Africa Trip
About our trip:
Who is going: Kim Holbrook and Kristy Giesbrecht
Where: Kenya, Nairobi
When: leaving July 12th , Kristy is staying for 5 months & Kim is staying for 6 months
First 3 months:
Placement: Tunza children's Centre/Home
Location: Kibiko location in Ngong
Number of children: 105 ages: 3-17 years
NUMBER OF ATTENDING SCHOOL: 4 babies,
16 at Onsite school, 51 local primary, 34 secondary school
HISTORY OF THE PROJECT:
Established in 1998 by the founder Diminal khasiala after picking a 3month old baby on a compost pit at midnight. They were based in Kibera but they have now shifted to their new premises in Ngong.
Project Description: The home cares for the orphans and street children
Type of work we will do:
Volunteers can teach pre primary classes, subjects include Maths, English, literacy, arts and crafts, phonetics. Volunteers can also assist in cleaning, baby care, washing clothes. If volunteers have skills in guidance and counseling then they are able to work with specific children. Extra curricular activities such as music can be taught to the children. The home has a guitar and keyboard.
About us!
Kristy Giesbrecht
I live in North Delta. I attend NDEFC church. I am 22 years old. My hobbies include quilting, reading, going for walks, camping, theme parks, hiking, traveling, making memory books and taking pictures. I trained to be an Early Childhood Educator. I am working at a daycare in New Westminster. I started working at CEFA Junior Kindergarten. I am a lead teacher in a 3 year old class. When I see the children learning, giving me hugs, and having fun it is all worth it in the end. I have had the chance to go overseas to Haiti for 1 month helping in an orphanage and Mexico helping put on a VBS for 2 weeks. I love helping people and learning so much from them. I love learning about the culture and gaining relationships with the community. I want to show the people and children how much God loves them.
Kimberly Holbrook
My name is Kimberly Holbrook and I am an Early childhood Educator at a child care facility. I graduated in 2009 with my ECE certificate and Infant/Toddler and Special Needs Diploma. I thoroughly enjoy spending time with the children I work with! I also enjoy hiking, fishing, swimming, playing instruments, singing, and horseback riding. I am so excited to travel to Kenya and volunteer at an orphanage. I hope to love the children as God does and build relationships with the other staff there as well as the community.
Kenya Fun Facts!!!
Location: Kenya is located in Eastern Africa
Area: 582,650 sq km, (slightly more than twice the size of Nevada or similar in size to France)
Capital City: Nairobi which is one of the biggest and fastest growing cities in East Africa. Nairobi has many modern buildings and skyscrapers
Great Rift Valley of Kenya: formed twenty million years ago, by splitting of the earth's crust
Kenya gained independence: from the United Kingdom in December 1963
Population: over 32 million people live in Kenya
Climate: Kenya as only two seasons sunny & dry or rainy
Currency: Kenyan Shilling
Birth rate: average 3.3 per woman
Languages spoken: English & Kiswahili official but there are 75 other languages
Religion: Protestant 45%, Roman Catholic 33%, indigenous beliefs 10%, Muslim 10%, other
2%
Kenya is known for: safaris, which are held in the Kenya’s national parks
Nobel Prize for Peace: In 2004, Wangari Maathai received the prize for her dedication to women’s rights, ecology, and democracy. She became the second woman from Africa to win the Nobel Prize.
World Heritage Sites: UNESCO has declared Lake Turkana National Park and Mount Kenya National Park
Highest mountain: Mount Kenya is the in Kenya (5,199 m ) and the second highest mountain in Africa
Popular sports: cricket, track and field, box, soccer, volleyball, rugby, tennis and field hockey
Henry Rono famous athlete: one of the best runners in the 20th century
Four world’s records: 3,000 meters steeplechase (8:05.4), 5,000 (13:08.4), 3,000 meters (7:32.1), 10,000 meters (7.32.1)
I thought it could be fun to reflect on all the strange, funny and culture differences Kim and I have seen while we are in Kenya, Africa. I will keep updating the list whenever I have time to...Hope you enjoy it!!!
• If you want to go into Ngong Town, you can take a hour walk or 10 minute motorcycle ride.
• If you want to see giraffes, it’s a 30 minute walk down the Ngong hills and you can stand really close to them.
• When you wake up in Mama Tunza home in the morning, and you go to the bathroom and see a hen in the bathroom watching you pee.
• You walk in the morning and go into mama Tunza living room, you see a hen tied to a table sitting down with crap covering the floors. Sometimes the hen is walking on the computer table.
• At church, every one enjoys dancing and enjoying saying sindiyo (you agree) after the sentence. Also say, “Praise God” , then say “praise God again” and reply with Amen!!!
• When you first meet someone, they usually ask me do you like to dance or sing?
• When you greet someone, they shake your hand. When they say hello, you reply very good instead of saying hello back or when you say good morning, you reply with very good
• When you are walking around in the community, children follow you or run up to you. They give you a high five or a hand shake and say how are you? So you reply you are good and they will keep saying how are you? Over and over. They sometimes ask for candy or money or my jacket.
• Children and youth enjoy getting their picture taken or taking pictures then want to see them
• You can enjoy laying in the sun and get a tan in winter YAY
• You go to the outdoor bathrooms; you pee in a concert hole in the ground.
• When you go to public bathrooms, sometimes you will find toilet paper attached to the side of the wall. You take a piece of toilet paper and go into a stall and you never know if the toilet will flash. Other times, there is no toilet paper. They give you a key to unlock the bathroom which they have a metal lock attached to it.
• See a heavy truck driving on two pieces of wood to across a gap/hole in the ground to get to the other side
• Walked pass motorcycles on day in Ngong town, you can over hear them saying man I want sex now…
• You will eat mystery meat during dinner including cow intestines, rabbit and tuff meat that you can’t chew
• Go to sit down restaurants, they will heat up your food in the microwave, 50 present of selection of foods you can order from are not there, and they don’t provide you knives unless you ask for one. When you seat down, they ask right away what do you want and you have to ask them to give you a few minutes to decide.
• They love their cash here and most places don’t let you use VISA or debt
• Youth want to learn so hard, during holidays you will see them self studying 2 hours a day. During school days, they have to walk to school for an hour without breakfast and attend school for 8 hours without lunch then walk home for another 1 hour. They have to study and do homework and do their duties till supper. Busy day!
• In the morning, you come outside with clean clothes and in about 10 minutes you are covered in dirt, poo, pee and feel dirty from the children.
• We have bucket showers about twice a week and heat you hot water.
• When we do laundry, it takes me about 1hour and a half. You have 3 buckets to rinse out my clothes. It takes about an hour to wash my socks.
• In a matato, a person is holding 2 live hens on his lap in the front seat. That’s first class!!
• In the morning at 1 am, taxi gets stuck and 3 of us volunteers push a car out. We are strong!
• Buying a DVD at a store in Ngong, you wait for them to burn you a copy of the movie at the same time.
• Taking a taxi ride, you have passengers seating on each other laps because there is not enough seats and the taxi man doesn’t care.
• When you are heading home from Ngong to Kibiko, you see rain clouds and it starts raining right when you get off the tuktuk. You have to put on the flash light on your phone to see where you are going while ice skating in the mud till you get to the orphanage covered in mud and wet! Fun times!
• A stranger on the bus, asking for your e-mail so you start ignoring him. You here him saying I wish I could love someone like you, asking you to sing him a song to make his day, put his head on your shoulder and try to take a picture of you when you get off the bus. The bus staff, told him to stop and apologized for us because he was crazy.
• On the buses, there is a poster saying No preaching.
• You are walking home and a guy follows you all the way home talking, talking, talking.
• You will be served lunch at 2:30 to 3 pm and dinner between 8:30 to 9:30 pm.
• On the way to Gil Gil, you see baboons & zebras on the side of the road.
• You can walk past 30 camel’s resting on the side of the road in Ngong.
• You don’t need a cross walk to cross the road- you just cross anywhere.
• When you buy corn in the market, the lady who sold it to you asks if you can sponsor her child.
• When you pass a care-free, friendly child waving to you with a smile and holding a machete in his hands.
• Someone hands you a machete to scrap mud of your shoes.
• At lunch, we ask for a napkin to wipe our hands but have a napkin is a “cloth diaper”
• When you kill up to 6 to 8 spiders a day that you find crawling in your room.
• Three girls sharing the same bed.
• When you can go to the bathroom and stargaze at the same time because the latrine has no roof.
• When you ride on a motorbike with 3 other people. 4 people on a motorbike!
• When workers paint their only safety precaution is just to survive. To reach the high-up spots that balance pieces of board and logs here and there and lift themselves up on them.
• Sleeping in a mud hut.
• Using a bar of soap for everything including bathing washing clothes & dishes, hands.
• An area outside where they board up a small space for a bucket shower.
• Bars on the windows and don’t use door handles (use pad locks or sliding bars)
• When you eat breakfast and there is one hen laying eggs and another on the table clucking as you eat. One time, hen went on the table and started eating our fruit. Another time, it lays an egg on the table.
• The boy babies walk around in girls clothing or half naked with only a t-shirt on.
• We are served “mystery meat” for dinner. Later on we find out it’s rabbit or cow intestine or liver.
• Instead of sprinting on a track for exercise, you sprint on a dirt field racing with boys who are rolling car tires.
• When you enter the bathroom and see spiders all over the wall, shrug and continue going on with your business.
• You can get a sun burn during the winter.
• Means of transportation: Bus, Matatu, motorbike, tuktuk use all in one day.
• Most of the men we meet want to marry us and loves us after 3 days.
• When we are brushing the children’s teeth, they sing the song “No me brush” and sneak tooth paste from the bottle.
• The children have to shave their hair and are not allowed to grow it out at the orphanage.
• Sight seeing at Lake Magidi, your tire goes flat and 2 random cars drive up and give us water and help up put a new tire on in the middle of nowhere. Then, when we get to the lake, you are in the middle of a wind storm, and watching flamingos and one wildabeast standing on the Lake. Awesome moment!
• When we are coming back form the windmills, we get lost and meet some women who asks if we want to visit there place. A young guy asks if we could sponsor him to go to school.
• On a safari, you get so close to wild cats and wild animals. If the animals wanted to attack, only our van would protect us.
• Seeing a Kenya mother and her 2 month year old riding on a motorcycle
• Riding on a matoto which is almost empty, the staff trying to sit up myself and the driving up. He asked me to marry him and has been waiting for a white person. If we are taken could I date your sister instead. They were going to give us cows for a marriage present for marrying us.
