people yelling out Jambo (Hi) everywhere! Kind of glad I'm staying here.

Updates, bucket showers and big bags of tea.

Habari from Kenya!

It's been four days since i've arrived in Mombasa, and so much has happened its hard to keep track of everything. From hard-core culture shocks to moving house to a change in my volunteering plan..way too much! So I will start off with DAY 1 (in bullet points of course!)

• Just got off the plane after 27 hours of travelling (and nearly 40 hours of being awake!). To be honest, one of the most tiring and difficult flying trips i've made so far. If I didn't have Chris to keep me company (random dude from Zimbabwe that happened to be sitting next to me on every flight), I might have gone mad and started throwing my grilled fish dinner at asian flight attendant. 
• While on our journey, Chris and I part-took in activities like "Find the worst asian-to-english sign" - I found a cafe at Bangkok Airport called Firm Meals - also "Climb Over Rude African Man in the Isle Seat Who Refuses to Move Just to Check Out Your Behind (me AND Chris)", and my favourite, "Find the Most Comfortable Recliners at the Airport to Take a Quick Nap (You must be drugged-up or comatose if you can sleep on those damn planes)"
• Wasn't a great start to arriving in Kenya. Nairobi airport, while filling in the numerous forms for a temporary visa, random man comes up and asks me to tell him my name and flight number I was on. My sensible reply to men that may be con-artisits? "No thanks. Go and see the lady at immigration if you need any of my information." This man starts to steam out his ears and dutifuly tells me he is the HEAD of Immigration. Bugger. Didn't even have a scary uniform on did you. Hope this doesn't affect my visa. And it doesn't thank god. 
• Waiting at the tiny domestic departure lounge for Mombasa flight. The suns starting to rise a deep orange colour and all these birds are flying around the still planes and sqarking all over the place. My first african sunrise looks pretty cool.

 FIRST IMPRESSIONS

• Njeri (pronounced Geri) my new host-mum/swimming coordinator, her brother and her two lovely boys pick me up from the airport. What am I expecting in my head? Palm trees, old vintage buildings, some kind of highway, beach on the side of the road. 
• What I actually see? Lots, and I mean lots, of dirt. Dirt on cars, dirt on buildings, dirt on babies. Highways? Oh Beth. You finally have the chance to go 4 Wheel Driving after all these years. DIdn't think it would be on a main road in Mombasa now did you? 
• And its sweltering! Wasn't sure what I thought ladies wear in a partly muslim-based country, so wore a tanktop under a dress, with tights, thick socks and trainers. Bad idea. 
• The air smells like Vietnamese streets, kind of a hot sticky, slightly sewagery body-smell. But not really thinking about that. People keep looking at me. Like i'm some kind of D-List celebrity. A short, white, weird-lookin D-Lister with too many clothes. 
• Lots of american hip-hop music playing on boom-boxes mixed with beats of kenyan drums in the background. Every now and then a random 80's song, like "When the Going Gets Tough" comes on the radio. Love it. People are talking fast swahili and I don't understand any of it.

Welcome to Kenya.

• Got to the house by driving over a paddock. Big concrete fences with broken glass cemented around the tops. I had a mum-moment and asked if it was a cute 'beachy' decoration everyone did around here. No says Njeri its to stop people climbing over and attacking your family and taking your possesions.
• No shower here folks, so got to use a bucket and scoop to get clean. Sounds weird but thats the funnest water-saving shower I've ever had. I feel like i'm doing what my cave-dwelling ancestors did several hundred years ago!
• To make me feel not so shocked about the kenyan culture, Njeri took the kids and I out to pizza for dinner. What a lovely woman.

Day 2

• First full day in Kenya! Slept most of the day yesterday, so woke up nice and early to get myself orientated. Had cup of tea and sweet potato for breakfast. Thats a first! Everything goes a bit slower in Kenya, so chilled til 11am when everyone was up and ready. Started reading from Njeri's sweet book collection (something from Candace Bushnell, can't remember the title except it was slutty). 
• All ready for a day of exploring with Ngeri when her son Kalhim doesn't feel too well. That bout of malaria has come back bad, so spent most of the day at the hospital with him while he had treatment. The mombasan people love their soft drinks, and they come in those old-school glass bottles! Had me a fanta. You give the bottle back to the shop owner who returns it to the supplier, they wash and sterilise and re-use. Pretty cool recycling. Once we got home, had chapati adn coconut kidney beans for dinner. They have a sweet-as housemaid called Remi who does friggin everything. I helped her shell a massive sack of beans, was kinda fun. I can't help but wash my plate after dinner though, Remi tells me to leave it but my mum would have a fit if I didn't.
• Njeri is moving house on 1 July, which means I will be moving with her! It's only up the road but its a little smaller. She is renovating the place before she moves in and every time I go with her to check the place out, the builders keep cracking onto me (with their bumcracks showing. Yes, it is universal.)

Day 3

• Day started out a little frustrating. I was taken to the primary school where I would be teaching most of the swimming to. I then found out that they only wanted me for 1 hour a week swimming and do english teaching/physical education teaching the rest of the time. They said it was the 'cold season' between now and August and the parents of the children didn't want them swimming in cold water. I spoke to Njeri and we sorted out a Plan B. I would be volunteering at Mombasa Technical Institute. They have their own 25 metre pool and have several schools using the pool all throughout the week. It will be the perfect opportunity to teach different levels of swimming, as well as adults who wish to learn, and work the hours that I want (and also fit in my own exercise!). Very happy. As I bought my togs along, I did my first lesson, all children swim for an hour, and the language barrier wasn't as hard as I thought. One kids was screaming in my ear and clutching onto me for dear life, by the end of the lesson I had her kicking with her eyes in the water. 
• Met Hilder who looks after the swimming program at MTI. She took me for lunch (I ended up paying..funny that) but she then took me for a walk around the town near the pool. Its pretty full-on. Constantly thinking i'm going to get mugged, drugged, then given malaria. Hundreds of small shops (not even 1X1 metre big) and lots of people trying to sell you stuff or take you for a ride (money-wise, and on a bike!). She took me to a random shop which I found out was a tea shop. Large bags of tea. And its damn good tea. I may even be part of a exporting venture to Australia soon its that good. Well maybe not.

Ok, I think i'm done now. Thanks for reading my ramblings from a kiwi in Kenya. To summarise..scary place at first, beginning to like it, got my volunteering program off to a running start, sweet potato for breakfast is kinda nice you should try it.

Kwaheri!
-Bethy

Cue The Lion King song!

Habari everyone! If you're new to my blog i'm glad you're here! So much has been going on lately and I haven't had a good chance (until now) to sit down and update everyone on what's been happening..

• Flights booked..going to Mombasa takes 27 hours!
• Disease shots done. Found out you're not allowed into Kenya unless you're Yellow-Fever-Free
• I will be staying with a local family while i'm volunteering in Kenya. Ngeri, who is also my coordinator for the volunteer program, lives in the Mombasan 'burbs in a flat with her two children. Very excited to meet them!
• As I currently work for Bluefit, the Bluefit Foundation have been very supportive with this volunteering project. They have helped me to pay some of my expenses, which has been a great relief (it aint cheap to volunteer, let me tell you!). This help has enabled me to get swimming equipment like togs, goggles, kick boards and toys to take over to the children. Also bought stopwatches so i can squad-train the older kids.
• In order to raise some money to fund the volunteering trip, I held a Movie Night at Spring Hill Baths on Saturday 2 June 2012. It's the first time we've done a movie 'date-night' there, and was worth all the planning that went into it. I took a few photos with my vintage camera..

View from the top with the pool below. The massive screen is to the left of me.
We played Swimming Upstream, which was filmed at Spring Hill Baths!

After the staff and I had served everyone their movie snacks, we all snuggled into our blankets and watched the movie from the pool deck. Was pretty fun!

 All in all we raised $1150 from selling tickets and $200 from the raffle. Everyone really enjoyed themselves, and we hope to do the movie night again soon. If you want to visit Spring Hill Baths for a swim, or just to have a look at this historical building, please visit their website for more info.

For the movie night, I really have to thank the following people who bent over backwards to help me:

• Lisa Jackson from Core Pilates. Lisa runs a pilates studio at Spring Hill Baths and kindly donated some classes to the raffle. She is such a wonderful instructor, if you would like more info on her pilates classes please visit her website or call  0412 830 090.
• Jo Byron and Stewie from  Brumby's Bakery in Clayfield (Corner of Sandgate & Junction Roads, Brisbane). They also helped me with bread for the sausage sizzle. Seriously, eating their baked goods is like eating light fluffy clouds.
•  Bluefit Foundation. Besides helping me with my overall trip, they gave me all the movie equipment for the night and helped set things up.
• Nicolette Cordell (one of the swimming mums). She made 3 TO-DIE-FOR cheesecakes which we sold on the night. What a legend.
  
• Tracey England - Manager of Spring Hill Baths. Couldn't have done it without her.

This has been an amazing experience so far, and I haven't even left Aussie yet! Just finished packing my last bag, I leave tomorrow afternoon to Mombasa. Here are some thoughts running around my head right now:

1.  What is it going to be like living with a Kenyan family? Will they like the vegemite and tim tams i'm bringing over?
2. What will it be like teaching a large group of children that don't speak english very well? I speak a lot to the kids in my aussie classes, I will have to get used to using actions and my newly-learned swahili words with these little ones..
3. How can I keep the children swimming and improving once I have gone back home? I'm hoping to train up some adults who may be able to teach the children when I am gone, and start some training squads for the older children who want to swim competitively.
4. What will I do in my time off? I work with the children about 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'm hoping to learn lots about african drums (maybe add a few djembes into my drum kit at home!), maybe spend some time snorkelling in the reefs around the island and take some day trips to villages on the weekends..

All the kids are going to love the swimming equipment, togs and goggles people have donated! I can't wait to start teaching these eager little kids and experience this amazing culture.

I'll keep you posted on what it's like when I get there!

Over and out,
Beth