It has been a while since we have been able to blog, and our time in Africa is coming to an end. Every day that I wake up I don’t even realize that we are even in some far off place away from home, because we have become so comfortable in our surroundings. The weather, the scenery, the food, and especially the people are now so familiar and friendly, and still very welcoming. We have even adapted to lifestyles here, doing our own laundry and drinking tea every day, but we have also found a way to bring our culture to Kenya, such as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunches and hunting out amazing Chinese food for dinner. Right now we are working with Kwacha Africa, a preformence group in Mombasa. Now, I know you all want pictures pictures pictures, and trust me, you will get to see alllllll the pictures…about 7000 of them.  I don’t have the energy to sit at a computer and type out all the amazing things that are happening because if I take the time to stop from looking around, I am afraid I will miss something.

Part of our group in Kibera with Felix Masi, Kenyan photojournalist and founder of Voiceless Children (www.voicelesschildren.org)

Andrew teaches some kids in Kibera about the wonders of a hackisack



Lunch scene from Swahili Dishes in Kibera


Juli films a performance on the street about HIV/AIDS stigmatization


Rory always finds time to play the guitar.


We visited a Masai village when we were on safari. We'll put up some pictures of them jumping soon. The higher they jump, the more girlfriends they get. They had some of our guys try their best to compete with them. Yeah, you can imagine how that went.


Allie was given the honor to wear a hat made of goat skin I think. Really, it was an honor.




The cheetahs were busy marking their territory here. Later some of our JUMPers saw these guys in action taking down a gazelle.

To start this lesson I'll start with a song. Spelling is probably wrong.

Jambo, Jambo bwana,
Habari gani,
Mzuri sana.

Wageni, Wakaribishwa,
Kenya yetu Hakuna Matata.

This is a song that is song to visitors. Members of the Nakuru group (Ann Linda and Felix in particular)taught it to me during the matatu ride to Thompson falls.
This song is good because is uses many of the common phrases(or the ones that I know) and also uses some grammar!
Jambo is Hello
Bwana is Sir
Habari Gani means how are you
and Mzuri Sana replies Im very good.
Wageni, Wakaribishwa, means welcome visitors to
Kenya yetu means my kenya
hakuna matat is kenyan for no worries.( immortalized by the lion king)

along with the words in the song mzungu which means white people
ashante which means thank you
pole which means sorry
Polepole which means slow
sawa means good
and hakuna which means there is no

Grammer
Wa before anything makes it plural, much like adding an s.
yetu adds possession.

Sheng
Sheng is the slang of Kenya, although it seems to be more respectable than say pigeon.
Poa means cool
sawasawa means ok


well thats my lesson. hope you enjoyed it

I would have started this with the swahili word for three but I don't have access to one of the translation books. The swahili I know is more on the practical side, but my swahili lecture will come later.
So it has come to my attentions that I have not informed the global audience of the stay in Nairobi, with the Kibera group. This I hope to remedy tonight and to a fine degree. Excuse the ramblings and grammar as I am doing this past midnight, but most of my papers are done at this time anyway so it should be an acceptable quality.

Nairobi
Coming from a small island isolated in the Pacific Ocean one would think the change to a city like Nairobi would be a trying thing. It was not. Quickly, I got to know the area surrounding our hotel and began to feel comfortable walking down the streets. Nairobi is full of wazungu(white people) and it seems the town is use to them. The hawkers are not as insistent as they were in Nakuru and the people are not as surprised to see us. Prices are higher, and sometimes even the same as American prices, but this is only at expensive places. It still is comparably cheap.

Kibera
Kibera as I have been told is the largest slum in Kenya, and some have told me the largest in Africa. You would be a fool to argue against this as when you look at it from higher ground you can not see it all. We took a walk around Kibera and in 2 hours we didn't cover an eighth. Kibera is in the middle of a valley, hence the higher ground to peer down at it, and is bordered by what I am told are some very expensive houses.
There is open sewage, by this I mean small rivers, rolling down the hills and along the roads. Roads in kibera (the ones on the outskirts are two laned) have enough room for a car, but I only saw cars on the outskirts. Within the heart of Kibera everyone walks and doing this you walk on paths that the largest are a meter long, that wind in between houses, and usually along the same path the sewage follows. Houses in Kibera are right next to eachother and are the epitome of efficency, all space is utilized in and outside the home.

Kibera Team
The Kibera team had a vastly different group dynamic than the Nakuru team. The way that the Nakuru team functioned was not even apparent to me until we met with the Kibera team. The Nakuru team is solely focused on JUMP and it seems as if all members share similiar, if not equal, footing. The Kibera team is different. JUMP is one of many projects they are doing( they also are involved in adding solar panels through out Kibera, for one) and because of this need a structure that supports a large multi-tasking group. The structure they use is like a military structure with people of varying degrees of power in the organization. Because of this difference working with the groups was very different. Different but enlightening.

Well its 2 am now so I may head to bed ...

We finally made it to Mombasa, still in one piece, or at least in the same number of pieces as we started with. Sorry we've been out of communication, hard to email from the Masai Mara where we were on safari. Actually they had a business center at the lodge, but the internet rates were outrageous, especially when we've grown accustomed to paying on 1 ksh per minute (less than a penny). It's almost 2am but I'm so thrilled to finally have an internet connection after days of no communication...so I'm still awake trying to resize some photos of our recent adventures to share with you and briefly describe what we've been up to...sorry if I'm not as coherent as i should be,but I figure a foggy blog is better than no blog at all.

On July 17 we finished working with the Kibera JUMPers. What an experience. They are so full of ideas and talent and enthusiasm, at times it was hard to keep up, not only with their energy but also with their high spirits and optimism. Perhaps the most memorable experience for the Kauai JUMPers, apart from the friendships they made, was the walk through Kibera to visit a school for AIDS orphans and witnessing firsthand how challenging it is to live in this slum of almost a million. We brought some soccer balls to the kids at the school and they immediately engaged some of the JUMPers in a game. The ball quickly rolled into an open sewage stream running by their school, but they were unphased and continued to pick it up, toss it, and kick it with their bare feet. Andrew kept right up with them. He later told me he was horrified and wanted to get as far from this sewage as possible, but couldn't let the kids down. The school house was in an aluminum building with no electricity. All the primary grades meet in this room lit only by a little sunlight streaming through two doors at the ends. There they sit on benches in rows and attempt to make out the writing on the small chalk boards in front of them. The class sections are separated by rice sacks from the donated food of NGOs and aid organizations. These sacks are sewn together and hung as a curtain, lending a small sense of formality to each grade level's "classroom." We gave them a donation from JUMP, but it seemed insignificant in comparison to the challenges they face. I told the principal, Mr. Charles, that we would like to stay in touch. I hope someone at home will help me organize a book drive for this school. Something, anything, is better than seeing this school and doing nothing.

We also visited Nyambani, a home in the suburbs of Nairobi for children who are orphaned and also HIV+. It's hard to write about these experiences. The facilies are beautiful, thanks to the tireless work of Father D'Agostino and Mr. Proteus, the manager. We visited a kindergarten room where the children put on a show for us, singing and dancing to songs like "This little heart of mine" and one I wasn't familiar with, something about being happy. We videotaped the whole thing, and I'm sure Eric Talvi, our videographer of the day, will have more than a few minutes of the little girl in the front row who put her own sassy moves to each of these tunes. We were all grinning and applauding, but I think some of our JUMPers were overwhelmed by their emotions as they took in the realization of what these smiling children faced every day...medications, illnesses, and the struggle of fitting into society and living normal lives as children with HIV. After the kindergarten performance, we were led to their cemetery in the back of the buildings...

Thank God for antiretroviral drugs that now keep these children alive. In the beginning, this was a home to care for dying children. Now it's a home to care for children with a future.

Pretty serious stuff. It was good we took a break on July 18-20 and went on safari. After watching Out of Africa too many times to count, I had recently been disappointed by our visit to Karen Blixen's home. And then there had been the dead flamingos on the shore of Lake Nakuru. I wondered if the Masai Mara would turn out to be a disappointment too, overrun with tourists chasing animals in their land rovers, maybe litter spoiling a once pristine landscape, but I'm thrilled to say my fears were unfounded. The masai mara is one of the most beautiful places I've even experienced, and seeing the animals in their natural habitat was indescribable. We saw elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, a leopard, ostriches, and on and on. Some of our JUMPers actually saw the cheetahs catch a gazelle for their evening meal. And we came upon a pride of lions and their cubs in the early morning feasting on a carcass fresh from the previous night's hunt...the fat cubs lolled about and licked their bloody paws and swiped at their moms, not too much different than the human species. But the pictures that you'll soon see will tell the story much better than these words.

We arrived back in Nairobi after a gruelling drive over some of the bumpiest roads I've ever encountered. For our Kauai readers, it was like the road to Mahaluapu times 10, but for five hours. There was motion sickness, a little vomit, and a lot of tired and achy kids. We fell into our beds at the Kenya Comfort hotel, woke up the next morning at 7am and by 9am we were loaded onto the matatus for what we thought would be a 6 hour ride to Mombasa. We arrived a little over 10 hours later, in the dark, at a "charming" bug-infested guesthouse. I woke up in the morning still wearing the same clothes from the night before, I had been too terrified to do anything but dive under the mosquito net and pray to see the morning light. I had dreams that bugs were stinging my neck all night, and I thought for sure I was paralyzed when I awoke. Not long after realizing I was still alive, I glanced over at Allie's bed only to discover the fattest, ugliest centipede I've ever seen in my life, sitting happily on her bed, under her mosquito net, gradually working its way up to her face. I screamed, cried, begged Isabelle next door to come save us and finally did an emergency rescue and pulled Allie from certain death. She opened her sleepy eyes, took a look at the offending beast, and said "come on mom, it's not that bad." Turns out it wasn't. It was actually a harmless millipede, but right then I made up my mind we weren't staying there another night. When I met everyone for breakfast over gelatinous porridge and soggy bread, they all agreed in various levels of hysteria that we had to find a new home. I'll let someone else tell you about where we are now, but the name may give you a slight indication of our improved accommodations: The Castle Royal.

thanks for the positive feedback, dianne and joneses, about the photos. there's more trickling in, but all the internet connections are real slow here.
but there'll be more, in no particular order. someday i'll even touch them up and make them look decent. the ones that look a bit dark or a bit light i should be able to fix when i have time, thanks to the wonders of the digital age. they probably got that way because photoshop has silly defaults for generating jpegs from raws anyway. but i'll get off my soapbox.

i'd really like to thank Whoever It Was That Donated The Ukes. i don't know your name, just that you're a nice person that donated them. so, thanks. they continue to be a big hit with the students we're working with - a few people in each group want to - or already can - play guitar, but don't have access to one. the ukes are especially entertaining for them. not to mention educational.
so, thanks. i hope you find this.

and thanks to the Goldsmiths for sending us to Naivasha. Fish Eagle Inn is a great place to stay, and it was really neat to tour the farm and talk to the nurses there. thank you.

also, people who donated money and equiptment, thank you. our kenyan friends love their shinny new cameras and laptops. they're mastering everything at the speed of light, and i think they'll continue to produce a lot.

thanks to felix masi, who just left us about an hour ago - he's a photojournalist. i think you can check him out at www.voicelesschildren.org
anyway, he's been helping our photography group. giving us tips. helping us communicate with people and find our way around. and entertaining us. so, thanks for all your time.

and stan and dennis from nakuru. they've also mentored and guided us, spending a lot of our precious time helping jump work.

and other youth leaders here, like fred. he's the guy here in nairobi, and he's obviously the guiding force of jump nairobi.

so, thanks everyone. we're off early tomorrow to go safari our brains out. cant't wait.

oh, and i think we're going to the carnivore tonight. it's supposed to be really famous - some kind of restaurant with big game animals as food, cooked hibachi (sic?) style (right in front of you, that is).
it sould be neat. i pity our vegetarian - hopefully they'll have some celery.

There is one podcast up, and I hope it's working. I encourage everyone to listen and leave a remark! I sure they'd love some questions or ideas also.

http://www.archive.org/details/jumpkibera

Enjoy!

some of my photos will be up soon. the up speeds are very slow here, and i'm limited to 20 megs right now on the site that i'm using, but they can be found at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alecburney/

when they do finally go through.
also, keep in mind that these are not final pictures, they're previews i quickly made from the raw files...
i'm quite pleased with some of them.

when you walk into an area where you think is un livable but then you find smiles and laughter and welcoming words you wonder about what really are necesities. today we did a walk through Kibera, we took photos and spoke with people. we learned hardships of a school and listened to the knowledge of a pharmacist. When you come from an island where water is something that surrounds you and is almost 99% swimable it is hard to imagine that for a town of almost the size of oahu there is almost no clean water to wash and clean let alone drink. This was the kinda of sites tourists dont see but the kind of thing that people should see. We were told that a picture can say a 1000 words but it has to first be viewed and shot before anyone can see those words.

Walking through an area that from an angle looks so unhappy and forgotten you find that everyone is moving and everyone is doing something. Children playing with their make shift soccer balls and women selling their vegis and mens even playing chess. everyone with their own purpose none of them truly unhappy it seems and none forgotten.

The one thing that i see everywhere i look in every set of eyes and every motion that is done in the towns we visit is the sense of hope. hope that what they are doing will change something. The pharmasisit hopes to help change the health of a million by selling condoms to those who need them and helping to solve ailments of those who come to his window. The women who clean the bathrooms that were donated by the movie the constant gardner. The children who run around us barefoot asking us how we are. All contain hope and strive for a better. this is something i dont always see in american nothing here is taken for granted, everything is used and everything is appreciated.

hello all, we made it to Nairobi, a few days ago actually. Time is so strange here, it either stretches until it almost snaps or passes so quickly i lose track of days. It never moves at the pace i expect. We're focusing our time now in Kibera now. if you've seen The Constant Gardener, you've seen this slum area outside of Nairobi, home to somewhere between 800,000 and 1 million residents. We're working with about 12-14 young people and Fred, their fearless leader. We're also incredibly grateful that Felix Masi, professional photojournalist, is volunteering his time to hang out with us, mentor the students, and take us to cool places like the Java House. Felix started an organization called Voiceless Children (www.voicelesschildren.org) and uses his talents as a photographer to advocate for children who have no voice. His mission and ours complement one another and I hope we'll be able to continue a relationship between JUMP and Voiceless Children.

We're working in a small center that the Kibera Community Youth Program recently rented. it's in Kibera, but on the outskirts and has a security guard. It seems safe and the equipment should be secure. It has three small rooms where our teams break into groups to work on podcasts, photography and digital stories. Though I don't like to play favorites, our digital story team rocks! We're almost done with our first production...we filmed a street performance of a young man (next academy award winner), slightly mad, slightly intoxicated, who cries out against a society and his brothers and sisters who have made him an outcast because of his HIV status. In the background four talented Kibera JUMPers sang, played guitar and drums and heightened the emotion of his powerful monologue. You'll see it soon on the Internet, once we can compress it enough to get it up with the slow connection speeds here. We're trying to beat the podcast team. It shouldn't be hard, in between every recording they break out the deck of cards. I heard Andrew asking for a bunch of coins earlier today, but don't worry, gambling is strictly forbidden. I'm sure that was on line 26 of the student contract.

We break for lunch around 12:30...and today we hopped in the matatus and drove a few minutes up the dirt road in Kibera to a tiny cafe that served traditional swahili dishes. we piled into the tiny rooms and spilled out onto the street while the owners quickly served us about 30+ dishes of everything from rice (pilau) and chapatis to traditional fried fish (tilapia, heads and all). A few were sad they were out of the savory cow intestines. What an incredible meal...I heard Rory say it was some of the best food he's ever eaten. Eric Devlin ate all the leftovers, his primary role.

Speaking of food, it's time to go again. Tonight it's Jamaican food down the block.

more to come...thanks for all the aloha from home.

Kwaheri,
Robin