The Wandering Three and The Unwelcome Visitor

Last friday we had just gotten home from a visit to Nyandhoma Early Childhood Development Center (ECD) and were sitting around the table in the living room when all of the sudden Olivia screams ''OH MY GOD THERE'S A SNAKE IN OUR HOUSE!!'' Naveed, Oti, and I turn around and see a bright green snake coiled in the mail slot of our door. Ever since we've arrived here in usenge Naveed has been saying that he wanted to see a snake (preferably a black mamba).  Now imagine our surprise to find the very thing that Naveed has been wishing, hoping, praying, asking, and nagging for to appear inside our house.
So anyways, we all jump up and away from the door, then Naveed runs for the camera, but then wants a close up so he runs for the other camera to get some better pictures.  While we're all busy snapping away at the green snake's impromptu photo shoot, Oti, the only practical one, runs outside and comes back with a big stick and a rock to kill the thing. Meanwhile, our neighbor Paul along with Kofi Annan had just happened to stop by for a visit and wanted to know what all the commotion was about, and when he heard "snake" he also runs in armed with two big sticks. So there we all were, Naveed taking close up shots of the pretty snake, me also taking pictures, but keeping my distance, Oti armed with a stick and a rock, Paul armed with two sticks, and Olivia hiding in a bedroom. It was showdown time.  Of course, Naveed and I would have been happy to continue the photo shoot, but our brave Kenyan friends were a little bit more wise and kept saying "ok, let us kill it; enough pictures..." Finally they told us it was poisonous so that put an end to the fun, cameras away and big sticks came out. Paul went in first and made a jab at it, but instead of slithering out the mail flap in the door like I thought it would, the snake came in the room, flopped on the floor and made a mad dash away from Paul and his big sticks. Unfortunately for me, the snake was heading in my direction, so I jumped on top of Oti's bed, while thinking to myself "Holy Cow! This is scary!'' But also at the same time, ''Why aren't I filming this?'' So I'm scrambling to change the camera settings, while Naveed and Oti are backing away from the action to give Paul some space, Paul is going after the snake with his sticks, and Olivia is screaming in the background.  Paul lunged with the stick but missed and the snake reared its head and hissed. Sadly I didn't get the camera into video fast enough because all too soon the snake got a smack down: Neighbor Paul 1, Green Snake 0. Paul scooped it on the stick and carried it outside where part two of the photo shoot commenced, but finally that bright green snake met its final and rather stinky end of being dumped down the outhouse. After all that excitement we said a very heartfelt thanks to neighbor Paul (the very same savior from the midnight cat episode.)  He waved goodbye and along with Kofi Annan strode off into the sunset.  We went back inside and sat in the living room (though no one sat very close to that highly dangerous mail flap) to ponder these recent events and thank our lucky stars that no one had been bit.  Oti and Paul had told us that the snake was a green mamba and so our curiosity got the better of us and we found ourselves researching green mambas on Wikipedia. We read that they are not as poisonous as a black mamba, but any bites if not treated are fatal.  (As this was being written we had the sudden panic attack that we might get Paul into trouble for killing an endangered species, though the thought of someone reading this blog, finding Usenge and then finding the right Paul is a bit of a stretch of the imagination, and in our defense it was endangering our lives.) So after thoroughly shocking and horrifying ourselves with all the gory details that Wikipedia so handily supplied (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_green_mamba) we then thought it a good time to read the directions of the snake bite kit that Naveed had brought. Unfortunately the kit was a little more simple than we had hoped and doesn't contain antivenmon, but still its better than nothing. So yes, that was our fun day with a surprise visit from a green mamba.
Naveed spends his time developing conspiracy theories as to how the snake managed to slither up a very smooth iron door and into our mail slot, we'll keep you updated if he thinks of anything good... For now we've ruled out aliens, flying snakes, neighbor Paul planting a snake to play the hero, and a bird dropping it precisely into the mail flap. Oti blames Naveed for this encounter as he says that when you wish to see a snake it will come. Apparently Naveed didn't learn his lesson because following the green mamba episode he has been asking for a black mamba.. Olivia and I are praying that the nearby black mamba does not answer Naveeds call.

Nothing else has been quite so exciting in comparison, just more ECDs, laundry, cooking, reading, teaching Oti computer lessons and card games, etc... We did invent a fun, if slightly depressing new game to play. Every time we cook a meal and are waiting to eat it we name our cravings of the day. Each person gets one drink, one appetizer, one entree, and one dessert. Its actually quite entertaining (until we realize we're eating dahl, soup, or rice yet again ;)   Well, here's an example: Today Olivia wished she had a mango lasse, pigs in a blanket, the entire diavola pizza from primastrada pizzeria, and the great wall of chocolate from P F Chang's and Naveed wanted bottomless strawberry lemonade from Red Robin, poutine from New York Fries, a bucket of extra crispy Kentucky Fried Chicken, and creme brulee from the marina in Oak Bay.  (He also wanted Mary's sugar cookies but he wants those every day so they don't count.. And he would also like to add a disclaimer that today he was in the mood for greasy food.. our chapatis today were rather oily... But I don't know if it met the demand)
In other exciting news from today we discovered that Lake Victoria, like Lake Malawi, also has lake flies. There weren't quite as many as what I'd seen from the Wandering Two's pictures from Malawi, but the water did look like it was on fire, with what looked like large wispy clouds of smoke hovering over the surface. Unfortunately it was rather windy and we began to see swarms of the very same lake flies outside our windows so we made a mad dash through the house to seal off the windows and save ourselves from them.
Tomorrow we have one last visit to an ECD before they all close for the April break.
Love,
The Wandering Three

African time..........

We decided to go to Kisumu for Naw-Ruz. We were told that the holyday would begin at 10am. So we woke up at 6 in order to get ready and catch the matatu (taxi) to Kisumu because it can take between 2 and 3 hours to get there. Long story short we were the first ones at the holyday, for about 3 hours... People started trickling in and the program started around 1:30. African time.  Nevertheless we enjoyed it a lot and met many of the Baha'is. One girl gave us the advice that from now on we should just show up 3-4 hours after people tell us to.
Things have been going well in Usenge. We had many meetings and introductions with various people and are now cleared to work in the clinic nearby and with the local public health official on various projects in the area. We have also been helping out at a few of the ECDs, mainly playing with the kids. We have planned a geography lesson for tomorrow so we'll see how that goes. The kids love to introduce themselves to us and the way they do it is one child stands up and yells their name and then says if they are a girl or a boy. Example: MY NAME IS OLIVIA SHIRIN FIRDAWSI AND I AM A GIRL! then on to the next...
In the evenings we have computer lessons with Oti. He rides his bike to town every day to charge his laptop then I do typing lessons with him, Nura teaches him about word and excel and general computer literacy and then Naveed teaches him to become addicted to computer games. Lets just say that the lessons have been postponed for a few days and Naveed and Oti have used up all the game demos that came on his computer. He especially likes one where you have to run a bakery and bake cakes for customers.
We have decided that one day each weekend we will go to the Usenge Sunset Resort (don't be fooled by the name,..) to enjoy a cold drink and dinner and use their electricity to charge up all our electronics. They have a 6 page menu from which usually only 3 things are available: mutton, chicken or fish. Oh and chips. So we eat and kill their electricity several times and watch some soccer and then come home.
Naveed and Oti have planted some spinach in the yard, we're hoping we'll get to eat some before we leave. Today Oti and Naveed wanted to go to the internet cafe. Naveed decided he wanted to ride the bike, with Oti sitting behind him. Naveed rode to town ringing the bell on his bike and yelling 'amosi!' to everyone he saw. (Amosi means 'hello how are you?' in Luo, the local language). I'm pretty sure that sight has never been seen in Usenge before and many will not forget for a long time.
Orriti (good bye in Luo)

We're Not Alone

So I was lying in bed two nights ago, at what I thought was an early hour of the morning but since we go to bed at 930 it was really only 11pm. All of a sudden I started hearing things moving. I thought the sounds were coming from outside the house and I got scared. For the next half an hour I lay awake staring at our window looking to see if there was anything outside. After half an hour I heard quite a loud noise coming from the other side of the house. I woke up Olivia and said, 'something's here...we're not alone.' I got out of bed and woke up Oti but he had not heard anything. We checked the house and outside and he told me it was probably just an animal outside or something. So I went back to bed and about 10 minutes later I hear something loud coming from the attic, like thumping and banging noises. I turned to Olivia and she said she heard it too. I asked Oti and he said yes he heard it this time. So Oti and I went into our storage room and flash some lights up into the attic where there is an opening. We were both too afraid to go up and check it out so Oti called the neighbor, Paul, who came over with his dog, Kofi Annan. Paul put on one our headlamps and crawled into the attic and all of a sudden we heard a loud angry MEEEOOOWW!!! I looked up and there was a kitten sitting on one of the rafters looking down at me.  Oti and paul spent the next 40 minutes trying to catch the cat, meanwhile all hear is 'bang bang meow! meow!' as dust and concrete pieces fell down from the ceiling as the chase progressed above us. Finally the kitten was cornered and caught and released outside. Paul discovered it was his cat, and since then we've seen the cat running around next door.  Today we also discovered that there is a little fish living in our water tank outside. We named it Nyachula after Oti's mother.

''Headlamps are cool!''

We have arrived in our house in Kenya safe and sound. This is the Wandering Third 2.0 (Nura) writing my first contributing piece. We spent two nights in Nairobi then flew out to Kisumu. Naveed would like me to say that he was amused to find that the 'baggage hall' at the Kisumu airport consisted of a sign saying 'wait here for your luggage'; meanwhile two vans raced towards us and our suitcases were tossed out of the vans in a pile on the dirt for people to grab.

Anyways we flew to Kisumu with Jeanne and Ned (Dr. Walker, professor at MSU who does malaria research here in western Kenya) and stayed one night in Kisumu. Ned introduced us to a lovely Baha'i family with whom we spent the afternoon. Monday morning we shopped for supplies for the house and then on our way to Usenge we stopped at the research facility to visit Ned and see where he works. It was a really neat place with all kinds of malaria and HIV/AIDS research going on.

Tuesday we spent unpacking and arranging the house. Our house consists of two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, storage room and bathroom and there is RUNNING WATER!!! This was a happy surprise for us when we arrived.  There is no electricity but we invested in many solar chargers and lanterns and flashlights which are working great for us so far. Living with us in the house is a young Kenyan man named Oti who works for GYEC-Kenya and was in charge of the building of the house. He is great and we're glad to have him here helping us get settled in and meeting the community.

Wednesday we were supposed to meet with the chief , but the chief was out of town so instead we met with the assistant chief who was very friendly and welcomed us to Usenge. The only other eventful thing that happened on Wednesday was the removal of the four gigantic anthills in our yard. A man was paid to dig up each of the anthills in search of the elusive queen ants.  Once the queen ant of each hill is killed the rest of the ants apparently disperse. So halfway through the afternoon we are called outside to see what a queen ant looks like. Let me tell you it was one of the nastiest looking insects I've ever seen in my life (and this was after recently completing an entomology class). It was about two inches long (but Olivia and Naveed think it was three or four... ) regardless it was long and slimy and apparently lays over a million eggs and just gets fed off of the worker ants, much like a queen bee. When asked if they just kill the queen to dispose of it, the reply was that they eat it raw and that its full of good fat. None of us were quite brave enough to sample that delicacy, but during the course of the afternoon we saw two of the four queens, and that was more than plenty for my lifetime.

Thursday we walked over to the Usenge community dispensary which serves as the local clinic here. we met one of the two nurses, Joyce, who was very motherly and kind, and said that she's very happy about us coming to volunteer at the dispensary and was so grateful for the donations we brought from Naveed's dad's pharmacies.

Today we went to the nearest ECD (early childhood development centre) and met the teachers and got to play with the kids a little. They were very shy at first but soon got over it. This ECD is only a 15 minute walk from our house so I think we'll be visiting it most often, whereas the other three we would need to find transportation to. Tomorrow Ned is planning on coming for a visit and then will be taking us to Kisumu to meet some more of the Bahá'ís. Jeanne will be leaving on Sunday, so today is her last day here.

Our cooking skills need a little work, but we've been managing with our three pots and two burners hooked up to a propane tank. Fasting has been a bit of a challenge here, as we are trying to adjust to the climate, but have been walking almost everywhere we go. I actually got a little dehydrated yesterday but am doing fine today. The sun sets around 6:40pm here so we eat dinner and then have been playing games after that through use of our very handy solar lights. To explain the title briefly, when Naveed and Olivia were in Victoria preparing for our trip, they called me and said they got the best thing ever, personal headlamps. For some reason the keyword 'head' just went over my head (no pun intended) and I thought they were some sort of flashlight/floodlight delios. When I finally did see them they were the nerdiest looking  headlamps (as in let’s whistle hi-ho and go mine some diamonds kind of headlamps) that I may have teased Naveed about them a bit too much , but of course as soon as we get to Usenge and the sun sets so early here, having any kind of light is handy, and yes especially the headlamps. So, sure, Naveed can be justified in saying, ''headlamps are cool!''

Anyways, so far Quiddler is the favorite over Scrabble Slam, but we have others yet to try. Oti beat us all last night at Quiddler, but we'll see how it goes when we don't all help each other. Right now he's reading a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that we brought, and seems to be enjoying it...

That's all for now... We'll try to post pictures when we can (especially of the queen ants ;) but it probably won't happen often.

Love,

The Wandering Three

We're off again

It has been a hectic time since our last post. Olivia and I have finished our adventures in South Africa and Zonkizizwe and have been visiting with our families for the last month. Today we journey back to Africa to Kenya, where The Wandering Two will be upgraded to The Wandering Three 2.0 (Telia was The Wandering Three 1.0). Olivia and I will be joined by her sister, Nura. The three of us will be living in Western Kenya in a town called Usenge where we will be doing many different activities. A few of the exciting projects we will be a part of are a mosquito house screen kit that will go around the open eaves of the houses there to reduce the chances of getting malaria.  We will be doing a feasibility study to see if the local people would find a device like this useful. We will also be trying to start a peer educator program with some of the youth in the community similar to what we did in South Africa. There are some early childhood development centers where we will be volunteering. Lastly, we will be helping out however we can at the local clinic and have brought with us some medical supplies from my dad's pharmacies to help them out. We will find out more once we get there and may find some new projects to take part in. The three of us will be be in Kenya until mid June and plan to visit the Baha'i House of Worship in Kampala, Uganda during our time there because we will be fairly close. There will be no electricity where we will be living so we have invested in solar powered chargers for some of our smaller electronics and lamps after much research. There will luckily be running water that is collected from the rain and stored in a large container. We will be there during the three rainiest months of the year so water shouldn't be a problem. It will be much hotter than it was in South Africa due to proximity with the equator...shame. We will try and update our blog as much as we can, but uploading pictures may be difficult. You can reach us by email as we will be able to check our email on our phone. Wish us luck!

Naveed, The Wandering Three