The cell phone charles gave us worked quite well last night. Despite having no credit or ability to call out, we were able to receive a call with no problem. You only pay on your outgoing calls here in Kenya. Celtel is the originating company that began offering cell service here in Kenya and Safaricom is providing competition now, apparently just recently approved as a public IPO deal. (see this blogger's comments and here is another article about safaricom)
Tomorrow we head off on a dream, once in a lifetime safari with Kicheche. We will be staying at the Mara camp if you wish to get a feel for our locale and it supposedly 'the great migration' time - wildebeast migration! We leave in the morning to take a small airplane to the Masai Mara reserve where we will be transported to our tent facilities and go on our first exploration. We will take our cell phone and hear that we should have service of some type. Blogging will probably be minimal, however, as we won't have the modem with us that we have been using here at the farm. We stay for 3 nights and return to the farm on thursday.
Yesterday was an extreme polarity reverse from visiting Eastleigh and Mathare valley on Friday. After making some excellent progress in getting two distant centers to 'talk' to each other, we went to town with the Coulston's. Darlene kept assuring us that the 'shortcut' we were taking (i don't know how it can be called a road) in their Toyota Land Cruiser (80's model) was ONLY a kilometer and a half and was very well worth it. Needless to say, we soon found ourselves driving on well paved roads, passing extrodinarily extravagant embassy housing and pulling into the 'Java House', a coffee/internet/restaurant. While the internet was actually slower than the farm when we were there, we enjoyed wonderful food, great coffee and some traditional chai tea. Following the Java House, we visited a lavish market center with a WalMart'esque store called Nakumat. We bought groceries, Darlene picked out some paint for the new house and we roused Charles about his recent application for medicare. :)
The gap between where we were in the slums the day before and what we experienced yesterday is too big to describe, but amazingly enough, Eastleigh was simply just down the hill from the main embassy road - literally less than a kilometer away.
Showing posts with label nairobi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nairobi. Show all posts
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Cell Phone Service in Nairobi and Kenya: Traveling and Tourist Advice
Ok, my original plan turns out to be quite good. Charles had a spare phone so we didn't need to buy one, but you can buy a phone for around $30. Pre pay service is the standard, you pay by the second, and you do not pay to receive calls.
This means it is easier for people in the states to get calling cards and call your temporary cell phone number. $100kshil (kenyan shillings -about $1.50 US) got me a little over a minute of talk time from here to the US. I'm out of credit and waiting to see if I can receive a call (which I am told I will be able to)
We'll buy some more credit before going on safari Monday, but are stuck with none for the evening. Our number until we leave Kenya is: 011-254738423834 (the 011 is the country code)
We will have this cell phone on us until then. We did find out that some calling cards do not list Kenya on them so you would want to be sure to get cards in the US that allow calling to Kenya.
Hope this helps out some future travellers!!
This means it is easier for people in the states to get calling cards and call your temporary cell phone number. $100kshil (kenyan shillings -about $1.50 US) got me a little over a minute of talk time from here to the US. I'm out of credit and waiting to see if I can receive a call (which I am told I will be able to)
We'll buy some more credit before going on safari Monday, but are stuck with none for the evening. Our number until we leave Kenya is: 011-254738423834 (the 011 is the country code)
We will have this cell phone on us until then. We did find out that some calling cards do not list Kenya on them so you would want to be sure to get cards in the US that allow calling to Kenya.
Hope this helps out some future travellers!!
Friday, July 18, 2008
The Real Deal
No BS. No filter. No holding back.
As you walk through the streets of Eastleigh, you can capture the pictures (well over a 1000 from today), you can capture the sounds on video (a mixture of languages, stares, trash, people, food, etc), but you absolutely can not capture the collision of smells. Burning wood charcoal drifts through your nostrils followed by rotting food in the garbage. The sweet aroma of coffee is paired with burning plastic, roasting maize and multiple different body odors. Thick exhaust is a constant layer to it all.
Darren, Emily and I went with Jakton, Anthony, Martin and Willy to capture as many images as we possibly could during the morning. Armed with Darrens amazing still camera and my high definition video camera, we marched out of the Eastleigh center with confidence and anticipation - a list of shots in our minds we wanted to aquire. Things went as planned until we reached the first 'base', apparently one of the tougher ones to go to. A base is simply a place, a location, that kids gather as to as home ground. There is a leader and a hierarchy to follow. Everyone inhales glue. Eyes are glazed. Boys of a variety of ages stumble around as their eyes focus, loose focus and focus again. The smells of bodies that have not showered in weeks if not months fill the air thicker than the exhaust from the streets. The story is too long to post now, but we were greeted by a man causing problems, a man who makes money off of the street kids (whether prostituting them, selling the glue, etc). Surrounded by concrete buildings with my camera secretly rolling, Anthony and Jakton talked with the boys at the base and the man causing problems (dressed well, claiming to be working with the government). Before long, we were surrounded by around 100 inquisitive street boys and girls. Our cameras stood out like sore thumbs (they are being told that we are making hundreds of dollars off of taking their pictures by the agitators) and things were obviously not going well with Jakton and Anthony (both big guys and both very well known on the streets). We were directed out and told to keep walking, being followed by a group of boys that knew Anthony.
We moved on to another base where we gave bread and milk to a rowdy line of boys and more conflict arose between another female glue seller and Jakton. He approached it very well, very calmly and it was easy to see how she was simply trying to protect the continuation of her clientele. 11-3 was a solid adrenaline rush. The glazed eyes of boys hooked on glue, hungry, fighting for scraps, searching through mud for bits of metal is still too much to soak in. We captured both amazing pictures and footage. Arriving back at the Eastleigh center, Jakton announced that even that morning stroll had worn him out. He did have to stop a fight after all...
We had Ethiopian food for lunch... amazing. The little restaurant next to the center was simply perfect. It has been many years since I've had it, but all the flavors came rushing back to my palette.
I'll stop there and let someone else pick up on the rest of the afternoon. We didn't leave Eastleigh until 8pm. I dare you to Google 'nairobi after dark'. :) We have now experienced it. Shopping for bed frames at dusk led to probably some of the most amazing shots from the top of the bus... But you'll have to wait to see those. ;)
Being a small group of 3, the team didn't hold back on where we went or what took place. There was no watering down, no holding back, no slowing down and no lack of excitement. This was street gangs, slums and the life of street kids experienced with a wide angle lens. The Real Deal.
As you walk through the streets of Eastleigh, you can capture the pictures (well over a 1000 from today), you can capture the sounds on video (a mixture of languages, stares, trash, people, food, etc), but you absolutely can not capture the collision of smells. Burning wood charcoal drifts through your nostrils followed by rotting food in the garbage. The sweet aroma of coffee is paired with burning plastic, roasting maize and multiple different body odors. Thick exhaust is a constant layer to it all.
Darren, Emily and I went with Jakton, Anthony, Martin and Willy to capture as many images as we possibly could during the morning. Armed with Darrens amazing still camera and my high definition video camera, we marched out of the Eastleigh center with confidence and anticipation - a list of shots in our minds we wanted to aquire. Things went as planned until we reached the first 'base', apparently one of the tougher ones to go to. A base is simply a place, a location, that kids gather as to as home ground. There is a leader and a hierarchy to follow. Everyone inhales glue. Eyes are glazed. Boys of a variety of ages stumble around as their eyes focus, loose focus and focus again. The smells of bodies that have not showered in weeks if not months fill the air thicker than the exhaust from the streets. The story is too long to post now, but we were greeted by a man causing problems, a man who makes money off of the street kids (whether prostituting them, selling the glue, etc). Surrounded by concrete buildings with my camera secretly rolling, Anthony and Jakton talked with the boys at the base and the man causing problems (dressed well, claiming to be working with the government). Before long, we were surrounded by around 100 inquisitive street boys and girls. Our cameras stood out like sore thumbs (they are being told that we are making hundreds of dollars off of taking their pictures by the agitators) and things were obviously not going well with Jakton and Anthony (both big guys and both very well known on the streets). We were directed out and told to keep walking, being followed by a group of boys that knew Anthony.
We moved on to another base where we gave bread and milk to a rowdy line of boys and more conflict arose between another female glue seller and Jakton. He approached it very well, very calmly and it was easy to see how she was simply trying to protect the continuation of her clientele. 11-3 was a solid adrenaline rush. The glazed eyes of boys hooked on glue, hungry, fighting for scraps, searching through mud for bits of metal is still too much to soak in. We captured both amazing pictures and footage. Arriving back at the Eastleigh center, Jakton announced that even that morning stroll had worn him out. He did have to stop a fight after all...
We had Ethiopian food for lunch... amazing. The little restaurant next to the center was simply perfect. It has been many years since I've had it, but all the flavors came rushing back to my palette.
I'll stop there and let someone else pick up on the rest of the afternoon. We didn't leave Eastleigh until 8pm. I dare you to Google 'nairobi after dark'. :) We have now experienced it. Shopping for bed frames at dusk led to probably some of the most amazing shots from the top of the bus... But you'll have to wait to see those. ;)
Being a small group of 3, the team didn't hold back on where we went or what took place. There was no watering down, no holding back, no slowing down and no lack of excitement. This was street gangs, slums and the life of street kids experienced with a wide angle lens. The Real Deal.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Settling In
Picture this:
Dirt paths (really roads) with two hardened tracks from vans and mule carts, not straight but with an obvious destination, intersecting at what appears to be random places at first. Along the roads are some large houses with tile roofs, some tin shacks where families live, a few shops (with self made speed bumps to slow down traffic ... for increased business?) and a variety of goats, a few donkies and cows. Roosters crow and the sound of six pair of boys shoes, tattered mostly, creates a percussive beat in the cool, misty morning. An older boy, Joseph, leads the pace with an obvious sense that if alone, he would be running twice as fast. Following the pack, keeping 'pace', is me - a tall white guy with longer strides that do not match the boys rhythm and are echoed with the sounds of burning lungs. They know it means a slower run, but they love waking me up to come along.
Aside from establishing a morning running routine, we are settling in now that we have our bags and have really started to get to know both the children at the farm and the team members that we are working with. Staying at the boys facility, we see them more often and they eagerly wait for us to return from our tasks at several points in the day. Names are becoming easier to match to the many faces and it is easy to see that these boys who were forced to act like 'men' at such a young age, crave interaction with adults, crave the feeling of being able to be a child amongst elders.
After my run (and without a shower), we ate a quick breakfast and attended chapel with the whole crew of students and team members. Charles gave the team members a very 'on target' talk before class about rules and procedures and encouraged each teacher to be cautious of letting rules 'rule' our environments. Like the pharasies, this becomes dangerous. 'Relationships come first,' he spoke. The Coulston's have done an amazing job at making this facility a well run place. They give appropriate guidance when needed, but leave the program to be run by Mbuvi, a former street kid turned program administrator. Made in the Streets is run not only by Kenyans, but by people who grew up in the street environment and have taken the opportunity to change their lives. They know what they are up against in so many ways. In addition to having the right people in place, the program has an amazing sense of sustainability from the food grown on the farm, to the students cooking their own meals every night, many ways of empowering the kids to take responsibility and support the whole group and the list goes on. Whether this was pre-planned and well thought out or whether it just had to be this way in order to make it work, Made in the Streets empowers kids who have nothing. In addition, the Coulston's both work in the relevance of Christianity in ways that reflect the nature of Christ.
After this afternoon, we have some what of a gameplan which is helping me feel a bit more settled in as well. Tomorrow morning, Darren will observer some classes to assess what areas we can best help the team members, Emily has plans with Darlene (as well as plans to put her experience with teaching tough kids to work in working with the teachers here) and I will be helping Charles weld a pole to extend an antennea in the hopes of establishing communication between a few of the facilities. None of know exactly what we'll be doing, but we know when to show up.
One other intersting note was talking with two older boys, both nineteen, who are not technically in the MITS program but are staying on one of the piecs of property (the 20 acres) for different purposes. Evance ran across MITS serindipitously and Mbuvi saw a sharp kid that could help with the farm and help with the boys. Kennedy was forced out of his home about 1 1/2 hours north of Nairobi during the violence this past December/January after the elections and was able to clarify what has been happening in Kenya between tribes and how many people are being displaced as they are threatened with their lives to leave. Simply because he is of a different tribe, he was chased from his home, spent 3 nights in the forest and was able to get a hold of Mbuvi. If not for Mbuvi's open doors, he very well could be in a displacement camp, truly a humanitarian disaster with people living in tents with very little to eat and nothing to resolve their violent removal from their homes. We get snippets in the U.S. - in fact, we saw CNN at the airport today when getting our bags, reporting on none other than the UFO 'mystery' in Texas?!?! Reporters live at the scene, money spent on 'experts'?! When you see that after driving past a displacement camp filled with thousands of hungry and beat down people, after watching a man high on who-knows-what spinning through a sea of cars in the slums, after seeing men pulling carts stacked with more than a thousand pounds of weight, after hearing the story of a girl who is at MOST 13 years old (probably younger as her feet swing from the chair when sitting) who just had her second baby one week ago while living on the streets... you start to wonder why we think so much of ourselves back home.
Dirt paths (really roads) with two hardened tracks from vans and mule carts, not straight but with an obvious destination, intersecting at what appears to be random places at first. Along the roads are some large houses with tile roofs, some tin shacks where families live, a few shops (with self made speed bumps to slow down traffic ... for increased business?) and a variety of goats, a few donkies and cows. Roosters crow and the sound of six pair of boys shoes, tattered mostly, creates a percussive beat in the cool, misty morning. An older boy, Joseph, leads the pace with an obvious sense that if alone, he would be running twice as fast. Following the pack, keeping 'pace', is me - a tall white guy with longer strides that do not match the boys rhythm and are echoed with the sounds of burning lungs. They know it means a slower run, but they love waking me up to come along.
Aside from establishing a morning running routine, we are settling in now that we have our bags and have really started to get to know both the children at the farm and the team members that we are working with. Staying at the boys facility, we see them more often and they eagerly wait for us to return from our tasks at several points in the day. Names are becoming easier to match to the many faces and it is easy to see that these boys who were forced to act like 'men' at such a young age, crave interaction with adults, crave the feeling of being able to be a child amongst elders.
After my run (and without a shower), we ate a quick breakfast and attended chapel with the whole crew of students and team members. Charles gave the team members a very 'on target' talk before class about rules and procedures and encouraged each teacher to be cautious of letting rules 'rule' our environments. Like the pharasies, this becomes dangerous. 'Relationships come first,' he spoke. The Coulston's have done an amazing job at making this facility a well run place. They give appropriate guidance when needed, but leave the program to be run by Mbuvi, a former street kid turned program administrator. Made in the Streets is run not only by Kenyans, but by people who grew up in the street environment and have taken the opportunity to change their lives. They know what they are up against in so many ways. In addition to having the right people in place, the program has an amazing sense of sustainability from the food grown on the farm, to the students cooking their own meals every night, many ways of empowering the kids to take responsibility and support the whole group and the list goes on. Whether this was pre-planned and well thought out or whether it just had to be this way in order to make it work, Made in the Streets empowers kids who have nothing. In addition, the Coulston's both work in the relevance of Christianity in ways that reflect the nature of Christ.
After this afternoon, we have some what of a gameplan which is helping me feel a bit more settled in as well. Tomorrow morning, Darren will observer some classes to assess what areas we can best help the team members, Emily has plans with Darlene (as well as plans to put her experience with teaching tough kids to work in working with the teachers here) and I will be helping Charles weld a pole to extend an antennea in the hopes of establishing communication between a few of the facilities. None of know exactly what we'll be doing, but we know when to show up.
One other intersting note was talking with two older boys, both nineteen, who are not technically in the MITS program but are staying on one of the piecs of property (the 20 acres) for different purposes. Evance ran across MITS serindipitously and Mbuvi saw a sharp kid that could help with the farm and help with the boys. Kennedy was forced out of his home about 1 1/2 hours north of Nairobi during the violence this past December/January after the elections and was able to clarify what has been happening in Kenya between tribes and how many people are being displaced as they are threatened with their lives to leave. Simply because he is of a different tribe, he was chased from his home, spent 3 nights in the forest and was able to get a hold of Mbuvi. If not for Mbuvi's open doors, he very well could be in a displacement camp, truly a humanitarian disaster with people living in tents with very little to eat and nothing to resolve their violent removal from their homes. We get snippets in the U.S. - in fact, we saw CNN at the airport today when getting our bags, reporting on none other than the UFO 'mystery' in Texas?!?! Reporters live at the scene, money spent on 'experts'?! When you see that after driving past a displacement camp filled with thousands of hungry and beat down people, after watching a man high on who-knows-what spinning through a sea of cars in the slums, after seeing men pulling carts stacked with more than a thousand pounds of weight, after hearing the story of a girl who is at MOST 13 years old (probably younger as her feet swing from the chair when sitting) who just had her second baby one week ago while living on the streets... you start to wonder why we think so much of ourselves back home.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Sleep?? It all looks good on paper...
Em looked at me crazy and Darren turned me down, but I am awake at 3am this morning and 'on track' with my plan!
I figure that we need to be dead tired by the time we get on the plane in London going to Nairobi. It will be 6am when we arrive in Kenya and we will need to be rested, ready for a full day upon departing the airplane. SO, my plan is that getting up now (at 3am on Thursday) will make me tired enough to nap on the way to Atlanta this evening at 5pm, which will give me enough energy to stay awake to London and through the London layover, which will make me dead tired by the time we board the plane to Nairobi.
It all looks good on paper. But so did that rescue of a floating styrofoam ice chest while ON the wakeboard that one time. Speaking of wakeboarding, I'm heading out this morning at 5:30am with my buddy Ryan - not only will it be a gorgeous morning on the water, but that will make me even MORE ready to take a nap and hopefully quench my thirst for riding as the next 3 weeks will mean NO wakeboarding. ;)
It all looks good on paper...
I figure that we need to be dead tired by the time we get on the plane in London going to Nairobi. It will be 6am when we arrive in Kenya and we will need to be rested, ready for a full day upon departing the airplane. SO, my plan is that getting up now (at 3am on Thursday) will make me tired enough to nap on the way to Atlanta this evening at 5pm, which will give me enough energy to stay awake to London and through the London layover, which will make me dead tired by the time we board the plane to Nairobi.
It all looks good on paper. But so did that rescue of a floating styrofoam ice chest while ON the wakeboard that one time. Speaking of wakeboarding, I'm heading out this morning at 5:30am with my buddy Ryan - not only will it be a gorgeous morning on the water, but that will make me even MORE ready to take a nap and hopefully quench my thirst for riding as the next 3 weeks will mean NO wakeboarding. ;)
It all looks good on paper...
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
What Will We Be Doing, You Ask?
Um... Well... We THINK that one thing we will have the opportunity to do will be to work with both kids and faculty on how to teach using their computer facilities. Just like we try to model here in Irving ISD, we've thought about how to walk through some sample lessons that encourage kids to think and that empower them through the use of technology. So, one hope is to use the digital cameras that we're taking to teach a PhotoStory lesson. Something like this:
Thinkfinity PhotoStory Lesson
Overview
Students are introduced to concepts of social justice, such as diversity, tolerance, equity, and equality, through a literary text, class discussions, and guided research. Students plan a service-learning project, then work in small groups using Photo Story software to produce a multimedia presentation designed to foster community support for the project. Students also use the ReadWriteThink.org Printing Press to create informational flyers about the project. The lesson concludes—and the service-learning project begins—with a showing of the Photo Story productions for parents and other community members.
Instructional Plan
Preparation
1. Download Photo Story 3. Familiarize yourself with the Instructions: Using Photo Story 3 to Create Persuasive Slide Shows handout, and practice the steps involved so you can demonstrate the process to students. You may also wish to refer to Create Your First Photo Story. Make a copy of these instructions for students.
2. Bookmark the Persuasion Map and the ReadWriteThink Printing Press on your classroom or lab computers. Familiarize yourself with these tools and be prepared to assist students, particularly if the class has not used them previously.
3. Decide how you will gather images for the Photo Story slide shows and make the necessary arrangements for these activities [e.g., an Internet search for appropriate images (Session 5) or a field trip to take original photos (Session 6)]. If you plan to have students conduct an Internet search, bookmark any search engines and Web directories you would like them to use on your classroom or lab computers (see Search Engines and Web Directories in the Resources section).
... The lesson goes on and on (you can see it on the main page) and it will require some quite obvious modifications. I chuckle thinking about showing these kids a video from street kids in San Diego - considering that they come from the streets of Nairobi. Maybe we could help them make their own video of themselves/their lives?
At any rate, this is really doable with what we'll have access to. I'm curious to see what they will come up with.
Thinkfinity PhotoStory Lesson
Overview
Students are introduced to concepts of social justice, such as diversity, tolerance, equity, and equality, through a literary text, class discussions, and guided research. Students plan a service-learning project, then work in small groups using Photo Story software to produce a multimedia presentation designed to foster community support for the project. Students also use the ReadWriteThink.org Printing Press to create informational flyers about the project. The lesson concludes—and the service-learning project begins—with a showing of the Photo Story productions for parents and other community members.
Instructional Plan
Preparation
1. Download Photo Story 3. Familiarize yourself with the Instructions: Using Photo Story 3 to Create Persuasive Slide Shows handout, and practice the steps involved so you can demonstrate the process to students. You may also wish to refer to Create Your First Photo Story. Make a copy of these instructions for students.
2. Bookmark the Persuasion Map and the ReadWriteThink Printing Press on your classroom or lab computers. Familiarize yourself with these tools and be prepared to assist students, particularly if the class has not used them previously.
3. Decide how you will gather images for the Photo Story slide shows and make the necessary arrangements for these activities [e.g., an Internet search for appropriate images (Session 5) or a field trip to take original photos (Session 6)]. If you plan to have students conduct an Internet search, bookmark any search engines and Web directories you would like them to use on your classroom or lab computers (see Search Engines and Web Directories in the Resources section).
... The lesson goes on and on (you can see it on the main page) and it will require some quite obvious modifications. I chuckle thinking about showing these kids a video from street kids in San Diego - considering that they come from the streets of Nairobi. Maybe we could help them make their own video of themselves/their lives?
At any rate, this is really doable with what we'll have access to. I'm curious to see what they will come up with.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Figuring Out Communications
So, one of the things that I have been trying to 'research' is how to best communicate while in Kenya for almost a month. There isn't a whole lot that I've found, so I'll be sure to post exactly how we go about it when we get there.
The above statement assumes internet connection and it looks like internet cafe's are running about $1 and hour. The unknown is in the connection speed, if we'll be able to connect our Eee PC to wireless and use it (to upload photos and use the webcam) or if we'll be able to use the assumed dial-up connection at the facility. We'll find all that out in just a few days...
Here is our plan for now:
* Take a low-profile, flash drive based computer with Windows XP and 802.11x wireless capabilities. If we can get online with this device (wireless hotspots) we will be able to IM, use the webcam and post entries to the blog. The plan is to use MSN messenger and SKYPE to communicate with folks back home as much as possible.
* Purchase a CelTel cell phone when we get to Nairobi and put some prepaid minute on it (probably $60 worth). I expect the phone to cost about $30 and $60 worth of minutes (with an international calling card) should give us enough for emergency purposes. CelTel has the best coverage in Kenya. I'll also locate a number for the police in Nairobi to have on hand. Having a cell phone will additionally give folks back home a way to call us directly in case of any emergencies.
* Our last means of communication will be through the MITS facility. Located outside of Nairobi, we should have phone access and possible low-speed internet. While we may not be able to post as many pictures as we would like, we should at the very least be able to write.
The above statement assumes internet connection and it looks like internet cafe's are running about $1 and hour. The unknown is in the connection speed, if we'll be able to connect our Eee PC to wireless and use it (to upload photos and use the webcam) or if we'll be able to use the assumed dial-up connection at the facility. We'll find all that out in just a few days...
Here is our plan for now:
* Take a low-profile, flash drive based computer with Windows XP and 802.11x wireless capabilities. If we can get online with this device (wireless hotspots) we will be able to IM, use the webcam and post entries to the blog. The plan is to use MSN messenger and SKYPE to communicate with folks back home as much as possible.
* Purchase a CelTel cell phone when we get to Nairobi and put some prepaid minute on it (probably $60 worth). I expect the phone to cost about $30 and $60 worth of minutes (with an international calling card) should give us enough for emergency purposes. CelTel has the best coverage in Kenya. I'll also locate a number for the police in Nairobi to have on hand. Having a cell phone will additionally give folks back home a way to call us directly in case of any emergencies.
* Our last means of communication will be through the MITS facility. Located outside of Nairobi, we should have phone access and possible low-speed internet. While we may not be able to post as many pictures as we would like, we should at the very least be able to write.
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