This is Africa!

Dear Friends and Readers,

In addition to the Diabetes Awareness Walk and the Giraffe Center, we had a lively weekend and start to this week filled with many new foods, friends, and unique African experiences! We can’t believe that tomorrow we will have been in Kenya for a full 7 days!

Well, Terri finally had her first nyama choma experience this weekend. With the help of our friends, she chose her goat and the cuts of meat we wanted and left the rest up to the expert butchers to prepare our feast… baaa baaaa! After about an hour and a half of preparation, the food was roasted to perfection. Terri exclaimed over and again, “I have no idea what I’m eating, but wow is it good!” We also encountered a true Nairobi night… we will let the photos speak for themselves!

We have had so many successes with the progress of the V.I.P. program as well. Everyone we talk to sees this as much bigger than just a one-year pilot program with great potential for future expansion. There is great interest in collaborating along the lines of inclusion, technology, and Science/Ecology. Since we are staying with Danielle’s family in Nairobi and not in a hotel, we have saved enough of our grant money to send a teacher from the Kilimani School to the Institute of Advanced Technology to receive a proper introductory IT course. The teacher will learn all of the basics of computers, keyboarding, Microsoft Office and Powerpoint, and Internet Explorer. That individual will then return to Kilimani and give a basic training to his or her peers. Also, we are now able to provide an IT support technician for the next year to check in monthly and consult with the teachers at the school along the lines of the project. We are especially encouraged by this connection with the Institute, because if we can appeal to future funders to donate more technology to the Kilimani School, we will have already established the infrastructure to support its use and maintenance.

Furthermore, we had an amazing meeting with the commercial director and managing director of Gamewatchers Safaris. The aim of their exclusive eco-camps and conservancies is to “work closely with communities living alongside national parks and wildlife reserves to help them derive benefits from conserving wildlife species and the indigenous habitat.” Their safari tours are all eco-friendly and globally responsible. They have 4 camps located in different parts of Kenya. As we presented our project – educating Kenyan and Boston kids about Kenya’s ecosystem and introducing instructional technology, they were thrilled at the prospect of being our partner in the endeavor and watching it grow to include a strong collaboration if the pilot is successful.

The Gamewatchers Safari Organization is unique from other Kenyan safari companies, because they are doing a lot to educate and further the plight of the Maasai people. They are helping them preserve their land and culture, while embracing the necessary preservation changes that the Kenya Wildlife Services must take in order to sustain the nature and wildlife. They rent the land for their camps from the Maasai people and pay them individually – no red tape. They employ the Maasai as guides and invest in the nomadic schools and in the education and training of teachers. They even collaborated with an initiative in Tanzania to equip a school with movable solar panels that power computers and trained Maasai teachers and children how to utilize the technology. They are hoping, if our pilot is successful, to possibly expand V.I.P. to include the Maasai in Kenya. They have therefore arranged a tour for us with them, so that we can actually visit Maasai villages and schools! Now here’s what’s also absolutely amazing… Gamewatchers is providing us with a 7-day Educational Safari, staying in 4 different camps, with top-notch guides and service, personalized for the interests of our project, and they are flying us… yes… we said it…. FLYING US from camp to camp for a price inclusive of park and conservancy fees that is three hundred dollars UNDER our budgeted amount! AMAZING!!!

Once again we are in SHOCK and AWE! Every door is miraculously opening for this project to be a raving success! Plus, we will be witnessing one of the 7 natural wonders of the world – the wildebeests migration from the Serengeti to the Maasai Mara!

Every day in Kenya is more amazing than the one before. Yesterday Terri enjoyed her first road-side roasted maize and today sugar cane. Danielle died laughing as Terri watched horrified as the lady who sold us the maize, walked up from her coal grill, smoking a cigarette and took a cut lime out of a plastic baggy hanging off her waist and covered in chili and rubbed it all over the corn. Terri exclaimed, “Oh that’s ok! I don’t think I need to try this one – Danielle you enjoy!” She was hesitant until Danielle convinced her to just take a bite and then SHE LOVED IT! She devoured the whole thing – all the way down to the nubs of the husk and then exclaimed the saying that we have adopted from Danielle's nephews as our montra, “T.I.A., baby!” Translation – THIS IS AFRICA!