So, I’ll keep this short.  I really enjoyed my time in Zan zibar, spent 2 nights in Dar, and then took a 10 hour bus ride back to Mombasa yesterday.

Last night I had dinn er with my former supervisor, Em m y, and just had a quiet night.  Today I  managed to get to the beach , carry ing my huge pack with me, for a few hours, said goodbye to the Youth at K wacha, and am leaving for the airport in a few hou rs.

I’m off to London,  Reading, and Plymouth to visit fam ily and friends over the weekend, and retu rn to  Toronto on Mon day afernoon.  Then it’s time for cold weather,  finding a job, and  figuring out what I’m going to do next!

Dan.

Wake up at 6:15, go for a 5k run along the beach. Try to avoid the dhow fishing boats, starfish on the sand, and tiny crabs. Finish run, stretch and do some push ups and sit ups in my room under a very strong fan. Jump on the ocean.

Eat breakfast, lay in a hammock, write in my journal, find a good spot on the beach.

Read, nap, swim, people watch (lots of Italians here), and reapply sunscreen.

Have dinner with new-found friends that are also travelling, have a beer or two, walk along the beach and see the most amazing stars, then go to bed (with hopefully no geckos under my pillow) and get ready to do it all over again.

All in all, this is just what I needed after a busy month of work in Mombasa to rest, think and focus before returning to Toronto.

 The safari was good, although we didn’t see a Rhino or a Leopard (both in the big five…guess I’ll have to come back again sometime soon) The thing that surprised me the most about the safari (besides the cost) is how much driving and sitting you do…it’s not really safe to get out of the safari van, so you are sitting and standing up to take photos and look at animals, and then driving more and more.  I’ll definitely do another one…but two days of sitting in a safari van, followed by a 10 hour bus trip from Mombasa to Dar the next day was not the best idea for my long legs!

I arrived in Zanzibar yesterday afternoon and will be staying here until Sunday.  I’m staying at a place called ‘Kendwa Rocks’ www.kendwarocks.com 

I can’t imagine that I’ll be home in less than 2 weeks…and now I’m going to go for a swim in the ocean to forget about how cold it probably is in Canada!

(Oh, I’ll elaborate on the safari and my adventures in Zanzibar when I get back to somewhere with faster and cheaper internet…don’t worry!)

Tomorrow I leave for a safari in Tsabo National Park for 2 days, and on Monday I head down to Dar…which I’ve been spelling horribly wrong so I’m just writing Dar.  (it’s something like Dar es Salaam…locals just call it Dar.  I’m calling it Dar)

I’ll spend a night there and then take the ferry over to Zanzibar.  I haven’t booked any accomodations but I’m sure it will all work out.  By Tuesday or Wednesday I’m sure I’ll be on a quiet beach with just me and a book or two.  I can’t wait.

This week went by incredibly fast.  Our outreach was on Monday in a small community called Kagujo and we had about 400 people show up.  Granted, half of them were small children, but still it was a good turn-out for a Monday afternoon.  The highlight of the event was when one of the HIV-positive youth spoke and shared her story with the crowd.  Afterwards, I learned that some people in the crowd still didn’t believe she was positive and she had to show them her medications.  They thought that she was a paid actress because she looks ‘health and normal’.  HIV stigma was what we were addressing, and I think there’s just as much of it here as in Canada.  The Kwacha youth did a great job in organizing the outreach.

The rest of the week flew by with working on final reports and evaluations.  We set the bar very high for the next group of Canadian volunteers, who arrived on Monday.  They’re here for another month and will be helping the Kwacha Peer Educators replicate health workshops in nearby communities.

Yesterday I went to Haller Park, a nature reserve in an old cement quarry.  The highlights were seeing giraffes up close and seeing hippos come out of the water to eat some watermelons.  All of the snakes were out of their secure displays and in some shady-looking wooden boxes.  Their regular displays were being refurbised…but I think they could have easily escaped if they wanted to.  I was a bit scared.  I also spent some time watching giant turtles walk around and eat grass…and there were more spider monkeys around than you could imagine.  I always think they will jump out and attack me.  The strangest thing I saw there was Tourists though!  I think it’s because I’m not living/interacting with tourists here in Mombasa, so it’s strange to see so many people eating, smoking and taking photos.  There are a lot of Germans here (for many reasons, besides the wildlife there is a booming sex industry here in Mombasa…with a large German clientle).  But I digress…hopefully I don’t spend all the time looking at the white people on the safari instead of the animals!

I’m leaving my ‘winter clothes’ at Kwacha, so I’ll stop by there on Thurs Nov 26th before catching my flight to London.  I’m travelling light the next few weeks…just a few pairs of board shorts and tshirts.  It’s going to be great.

I’m off to make sure my camera battery is charged for my trip, pack my final things and get a good night’s sleep.  We leave at 8am for the safari!  I’ll try to send an update from Dar…

Ok so the highlight of today will be handwashing our clothes…unless something else exciting comes up.

But here’s what I’ve been up to the past little while:

-         Saturday October 24^th: We went on a day trip to Diani Beach, which is south of Mombasa.  We had to take a ferry to get there.  It’s a very strange feeling to be the only white people on a very full boat of about 1000 Kenyans.  On a day to day basis, I don’t think I stand out (because I don’t see myself walking around), but when you see us in a crowd it’s easy to notice.  Diana beach is great and I am planning on spending a few days here again before coming home

-         The workshops this week went great.  The topics were STI’s and contraception on Monday, HIV biology and transmission on Tuesday, and finally pregnancy and abortion on Wednesday.  We were continually getting 35-40 youth showing up each day, and we were only expecting to have around 30 there.  So they must be liking what we’re doing!

-         Thursday we developed the strategic plan for the Youth Alive group and did some other prep work at home.  James and I also discovered the movie theatre in town, enjoyed the air conditioning and watched Inglorious Basterds.

-         Friday we met with the Youth Alive group and went through the first draft of the strat plan with them.  We also discussed their mission, vision and values.  I led a discussion on their learning objectives for the next 3 years.  Friday afternoon we went with one of the Kwacha program’s called Dance4Life.  (If you do BodyJam or know anything about DJ Tiesto, you may have heard about it).  It’s a worldwide program where youth learn about HIV/AIDS through dancing.  There’s a choreographed dance routine that the participants learn to a song.  The main message is ‘take responsibility for life’ and the dance is pretty fun too!  (don’t worry I took a video of it…and yes I was dancing along)  I’m pretty sure that many of the school kids there had never seen such a tall mzungo (white person) before

-         Last weekend, Lisa and April went on a safari because they aren’t spending any time here post-project, so James and I decided to go north up the coast to a village called Malindi.  We took a bus up there Saturday morning, and unfortunately it rained the whole way up there.  My advice to you would be to not sit by the window on a rainy bus in Kenya.  All the windows were leaking and I was pretty wet by the time we got off the bus two hours later!  We took a tuk-tuk (basically a 3-wheeled scooter with seats in the back) to the hostel that we stayed in, called Ozi’s.  The rain continued as we had lunch, and then we decided to just walk around in the rain.  Finally, around 3pm it stopped raining, which is good because the streets were really flooded! At one point we were walking in water half way up our legs.  When the sun came out, we walked along the beach and saw Vasco da Gama’s pillar, built in 1498 as a navigational marker as he explored the Indian Ocean.  We went out for dinner and a few drinks to celebrate Halloween, but it’s not celebrated here at all, so it was a pretty quiet night.  Our hotel did have a working shower, even though it was cold water, which was a nice change from the regular bucket-bathing we’re used to.  Many times over the weekend I laughed to myself and how excited I was about staying in this hotel.  Justin and one of his friends went to Las Vegas this weekend to celebrate their 30^th birthdays and were staying at Treasure Island…I’m staying at a hotel that costs about $9 CDN a night on a twin bed and I thought it was heaven.

-         Sunday we checked out of the hotel, took a matatu for about half an hour and went to the Gede ruins.  The rain started pretty much the second after we paid our admission fees, so we sat and tried to wait it out.  After half an hour of non-stop rain, we gave up and explored in the rain.  It was really an incredible place and I hope the photos that I took (all 150 of them…) captured it all.  Though we were soaking wet, it was still really fun.  It sort of reminded me of a movie set from Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones…here I am, walking around old buildings, houses and mosques built in the 14^th century.  Swahili families (royalty or wealthy people, they presume) lived here for 300 years or so and then the site was mysteriously abandoned.  Again, here I am, walking around old buildings, in the rain, almost convinced that some zombies are going to eat me.  Equally as impressive were the trees that have grown over the years, and they have been a treehouse in one of them so you can see the ruins from the canopy.  This was definitely one of the highlights of my trip so far.

-         Monday I led a session on Living Positively with HIV and also discussed reducing Stigma.  We were also planning an outreach for next Monday out in the community.  It’ll be a good opportunity to see how the Kwacha youth plan their events and see them in action.

-         Monday afternoon turned into a minor medical drama.  I hadn’t been feeling 100% for the last week or so, but thought I just had a cough and was dealing with the heat.  Sometimes though I felt light-headed and nauseous.  So we went to the private hospital (Aga Khan) and got it checked out.  It’s not malaria, just a virus-flu and I did get some anti-biotics just to be safe.  It was a long wait…4 hours from the time I got there to the time we left, but I’m glad it happened now and not in 2 weeks time when I’m by myself backpacking around.

-         Tuesday we went out to see the Michael Jackson movie (which was ok, a little eerie, but satisfied my pop-culture needs) and then we all went out for dinner to a vegetarian Indian restaurant.  April has to leave on Thursday to return to work.

-         Wednesday was our last workshop with the Kwacha youth.  I was in charge of planning for this day and I think it was the best workshop day of them all!  My friend Tiff gave me a tambourine to bring with me (which must have looked strange in the x-ray machine for my carry-on) and I promised I would use it during some point of my work here.  So, we stood in a circle, clapped our hands and stomped our feet in a rhythm, and passed the tambourine around.  Whoever had the tambourine could do a rap, dance, or whatever they wanted.  It turned out to be about half an hour of priceless tambourine fun.  I also ended up giving the tambourine to Joseph, one of the peer educators, who asked if he could use it with his church choir.  Everyone loves a tambourine.  For the rest of the workshop, we had the group prepare skits on the various topics that we had taught them over the last 3 weeks and presented them back to the group.  It went really well and everyone did a great job.

-         Thursday we had our final meeting with Youth Alive and I’m pretty happy with what we were able to achieve with them over our short time here.  We spent some time talking about facilitating a support group, discussed their hopes and fears as they implement their strategic plan and reflected on what they learned from us.

-         We are now pretty much done with the programming side of our work (aside from the outreach we have planned for Monday) and are on to the report-writing aspect.  The second group of volunteers arrive from Canada on Monday and we are transitioning everything over to them on Tuesday and Wednesday.  They will be working with the peer educators to replicate the health workshops that we did out in the community to other youth, which will have its own challenges and opportunities.

Sorry that was so long…but it’s been busy here and there isn’t much time to type.  I’ve also been dealing with random power outages, planning the rest of my trip, booking a safari (which is incredibly expensive) and applying for jobs back in Toronto for December.

4 hours, a very painful needle and some bloodwork later, it turns out it’s just a virus, like the flu, and everything should be fine.  I’m feeling a bit better now, and it’s weird because some times I feel fine, and then all of a sudden I won’t feel so great.  But, hopefully within a few more days all will be good.

So, don’t worry about me here…life isn’t too hard.  We did go to the beach AND see the Micheal Jackson movie on Tuesday after work.  Today was our last workshop, now we just running an event on Monday in the community and then wrapping up our activity reports.

I’ll write again soon to fill you in on trips to Diani and Malindi beaches and the Gede ruins and the rest of my work here.

Dan.

Our workshops went extremely well on Tuesday and Wednesday.  About 35 Peer Educators showed up.  Even though they were scheduled to start at 10am (and with us hearing that Kenyans aren’t the most prompt individuals) we were surprised to see almost everyone there at 9:30am on the first day!

The first workshop was fully of introductions, ice breakers, and a general overview of HIV/AIDS from a worldwide perspective.  The content knowledge level (and also the level of understanding English) varies within the group, so we started with the basics.  I led a great discussion on gender roles in Kenya and how it relates to HIV infection.  The men had to examine traditional roles of women, and then women had to examine the traditional roles of being a man.  The man is still the dominant breadwinner here and it is somewhat the norm for him to be polygamous.  Also, the man expects the woman to be the one to get tested for HIV.  The youth are really comfortable sharing with us their thoughts and were really engaged throughout the entire workshop.

We also created a ‘question box’ where they can ask us anonymous questions related to anything we’re doing.  While most were questions specifically related to HIV, we answered a few on the spot:  Why do you guys all wear shorts?  Are you paid or volunteering to be here?  What is your HIV status and how have you been affected by HIV?  It’s a really good group and they are doing some fantastic things here in Mombasa.

The second workshop on Wednesday had the same turnout, with a few newcomers who had heard how good the session was.  We (which I should explain is the 4 volunteers from Youth Challenge International…James, April, Lisa and myself) had a whole day on sexual and reproductive health.  Aka Sex Ed 101.  It was hilarious.  The girls reviewed the female anatomy and how it relates to HIV infections.  I talked about the male anatomy and had to explain that there really are no short or long term affects to masturbation.  Priceless.  James talked about male circumcision and its effectiveness in reducing HIV.  My analogy was that it takes away the ‘dancefloor’ for all the fluids to mix and mingle.

After lunch, I led a discussion on sexual health, health relationships, types of sex and alternatives to sex.  It was a lively discussion and quite frank.  The other 3 volunteers were standing at the back of the room laughing while I had to field some interesting responses.  Mutual masturbation is simply called finger f*cking…and was casually explained like that to me by one of the woman.  I thought someone was asking me about fisting, so I started explaining what it’s about…and then she corrected me.  She was talking about fasting…ie certain religions fast and abstain from sex at certain times.  Wonderful.  I also learned a new term called ‘brushing’.  I asked, like brushing each other’s hair?  Nope…it’s when the penis, you know, sort of brushes against things.  (I’m currently wondering who is all reading the blog.  Sorry Mom.)

We received a lot of good feedback from the youth and also our program supervisor from the 2 workshops.  We have 6 more to do over the next 2 weeks and I know they will be great.  We’re broken up the workload between the 4 of us.  Next week I’m doing more of the intros and evaluations.

Another part of our work here is working with a group of youth called Youth Alive.  This is under the Kwacha umbrella as one of their programs, and it consists of mostly HIV positive youth under 30 years old.  It’s a fairly new group, only a few months old, started by a wonderful young woman named Diana.  She realized there weren’t any HIV positive support groups for youth, and she wasn’t feeling connected or engaged at the older support groups.

Our first meeting on Thursday was mostly gaining information about their group, what their short and long term goals are, and the vision for Youth Alive.  We are going to work with them to develop a 3 year strategic plan (so they can apply for funding from various AIDS organizations), determine some grassroots based advocacy campaigns, and generally get them up and running.  A big task, but luckily there are 6 more Canadian volunteers coming to Kwacha just when we’re leaving.  There’s a few days of transition, and some of the November volunteers will be looking for funding sources for Youth Alive and continuing working with them.

Needless to say, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were long, long days.  James and I are usually up between 6:30 and 7am (mostly a combination of noise from outside our windows and trying to sleep on a twin mattress under a mosquito net).  We get home each night at 6pm, it is completely dark by 6:30pm, and we have dinner and are in bed by 9 or 9:30pm each night.

We took Friday off and went to the local beach called Bamburi beach.  It’s nicknamed Pirates because there is a huge beach bar and disco there with the same name.  James and I relaxed there for Friday afternoon and I got a bit of a sun burn.  April and Lisa joined us too for an hour or so and it was a good time to relax, reflect on all of our hard work so far, and think about what we want to do for the rest of our time here.

I’ll write about today’s adventure to Diani beach soon…it did involve a ferry ride and seeing spider monkeys…but this post is long enough!

Dan.

Our first week was busy with ori en ta tion and learn ing about   health issues in Momba sa and plan n in g a series of workshops that we will b e implementing over the next 3 weeks.  The y outh  that we  are presenting to are all involved with Kwacha Africa (Kwacha means arise) and are peer educators within the com m  unity .  Thu s,  our workshops will be more advanced and  talk about variou s    hiv and sexu al health topics, to help them answer    to ugher questions that they receive when they are leading discu ssion groups.  We have a fairly ambitiou s goal of    doing 8 4-  hour sessions over the next 3 weeks on topics ran gin g from Gender  equal ity, to h iv te sting and living with hi v, to sexual health.

In  addition to the workshops, we are working with a small group of hiv+ youth  as they are just starting to create a youth group for themselves.   There is a    group for  posi tive adults, but they want something specifically for they youth in Mombasa.  Over the next 3 weeks, we will be working with th em and developing a strategic plan for the group, discu ss topics they want m ore information on,create a vision and mission statem ent.  Kwacha is known in the comm unity as a s trong network of youth leaders doing great work, so it would be great if the ‘You th Alive’ positive youth group could  grow and  be a strong part of  Kwacha.

We worked a half-day on Friday and then went to the local beach.  It was a really su rreal feeling to be swimming in the I ndian Oc ean .  I cou ld not believe that ab out a week ago, I was looking at Kenya on a map and here I was, actually in the Indian oce an , with the middle east and wars to the north,  India to the east, and so much all around me.  It was defin itely  an amazing feeling to  realize how  massive the world really is.   The beach itself was nice, was n’t too busy because it wasn’t the weekend, but   tourists still get approached alot to buy   souveniers and glass -bo ttom boat rides.  There are even Camel rides alon g the beach, and they look a little out of place! I did n’t ride one but will take some photos of them before I go.

On Satu rday, we went to ‘ Old Town ‘ Mombasa where  the spice  ro ute was traded.  Apparently it’s now protected by UNESCO as a  heritage site, and there are some amazing old buildings.     I was told it is similar to the old bu ildings in Zanzibar, where I am planning on going at the end of my    pla c ement.  We also explored Fort Jesus, built in the 1600 ‘s by the      P ortu g ese …and  i n  h abited by the arabs, british and  seemi ngly every one else over the years.   The most amazing part is that its fou ndation was actu ally carved out of coral reef  …  and most of the s ecret esc ape rou tes went right to the ocean.

Overall, things are going great here and I’m look ing forward to seeing how the workshops go over the next few days.    I’ll also  try and find a better key board to use for my next  post!

I arrived on Monday morning with the 3 other volunteers (James, Lisa and April) and we were picked up at the airport and taken to our homestay families.  James and I are staying with a family in a middle-class neighbourhood.  There’s no running water (which means lots of bucket bathing) and the electricity sometimes goes out, but other than that it’s not too bad!  Monday James and I unpacked our stuff, had a nap and then went downtown to meet the girls, our coordinator Emmy and a few other people for dinner. 

Tuesday was a day full of orientation, going over some basic rules and procedures set by Youth Challenge International, the Canadian NGO that we are here with.  In the afternoon we went to Kwathca Afrika’s building, which is in Northern Mombasa, and met about 30 youth that are volunteers with their programs.  They have a lot of programs and departments, ranging from theatre and drama, choirs, boys and girls mentoring and discussion groups, and even one called Dance4Life, which is all about AIDS education.  Their goal is to empower the youth in the community to create change and educate them about HIV/AIDS, gender issues and other health and social concerns in the community.

Today’s orientation day was spent learning more about Kwatcha, the health concerns here in Kenya, specific challenges with youth health issues here in Mombasa, and also a bit about group dynamics and facilitating groups. 

We have another day of orientation tomorrow, and on Friday we get to work with the youth and develop some workshops for them.  They seem really excited to have us here to share our skills and knowledge.

I can’t really complain about anything here yet…it’s a little loud in the morning (aka I was wide awake at 5am today) but I’m eating well and have only accidentally drank the local water once

Now off to dinner and then bed.  The sun sets here by 6:30pm and pretty much everyone is home and in bed by 10pm.

My flights from Toronto to Chicago and then from Chicago to Heathrow were fine.  It was a bit hectic dropping off Justin at the train station before going to the airport (because the Gardiner was closed) but other than that, things are good.  Hopefully my bag ends up in Mombasa.

With a 14 hour layover, I decided to take the Heathrow Express to downtown London.  I haven’t been here since 2000, so I don’t really remember too much.  After some thought, I decided to check out the Tate Modern.  I walked around Westminster Abbey and area when I first got here for a few reasons.  It’s a familiar landmark to me and is within walking distance to the Tate.  I took some great photos.  I’m not sure if it’s because it was early on a Sunday morning, or because most roads are closed for the run, but there were hardly any people around.  It’s nice to walk along the Thames River, see the sights and still feel all by yourself at the same time.  Another strong memory from Westminster Abbey is when I went there as a child.  I have a crystal-clear memory of doing brass rubbing there with my parents and grandparents…the simple act of taking a piece of blank paper, rubbing a crayon over it and seeing the impression left underneath. 

So, my plan is to spend most of the day at the Tate, and get back to the airport by 5:30 or so.  I might jump off the ‘Underground’ at a few stations along the way to see what I can too….