Week 4

Every Wednesday and Saturday, there’s a small open market in Rongai where they’ll sell clothes, fruits, vegetables, etc. We went last Wednesday for the third time since we’ve been here. Rory and I made a deal where we had to spend 100 bob or less (equivalent to 1USD) on ridiculous clothes for the other person to wear to school the next day. After a bit of haggling, I ended up spending 70bob and he spent 100bob. Not bad for some gold silk pants, a pink shirt with sequin stars, and a repulsive sweatshirt to match the pants. As you can imagine, we got laughed at by the kids a lot more than usual. The Americans left on Thursday and we returned to the house. Sister Hiltrude asked me to teach her English class on Friday which proved to be a challenge when even the workbook didn’t use proper English. Saturday morning, we left for our safari. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. We saw everything I could’ve hoped for and more. We spent roughly 5 hours with our guide, John, driving around the park. The public camping sites were not allowed whilst we were there, so we ended up in a guest house with nothing but the basics. In the morning, we took off around 7 to see the rest of the park. In the end, we saw 2 black rhino-very rare (our guide shared that there are roughly 500 left in the world) and we were very lucky seeing one, let alone two! The park was also scattered with white rhino which are more common, but look nearly the same…their physical difference is solely in the shape of their mouths. We saw 3 lionesses…all on Sunday. The first was hunting and we sat watching her for about 30 minutes before leaving her with the other few cars. We were so close it left me speechless. The other two were together. One had just killed a zebra and was relaxing next to the zebras one eyed head. The last one was in the bushes nearby…John thought it might be her sister.

We saw a handful of giraffe (my favorite)We saw lots of warthogs which were very grim looking.Zebra

Buffalo

Flamingos

Baboons, especially on baboon outlook.

Blue balled monkeys-zoom in if you’re unsure.

Tons of birds (many of them live on the animals and eat off of their fur or skin).

Black backed foxes

Various other animals (gazelle, waterbuck, spoon ducks)

We went to a nice sundowner on Monday with a handful of other youngish people on the farm which was nice. On Monday, Rory and I went to Brandeis’s (another primary school teacher) house. She lost her father last week and the other teachers sometimes go to see her. We took a very crammed matatu and ended up sitting in her living room with nearly 25 people squeezed on the furniture. We sang, prayed, everyone went around saying few or many words, and then we ate rice and some mystery meat. Was more like chewing gum with a meaty flavor honestly. Nonetheless, it was an amazing experience and some of the words spoken will stick with me. Tuesday we painted a bit at school and worked a lot on cleaning out the library. More rat poop in the books and bookshelves than you can imagine. Today, we taught a handful of classes and we were working on finalizing a plan for me, Rory, and Tom to build a playground. Went into Rongai after school to the market again and returned to a quiet evening. Think the plan is to have people over on Friday for a walk and sundowner. There’s also a new boy coming on Friday who will be here for the remainder of the term (April).