The Sad Side of Phnom Penh

Cambodia is on the rise, picking itself up and with world interest in Angkor Wat, Siem Reap seems to be much seedier in this process then the capital. Phnom Penh has the gruesome sites to offer, the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and the notorious S-21 prison. Both of these moving monuments to the Cambodians slaughtered under the Khmer Rouge rule are worth seeing.

The Choeung Ek Killing Fields are located about 15km outside of the capital and were associated with the S-21 prison. In the center of the field stands a white temple dedicated to the 17,000 men, women and children who were executed on these grounds with over 8000 skulls on display. The skulls are stacked in age groups and by gender. Quite a few had obvious bullet wounds, machete marks or just signs of blunt trauma showing the brutal way these people were executed. All the people found in over 100 mass graves here were murdered between 1975 and 1978, not a very long time for so many atrocities. Not all he graves have been unearthed, I think the point has been made with what was found and the rest will be left in peace. The mass graves were somewhat organized in gruesome ways, decapitated bodies in one, children in another most with clothing stripped but as you walk around the grounds clothing is still coming to the surface along with other human remains. There are so many bones in this area and the country is still so poor that the remains are merely stacked on a little shrine, it is the best they can do. One of the larger trees was used to to beat woman with children because the loud speakers were placed int he tree and it muffled the crying of the children. It is just such a confusing place to walk around, there is no way to understand why these people would turn on their own in such a unforgivable way. The memorial is a somber place as we wander around and the mounds of dirt and the shallow graves surround you, everywhere you look.

We then headed back into town and the tuk tuk ride was helpful in digesting at least some of what we saw. This time we were heading off to the notorious S-21 prison, where prisoners were sent to wait to be taken out to Choeung Ek. The Tuol Sleng Museum started out as a high school and later had two additional buildings added for a primary school. But after the Khmer Rouge drove everyone out of the city the school was no longer of use and it was converted into Security Prison 21, known as S-21.

The museum today is set up to show the deplorable conditions the inmates suffered, small rooms held shackled prisoners with 20-30 people attached to the same 6 meter long bar. The guards at the prison were made up of children recruited by the KR. It was reported that the children were some of the cruelest and least forgiving in the KR army. The KR claimed to have a medical service but this too was run by children who had no medical knowledge. The people were kept for months in the prison before being sent off to the killing fields and most often whole families would be locked up, with the exception of small children and babies. The guards did not like the crying of small children and babies so most were ripped from their mother's arms and brutally smashed against the walls until dead.

Over the few years that the KR regime was in power and operating this prison it is thought that 17,000 people were incarcerated in S-21. Out of all of them, and most historians believe this number to be on the conservative side, there were only 12 survivors! The mug shots of so many people are on display of all social, economic and ethnic backgrounds. If you happened to be in Phnom Penh in 1975 regardless of who you were or where you were from you most likely ended up there. One of the saddest parts was the high security, there was no where for these people to go even if they did escape seen as the whole country was swarming with spies people couldn't help others. All the floors above the ground level had fine wire mesh so that people could not commit suicide and would have to wait for the KR to decide when they would die.

There are so many other things we saw and read in this place but it is just all too much to write about. The prison was horrible, beyond imagination, even the things we saw we couldn't understand. But it is an important step for the country and they are moving on, amazing as it might seem. In one of the guide books it stated that Cambodia has a booming birth rate and even factoring in the increase in birth 1 in 3 Cambodian people are still directly affected by Pol Pot's regime. Over 200,000 people were killed in a country that only had a population of 800,000 at the time. The people go about their jobs and every now and then you would hear something, as our waitress mentioned how hard it was to find food under Pol Pot one day when we were chatting after lunch and another time our waitress was chatting she said her Uncle had moved to the US but she thinks he is dead now because he doesn't write and neither do his kids. Such a weird comment for me to hear. If one of you don't write for a long while, or vice verse, death is not what I think of first. I think my friends/family are busy and we'll catch up later. Such a different way of thinking for someone who lives in a country where so many people just stopped hearing from people and they did end up being dead.

So this was the Sad Side of Phnom Penh. Please still visit Cambodia it was an amazing place! The markets, the fried bugs, the BBQ tarantulas, the other animals we couldn't even recognize the sights and smells were truly Cambodian and all together so beautiful.

Cambodia

How such a place can hold such beautiful and devastating histories is hard to fully grasp, but it has long been a spot on the map I have wanted to visit, and Yancy was a good sport to agree to return.

Again trying to be frugal we waited till out month long visa was about to expire and found the cheapest flight from Bangkok to Cambodia. It ended up in our favor seen as Siem Reap was much more expensive we had the chance to visit Phnom Penh as well. Another travel tip, Air Asia, is the low cost Thai carrier and they fly all over. They have the same open seats as Ryan Air so sit close to the door at the gate and you get an early pick of seat and you can save a lot of money flying around Asia.

Phnom Penh is a large city, larger than it feels. I think this is because big cities normally have tall buildings, this one doesn't, there are many short buildings most 2-3-4 stories. There are a few taller but they are the anomaly. The tourist section is focused on the bank of the Tongle Sap river, also in this area are most of the temples, palaces and other sights of interest.

The city is home to the Royal Palace very close in style to that of Thai palaces this one, however, is still used as the royal residence of King Sihamoni. Being an actual home it is only partially opened to show off it's gorgeous gardens...make sure to check opening times if you want to visit. Our views were only from the outside as it closes for siesta.

The major roundabout in the city circles the Independence Monument. This originally was the monument dedicated to Cambodia's Independence from France but has since become a memorial to those who have died under Pol Pot and those referred to as Cambodia's war dead. Under the gate was a large memorial similar to the eternal flame monuments found around the world.

The temple area to be seen in Phenom Penh is the Wat Phnom, located on a hill in the middle of the city. Legend has it that the Wat was built in the 1300's to house four Buddha statues. The four statues were brought to the city by the river and washed up on the shore. The statues were dscovered by a woman named Pehn, and that is how the city got its name. Phnom Penh, the capital's name, literally means Hill of Pehn. As you walk up to the temple there is a huge clock on the base of the hill, a little out of place I think but this is a country where past and present are constantly interacting. The grounds around the pagoda are gorgeous and in typical tourist trap fashion there is a few elephants wandering around to give rides.

The city is on the shore of the Tonle Sap river that flows all the way to the Tonle Sap Lake. After arriving very early in the day we decided to go see the floating village that is on the Lake. The lake feeds and houses two groups of people the Camboians and the Vietnamese. The Cambodians live in thatch sided and roofed houses built on stilts running the entire road to the lake. The lake levels vary dramatically from wet to dry season so sometimes they are on the shore and sometimes they are a good 20 minute drive down the dirt road to the lake edge. The Vietnamese live on the lake in floating houses. We took a tour of the lake on a long boat and were able to see floating schools, hospitals, homes and businesses. The lake was full of people, everywhere you looked. Mum's would motor their little boat up to ours and the kids would swing aboard with sodas, water and snacks for sale. The kids were tiny but savy business people already, knowing how cute they were and that people would want to take their picture they posed for a dollar. We boated to the center of the lake to see a catfish and aligator farm (use that term loosely) and found fish that would go absolutely crazy for food.

In need of some relaxation

I can see all of you guys rolling your eyes and heaving that collective sigh, perhaps even saying "yeah right!" So maybe we are in the middle of a huge relaxing period but you even need a break from that now and then, or atleast we are going to stick to that line of thinking. So in search of new views and a new town we headed for Hua Hin.

Hua Hin is a short bus ride from Bangkok, so opting for the cheapest way to get there we boarding the "express" bus and headed down the country. We think there are the regular paying customers, like us, who check in at the government station and pay the full fare for the full ride and then there is everyone else. This bus stopped at every little bus stop and then at almost every corner on the way down. The trip could have been a lot shorter but it was really the noise that drove us nuts! The bus was equipped with a really loud air horn, that the driver loved to us. Problem was, it sounded like it was pointed into the bus not outwards so every bus stop, random motorbike or ven when there was no one around us the bus driver felt the need to HONK HONK HONK! Travel tip, use these cheap buses in Thailand, they are great cheap ways to travel but buy ear plugs first and don't sit in the front seat unless you have to, the middle and back are bit quieter.

Anyways...Hua Hin, we arrived and found a cheap guesthouse. Then we walked around and found out our cheap guesthouse wasn't cheap...not expensive but we shouldn't take the first one, lesson learned. The area has long been the vacation spot for the Royal Thai family and is known for being the tidiest town in Thailand, just incase the King wants to pop down for the weekend.

We managed to whittle away our vacation with long walks on the beach, strolling through thte winding streets of the little beach town, watching kite boarders (I was attacked by a kite board, not reccomended), and wandering through the night markets and bar areas.

Walking the entire length of the beach we ended up at a 30 foot tall, golden, statue of the Chinese Goddess of Mercy. She is in the traditional pose with the palms together gesture, the wai., overlooking the sea.

On our last day wanting to do something different we found a bowling alley complete with private kareoke rooms. While I have been sad that I have trouble up-loading our videos so far, this time I am pretty happy that I can't. We came out of there with some funny pictures and pretty horrendous video!

Last Day of Safari

The last day of the safari was pretty much a bust for animals but the scenery that morning was beautiful. Even the “planted” giraffes and zebras were gone. But when we went further in the park we saw an amazing site, two lions sunning themselves in the early rays of the morning. One was sitting on a grassy knoll and looked liked a scene out of National Geographic. He was beautiful, and you know then why they are called the king of the jungle, he was spectacular. The rest of the trip was hot a cramped back to Nairobi but here are some parting shots of that beautiful lion.

All Day Safari

We were up early to be able to see some of the animals before the heat of the day. The plan was to cover a huge amount of the park today and crossing our fingers see some lions. But the start of the day turned out even better. The leopard is one f the big five most people miss when they come to Africa, it is a hard animal to find and when you do it is normally very shy. It was amazing and we were luckier than most.

The leopard had killed a wart hog and drug it up into the tree. It had left its breakfast for the surrounding bushes and then came the mass of safari tourists. The vans were all parked in between the leopard and his kill and he was sitting, watching and waiting. The animal was very shy and hid most of the time but we were able to see it pretty good and with the help of the other cameras in our van get a few very good looks.The poor wart hog was only half left in the tree and was dangling between a few limbs and although it was a little gory it was amazing to see how this leopard had drug its kill up into the tree to eat it.

Driving around all the gazelles and other deer type animals were every where. It is sad that on the first evening we were exciting by every possible animal but by the end of this full day we would be disappointed when we saw a brown speck on the hill, go to check it out and it was a deer...how spoiled!

Driving through the park there are so many elephants. The African elephant is so much larger than the Asian elephant we are used to seeing and it was beautiful to run into the herds of the females and their young. A few times we saw herds as large as 30 elephants. They all moved slow and spent all of their time eating. They would stroll across the grasslands pulling up grass as they went and snacking the whole day. Of course the absolute cutest ones were the young trailing behind their mother elephants.

One of the easiest ways to make sure you see all the good sites is to look on the horizon and see where all the other safari vans have stopped and are grouping up. You know at that point something must be here and if they stay a while you know it is good. This was how we found our first lions.

There were two lions just sitting in the shade trying to stay cool in the hot African morning. The two males were a little small but also a little rough looking, the driver told us that they were old. These guys were also playing hard to photograph but we stayed for quite a while and got some good shots. It is hard to tear yourself away when there is a male lion just feet from your van. But again nothing really seemed to bother them. I am sure they have seen millions of tourists in these same safari vans day after day but for each of the tourists we never see lions. So the lions were happy enough to put up with us. Then one got fed up and walked away but he came right for the nose of our van and took a sharp left, it was so amazing to see him that close up.

Driving across the grasslands of the park it is amazing the amount of interaction between species as well as the remains of encounters between predator and prey. There were a lot of vultures flying around circling carcasses as well as entire skeletons laying out in the sun where a water buffalo had been taken down. By no means am I summoning any Elton John songs for you but the circle of life was apparent everywhere we went.

The next part of the day was by far our favorite part of the whole safari, the watering hole. The bend in the Masai River was where we were going to see crocodiles, hippos and have lunch. Now most people who know my family know how much Joan loves hippos so I was very excited to take some photos for her, but I never thought that they would also be my favorite part of the whole trip!

We pulled up to the watering hole and at there was a group of tourist vans, and a group of game wardens. Now each of these game wardens carry guns and are there to protect the visitors. Seen as most people do not jump in the river they take this opportunity to "teach" the visitors and hope they want to offer up some cash. The game warden who came up to us explained that the nocturnal hippos come out and graze in the near by grasslands and head back to the water in the morning. It is their job to sweep the area and make sure that all the hippos go back to the water so that we can come and watch them. Once they are all in the river opens for tourists.

The hippos are very territorial and there were three main groups we could see at the bend. The group on the far right side had a few smaller crocs intermixed in their group but I guess the crocodiles know better than to attack a hippo. Only when their food supply gets really low will they gang up and try to take a very young hippo.

The best part was the baby hippo. The warden said it was less than one month old. Yancy saw the tiny ears popping out of the water and was always next to a very large hippo. Finally after a long time of watching the little ears it seemed to be swimming to the edge. The baby hippo was head butting against it's mother's bum trying to push her out of the water. The baby hippo would then open up its mouth very wide as if taunting the other hippos, play fighting. But as soon as one of the hippos would come out of the water, or even to the waters edge it would hid underneath the mother's belly.

The hippos played the whole time in the water, play fighting should I say. It looked as if they were quite aggressive but the warden told us it was a daily routine.

The only time the warden ever had to shoot a hippo was when a drunk Chinese tourist came and was messing about on the side of the river and fell in. How horrible! The warden said that he was really angry at that man because he loves the hippos so much. But no matter how cute that baby looked they are mean when you get in a tangle with one. The warden also said not to be fooled by their huge size and that they are slower in the water than on land, they can charge and chase you down if you are bothering them or their young while they are grazing.

This migration turned out to be pretty disastrous for thousands of Wildebeasts. The river that they cross was extremely high this year and when they tried to walk across the current was too strong and thousands drowned in the process. By the time we got there, a few weeks after the migration period, most of the carcasses had been washed down river but on some of the banks the water level has dropped and there are piles of carcasses being eaten by a variety of vulture and vulture like birds.

The next stop on our leg was Tanzania. The Masai Mara is the Kenyan side of the park and the Tanzanian side is the Serengeti. The migration is between these two park as one is always green and lush while the other dries out for a few months. We were not too far behind the migration but there were still plenty of animals to be seen. The only marker between the two parks is the well driven road, ruts and all, shuffling the tourists over, is a three sides stone pillar which of course we crossed in order to walk from Tanzania to Kenya for the photo op. So now there is another country to add to my list which erks Yancy.

After lunch we had strolled into the hottest point of the African day and so the animals were all in hiding keeping cool. The only animals dumb enough to be out in the heat of the mid day were humans...go figure.

The next few hours were spent at the airport, rather airstrip, in the middle of the Masai. Another tourist was coming in just for the evening and following morning, a Japanese tourist who, it turns out, came all the way to Kenya for 3 days! What a long trip for such a short amount of time! While there we watched a group of Italian tourists dressed to the nines in their Dolce and Gabana, YSL, Armani etc outfits waiting for their plane. Plane ended up having a flat so they bordered, disembarked, waiting and boarded again. It was my first time ever seeing a plane get a tire change, and it was pretty much the same as a car. The pilot came off and cranked one tire off, the nicely dressed stewardess stood in her heels in the shade of the wing, a few more men went over to help, tire off, next one on and off they were rich tourists and all.

The last bit of the day was looking at animals for the Japanese tourist it was fun being excited again about animals we had become blase about. Good thing for him the Canadian on our van worked in Japan and was fluent in Japanese. But just as we were about to pack it in for the day we found a couple of lionesses resting. They are the ones that do all the work, raise the young, hunt, etc and the males only come around to eat and mate. While not as majestic as the males they sure were mean looking but so beautiful.

On Safari

So we had made it to Nairobi, and not a half hour after making it to the YMCA was the "results" of the election in and Kibaki was sworn in...so things were going to get worse. Nairobi had been pretty much shut down and supplies were already low seen as none of the shops were opening. We took the advice of our receptionist and headed for a lovely Cuban bar in the richer side of town and decided that we would get out of Nairobi and start off on a safari the very next day.

The next morning we met our tour office lady and was taken downtown, the streets were empty except for tourists. In a city that is normally bustling with people and activities and where the fair skin tourists stick out like sore thumbs...this day that was all there was. We hoped in the van with a Canadian, and two Danes. Then we headed across town and picked up a Swiss couple and we were off.

The trip follows the same road over looking the Rift Valley and down the escarpment but it was still amazing to see. The roads were OK, then not so good and by the time we were close to the park the roads were ridiculous in places. Apparently our van had been on back to back safaris and hadn't rested in 11 days so it wasn't all that shocking when it over heated and we got the chance to relax under some trees on the side of the road in the middle of who knows where.

We drove by tons of Masai villages and saw the people in the traditional wraps and they are still using thorn bushes as fencing to keep the nastier animals out while keeping their sheep in. The mud huts and lack of any technology was amazing, I say that and quietly wonder if their cell phone is in that traditional looking bag of theirs! It wouldn't surprise me.

Once we got to our camp and chatted for a bit with others who were a day ahead of us on the safari route we packed back up and headed out for an evening ride, our first safari. You can enter the Masai Mara through a few gates, named for their location in relation to the camp we entered in the eastern gate, Olodlaimutia Gate.

Right as you enter the gate there were giraffes, almost like they were planted, it felt like an open air, drive through zoo. But then things got a whole lot better...

The zebras seem to mix with most of the other animals (excluding cats, of course) and here they were grazing happily intermixed with Wildebeast and Taupe gazelles. We caught glimpses of Thompson gazelles and small foxes. The park itself is gorgeous even without animals in the shot and it seems to go on forever. Then we pulled up right next to a Cheetah, which the driver said was quite rare, only more rare was the leopard. But this guy really didn't seem to impressed with us. We drove around and tried to get a good shot but I guess he was a bit camera shy because no matter what the angle we tried he would crane his neck in the other direction.

After the amazing cat siting we drove on, up and down hills over the grassy areas till we found a grouping of giraffes grazing on the very large shrub. Both male and females in the grouping and we were told that the darker ones were males.

The lighting was perfect for the more advanced photographers but it made the park gorgeous! The drive was only for a few hours but we were able to see plenty of more gazelles, ostriches and even female elephants with their young. What an amazing day, to actually see these animals as we normally see them on the Discovery Channel. It was amazing how close our driver would park from these animals and it really didn't seem to bother them at all.

We headed back to camp and prepared for ringing in the New Year. The camp was bustling with about six groups of safaris and everyone was excited for the Cheetah sitting but stories of lion cubs and other cat sightings were all the chatter.

Dinner was served and a skinned goat was in the tree for later in the evening, closer to the strike of midnight. Most of the tourists in this camp were European and had brought bottles of their own booze. So we sat around the camp fire as they started the celebration and we were going to be entertained by a group of Masai warriors. The dancing they preformed were for various rites of passage in a Masai's life: killing a lion, circumcision, marriage etc. The last dance, the marriage dance, the Masai chose all the woman sitting around the fire and were asked to dance with them, so maybe I have a Masai husband now, who knows? They put their cloth on us and WOW that thing needed a good scrub but it was very fun.

After the dancing was done they hung out in camp and they liked the booze being offered to them from the Europeans, they took turns at the coffee cup which was filled with everything from Jack Daniels to a Hungarian schnapps that tastes like jet fuel. Yuck! But these guys really liked it.

Then it was nearing the hour. Only problem was we had oodles of cell phones, and a few watches all with different times so we chose 3 "official" clocks and counted down all three times. This way we figured we must have hit it sometime. Then it was time for bed so we could be up at the crack of dawn looking for animals.

There are just too many pictures to put in here so all of the Safari pics will be at: http://picasaweb.google.com/jacquelineenyart

Getting Out Anyway We Can

Four days after the election, according to NTV news the votes were still not counted, rigged ballot boxes were found, and polling station managers had gone missing it was a mess! The people in the Rift Valley are for Raila, ODM party and he was wining by over a million votes then that morning the lead was down to 20,000...suspicious to say the least!

Yancy and I wanted to check out other parts of Kenya and try to go on Safari for a few days so we opted for the bus to save money…thinking we could splurge a bit more later on. We had booked tickets on the night bus back to Nairobi the night before because it would be cooler, and we could sleep for the 10 hour ride and hopefully I would not get as car sick, and the smell might not be as bad, BO and heat is horrible! So in the morning two of the people we had met took the 8am bus as one was flying out the next day. The compound got a call that they had been stopped about half and hour out of town there were road blocks set up by the people (not official in any way) and the bus was waiting. Then an update later that they were moving on. A while later someone called them and they had made it up to the next little village a huge road block was up and people came on the bus with stones told them they were going to stone them to death. Then they pulled them off the bus and smacked them around a bit. Finally they got back on the bus and were waiting for a police escort and about 20 hours later they did make it to Nairobi...shaken but safe.

So we were on the night bus and we were waiting to decide if we would go. We asked Kenyans, other white people who have lived there and the bus company about a million times and they all thought that the bus would be safer at night. The thought was that rioters would be sleeping and it would be safer. No one had any idea when this would get any better and we thought if the violence got worse, and all signs pointed to that, we weren't sure how or when we would get out. So we got on the bus with only Kenyans...all the tribes who were on the side of fighting, but our bus driver was Kikuyu...ODM supporters have turned there frustrations on those innocent tribe members.

So we were driving and there were branches in the roads and tension was high on the bus, people were nervous. Then smoldering ashes in the road and the bus driver chugged along. Then in the distance was some boulders set up as a block with a strip of shacks on either said with just one person standing on their makeshift sidewalk. The bus driver waited, and another man from the back came up to make suggestions and then we were off, foot to the floor and off the road, I swore we were going to tip getting off the pavement (and I use the term pavement loosely). The guy threw some stones but we were out over it. People were happy there was clapping and we kept going. We get to the next make shift road block, a BIG fire in the road with a few guys both side throwing stones and again we plowed threw. Third was an oil fire on the road and I thought we were going to run over the guy who was standing in the middle of the road trying to stop us, and I think I would have honestly been OK had we done it, it was pretty bad by that point.

We made it to Eldoret a scheduled stop about an hour from Kitale, and it was supposed to be a quick stop to pick up others. The driver stalled and we waited a few hours. Finally he told us that we were waiting for the bus to come from Nairobi, if they made it through then it would be a sign that it was safe for us to go. So we waited while he went up to a hotel (another loose term) and slept. At 4am the Nairobi bus came, then another and another about seven in total and we honked the loud bus horn, people went up to the room, he refused to come down.

I had made a few bad choices earlier in the trip that made this night unbearable and I had a full on mental breakdown at about 2am. Poor Yancy woke up to me sobbing but I just couldn’t stop between the stress and the chapters of books I had spent the previous weeks reading were going through my head. I had decided to read some really fascinating books about the violence in Africa, Eastern Africa to be specific and how it had turned on Aid workers, missionaries etc. The innocent who were there helping had become soft targets and easy to attack…great books, interesting read….HORRIBLE TIMMING on my part!

By 10am the bus company had been open a few hours and people were tired which quickly turned into pissed, the bus company let us get 1 hour from Kitale, where we all had places to stay and they never mentioned sleeping on a bus to wait, nothing! And yet there we were but the driver was nowhere to be found. We were left on the side of the road, we had driven into the epicenter of violence and left! Of course people were pissed.

Finally he came out people were pissed and he said he was scared for his life to drive on, actually that was fair, but why drive us from a safe city to one of the epicenters!?!? He drove us about 100 feet down the road to the police station and we were told that we would be waiting for a police escort to the next area and we would hop back to Nairobi trading in escorts at each districts police station.

The police station was full of everyone waiting for escorts and not a whole lot of police doing much of anything. After a few hours of being left alone and not really knowing the situation Yancy and his chatty self found a safari car full of Norwegians. I thought we had a pretty bad night but then we met them! You never would have known it though, Yancy met them juggling in the open area in front of the police station just waiting patiently to get out of Eldoret, this group of guys impressed me! They had been robbed and surrounded by a group of 300 men with fire, knives, stones etc. They held the windows shut and sat a prayed they said. They thought it was all over. It was a missionary and his 4 friends who had just arrived in Kenya that day to visit him! Two of the guys visiting are in the Norwegian Special Forces and they said it was the scariest situation they have ever dealt with. Their driver got them out of it by paying off the meanest, angriest looking in the bunch with 17,000 Shillings, about 300$. They had gotten a flight out of Eldoret and were waiting for a police escort. They gave us the number of their travel guy who got us tickets too and they let us hop a ride with them. For being almost killed they were hilarious and fun people.

So, taking advantage of high paying westerners, two random police guys get in the car with us armed with grenades, smoke bombs and their high powered rifles. We drove along the main road towards the airport then a person on the side of the road told us that there was a road block so off we went on the longer but dirt and bumpier roads. There were a bunch of road blocks there too but we got around them after stopping at some random house and piling another person into this over crowded van who hopefully knew the safe way. Finally, we got to the airport, Yancy goes for a soda...no drinking for me I was still pretty shaken up...my nerves are not Scandinavian! And the Norwegians pull out their juggling balls and proceed to wait, just hang out! I got all our tickets and we said our “thank yous” and exchanged numbers and we were off.

We made it...the plane ride was the bumpiest, hottest ride ever...I was holding on to my puke bag and so were others. But I kept telling myself it was better then the bus. And after our hour up there everyone got off, we were happy but kinda green looking! We made it. And the next day took off for our Safari.

Turns out we had gotten the last two tickets out that day. The other airline that services Eldoret had canceled some of their flights so people were on stand by waiting but somehow the man on the phone got us ahead of the rest and we were able to get out. By the time we arrived in Nairobi NTV was reporting that domestic air travel was being shut down, we were really lucky!

Boxing Day in Kiminnini

The day after Christmas we headed out of Kitale to Kiminini, where the children’s home is located. We had been out once before to visit, meet the kids and check to see Todd’s progress on the new home. Yancy bought a couple of bags of lollipops to hand out to kids on the side of the roads along the way. A couple other people from another missionary group who work with the same group of kids wanted to come out plus the Kenyan child living in the house we were staying at, so the six of us loaded in the car with the kids Christmas presents and took off for the next village over.

The kids along the side of the road noramlly wave, stick out their hand or yell “muzungo” (white person) as we drive past. But when Yancy started tossing out lollipops there were some squeals of excitement and running towards their candies as they dropped on the road. It was a little frustrating that sometimes the adults who were around would take them instead so he became a bit pickier about the groups he tossed to but they were very excited to have some candy.

The kids come running when Todd’s green car shows up and this time was the same except for one girl, Jackie. They had tied Jackie to the tree and she was moving her feet and lunging at the car but still stuck to that tree.

When we go there, and when we played with the kids at the Christmas party there is a lot of sitting on laps and cuddling with the kids. Trying to talk to them with their little English and the tiny bit of Swahili some knew wasn’t too successful but everyone seems to have a good time. The kids are all about being on someone’s lap or playing, being chased so it is fun to visit with them. On this visit I played with a bunch of the kids but Johnston decided to sit on my lap and cuddle then collect the used lollipop sticks, for what I will never know, but it seemed important so that was what we did.

The women from Todd’s parent’s church in Libby, MT had made each of the kids kitted winter hats and tied fleece blankets and enclosed a card wishing them a Merry Christmas. We had the fun job of playing Santa and passing out the gifts, helping a few of them read the cards and convincing a few it was more fun to rip the packages open rather then carefully unwrap the gifts. Each of the kids loved them and even though it was 80F that day the kids put on their hats and wrapped themselves in their new blankets. It was pretty adorable!

About then a few kids came to the fence to look over and see what the children were getting and they were so dirty and small and sad looking so Yancy went over to give them a lollipop each and they took them and popped them into their mouths, wrappers and all. Yancy helped them out by opening the wrapper and trying again, they really liked the candy!!!

While in Kitale we met two groups of missionary workers who live on the same compound and work in tandem with each other and our friend Todd. Together they were throwing a Christmas Party for three orphanages with a holiday feast and presents. Yancy and Todd had worked on rebuilding a tree house that was rotted out on the compound grounds and were finishing it as the kids drove up.

The three homes came and each had dressed up in their new Christmas outfits, the girls in new party dresses and boys in button up shirts. This had absolutely no effect on the playing they would do. The girls hitched up their dresses and kept up with the biys climbing up and down the tree house, kicking the soccer ball, playing teeter totter and anything else that was available.

Jackie, and her twin brother Mulago, whose name literally means "twin" were hamming it up and stealing the show like they normally do.

The tree house was a major success and I have never seen so many kids go down a slide over and over again running as fast as they could to jump back in line, Yancy and Todd kept teasing that if the slide survives this day and we have no injuries we would be lucky. Their hard work was really appreciated by the kids, the slide was really the hit of the party.

Yancy’s other project he had tried to get going was a zip line. It wasn’t too successful when it was tried before the party because of the low quality of pulley and wires available. But the line was never taken down. Well with the light weight Kenyan kids it worked a little better and before long they climbed up the tree and were trying it too. It was too bad but the cheap aluminum pulley wore right through and that was the end of the zip line.

After that we had lunch and it is shocking how much these small kids can put down at a meal. They are all smaller than normal due to mal nourishment but their plates were heaping and all gone when I helped collecting plates after the meal!

The cake song came next. One of the homes in particular are very musically inclined and sing often. They sang as they drove through the gate and unloaded from their van, during the party and afterwards. The house mother started to sing as she cut up the cake and everyone was clapping and singing and then one by one she had each of the westerners come up and fed us a square of cake then each of the house mothers and then children. It was a nice gesture although I didn’t fully understand the whole situation it was really kind.

The rest of the pictures are coming soon, hopefully. The majority of the pictures were taken by Amanda who is with Transformed International, one of the missionary groups. We hope to get a few of her pictures as they turned out really well. So check back on the picasa site later, the kids are so cute, it will be worth looking at.

On our way to Kenya

We got a lift to Sevilla station boarded the AVE and off we were. It was Yancy’s first time on a high speed train and it was much better then the TGV I remember, granted that was a ways back. We arrived in Madrid and after being completely taken by a hotel we took off the next morning for Doha.

Yancy found his way to his old apartment building and once inside started knocking on doors, some answered some did not. One of the first to answer wasn’t anyone he knew. He had only lived there a few days so he couldn’t remember exactly where people lived but he finally found a few. We hung out, ate some shawarma, slept and boarded our next flight for Nairobi.

We arrived in Nairobi excited to see Todd and figure out what we were going to do in Kenya. Todd showed up and after his 10 hour drive to pick us up he wasn’t too hot on turning right around so we opted to stay the night in Nairobi. We headed for the YMCA central on State House road, travel tip for anyone heading this way; it is a great cheap place. The rooms are nothing fancy but clean enough and mosquito nets are in every room. Room rates are 700 Kenyan Shilling per person, so about 12 Dollars, not bad and it has a pool, garden area, restaurant, internet café and nice staff.

We had to try Carnivore’s, a restaurant that I hear is rated top 50 in the world, for the fun atmosphere I am guessing. The place is super fun though! It is an all you can eat BBQ, Kenyan style complete with Crocodile, Ostrich, Lamb, Chicken, Pork, Beef and I hear on some nights Camel. First you can sample some Dawa, meaning medicine in Swahili, a cup of vodka with squashed lime and a spoonful of honey. It is a safe version of what you can find in Kenya, the real Dawa drink is normally made with local brew that is more like straight ethanol than drinking alcohol and has been known to make people go blind! Although a full cup of Smirnoff was more than enough for me.

In the morning we took off for Kitale, a town in the north west of Kenya where Todd, Yancy’s childhood friend is currently working on a new children’s home. The roads, he warned us would be bad. What should be a 4-5 hour drive would be closer to 10 and bumpier than we had ever seen. The fist couple hours weren’t bad at all. Turns out that a well connected politician has a house a few hours out and the roads are fine till there but after that there was no guarantee.

After getting out of the city and watching Todd fight his way through the Nairobi traffic the first thing that hit me was overlooking the Rift Valley. It was such a large valley, one that I had read about and studied for years. It is always so amazing to get to see something that has only been words in a book or images on the discovery channel. The cradle of life right in front of us, to think about all the prehistoric activity that has taken place in the valley that I was overlooking was pretty overwhelming.

It was my first chance to see some wildlife, a herd of zebra were grazing on the side of the road, which of course is amazing seen as I have only ever seen them in zoos. The roads were bad and bumpy but I was able to sleep and before too long we were there.

Good Bye to Spain

So our travels in Spain didn’t last very long, or at least not as long as we had hoped. But we were really lucky to meet and work with some wonderful people. We barely got our feet wet when it comes to Spain and could easily see ourselves passing through there again. Sevilla is a fantastic city and I had the chance to hear a lot about its history as well as the history of Spain in general and know that we missed so many amazing things. Our Spanish, well that didn’t go so well but we picked up a few things and who knows maybe after a proper Spanish class or two we could try returning to see if we are any better.

Yancy has a favorite chant venti, venti uno, venti dos (spelling doesn’t count for those Spanish speakers out there) he picked it up off a radio station. I learned bale bale, and that you should end every phone conversation saying it about ten times! Or that is what I seemed to hear a lot, again ignore the spelling!

It was much harder to leave then I imagined it would be. When I gave my two weeks notice I felt free of the company but by the time it came to say good bye it was pretty hard. We both met fantastic people and to everyone that is still there you are very much missed as is the place, just not the company.

We miss everyone, everywhere! Funny, but it turns out we only took one picture of Sevilla, so us! At least it is fitting for this post, a gorgeous sunset over the river during one of our last evenings in Sevilla.

Granada and the Sierra Nevada’s

Our last trip in Spain was to go to Granada and see the Al Hambra. I had bought tickets online as they are trying to control the number of people that enter the historic site for preservation reasons. The first page of the website was in English (yeah) but once you choose your tickets the subsequent pages are in Spanish (no yeah) and I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Turns out I didn’t buy the tickets that gave us full access but what we saw was beautiful and had we been able to see it all we would have been too pressed for time. This was another whirl wind trip that we seem to specialize in.


Now please forgive as I am doing this all from memory, and I am a bit behind so it has been a while. The Al Hambra is split into two main sections, General Life and the Fortress. First we toured the General Life area and it was no short of amazing. The gardens were gorgeous, a section both Yancy and my Mum would have thoroughly enjoyed. The first section you walk through is a maze of sorts of at least 10ft high, 3 ft wide hedges with arches cut in them so you can get from one square, fountain or overlook area to the next. These squares had highly ornate flooring with patterns made out of back and white pebbles. The craftsmanship was and still is amazing. There were sections that were being replaced and I imagine the techniques used today didn’t differ from those of long ago. The only change looked like better quality tools for digging into the sand base.

The gardens give way to beautifully carved open air buildings surrounding gorgeous fountains. The fountains have not been updated, no changes to keep them going. The gravity fed water supply goes from larger rock basins and is forced into smaller and smaller paths which naturally builds up pressure and creates a wonderful fountain. All this according to a tour guide we eavesdropped on.

Once in the fortress there is some beautifully preserved archaeological sites, the most impressive being the living quarters of the military men who lived there. A series of rooms, some connected by hallways and even the cooking area. Once on the wall of the fortress you can see over the city of Granada which is really quite large, and in the background the Sierra Nevada’s. Instead of mis-typing and giving bad info, all I have are pictures to show how gorgeous it is. So please enjoy…

Now you know if there is a ski area around, we are bound to visit. The artificial snow makers were working hard and I was surprised to see how many people were actually on the lifts and were skiing down. It looked like only one run was open but people seemed to be enjoying it. We had fun dining in a little après-ski house and watching the ski bums come in and out. After wandering around for a bit we found the ice skating rink and an alpine sled. Having not overly enjoyed my alpine sled experience in Breckinridge, I opted again to be photographer.

As usual all the pictures are up (or will soon be up) at www.picassa.web/jacquelineenyart
We miss everyone but are excited to start out adventures…keep in touch!