To sum up: the safari was a great success; a fantastic trip with a lot of variation giving a great look into the Kenyan society. We visited two national parks; Masai Mara and Lake Nakuru, in which we got to see four out of the Big Five. Both lions and elephants were practically only a couple of meters away from the car. Somewhat scary, but also a memory that will stick. In addition to the traditional game drive, we visited local families, aid projects and were entertained by several dance groups and a choir. On a boat trip around Lake Victoria, we got to see traditional fishing as well as hippos and a crocodile. And our hike up Mount Kenya (altitude of 3300 meters above sea level), was another peak in our journey. Nontheless the trip would never have been what it was if it wasn’t for out great crew! Thanks to their positiveness, we are left with many great memories.

Back in Norway, we are still trying to recover from the long journey (with 2 short and stressful transfers), and the stomach is trying to get re-accustomed to Norwegian food. After six weeks of plenty of meat and white bread, the stomach is a bit upset. Regardless, it is good to be back! Surely we miss Kitui, Kenya in general, and all the amazing people we met. And we know for a fact that we will never forget you. But life goes on and a new chapter starts as an old one closes. Ingrid is back to her studies at University of Oslo, Kristin will in 7 days be moving to Nicaragua to study spanish, and Linn is in Tanzania working as a volunteer at Haydom Hospital. We all hope we will get an opportunity to return to Kenya, but until then we wish everyone lots of love and best wishes. Though we are far away, you are all in our minds! Thank you so much for your hospitality and friendliness!

We must also thank all of you that have followed our adventure. We are truly grateful for the interest and support you have shown!

Asanta sana! (Thank you)

Ingrid, Linn and Kristin

The lions topped the day, which was already a success with watching all the hundreds of thousands of flamingos, pelicans, marabous, giraffes, buffaloes, antelopes,baboons – you name it. In addition to the lion, we saw some rhinos as well, crossing out three of the Big Five.

The following morning we had to wake up at 5 (!!!) in the morning to make it to Mt. Kenya before lunch. The early start was definitely worth it when we noticed the swimming pool at Sportsman’s Arms Hotel in Nanyuki town. What a delight it was to put on our bikinis and just bathe in the sun and water after four weeks in Kitui! Especially since we began the following day by climbing 3300 meters up to Old Moses camp in Mt. Kenya. Sounds more impressive than it was though; it was a hike up a dusty road which began at an altitude of 2650 a.s.l. However, it was still a 9 km hike! It was a great trip, high above every expectation – even though the view was bad due to fog and clouds.

We really wanted to go horseback riding to some caves near the base of the mountain, so at Old Moses camp we were picked up by a car that drove us all the way down again. The disappointment was thus quite big when we were told that we couldn’t ride to the caves after all since there was so many elephants in the area. It would not be safe. So, instead we rode a bit around the hotel property. Kristin too – thereby overcoming a fear of horses. Today, some rangers will scare the elephants away, so maybe we will go to the caves tomorrow if time allows.

Too many experiences, too little time to write on our blog. But we’ll try to update once in a while still.

This Saturday, we celebrated the website (www.visitkitui.com – can’t write it enough) with a visit to the only restaurant in the area that has international food. As our guests, we brought Sam, Benina and Richard – our driver and housekeepers. We tried our best to convince them to try out the pizza. They had never heard of such a thing and it was very hard to explain. A flat white bread with tomato sauce, ham and cheese. Apparently, we didn’t do a great job – Sam and Benina chickened out, leavingRichard to be the bravest.

Ages went before we finally got our food. But, Richards expression when the pizza was placed in front of him made the wait worthwhile. It looked as is eyes were about to fall out. It was a big pizza, and probably the biggest meal he had been served in his whole life. After watching him for a while, we decided to help him, and showed how to slice it. After enjoying the African Chinese-food, we drove home to the rhythms of “Sommartidar” and “Take on me”.

Waking up on Sunday was good – no alarm bell or schedule. Ingrid finally got the time to start reading her book before we found out that the Mayor had arranged a group to entertain us. We had to hurry a bit, cause we didn’t want to miss our one plan for the day – Taekwondo. We unfortunately had to leave the group a bit early, but at least we made it to the lesson. Pictures speak louder than words – so enjoy =) It was a lot of fun!

And what a lovely feeling. After hours of collecting information, taking pictures, editing these and constructing the site – we are finally ready to let you all see what we have been working on.

Creating a website in Kenya is somewhat more complicated than back in Norway; mostly due to unstable power and internet connection. However, thanks to all of our great friends here in Kenya – we have managed to put up a site regardless. An office in the municipal has been very helpful; so has the assistance of our driver Sam.

This last week we have been in our own little computer world. Sad to say, but the truth. We have not seen sunlight, nor clouds – just the four walls of this office. So finishing the site is a great relief! Now you can find lots of information on Kitui, both on our website and on the wikipedia article we have updated.

Although we have released the site, we are not finished with the project. Just creating a site of information will not give long term effects – we need to make sure someone is ready to take responsibility for updating and monitoring the site. It must be a reliable source of information, and updating is a necessity. Therefore we will use Monday to Wednesday next week to teach a team from Kicaba how to maintain the site.

In accordance with Help to Selfhelp’s guidelines – we need to teach and educate the locals so that they themselves can use this tool in order to ensure economic growth in the region. We hope they will gain sufficient knowledge so that they alone can be in charge of the page.

Tonight we will celebrate with good food and good friends, we suggest you do the same:)

www.visitkitui.com

Linn, Ingrid and Kristin

Oh, no – are we starting to get sick? Or is just paranoia attacking our minds? Today we have all been feeling a small stomach ache. Trying to analyze why has not been very fruitful. Maybe it was the salad we ate in a restaurant yesterday? Maybe it is Kristin’s Kavli tubecheese that has gone bad? Who knows? All we can do know is to avoid the thought and convince ourselves that this is hakuna matata – no problem what so ever.

In addition to a disturbed stomach we have been working hard today to reach our goals for the day. But printing a full encyclopedia with information about Kitui is very time consuming – and nonetheless cartridge consuming. Ingrid and I started printing early in the morning, after a short while without power. Then, after a couple of minutes we ran out of color and paper for the printer so Richard and Ingrid had to drive the motorcycle to the store to buy new. Ingrid survived though she had had her doubts on the way back, and we started printing again.

But then we ran out of the black one. So we sent Richard solely to the store, and he quickly returned shortly. However, the black cartridge was not as cooperative as the color one, and so we started believing we had gotten the wrong one. Then Richard returned to the store again (note: 3rd time), and since the saleslady was certain this type was correct – Richard brought her back to our office to help. She manage immediately and we felt sort of stupid. Blaming magic fingers however, was a good excuse – and we soon continued on our work.

While we were in the office, Linn was alone in the municipal all day. When we finally arrived with the lunch around 3 pm she smiled happily. After turning down several lunch offers, plenty of land in Kitui and a job at the municipal – she seemed a bit relieved to see us. Though some disturbances, she had managed to get a lot work done, and the Kitui tourism information website is finally taking form.

Since Monday we have been isolated inside our office in the municipal in Kitui. Creating a website takes time, and especially when three perfectionists are in charge. Hopefully we’ll manage to finish before the weekend, but we are prepared that we might need to spend a couple days next week too.

The officials working here look at us strangely, and we have heard that people are asking questions: Why are they working constantly, not taking breaks or talking? Are they really doing this for free? Well, I guess we are a bit strange. But this experience is rewarding in so many ways, and we gain new knowledge on a daily basis. Learning that problems may appear when you least want them to, and that you need to be flexible and face challenges as they come along, is knowledge that money can’t buy. In addition, we’re getting to help others, which is rewarding in itself.

So let’s cross our fingers and toes that this stomach ache will pass – and that will manage to finish the site in time for a proper release party.

Kristin

In contrast to the headliner, things are actually going fast forward. Yesterday another active day. In the morning we took a walk to the local river – or rather just a heap of sand. All that was left of the “river” was small dams that were dug out by people. It was only a couple of years ago the government created a waterline to the Katulani district, and some water houses people could buy water from. This has made the life much easier, as the Katulani men and women don’t have to go all the way down to the river to fetch water. But still – in periods when there’s a lack of water the government often closes this line of life. Luckily, the locals now often store enough so they manage until it comes back. Otherwise, all the Katulani inhabitants would have to depend on the little water coming from the small dams.

The day continued with a visit to two great dance groups, which gave us a wonderful performance. This visit was arranged by none other than the mayor Alex himself. He is a very friendly man, and today we got to see our new office at the Municipal of Kitui. Here, we have access to something very luxurious for us these days- the Internet! The connection here is stable and fast, which is fantastic! The last couple of days has been hard, not being able to check the news from our beloved Norway. This will also make our work a lot easier, as one of our main tasks as volunteers is to set up a tourist information website for Kitui county.

In lack of images and because we now have better Internet – we just wanted to share some random ones.

We have already mentioned it shortly, but on Wednesday we went to Katulani Secondary School to have a talk with the girls to get an insight in their daily life. It was very eye opening. It’s written in the Kenyan constitution that every child has the right to go to primary school. If you as a parent don’t pay the school fee, you can actually go to prison. Therefore, most boys and girls get 8 years of education.

When it’s time for secondary school, it is different. It’s not a written right anymore, and especially not if you’re a girl with a lot of brothers. Unfortunately, Kenyan women still experience a lot of discrimination – a boy is considered to have more potential than girls. It seems like the Kenyan society – at least on the countryside, is still stuck with old perceptions about the two genders roles. Because of poverty some families have to prioritize which of their children that will be given education, and due to their old way of thinking, this opportunity is often given to the boys. Therefore the girl often is bound to work at home, and rush into marriage as she’s in need of funding. As you can imagine – getting married and pregnant at a young age, with no proper job or education only continue the bad loop of poverty.

The girls that get into secondary school often excel in certain subjects like language and social science. But, as in Norway, in the field of science they often shy away. Because the traditional culture is incorporated in the kids, boys feel that they are superior and that they should do all the practical work e.g. in the chemistry lab. Even though they are told to collaborate, the girls often end up writing the notes and miss the important knowledge obtained through practice. As Norwegian girls, if we were put in that position – we would tell the boys that we too would like to do the lab work. But Kenyan girls are very shy when it comes to boys, and don’t dare to speak against them.

Other problems also occur. It is very easy for boys to bully girls when they don’t fight back. In addition, they are in that special age when they are curious about each other. For us it was very surprising the numbers of questions they had regarding this subject: How do you say no to a boy? How do you get pregnant? Which challenges do you face in Norway when it comes to boys? Should you have a boyfriend in university?

Some of these questions were a bit difficult to answer. The one concerning pregnancy was perhaps the worst. But still – although we were aware there were a lot of the girls that knew the answer, we explained the whole process quite thoroughly… For us it was important to show that we did not think this was something embarrassing to talk about, and it is also very important to imprint to the girls the consequences of having unprotected sex. Not only do you risk having a child, but you can also get diseases like HIV – about six percent of the Kenyan population is infected with this deadly virus, most concentrated in rural areas. Even though they giggled a lot, we hope they understood the importance of our message.

The easiest one to answer was the first one – how do you say no. For us it is really simple and only requires to letters: N and O! But as we explained previously – the girls don’t have the courage to go against the wishes of the boys. Instead, they dodge away and maybe say wait instead. But then the boys don’t understand they’re being turned down, and continue to ask till they get what they want.

There are many stories of boys from wealthy families, asking girls to do them “favors” in exchange for some money. Since some girls never even have touched a 500 K.Sh note (i.e. equal to 30 Norwegian kroner), these offers are difficult to turn down. Life on the countryside is quite basic with bare necessities to get by, and many girls dream of a better life. Some also believe giving the guys what they want, eventually may result in marriage and wealth. Sometimes the girls get their fairytale ending, but more often – it results in pregnancy, HIV and children growing up without a father.

Due to poverty these girls face challenges that we’ve never even considered, and it was somewhat difficult to relate and understand their problems. When the teacher asked us to give advice on how the girls can manage during their period if they don’t have sufficient money to buy pads, we didn’t have an answer. To us, the question itself was shocking, and the teacher had to repeat her question several times before Ingrid manage to produce an answer: “I’m sorry, but we don’t have that problem in Norway”. Can you imagine not having the money to pay for pads or tampons?

Knowledge may help reducing poverty. Unfortunately this knowledge is seldom passed on to the girls before it’s too late. In Norway we have a saying: “Behind every great man there’s a great woman”. Now, it’s high time for the Kenyan girls and women to step out of the shade and in to the light – to show themselves as the strong, intelligent and independent women they are.

Still, there are a lot of uncertainties, but what we do know is that a lot of people are hurting and that all of Norway is in grief. We strongly wish we could have been there with you all in the sorrow, but as for now – we are stuck in Kenya.

We feel we need to inform you that we are with you all in our minds and our hearts, and that we are appalled by this injustice. Because of slow internet connection, the amount of news we receive is strictly limited. We are therefore very grateful if those of you that are back home can pass us information on our email (or send a message on facebook).

There are so many questions: How can somebody be this cruel? What are the motives? 21 years of punishment is in our opinion not enough for committing such a horrible crime. Unfortunately there is no way of undoing these actions, and all we can do now is to support each other and show our disgust. We are truly shocked, and as mentioned above – we share the pain and sadness. With this we would like to close this post.

We love you all!

Linn, Ingrid and Kristin