Kenya Adventures

Greetings from Kenya...

After a long flight to London and another long flight to Nairobi, I arrived in Kenya. I spent the day in Nairobi visiting an NGO called Mapendo, that does refugee and human rights work in Kenya. I returned to the airport pretty exhausted...I ended up sleeping at a table in the airport waiting for my flight to Kisumu. I woke up to a song from Mama Mia, by ABBA, on the loudspeaker. It was all pretty surreal.

The flight to Kisumu was short and we arrived in the rain. We met up with Lillian and Annette, who are the PCs in Kakamega. I arrived with Agarn, who is one of our mombasa team members...we were all heading to kakamega for a one week training. It was dark and raining and we loaded up the car with all our bags. About halfway to kakamega the car broke down and we were in the middle of nowhere, in the pouring rain, wondering if we were ever going to make it. Another car was sent from Kisumu and we ended up arriving in Kakamega a couple hours later than planned. After a quick dinner and a long shower, I finally got to bed after two days of travel.

Kakamega was fantastic. We met up with the Uganda team and the Kakamega team, along with me and Agarn. We spent two days going over FSD materials and then the next two doing site visits to our partner organizations and grant projects. It was all pretty inspiring.

We went to kakamega forest on the 5th day for a debriefing and sunday morning we went our separate ways. Agarn, Salwa (from the SF office), and I flew to mombasa. The contrast was striking. mombasa is on the coast and it was hot and humid...kakamega was higher up, much cooler, and very rainy.

We arrived on Sunday. We again spent two days training with the mombasa staff. On wednesday the first summer group arrived and we had orienation with them, along with many logistical errands needed for the site team. It's been mostly work and no play, but tomorrow salwa and I are done here and we are heading back to Nairobi to do a two day safari at Masai Mara...the most famous park in Kenya. We're very excited to see the animals and have four game drives scheduled. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures. I haven't done a safari since ngorogoro crater in tz many years ago. we worked really hard the last two weeks, so we're happy to have a couple days off before heading back to the states.

we got in a morning of shopping today, so yes, you can be expecting lots of presents from africa!

Karibu!!
Alicia

greetings from london

It is all a bit too familiar here at heathrow, where I spent a good 10 hours back in January on my way to India. My layover is shorter now, but I'm sitting in my 'regular' spot at the internet cafe. I have a long flight to Nairobi and then another flight to Kisumu, then an hour car ride to Kakamega.

I'm off to meet up with our Uganda and Kakamega teams, along with one person from our Mombasa team...we are going to spend the next week in Kakamega in an intense FSD training. In addition to several workshops, we'll be doing NGO visits, visiting projects that were funded from our grant competition, and visiting some interns that are currently in the field.

This will be the first time such a big group of FSD staff have gotten together since our Ecuador meeting several years ago. It's all pretty exciting!

It will be mostly work, but we hope to go to the kakamega forest one day. After my time in mombasa, I hope to go to a reserve on a day trip as well if there is time. Then, I'll be back here in London on my way back to San Francisco...busy/packed trip this time.

Okay, that's all for now. I'll write from Kenya.
:)
A