Monday, February 15, 2010

Kisumu, Hippos, and Street Kids

We had our first Vacation in Kenya this last weekend. Our school had its Mid-Term break and we went to Kisumu with another PCV friend, Stacy. It was really nice. We woke up at 7am on Thursday, got packed and we were in Kisumu by 2pm. Not bad...

Kisumu is one of Kenya's bigger cities and it sits right on the Eastern edge of Lake Victoria. Kisumu is a major trade town. Most things come off the Ocean and travel by truck or rail to Kisumu. They are then loaded on boat for trade with Uganda and Tanzania. It is also home to boat tours, nice hotels, shopping malls, CHEESE, Barack Obama's grandma, and even a huge movie theater. We did a little of all of the above.

We spent a good deal of our time just wandering around the malls going oooh.. ahhh... And buying things we didn't know we wanted or needed. We now have soy sauce, pancake syrup, twix, fresh garlic, and art supplies for Mandy's new club. The biggest store is called Nakumat and it was easily as big as a Walmart.

In the same mall as the Nakumat was a really nice movie theatre. For about 350 shillings ($4) we saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie on the big screen in a massive theatre. It was awesome and bizzare. We felt temporarily transported back to America. I half expect to look to my right and see Ryan and Kat.

On Friday morning we went to the local port and got a tour of the shipping port. Afterwards we got a boat 3 hour boat tour on lake victoria complete with a guide and up close encounters with hippos. Afterwards we walked to the fish market and had some fresh Talapia with Chapati and Ugali. It was delicious and not touristy. Despite the locale we were still bombarded by hawkers and street children the whole time we ate. The hawkers sold DVDs, watches, trinkets, and flashlights. The street kids walked around with plastic bags looking for money and food. We did not buy from the hawkers, but our leftovers did end up in the kids' bags.

Thanks for the emails and notes of concern about my sickness. The sore throat is still hanging around with some mild exhaustion, so i think i must've picked something up when i was sick. :P

My throat is starting to feel better today (Monday), but we resume classes tommorow, so that'll be the real test.

oh... And lance... "Nacho Cheese" Doritos!! ;)

Thursday, February 11, 2010

24 Hr. Sickness

I got very sick on Saturday.
It started the day before. We made a hour long walk to our near by town for shopping, got lunch and then walked back with our supplies. It was very hot.
By the time i got back it was time to coach basketball, so stayed out for another 2 hours. After, we had a PCV friend, sonya, over for dinner. So i spent 2 hours standing in the kitchen preparing food. About mid-way through cooking i started feeling really bad.

To may a long story short, i think i got food poisoning, because i got very sick for the next day. Luckily i seem to have recovered. I now just have a sore throat, which i am hoping will go away as well.

The real down side to the sickness was the spectacle of it. All our neighbors got to see the mazungu go back and forth from the choo every 5 minutes and eventually just sit out there. argh... No one likes to be put on display when they are feeling their worst.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Thank You Tina and Jess!

We finally received the package from Tina and Jess the other day. It's hard to describe how happy we were. I got to eat some greaat chocolate and Mandy gorged on Doritos! We also got a game of skip-Bo, chocolate chips, stickers, and socks. The timing on the socks and chocolate chips was great because i was just about to be out of both! =)

So yea... Thanks! It took a long time, but that's only peace corps fault. The package apparently had been in Nairobi for a while. The good news is that any new mail sent to our new address at Kabungut should be quite fast.

If you want to send anything here are a few ideas from us =)
1. Doritos
2. Dark Chocolate
3. Chocolate Chips
4. A letter telling us all about your life and family
5. Oregano, or italian spices
6. Garlic salt
7. A good science fiction book

Friday, February 5, 2010

How to Plan a Hands-on Activity for 50 Kids.

Today we spent over 2 hours making handouts for an activity in Mandy's chemistry class. We designed and cut out almost 500 little ion papers. They are learning about ions and the basics of chemical bonding. It's hard to keep 50 kids engaged when many of them barely understand your english. =)

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Tan Lines

No that's not dirt. Mandy wears sandals every day. I have to wear nice black shoes and polish them every day!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Our New Address

For those of you dying to send us lots of neat stuff, here is our new address.

Jon and Amanda Van Regenmorter
Kabungut Boys Secondary School
P.O. Box 8; Bomet 2400, Kenya

Oh, and it's never too early to begin planning a trip to see us. We have vacation during April, August, December of 2010 and 2011 and we are only 3 hours from the Nairobi airport on good roads!