The Second Post
Amongst it, as Jim would say (hi Jim!). Three days into my Kenya experience, it seems like a good time to come back to the blog.
I feel… incongruous. Sitting in a dusty building in the village where I’ll be living for the next two months, with goats grazing in the courtyard outside, typing away on a laptop. One of these things is not like the other…
This is one of those awkward moments that you get when settling in to a new place/job etc, before you get a routine going, when you’re not really sure what you should be doing and no-one else is either. I spent my first two days in Kenya staying in a hotel in the city of Kisumu, which is about an hour and a half away from here, doing some orientation and sorting out a few basics like getting a SIM card (which I can’t get to work) and discovering where the bank is (which I have already visited three times – even in Kenya I have a talent for spending money). Then this morning we drove out to the village, Mutumbu. We got here around 1pm, so all the volunteers that are living here are out at their work placements. No-one who is here knows which room is supposed to be mine, so I’m sitting in the back of the shop that makes up the front of the house, waiting. Hence the laptop and blog post – though I’m actually not sure I can even post this thing at the moment anyway. I bought a usb modem but the connection is really slow and I have no way of telling how much credit I’ve used. The thing stopped working about 20 minutes ago while I was checking my emails – this may be because it lost the connection, or it may be because the credit has run out, it doesn’t tell me. Oh – and I’m sitting in the dark too. The lights went off just before the modem did. Everyone in the shop took it in their stride.
I find myself making a lot of comparisons to Vietnam, that being the only other developing country I’ve visited. There are quite a few similarities – rundown buildings and roads, and footpaths filled with people selling their wares. Also, while people are clearly not wealthy, there are very few who look completely destitute – in fact it seems there might even be as many of those types in Sydney as there are here, strangely enough. On the differences side of the ledger, Kenya seems (and probably is, statistically) poorer than Vietnam – probably the poorest looking places in Vietnam are sort of the average here. But mercifully Kenya is much, much quieter – the Kenyans are far less fond of the car horn and blasting tacky music than the Vietnamese are. That is truly something to be thankful about.
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Interesting what you say about there being as many destitute people in Sydney as you have seen in Kenya. I think some developing countries have a far more supportive culture or social structure than wealthier developed nations do.
ReplyDeleteOn the playdough front - even if it didn't look like plastic explosive and you were able to get it on the plane you may not have been able to get it through quarantine. Also my extensive experience of playdough is that even when you are vigilant about storing it in an air tight container it goes hard within about 4 weeks. Next time maybe think of bringing more paper and writing/drawing implements instead!
my mum used to make our play-dough out of corn flour and and food colouring and stuff and it was much better than the stuff you could buy. so maybe you could look up a recipe on the internet and make your own...
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