On the Road to Jinja and White Water Rafting

On December 10^th, SIT Kenya officially turned us loose. We had finished our presentations, left the coast, returned to Nairobi, and packed our bags. Most of the twenty-six students boarded the Jazz Quartet one last time on a mass exodus to the airport. But some of us stayed.

I went with three other girls to Jinja, Uganda, for our final days in Africa. After saying goodbye to the rest of our group, we headed to the route 111 matatu stage to travel to downtown Nairobi.

This is a matatu:

These minibuses fit fourteen passengers, the driver, and the matatu manager. They are the primary and quickest form of transportation in Nairobi. If you were dying and desperately need to get to a hospital, forget ambulances, take a matatu. The drivers make up their own rules for the road, usually creating a third lane if traffic is bad. This elusive third lane can be found between the other lanes of traffic or on the side walk. Matatus also don’t have seat belts. Mostly what keeps you stable is the limited amount of room between you and the person seated next to you. Remember the matatu description; it will be important later on the road to Jinja.

The day before we had discovered that the EasyCoach bus to the Kenya/Uganda border town of Busia was completely full. Luckily, two of the other girls had lived in Kisumu, a city in western Kenya, for their ISP month and knew how to get to Busia from there. This is why we were headed downtown, to catch the 2:30 shuttle to Kisumu. However, we didn’t take the holiday season rate into account and ended up paying double what we had planned. It didn’t matter though, we were on our way.

The shuttle from Nairobi to Kisumu takes approximately seven hours, which seemed fine to me. I was thinking of the roomy airport shuttles or the shuttle buses Gettysburg runs for breaks (you think I would have learned by now). Instead, a matatu with the word “shuttle” painted on it pulls up. You see, the road to Kisumu is bumpy and has more potholes than actual road. Matatus nicely accentuate these road blimps as they do not have shocks. I’m assuming at one point they did, put have probably since fallen off or have been sold as scraps.

To make our matutu even more exciting, it seems we had break issues. Often times while driving up the mountain roads we would have to stop for construction or traffic of some kind. By “stop” I mean we rolled back down the hill until the driver decided to gun it. Three of us were lucky enough to be sitting in the back, giving us a great view of the rapidly approaching stopped cars behind us.

And then the tire popped.

Actually, this was nice. We got to get out of the matatu and walk around. We had pulled over on what looked like a cliff, and there was nothing around. It was quiet, the stars were pretty, and we could stand out in the middle of the road without worried about getting hit by another matatu.

Once the tired was replaced, we continued to Kisumu. We only rolled backwards once more and managed to get to the New Victoria, our hotel for the night, by 11:30. Only nine hours later.

Tuk Tuks- Kind of like a motorized rickshaw 

The next morning we woke up for another fun filled day of travel. On a tip from a tuk-tuk driver, we found the Acacia bus company, guaranteed to be a far more comfortable two hours to Busia than a matatu. Luckily, we snagged the last four tickets in the back of the bus. To my left was a man on the way to Uganda with his chicken. The chicken was on a leash and was probably that night’s dinner. Once the bus started moving, the chicken retreated to under my seat, where it remained for the rest of the ride.

An hour and a half into the trip, the bus broke down. Of course, the passengers didn’t need to know that. The driver just got off the bus and walked away. The four of us got off the bus twenty minutes later to look for the driver. We found her under a tree chewing sugar cane and she promised the repair piece would be there in a half hour.

Piki piki- you sit on the back

So for the next hour we talked to a piki piki driver about N*sync, Boys to Men, The Spice Girls, and Gadafi’s death. Once the bus was fixed, we hopped back on (accidentally kicking the chicken) and finally made it to Busia three and a half hours later.

From the bus stop, we sat on the backs of these cushioned bikes and rode to the boarder. Once across the border, we got on another matatu destined for Jinja. We waited an hour for it to be stuffed to capacity and took off for yet another four hour bumpy drive.

Then that matutu broke down.

But it was only for a moment. They just pushed it until the engine caught.

Once in Jinja, we took piki pikis to the camp site. This is easily my favorite from of transportation in Kenya. As you saw above, a piki piki is just a motorbike, known as a boda in Uganda. When ride one, you sit on the back, except we didn’t know that “proper ladies” sit sideways. How the proper ladies don’t fall off is beyond me.

And then we got to the camp site. It had little dorms overlooking the Nile and was crazy pretty. And, oddly enough, the guy from New Zealand who was at the last hostel I stayed at (see last post) was there too. AND THEN we found the SIT Uganda kids, which included Emily, the girl I interned at DC Central Kitchens with over the summer. Small world.

The next day we left at 8:30 to raft the Nile. No biggie.

Actually, it was terrifying. Or at least the first time we flipped in a rapid it was. Four million things race through your mind, some of which include crocodiles, rocks, never breaking the surface, wondering where your paddle went, hoping you don’t end up under the boat, how much water is going up your nose, and the whole life flashing before your eyes thing. After the first flip, it’s a lot of fun. Though I drank way more Nile water than anyone really needs to.      

The following day was two days before in reverse. We piki pikied back to the matatu stage and matatued back to Busia. This time the matatu didn’t break down, but we did lose a window on the way. It just fell off.

From Busia we actually got to get on the EasyCoach bus this time. Only it wasn’t much better than a matatu. It had more space to stretch out, but still didn’t sleep.

And now I am writing to you from the Nairobi airport, going on 36 hours with no sleep. If I don’t sleep on my flight from here to Amsterdam, I can beat jetlag. But that won’t happen.

Though seeing, swimming in, and drinking the Nile made the entire trip and lack of sleep soooooo worth it.

This is not my last post. One more to come. Stay tuned to find out what leaving Kenya is like.

ISP is a small prison ~ Mama Mary

MY ISP IS FINISHED! Except for the final presentations, but really, it’s not like “real” work. We are doing are final presentations at a beach resort on the coast of Kenya. See, not real. But after 40 pages of writing in a week with the power going out every other paragraph, I’m ready for it.

Two days ago we moved out of our apartment. I could have been sad, but it wasn’t. We hadn’t had running water since the day before Thanksgiving. Yet we managed to cook Thanksgiving dinner and do the dished with a few gallons of water. The maintenance guys were nice enough to give us about a jug of water a day, but that still meant no real showers (back to bucket showers) and no easy dish washing. Also, the massive amount of rain we have been having (funny how when we lose water, it rains the most it has since we got to Kenya) caused black outs multiple times a day. Most night were spent sitting in darkness around my roommate’s head lamp panicking about our ISPs.   

After moving out, I had one night of unorganized housing. I spent the night at the Wildebeest Camp, a small hostel not far from our apartment. Honestly, I don’t know why people don’t like hostels. I mean, if you have personal space issues I understand, but I meet such interesting people. On girl from Australia was traveling the world. She worked in hospitality, so basically anywhere she went she could find a job. The guy in the bunk below her was from New Zealand and had just moved to Kenya after working in a gold mine. Another guy was born and raised in India, went to Stanford, and now works for Google. And that’s just some of the people there. Everyone had a story.

The next day I went to the Nairobi National Park with two other girls from my program. It was 100% touristy, but it was fun. We did a safari walk, which was basically just a zoo of African animals, and visited the animal orphanage. By the way, baby cheetahs are the cutest thing since Care Bears. If I can steal some photos from one of the girls I’ll post them, but for now you’ll just have to settle for this block of text.

I cannot believe it is December. Where did the last three months go? As much as I miss home, I don’t want to leave. I mean, sure, there are things I won’t miss, like boiling my drinking water and never having mud-free legs, shoes, or feet. I won’t miss the spontaneous marriage proposals on the street (I don’t care how many goats you think I’m worth, I said I wanted camels) or not being allowed out after dark. But I am going to miss Kenya. The people, the weather, the atmosphere, I will miss it.  

But every Kenyan I have told that I am leaving soon has simply shaken their heads and said “You’ll be back.” Maybe they’re right. ;-)