claramsong

Hello from quarantine, it has been a while since my last post…

Back home

I have arrived just last week back to San Diego after traveling for over 30 hours. When I left Kenya there were 7 cases and now there are 50 and 1 death. As soon as we got 3 cases all the schools shut down and the volunteering program got suspended. We weren’t allowed to go on other people’s farms etc… I knew that I would be going home sometime soon because it would spread quickly. Then later found out that my Tanzania program got cancelled as well. My mind was not ready for this at all since my trip was supposed to last 8+ months not 3 months. There were many flight issues and flights were really expensive. Up to $4,000!! What the heck, I just wanted to go home. My flight was Kenya to Dubai, then Dubai to San Francisco, and San Francisco to San Diego. My second flight got delayed by a whole day and the immigration in Dubai wouldn’t allow visitors for longer than 29 hours (which was my layover time) so I had to leave a day later than planned. I’m extremely disappointed in the airport health and safety precautions. Barely anyone in the Nairobi, Kenya airport were wearing masks and/or gloves. The security checking our passports were handling everyone’s passports with the same gloves and lets say someone’s passport has the virus then all of the next passports might have it. There was a lady trying to explain that to the security and they were giving her a really had time and she then started to cry. Basically a whole mess. There was no temperature check from Nairobi to Dubai at all. Then for my second flight they took body temperature before entering the plane but I think this was only flights to the US. Then when we were on the plane they gave us this form to fill out that asked if we have been in certain countries in the past 14 days and symptoms like fever, chills, cough or shortness of breath. But get this, no one ever asked for it… hm. Well ladies and gentleman, if you have the coronavirus let me just tell you this you are very likely to travel and spread that virus. So not good and so so so disappointed. My last flight had a total of like 12 people on it, it was really weird. Anyways, the most import thing is that I am home safe now staying inside (and already going a bit crazy but it’s fine). 

This was the form given to us in the plane that no one asked for when we arrived in the US. 

Bye Bye kiddos

I had one last week with the Grade 1 kids and teacher Faith and it went great. I still managed to go to the schools in the afternoons after agriculture. Of course me being Clara I want to try to do everything but it was exhausting. I kept making them posters and giving them printouts etc… I believe I made over 50 posters throughout that month. Insane!! OH, and I took my class to an Animal Orphanage!! Myself and two other volunteers went with the whole class and rented a school bus etc… We tried to organize this a day before so it was really chaotic but with the amazing local team we made it work!!  

So so many posters and this isn’t even all of it! 

Agriculture

I did a total of 3 weeks of agriculture since it got cut short but I enjoyed it while it lasted. Oh I loved it so so much. We went to the Pigs Farm and I was carrying 40-60 kg of animal feed on my back and I was having a great time because I hadn’t sweat that much in a really long time so it felt good. It was a great way to workout and help. We would basically move different feeds around on our back from one place to another such as sunflower, maize, salts etc… Then we would put the different feeds in a big machine mixer let it mix for 20 minutes then bag the feed, weigh it, and sew the bags shut ready to sell. Do that all day. They would tell me same shit different day. They did have a lot of Pigs and piglets, they were so cute I wanted to bring one home. 

This machine is “My Lady” (or Derrick’s Lady) that mixes all the feeds

These are the final products of feeds

Then I got to work on the house garden and weed out unnecessary weeds from the garden to make it look pretty. I really liked this because I got to touch the beautiful soil and it would clear my mind thinking about absolutely nothing while doing it. We also planted some seedlings of spinach and kale. 

I got to go to Mama Emmah’s farm, which is basically very typical village farm. They  have a small stone house in which the parents live in with baby Rita who is 2 then once the son turns 13 they move out of the main house into his own house (this happens to most village sons) to become a man or whatever. And usually the husbands mom lives with her son on the property. So you have a sons house, a grandma’s house and the main house. The “kitchen” is just a big pot and they cook on firewood fire. On her farm I planted coriander seeds in her hydroponics and seedlings.

This is the hydroponics, where I planted the coriander seeds

Here we planted spinach and kale seedlings

Mama Emmah with the daily harvest!

I also went on a tea farm and that was so so cool. First off, tea farms are absolutely beautiful and they are super steep. Three of us picked tea for around 3-4 hours and we got like 10 kg of tea total. They then go to the tea buying center and once the truck comes by they weigh their tea, makes sure it is the right tea and well sorted. To pick tea you need to pick one little tea bulb and two leaves with it.  I really liked it because it was quite relaxing and you can hear the birds chirp but it’s really hard work. Momma’s usually are tea pickers and sometimes they have their babies with them and teach them to pick at a young age. 

Im picking tea African style

This is how you pick the tea, two leaves and one bulb

What I visited

We went to Mombasa by train, and we stayed in Diani Beach for 2 nights. It was absolutely gorgeous, see clear waters and the sand is white and soft. The first day, we stayed in Diani and went on a boat tour and went snorkeling and rode camels. It was really nice to relax and do nothing. Although, you can’t lie down on the beach because otherwise everyone will come by and ask if you want to buy things or do a certain activity. Then the next day we visited Old Town Mombasa. I actually really liked Old Town because it seemed very ancient and more cultures since the Arabic and Portuguese immigrated there. The food seemed a bit more diverse as there is fish and more Arab food which I love. 

And then I also visited Lake Naivasha, we went on a boat on the lake then we went to Crescent Island and did a walking safari. Then, we went to Hells Gate National Park and rode bikes through there. 

Food

The main staple of the food is rice, beans, maize and potatoes. The food is really heavy because all Kenyans work really hard. They mainly grow all their own food like kale, spinach, tomatoes, cabbage, mangos, pineapple, passion fruits and ribena etc… the fruits are soooo good. mmmmm! 

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who made my adventures even brighter and better. To the families and the hardworking people I have encountered on my trips and all the wonderful volunteers that came from all over the world! 

This is Jessica, Ian and Ryan the cutest and nicest siblings. 

This is the amazing teacher Faith from Grade 1

These are the wonderful coordinators Naomi, Martha and Mama Emmah

Overall Experience

My overall experience in Kenya was amazing, I wouldn’t trade it for any other experience. The locals are the nicest people ever and I am sad that my 8+ month trip got cut to barely 3 months but the universe wanted me home and everyone else home too. This will be a good time for us to self reflect and work on our selves. I personally am trying to stay somewhat productive and active. It’s okay to be down at some times but this is when we are all going to put our thinking brains and come up with beautiful things. I’m determined to clean and reorganize the whole apartment and I have tried to sew masks to possibly donate and also got side tracked and tied making my sister a skirt. And staying active doing yoga and cardio daily. Going to try to make my family some traditional Kenyan food like Ugali and Chopati. Thank you for reading!!! Stay healthy, stay safe!