A Weekend to Remember

This weekend, I had the opportunity to go with the year tens on their class trip to Savage Wilderness for Friday through Sunday. I learned so much, got to know more of the wonderful teachers and students, and experienced both joy with God's beautiful creation and sadness with the tragedies in life.

The bus trip was filled with the beautiful landscapes and people outside. Unfortunately for my non-Kenyan tummy, my body found the heat, humidity different smells and very bumpy roads a bit too much. Lol – at least I set a new personal record for the most motion sick I have been yet even on extra strength gravol! We made it safely there, and I took it easy for the rest of the day, chatting with the teachers and students and trying very hard to learn everyone’s names.

I also got to spend part of the day studying my swahili, which I am still quite terrible at speaking. It's nice to live with Mwema and Jayna who are also just learning though - they are a great encouragement :)

The people working at camp to prepare the food, set things up, etc were just great. I found the different culture a bit tricky to integrate myself into – I wanted to say thank you for the huge amount of work they were doing and chat a bit, but they were very shy around me. I’m not sure how to bridge that gap.

In the evening, the camp had a crazy night walk, but with my stomach still a little queezy and some questionable safety precautions, I decided to be the official photographer instead of coming along. The walk consisted of climbing through mud, thorn brushes, trees, and waist-high water in the dark following a rope… and they went ahead with it even though there was a thunderstorm with lightening not too far away – I was very worried about the kids. In the end, all the kids were fine except a few scrapes, but both the teachers who went got hurt – one got a thorn in his foot, and the other a thorn in his eye, which really worried me. Amazingly, when he went to the hospital on sunday, the doctor found that the thorn had come out naturally when he went swimming on saturday! A very good miracle.

As the sun went down, I touched my very first palm tree - they are nice and smooth. And then noticed that this little fellow was hanging watching the sunset on the palm tree with me :)

I had a nice sleep in a cute tent which kept the rain out well. In the morning, I dragged myself out of bed for breakfast – it’s always hard to get out of bed when it’s rainy. Fortunately, most of our activities were water activities, so the rain didn’t really matter, and it cooled us off nicely on land. We started with rock climbing, which was a fun start to the day. The students were funny – the wall looks very easy from the ground, so some of the boys were bragging about how pro they would be before they tried to climb. Once they started climbing, they got a little scared and found the wall to be much more difficult than it appeared. They all had fun though and encouraged each other well to brave the heights. There was enough time for teachers to climb too which was nice.

The camp reminded me in many ways of Wesley Acres and Camp Iawah. It was actually quite interesting - there are many similarities to Canada, but at the same time differences. The fireflies that wink around the camp at night remind me of home, and many of the games that the kids played were familiar. Of course the vegetation is different, and "Old man Savage" has built many unique things around the camp - for example, he powers the camp entirely with a water generator he made himself and he designed and built an impressively long suspension bridge across the river. He's crazy smart and also just a little crazy... he was so funny to raft with! Below is a photo for Dave and Dad to start designing a generator :)

So, I have concluded that all of you, my fabulous friends and family, need to experience Kenya – pictures and stories really can’t do it justice. You have to be in the middle of the beautiful nature and people travelling on a river or even just down a very bumpy road to really understand. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this beautiful river or roads - another reason why you all must come and visit. After lunch, we took a short bus ride a few kilometers upstream of the campsite. Then we walked through beautiful fields to the river. It’s funny to see how differently the students perceive things – they found our walk a real drag – they thought walks were boring. But for a newcomer, it was so beautiful to see the rolling hills, the people out working in their fields, the goats and cows being herded by, the lovely trees, flowers, and rich red mud. Another teacher told me it reminded him of his childhood, and I could absolutely picture how much fun it would be to run around in those fields for a kid.

After a bit, we got to the river, and received a little lesson on how to paddle in a raft. Then in we hopped, and started down the river. It was so much fun to paddle hard, then hold on for dear life as we came crashing through the rapids. I’m guessing that’s how I got all these random bruises on my knees, but I was having too much fun at the time to even notice. There were many mini-waterfalls – I was in the front of the boat, and went completely underwater. At the end of one set of rapids was a nice waterfall, and after going down it, we paddled back underneath the water four or five times until all of us had lost our paddles and fallen off the raft completely. The water was opaque and muddy, so we were warned not to try to swim to the surface, since we wouldn’t be able to tell where the surface is, so I just held my breath. It amazed me how far down the river I travelled underwater in the few seconds before my lifejacket brought me to the surface – the water moves you so fast. We all swam to the shore, and the man steering the raft picked us up to continue on.

In the calmer parts of the river, we floated slowly and watched the beautiful landscapes go by. People living on the shores in simple but functional homes had boats made of three simple planks of wood attached together. They were using their boats to carry sticks across the river – I wonder what they thought of the ridiculous crew intentionally going over the rapids. Others were bathing in the river. Some kids were just playing and watching us go by or herding goats by the side of the water.

Also, during the quiet parts of the river, we got to see so many amazing birds. There was an all black bird with bright orange feet and a lime green beak. Up in the tree tops were lime green doves. Soaring above us were beautiful eagles. White spotted cormorants swam in the river with us. Almost every tree that overhung the river was full of these sweet little nests of grass that hung so delicately from the branches. Inside them living beautiful yellow birds with a bit of red around their beaks. It helped that one of the teachers along is an ornithologist, so he taught me the names of all these birds, though I’ve forgotten most of them already – grrrr to my memory.

At the bottom of the next set of rapids was a beautiful and huge waterfall. We didn’t go over of course – there was a gentler rapids around the falls, but at the bottom we paddled up as close to the water as we could, which was not easy with the force of the water and the spray. It was phenomenal to see so much amazing red brown water (it’s coloured by the red dirt). All the mist formed a beautiful double rainbow that cover over half a circle in front of us. So incredibly gorgeous. We got out on a nearby rock, and I just sat and watched the waterfall while the students swam in the river there for a bit.

When our rafting trip finally had to come to an end, we showered and got dressed for dinner. The evening activity was a brilliant move on behalf of the camp – they had a scavenger hunt, that involved the kids basically just cleaning up the camp. I went with the girls, and we had a lot of fun together. . They were starting to warm up to me a bit more. Afterwards was the task to design and egg protecting contraption, and I fear for the future of engineering… lol. I switched tents with one of the teachers because his tent was very small, and headed for a much needed bed.

This morning, I met termites - they are quite amazing! They are very excited and fly all over the place, and shed their wings in a few hours. Then they tunnel into the ground for the next phase of their life. Here's one little guy:

Also on our last day, I got to go kayaking with the students, and I got to share a bit of Canadian culture with them! They were complaining that the kayaks were soooo heavy, so I told them that in Canada, we carry canoes which are much heavier than the little whitewater kayaks we were using for several kilometers to portage between lakes. They were of course just trying to carry the kayak with their arms, not on their shoulders, so they didn’t know how much easier it is to balance a boat on your shoulders than it is to lift it with your arms. So they were in shock that their short white teacher could carry something bigger than a kayak – a good laugh.

Finally, before we went home, the camp had all the students draw a giant picture all together about what they will take away. It wasn’t working at first – the students were tired and hesitant to put anything on the paper. So I got to apply a bit of what I learned at Sharbot Lake! I sat down at the table with them, and started to draw the student across from me. She was shy at first, but by the time the camp told us to stop drawing, nearly the whole table was engaged in drawing or encouraging each other to draw, and they shouted “No, give Miss more time – she’s drawing me”. It’s exciting to see how the same teaching strategy that my Sharbot Lake associate taught me can work in a completely different culture with students who couldn’t be more opposite from my Sharbot Lake kids.

The way home was a very tragic trip. The roads here are very dangerous, especially for the pedestrians, cyclists and people who ride in the Matatus. Our school bus drove by a terrible incident that the police were just arriving at. A man was lying across the middle of the road – he had just been hit by a Matatu on his bicycle, and he didn’t have a helmet. I don’t know if he was alive or severely injured. But the speeds on the highway are very fast, and nearly all the Matatus I have seen drive way faster than would be safe. It was an awful tragic scene that I don’t think I will be able to forget.