Vaffel blir tam

Her er vår hund som er i ferd med å temmes. Det virker ganske bra, og de lokale er veldig imponert. De har aldri sett noen gå tur med en hund før. Den kan riktignok bli vill på kort varsel, men den er foreløpig så liten at vi overmanner den.

Besøk

Jackline og Serafina var på besøk hos oss en dag. Her med villhunden "Vaffel"

Geiteslakt

Forrige søndag dro svenskene fra Sigowet. Avskedsfesten var grilling av en halv geit (med innvoller).


Markus leker med bukken før slakten


Her er Markus i gang


Blodet må røres så det ikke stivner (koagulerer)






Tarmene skal brukes til suppe


Mer innvoller


Ribbe - endelig noe godt kjøtt!

Dagens nyheter fra Kenya

Det er stadig populært å mobbe Mugabe



Det har vært en tankbilulykke i Molo, ikke så langt fra Sigowet. En tankbil veltet og folk strømte til for å samle gratis bensin og så tok det fyr. 160 brant ihel. Det har vært flere tankbiler som har veltet siden og folk har ikke lært, men strømmer til for å få seg litt gratis bensin. Denne tankbilen kjørte vi forbi. Her hadde politiet vært raske og "sperret" aav området. Ikke mer enn at vi passerte den lekkende tanken med 2 meters avstand.

Back in blogging buissness

Frøya og Vaffel (villhunden vår) i hovedgaten

Da er jeg tilbake på bloggen. Det har skjedd så mye siden sist og kombinert med dårlig nettverk har det blitt dårlig med blogging. Jeg lover å skjerpe meg og her følger en liten oppdatering:

Kiprotich som er pastor i den lutheranske kirken har åpnet butikk i Sigowet sentrum. De to svenskene, Thomas og Markus er barnebarna til Kiprotichs lærer fra presteskolen og fikk æren av å åpne butikken. Etter å ha klippet snoren og avduket navnet (som betyr "velsignet" på swahili), gikk vi på byens beste kafe - Sigowet Tea Hotel.

Snoren klippes

Tilskuerne

Her er kafeen med slakteriet


Inne på kafeen. Legg merke til tapeten.

Barna på Tonongoi

Og til sist den nye døren til kontoret. Den kunne vært satt inn litt finere...

Espresso sufuria

Så lenge eg får espressoen min går alt bra.

Super fast bike

I have found a real racing bike in Nairobi. It is probably the fastest bike in Kenya, but writing «Super fast racer» on it is just like calling a country «Democratic republic of...» - you just know it means the opposite. But at about 800 NOK it is ok, only problem is the fact that I have real problems getting a pump for presta valves, so I have not gotten a chance to try it yet!

As I live 1830 meters above sea level I hope to get in real good shape til I get home. At the time I am jogging three times a week and it is still hard as the air is noticably thinner than back home. Bergen-Voss 2010!!!

First week at work

My first day at work at Tonongoi public primary school was a new experience. First I must tell you that in Kenya there has been a right to free primary school for all since 2002. But it is just a right, not a obligation to attend school. So at the opening of the school about 200 pupils showed up and the headmaster told them to tell their friends to come to school during the week. Every day there was more and more pupils coming. First day of school 16 out of 21 teachers showed up. The number varied between 6-10 the first week as they were following their own children to school as the teachers do in Norway too, but here in Kenya I don't think they have the money to pay a stand in. So the pupils have to study on their own from at least class four, several lessons per day.
First day of school in 2009 the pupils got to know who could advance to the next class and who had to stay in the same class one more year, based on their results at the test at the end of the year. If they got below 160 point ot of 500, they had to remain on thir previus level.

Before I went to Kenya I have been told by several persons that the pupils here are very disiplined and hard working, and that their knowledge is higher than the norwegian pupils. My experience so far is that kids are very much the same here as back home. They have the same sense of humour, the boys are a bit noisy and the girls more quiet, they like to move, they like to learn new things if they are presented with some interesting challenges. I must also say that the pupils of Minde school back home are as hard working as the african ones, at least when they are in school.

Streik

Lærerne i Kenya har streiket i en uke nå, og i dag ble streiken trappet opp til også å gjelde secondary schools. Jeg observerer på Resam i mellomtiden (privatskolene streiker ikke).

Les mer på BBC World news

Gårdsbesøk

Samuel som eiger Resam, der vi bur, har kjøpt ein gård. Her har dei kyr og høns og dyrker ananas, bananer, poteter, mais, gulrøtter, reddik og spinat til mat på skulen. I tillegg har Resam fått ein underavdeling med 1.-4. klasse ved siden av gården som ligger omlag fem kilometer fra Sigowet. Vi var ein tur med Josh som gaid og det var stor suksess. Vi kom heim med to ananas, ein gryte poteter og ein stor bunke gulrøtter!

Fleire avisartiklar

Robert Mugabe er ikkje så populær som antalet avisartiklar skulle tilsi. Utanriksministeren i Kenya har til og med foreslått å invadere Zimbabwe.


Då ein buss vart kapra i Nairobi sentrum tok like godt ein væpna politimann, som tilfeldigvis var passasjer, saken i eigne hender og skaut og drap to medan den tredje vart lynsja av dei andre passasjerane.

Å være biltjuv er eit risikabelt yrke i Kenya!

Andre boller

I Kenya er man ikke redd for å gjøre stas på de flinke elevene. Her er forsiden på den største nasjonale avisen dagen etter offentliggjøringen av resultatene på de nasjonale prøvene til avgangselevene i grunnskolen - 8. klasse. De 10 beste i hver provins navngitt og med poengsum. Den beste i hver provins var også avbildet.


På fredag er det ingen undervisning da man skal feire de beste elevene fra avgangskullet fra i fjor.


Det er spennende tider. Fagforeningen (Knut!) truer med streik fra mandag 19. januar. Ironisk nok har jeg gått rett fra tillitsvalgt i Utdanningsforbundet til byens eneste uorganiserte lærer...

Mt. Kenya

Kristine and I decided that Mt. Kenya would be a great place to celebrate christmas. We traveled to Nanyuki, a 2-3 hours busride north of Nairobi, depending on the bus and driver. The town itself is a dirty place like many of Kenyas smaller towns.

The main street in Nanyuki with Mt. Kenya in the background

To find a company to organice a trek for us was no problem, in fact they found us the moment we stepped out of the bus. We followed mr. Johnstone of «Montana trekking & information centre» to his office.

The office of mr. Johnstone

I had brought all my mountain equipment to Kenya, partly to make my wilderness trips cheaper and partly beacause I prefer sleeping in a tent to very simple and dirty huts. Besides I have more flexibility when choosing routes. Being a norwegian and used to walking in the mountains, I asked for a deal to carry my own backpack and bring and cook all my food (something that I discovered is VERY unusual here). Kristine hired a porter. We also hired a guide, something I feel was ok, but not really neccesary with an extensive norwegian outdoor background. The price for a six days trek staying in my own tent and bringing and making my own food including transport was then 2300 NOK (Kristine payed 3300 NOK including the porter). Most of the money goes to Kenya Wildlife Service in the form of park and tenting fees.

At the park gate

The first day we met Patrick the guide and James the porter outside the office at 09:00. Then we drove from Nanyuki (1950m) to the Mt. Kenya National Park gate at Sirimon (2650m). After some paperwork taken care of by the guide we set of along a dirt road through a nice forest. There where recent traces of both elephants and buffalos, but we only saw a gazelle and lots of eagles and other bright colored birds. It took about three and a half hours to reach Old Moses camp at 3300m. Here I had to really convince James and Patric that I actually wanted to put up the tent myself! After a nice dinner (Toro from Norway) we walked to 3600 m to aclimatise. Noone else in the camp did this. A norwegian family arrived from up the mountain and only the girls had reached the top. The boys had suffered from altitude sicness.

Patrick and James

Old Moses camp

Old Moses seen from our acclimatisation trip to 3600 m

Next day we started at 08:00 for Liki North camp, a little used route that has a slightly gentler ascent rate. We walked at a easy pace and reached a high ridge with fantastic views over the plains below and the Aberdare range to the west. After reaching about 4200 m we decended into the Liki North valley between giant Lobelia and reached a fantastic camp below the peaks Terere and Sendeo. The hut where Patric and James stayed was the worst I have seen in my life, but they didn't seem to give it a thought. We celebrated christmas eve with pancakes (again Toro) and singing of Bob Marley classics like «Buffallo soldier» and «Three little birds» together with Patrick and James. Only drawback was that Patrick had forgot to tell us that there were no cell phone network in this camp, so all christmas call had to be postponed. I slept very little that night and got a little nervous as I suspected it was due to the altitude.

Porters of a big group of indian students

Liki North valley

Christmas portrait

The camp

The Liki North hut

Singing of reagge classics around the fire at christmas eve

Sunset in camp

Next morning the tent was covered in frost and our water had frozen! Christmas day we started at 08:00 again and headed straight uphill again. We climbed to 4200 m and I felt really tired this day. On the top we got cell phone coverage again and could send all our christmas sms'es. Then we descended down into the Mac Kinders valley and had the main peaks of Nelion and Batian in sight as well as point Lenana that is the peak that one can reach without climbing. I got weaker and weaker althoug we were down at 4000 m again that was the same as our sleeping altitude. I slept for half an hour beside the trail and forced myself to eat some sweet biscuits and nuts, but I just got worse. With Shiptons camp in sight I started to get a bad headache, nausea, dry cough and was quite dizzy; all the classic symptoms of altitude sicness. As I have suffered from this in the past I didn't want to take any chances and decided that I had to turn back to Old Moses camp. At this point I was quite dissapointed with Patrick, as he tried to get me to go on. I insisted on turning and he had to accept it. James who had gone in front had to return after me with the tent, but he didn't catch up with me before I was almost down at Old Moses camp. I was very tired when I reached camp and couldn't manage to eat more than a couple of spoons of «real turmat» before I fell asleep.

Christmas day, the tent was covered in frost

Looking at Batian and Nelion and Mackinders valley

Patrick and Point Lenana

Next day I slept and rested without energy to do even a small trip up the mountain. At around 15:30 Kristine and Patrick returned after being the first to reach point Lenana that day. Kristine was very happy and said Patrick had done a great job getting her to the top. The last day we returned to the park gate and was picked up by mr. Johnstone and returned to Nanyuki for PIZZA!

Rest day at Old Moses

Kristine is back from climbing Point Lenana

Even though I didn't make it to Point Lenana, it was a great trip and it was really different than the Kenya I have known until this trip. It was much like walking in Norway, but higher peaks and the plants and animals gave it a new dimension.

Important equipment: Tent: Hilleberg Allak Sleeping bag: Mammut Goose bay (extreme temp -3) This is the minimum for this mountain! Matress: thermarest 3,8 cm ¾ length Stove: primus omnifuel on kerosene Water: MSR mini works + 2 dromedary 4l water bag 1l Nalgene bottle + ½l Nalgene bottle