My Daily Walk and Other Random Comments

Another Sunday, and another visit to the internet cafe. Unfortunately, today it is mostly for work. I am in the process of doing an initial screening review for about 35 proposals for funding grants for one of the organizations that I just started working with this past week - COMPACT. COMPACT is an environmental group funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) which promotes and funds environmental work in the Mt. Kenya region. I am supposed to have my review completed by tomorrow morning (I got it Friday afternoon!), but there is a lot of information to go through and I don't want a group to have their project rejected because I didn't take the time to carefully review their proposal. The other difficult part is that I haven't had access to a computer until now, so as usual, I'm doing the best I can. It's actually quite interesting to learn what all of these groups are doing and I think it's going to really benefit me in the long run to get to know what all is going on in my area. But right now it is a lot of work. And I still haven't found time to run at site and it is going on four weeks now. I really need to start carving some time out on a daily basis...

In more interesting news, I thought I'd share a little bit about my daily walk to town. I live about two miles north of town just off the main paved road. I say "main paved road" because most roads here are not paved. And those that are are usually in some moderate to advanced state of disrepair. If any of you ever come to visit me, we will go outside my house and stand at the main road, and I guarantee you will be entertained/surprised. There is a long, straight, flat stretch of road going to the north that is not in the best of shape. So, most drivers swerve all over the place, including on and off the road, to avoid the many potholes/patches of missing road. It looks like a long line of cars weaving half-hazardly all over the place when you look at it from a distance. I know I'm probably being culturally insensitive here, but I'm really just stating fact. Also, in Kenya, everywhere is a passing zone, even if there really isn't enough room to pass. I'm actually pretty glad I don't have to ride in a vehicle very often and that I'm not riding a bike, because when you are on the tarmac (i.e., the road), you are definitely taking your life into your hands. Every time I hear a loud and extended honk, I wait to hear the crunching of metal, but so far, I've only seen a lot of near misses - thankfully.

And most people here do not have cars, so there is always a ton of foot traffic on the wide dirt paths on one or both sides of the road. Pretty much any time of day, there is a constant stream of foot traffic to and from town. It's refreshing to see so many people out walking, even if it is out of necessity and not because they just want to walk. Ok, so my walk to town is about two miles, as I said - mostly downhill on the way to and uphill on the way back. There are about 100 little "dukas" - Swahili for "shop/store" - along the way, most of the wooden stand variety. That is, most are a collection of tree branches nailed together with a little thatching or plastic over the top and on the sides and then a large table-top inside where the merchants put all of their goods. Most of these stands sell fruits and vegetables, but some have sweets (i.e., candy) or jeri cans (for hauling water) or other various junk, I mean consumables. I have about 5 or 6 stands that I always stop at on the way home because I know the owners who are really cool and its also a good chance for me to practice my Kiswahili. I'll write another post about the kids here sometime - that topic deserves it's own special place - but the children here are absolutely fascinated by "mzungu" (i.e., white people).

Oh yeah, my walk... so Mt. Kenya is almost always in view for the entire walk, which is pretty sweet. Unfortunately, I am still quite far from the mountain, so I really can't go hiking on the mountain during the weekend even if I wanted to. But I will make it to the top before I leave! I also cross both rivers (the Likii and Nanyuki Rivers) that I'm working with/on, so it's helpful to see the river levels every morning, and there is usually always something going on at the river (i.e., someone illegally taking water out or dumping something in - today I saw a man stop and do his part to "contribute" to the river flow - right in front of a whole group of people, which isn't really that odd here). Then it's on into town, which is getting quite dusty now because it is the beginning of one of the dry seasons here. Whenever a car drives by, there is usually a big cloud of dust and also a black cloud of exhaust in most cases. Air pollution is definitely going to be an issue here as the standard of living goes up and more people get vehicles, but I suppose I'll try to deal with one issue at a time and stick to water issues for the immediate future.

Time to get back to work, catch you all soon!