Kisumu Weekends

So it’s around 6:30 in the morning in Amsterdam right now. Hannah and I are just beginning a seven hour wait until our flight to Chicago. The flight to Amsterdam was ok overall. I got stuck in a middle seat between two businessmen flying to German for a cheese packaging show. So they talked about cheese a lot. There’s not much to do here in the airport but word is that there is a McDonalds in this terminal. I’m currently four months clean from McDonalds but that ends in about fifteen minutes. I suppose it’s time to talk about the weekend adventures of Kisumu:
Because we all had four fifteen page term papers due after our internships, we spent a lot of time thinking about working on our papers. There was very little action but we sure did think about it a lot. We also worked around 40 hours a week so our weekend travel was limited. The first weekend we hung around Kisumu and checked out the local watering holes. There aren’t many and they are a lot different than the clubs in Nairobi. Nairobi has a lot of very upscale clubs that at times made us look like vagabonds. When people go out in Nairobi, they go all out. Jeans and a t shirt are just not acceptable. Kisumu? Well the bars are usually pretty run down and the people inside them are usually less than reputable. (Quick sidetrack: I’m looking out the window at the airport looking at the grounds crew and its weird seeing white people working. The white people in Kenya are tourists or IGO/NGO staff for the most part and are definitely not heaving 40lb bags onto a conveyor belt. Let the readjustment begin.) We found some good spots the first weekend and also found my favorite restaurant called Green Garden. It’s definitely the nicest restaurant in Kisumu and the average entrée runs for about 7 dollars. It was good living. Good pasta and pretty good pizza. I went there a total of five times in six weeks. The next weekend was by far the best weekend of Kisumu and maybe of the entire four months. Myself and six other MSIDers made the journey to Jinja, Uganda to go whitewater rafting on the Nile. Grade 5 whitewater rafting that is. There’s not much more to say than that it was amazing. Definitely the craziest thing I’ve ever done. Talking to my friend Danny back in the states before we went, he said “Oh man you better be careful. I went whitewater rafting in Colorado on Grade 3 rapids and we almost flipped!!!” Well, we flipped on five out of the eight rapids. We wanted to flip so our raft guide made it happen. There are some great pics on facebook and I was also able to strap a waterproof camera to my life vest so there should be some good videos up when I get back. Overall, Uganda was awesome. We stayed at this really cool hostel on the Nile one night and in town the next night. Also, if you see a picture that I’m tagged in on Facebook taking out 1 million Ugandan Shillings, it’s true. I was a Ugandan millionaire. Dan forgot his debit card (there’s a lot more of that to come) so I had to spot him. 1 million Ugandan shillings comes out to be a little over 400 US. Whitewater rafting this summer anyone?? The next weekend was spent pretending to do work. I did actually go visit Dan in Maseno. Maseno is about a half hour matatu ride from Kisumu. We went up there to go to Mr and Mrs Maseno University. It’s this huge competition put on by Coca Cola to crown, you guessed it, Mr and Mrs Maseno University. The guys part was basically a body building competition and the ladies part was what you’d expect. There were thousands of people there and the competition was emceed by a comedian who frequents the Kenyan late night show Churchill Live. It was fun for a while but then we were reminded we were in Kenya when the power went out, four times. One time half the lights on stage blew up. We left a little after 1 in the morning but we could hear it going on from Dan’s house until 5. The fourth weekend I went to Nyeri (three hours north of Nairobi) to visit my friend Paige. Nyeri is in the Mount Kenya region and for anyone who knows coffee, this is likely the best place in the world to grow coffee. We spent the first day walking around Nyeri town. Nyeri is at a much higher altitude than Kisumu so it was wonderful to escape the heat for a little while. The next day we randomly ended up going on a safari at a national park on the foothills of Mount Kenya. We had planned on going to this national park to go exploring for the day but we ended up on a safari bus for four hours. I finally got to see elephants. These aren’t your savannah elephants that you see on national geographic. These are mountain elephants. Yes, they do exist. It was really funny because they would try to hide behind a six inch wide tree to avoid being seen. They were very bashful. We chased one with the bus for a few minutes. We also saw our favorite animal, the warthog. These little guys are so funny to watch. When they see people, they freeze, stare at you for a few seconds, promptly turn their heads and then run in the opposite direction taking little steps because of their short legs. We got off the bus for a while towards the end of the safari and while we were sitting on a log, a warthog peaked his head out from behind a bush and came out to study us. He ran away after a little bit but came back later with a few more warthogs to check us out. We were convinced warthogs are the intelligence services of the animal kingdom. Overall it was a much needed relaxing weekend. I got to stay with my Nairobi host family on the way there and on the way back for a night so it was nice to get a real shower! The last weekend was a blur of paper writing. The Kisumu Krew spent a lot of time on this rooftop bar working on our papers. Again, not much was accomplished but we all got a serious start. One of the weekends at home was a unique and powerful church experience. I don’t remember which weekend it was but my host family had been talking about me coming to church with them for days. My host dad’s dad (Babu) has been sick for two years now and has been homebound. Because he hasn’t been able to go to church during that time, my host mom and dad decided to bring the church to him. Babu lives with one of my host dads brothers in a nice house with a front yard a little outside of Kisumu town. Tents were set up, the entire church choir showed up along with dozens of members of the congregation. Babu was wheeled out on the porch to get a front row seat. It was over four hours long but it was really cool to see an entire congregation rally around one person. That’s it for the weekends. Time for McDonalds.