Welcome to Africa!

My first Africa blog!  Yay!  I'm going to apologize in advance for taking so long to post it.  The internet is really spotty here so it literally takes me days to upload photos to the internet and we don't have a lot of free time so it's hard to sit down and write out what's going on.  I'm going to dedicate posts more to large portions of days rather than day by day too, so it may take a while to read through a whole post.

Below is a picture of the camp.  The chumba is the large building on the left.  It is open on both sides.  This is where the kitchen is (we have rotating groups that have to be in the kitchen at 6:30am to cook breakfast and the same group cleans up after dinner.  I've become pro at making african pancakes), we have lectures, eat our meals, hang out, do our RAP sessions at night (which is led by one of us students each night- we lead a reflective conversation about something that's occurred here, make announcements, and then do a presentation.  Some people have played fun games like Mafia and Pictionary, others have given presentations on Sparta and the movie 300, etc.  I think I'm going to make everyone grab a partner and sit facing one another and just look into the other person's eyes for exactly five minutes.  A lot of people have trouble making good eye contact so  this will hopefully make everyone feel very uncomfortable.  I then hope to lead a reflection where everyone expresses something about the exercise or their partner that they learned.  You really can learn so much when forced to stare at another person for five minutes- either about them or yourself.) But I'm getting side tracked.  So, the chumba's on the left, one of the bathrooms is that white structure in the middle of the photograph.  There are three showers and three toilets.  The showers are anywhere from freezing to lukewarm depending on the time of day and the toilets require more crank than you would ever think to apply to a toilet to get them to flush.  To the right are the student bandas- there are thirty of us.  Four people live in each banda which is slightly more square footage than my two bed dorm room freshman year.  There are no co-ed bandas.  To the left of the chumba is the exact same setup- bathroom and bandas.  

My banda is the one second from left.  We are the duma banda.  Duma is Swahili for cheetah.

Our schedule is pretty intense.  We usually have six hours of lecture a day or smaller amounts of lecture with community activities, field trips, etc.  When we aren't swamped with reading and reports we spend our free time we playing a lot of soccer, volleyball, and frisbee.  The  staff members really like to get involved and some of them are phenomenal athletes.  Arthur is our head chef (the food is amazing by the way but very carbohydrate and starchy rich) and he played on the national volleyball team though every time we play he says he's never played before.  Funny guy.  Trust me, you want to run away from his spikes not towards them.  That was a bad mistake.  Yesterday was our first day going to the secondary school just up the road to play sports with the students after their classes.  It was one of my favorite events so far.  The students there are range from about 14-24.  Being there definitely started to make me understand the term 'jungle fever.'  The men here are beautiful.  So are the women, actually- everyone here is beautiful.  

 We wash all of our own laundry by hand.  Because it is also a very modest culture (we are not allowed to wear tank tops, any tight clothing, and shorts and skirts must come beneath the knees) we aren't allowed to hang our underwear on the lines.  They must be hung on our mosquito nets.

There are birds everywhere and one is a species of weaver bird that builds these beautiful droop nests.  They usually build two nests- one for the eggs and another that has both in entrance and an exit on the other side for deterring pursuing predators.  They can just go in one end and out the other and hopefully lose whatever is chasing them.

We are the first group in the history of SFS Kenya to experience electricity.  It's luxurious.

This is a photograph I took of a new friend Crystal.  She was teaching me some tips and tricks about night photography and the sky and moon were exquisite this night.

There are tons of geckos and lizards to chase and catch.

This is a gecko my new friend Connor pointed out to me.  It must have evaded a bird or larger lizard attack but unfortunately didn't get away unscathed.  Its intestines were protruding out of its back.

This is my bed.  Mosquito nets must be tucked in at all times to not only prevent bugs from entering your bed but also snakes.  One girl last year never did that and pulled back her sheets one night to find a black mamba.  A black mamba is one of the deadliest snakes in the world.  Its venom can kill seven grown men.  Speaking of which- a nest of them hatched near camp somewhere so we have been finding babies everywhere.  When they hatch out, they are smaller than earth worms but grow quickly.  Connor and I came across the first one of our group earlier in the trip and it was also the largest that has been spotted.  It was pretty awesome.

The mornings here are beautiful.  I never have to use my alarm clock since the birds are so noisy.  Everything is noisy here.  I've even heard hyenas at night.  This is one of my favorite views from the camp fence though.  For one ecology class we actually left camp and walked to have lecture on top of this hill.  That is one of the amazing things about this program.  So many lectures are moved to beautiful locations outdoors.

This is the fence surrounding KBC.  Its circumference is about 1.5km.  There is another electric fence around the group ranches which KBC is positioned within that is 7ft high.  Askaris (watchmen) wander the KBC grounds all night to keep an eye out for wildlife and trespassers.

The circle of life.

This is Julia near the KBC boundary.  She is one of my banda mates and is starting her first semester of college when she gets home.  She is what Okello, our program director, calls the female young one.  Sam is our male young one and had to eat goat testicles during a farewell celebration we had two days ago.  They slaughtered two goats (which I took pictures of but don't want to post- I was pretty traumatized by the first one and didn't watch the second), had traditional Maasai men come and dance and sing, and everyone took part in feasting on goat meat, which is actually pretty darn delicious.  

This is Kerinke.  He is one of our armed askaris, all of which were brought up in the local villages as Maasai warriors.  Here in Kenya the askaris carry spears and in Tanzania they carry guns.  It's pretty awesome to see one of them throw a spear.  They make it look so easy, but it's not.  Trust me.  

This is Kerinke again at the top of one of the highest points in Kimana.  We hiked up here for class one day and had a beautiful 360 degree view of the region as well as Mt. Kilimanjaro which is in the opposite direction.  The clouds around the top of Mt. Kili make it hard to see and when it does come out, we're usually in the middle of class so it would be disrespectful for me to take a picture.   I'll try to post one once I get the chance.  

This is a baboon skull and behind it is a jackal.  They both are sitting on elephant bones which are so large that I can barely move them.  There are piles of bones around our camp that have been collected for display over the years.