Life in Kenya

Kenya is an enriching experience to all our senses!!! This can be clearly seen in Rongai, a suburb situated about 35mins from Nairobi city, where my sister Dine and I have been living for the past 2 ½ weeks.

Dine and I are one of the very few ‘mzungus’ in this area, which in their Kiswhahili language translates to ‘white people’. We are called this name by children, teenagers, adults, elderly people, you name it. Some children come to us on the streets to touch our skin and then run away. I think to them, who have never seen mzungus before, we look more or less like ‘aliens’. J At first, people look at us suspiciously… then, when say to them ‘habari yako’ (how are you?), they open the biggest smile and greet us back. Kenyans are very friendly people! According to our host father Wangure, the total population of white people in Kenya is less than one percent.

The children at the orphanage may think that we look different but they are all coming to a realization that we are all equal. Frederick and I sealing our friendship at Overcomers Centre for Orphans.


Making new friends

Markets can be found everywhere in Nairobi city. The Rongai Market sells everything from food to clothes, to toys and medicines. My sister and I often have to bargain very hard in all tents to pay a fair price for our fruits as they often want to charge us mzungu price. It’s an amusing experience bargaining with Kenyan people! We all have a good laugh with them. J

Rongai Market

Shops around the main road in all areas of Nairobi city are great stimulators to our visual sense along with their marketing signs.

Shops with great visual polution

In Nairobi city big outdoors can be found, but in suburbs further away from the city, such as Rongai, these advertisement signs are more easily seen everywhere along the main road.

Advertisement Signs

They sell absolutely everything you can imagine on the sidewalks next to the main road, not only in Rongai, but everywhere around Nairobi. What captured most my attention were these funeral stones for sale.

Funeral Stones for sale on the streets

According to our host father, quarry workers receive an average wages of $300 Kshs (shillings) per day, which is equivalent to US$3.65 dollars. This photo was taken right next to the main road in Rongai. This looked like a very primitive job as there were no machines to be seen, but only manual workers turning big rocks into stones with small hammers.  This quarry is located on the opposite side of the road from the orphanage, where Dine and I have been working. Every day we pass by, we receive a warming welcome from the quarry workers. J

Quarry Workers

On the streets of Nairobi, animals can be seen roaming everywhere around the streets. The ones most commonly seen are donkeys, cows and goats. This donkey cart was in our host family house one day to deliver water. By the way, I forgot to mention that for the last 2 ½ weeks, my sister and I have been taking what we call of ‘splash’ showers. J Lack of running water is a common thing in many areas of Nairobi city. The good news is that our host family provided us with a kettle, which we use to boil the water to take our hot shower.

Going back to the donkeys, the only thing that breaks my heart is to see some owners beating these hard worker animals so hard with their whips. When I see a donkey with a wound on their skin, from being severely beaten by their owners, I have to turn my face away. In saying that, our host father Wangure told us that nowadays donkeys are being beaten a lot less by their owners.

Donkey Cart

Our transportation to and from home to the orphanages is done by ‘matatus’ or vans. There are also some colorful private buses around (no such a thing as public buses!) but they come around as often as the matatus. The drivers are just maniacs! When my sister and I are not laughing, we seriously think we are going to die on their hands. J We also have to bargain with them nearly everyday to pay the same price as Kenyans pay for their fares. The good thing is that some of them are seeing Dine and I day after day and are slowly stopping overcharging us.

A common feature of all the matatus is that they play songs very loudly. People don’t complain about this, they accept that ‘it is the way it is’. One cheeky matatu had a sticker saying ‘if it’s too loud, you are too old’. I’m especially fond of matatus playing mellow songs, particularly in the early mornings on our way to the orphanages. After all, no one deserves loud American rap songs first thing in the day. I think I’m getting old… J

Bus & Matatus Terminal

This is our host family house, in Rongai. My sister and I share a room in the house downstairs, while our host family lives in the house upstairs. There was another volunteer from Australia sharing the house with us, but she has now left.

Host Family House

Our host family is lovely. We are living with a Pastor called Wangure, his wife Margaret and their two children Violet (15yo) and Vincent (12yo). We share breakfast and dinner with them daily. We have to pray before each meal, before leaving the house and before going to bed. The family members take turn to pray and they also include the volunteers, who are requested to lead the pray every now and then. By the time we have dinner, usually between 8pm and 9pm, I’m so hungry that when it’s my turn to pray I always thank the food we are about to receive. J

Host Family - Pastor Wangure, me, Violet, Vincent & Margaret

And this is our home pet. He doesn’t have a name as he is about to turn into food very soon, so my sister and I just named him ‘cute rabbit’. He only gets fed kale (the most popular green in Kenya). To make his life a bit more pleasing, I’ve feeding him a carrot every day. As soon as he hears my voice, he puts his paws on the wire fence to greet me. It puts a big smile on my face. J

Cute Pet Rabbit

Last Places Visited in Cape Town

Cape Point Reserve

On the way to Cape Point, we had our first encounter with a troop of Baboons. It made my day to see these monkeys crossing the street in front of our car. Our local friends Nick and Gav stopped the car for us to have a closer look. Dine took some great shots of them. There are signs everywhere in this National Park asking tourists not to feed the baboons as they could become aggressive, although they look so peaceful roaming around the streets.

Baboons on the roadside

Our first stop in this National Park was at the oldest and most famous Light House in Cape Town, which was built in 1860.

Light House at Cape Point

After a short walk to reach the most southernmost point in Cape Point, we stopped to have some wine with chips while taking in the wonderful views. This was a very special moment to me and one of the highlights of my time in Cape Town.

Dine, Clau, Gav & Nick at Cape Point

Cape of Good Hope

Our second stop was at the Cape of Good Hope, which is the most south-westerly point in the African Continent. There, we had a short climb to reach the top of a mountain, where again we had some spectacular views.

The most south-westerly point in Africa

Mountain Range View from Cape of Good Hope

Wine Farms in Stellenbosch, Franshoek & Paarl
Before coming to Cape Town, I was not aware that there were some many vineyards here. It was a nice surprise! Dine and I visited four of them, which the locals call ‘wine farms’, about an hours drive from Cape Town city. They were beautiful and very modern looking. Our wine tour also included a delicious lunch as well as cheese tasting. The difference I found between the wine tasting in Cape Town wine farms and Australia, is that here they were very generous with the amount of wine they gave us. By the end of the day, we were feeling pretty tipsy from all the wine we had. J

An interesting fact about the wine in Cape Town is that they have a unique kind of grape called ‘Pinotage’, which was created at the Stellenbosch University. This grape is a blend of ‘Pinot Noir’ and ‘Hermitage’ grapes. It’s needless to say that this was the red wine that Dine and I drank regularly while we were here. J

Tokara wine farm has a very modern look. Although it looked nice and there was a huge fire place in the tasting room, it felt a bit cold there. I prefer the warmth of the rustic looking wine farms.

Tokara Wine Farm

Dine and I at Tokara Wine Farm

Fairview wine farm was my favourite one because there we had wine as well as cheese tasting. I was so greedy that I went around the circular cheese table four times to taste the all the delicious cheese they had. J

Fairview Wine Farm

Cheese tasting at Fairview

Fyndraai wine farm had a rustic look and the building had European influence from the Dutch, like many other buildings in Cape Town. There we tasted some experimental wines. One was made of pears and the other made of honey. I do not recommend any of them. They both tasted terrible!

Fyndraai Wine Farm

Simon’s Town

Simon’s Town is a charming little town with nice shops and cafes. It reminded me of Montville in Australia, with the difference that this town is not up on the mountains but surrounded by a harbour and the ocean.

Main Road in Simon's Town

Boulders Beach

Boulders Beach is about 5mins driving from Simon’s Town. Many tourists go there to see penguins. Visitors can pay a fee to walk on this beach, which is also a natural reserve, or go on a board walk bordering the beach for free. We chose the second option, as we had seen many penguins before in Patagonia. We were delighted to see some penguins walking on the board walk with us. We even spotted a curious little one in the car parking wandering around. J

Penguins at Boulders Beach

Wandering around in the car parking

Navy Ship Party

In Simon’s Town there is a port Navy ships from all over the world. When Dine and I were having lunch in a restaurant there, we met George, who was working in a British navy ship. Talking to George about our trip and where we lived, we found out that a few years ago he went to Australia with his family for a holiday in the Sunshine Coast, to a place near to where I live. Before he left, he invited us to join him and his crew of navy friends to a party in their huge navy ship.

British Navy Ship

George entertained all the men and the women in the party with some live music. Despite feeling very sick with a bad flu, I was happy that Dine and I made it to the party. We met two lovely young navy guys, who showed us around the ship and explained to us all about its history and everything they had there (gym, swimming pool, sauna, bar and how they made their own water – desalinating seawater). It was a very interesting night!

Dine, George and I

Sunset in Muizenberg

Today is our last day in Cape Town. Tomorrow, my sister and I are leaving to go to Kenya. This was one of my favourite photos from Muizenberg, which Dine took one evening when we were walking back home. It's the Muizenberg Mountain reflecting on the Zandvlei lake. 

Sunset in Muizenberg

I will miss this place!

More Volunteer Work in Cape Town

Working with Children at Sunrise Educare

Initially, Dine and I thought that we were going to work in an orphanage in Cape Town, as described in the International Volunteer HQ booklet, the NGO we signed in. It was disappointing at the beginning, when we found out that it was actually an educational centre, like a crèche. The length of time of our volunteer work was another big let down. Instead of working from 9am to 3pm, as described in the booklet, we actually worked from 9am to 12pm. We had a meeting with the founders of Dreams to Reality, the NGO based in Cape Town, to talk to them about these issues. They told us that it wasn’t their fault and they had asked International Volunteer HQ many times to fix the things we were complaining about in their booklets. We also sent an email to IVHQ giving them our feedback.

Luckily, we had a local friend Nick, who recommended us to another NGO (Mother’s Unite, read more on post dated 30/07/12), where we were able to find extra volunteer work. The work at Mother’s Unite kept us busy doing something useful in the afternoons. Nevertheless, I have to say that my sister and I loved working with the children at Sunrise Educare and fell in love with all of them, including the teachers. It was really sad to say our final good-byes to them all.

Sunrise Educare

We loved the 2 teachers and the nearly 30 children we worked with for the 6 weeks we were at Sunrise Educare. Teachers Florence and Glynnis were lovely with us and involved Dine and I in all school activities with the little ones. I read stories to them, taught yoga exercises, helped them with their food, to go to the toilet and played a lot with them in the playground. J The children were between 3 to 5 years old. All of them, boys and girls, loved to play with my hair. Sometimes I had 5 of them, all around me doing plates of my hair. I loved when they played with my hair too and nearly fell sleep every time they did it.

Teacher Glynnis, Clau, Teacher Florence and the children

Story Time

Play time

Having fun with the children

After lunch, they got read for their sleep from 12pm to 2pm. That’s when our work at the centre finished and we said our good-byes to them for the day.

Sleep Time

Some of the children were really naughty and often the teachers threatened them saying that they were going to “throw them out”. After a while, I also started saying this to the children as they became really wild when the teachers left them only with Dine and I. The most popular punishment was to order them to touch their toes. It was really funny watching the children doing it and I had to turn my face to the other side not to laugh, otherwise they would start laughing with me and not take their punishment seriously. On the photo below is Mava, who was always in trouble as his favourite pass time was to fight with other children.

Mava in trouble touching his toes!

On our last week here, we joined other volunteers, during a barbecue, to put food parcels together to distribute them out to the children’s mothers at Sunrise Educare. The food was donated to the NGO we were working for (Dreams to Reality), and was given to the mothers as a gift the day before Woman’s Day (09/08/12). The mothers were very grateful and thanked us a lot for the food. It was great!

Volunteers putting food parcels together

Volunteers distributing food parcels to the mothers

At Capricorn Township we didn’t see any mothers pushing their babies in prams; instead they all carried their babies wrapped up in blankets like in the photo below. The babies looked very comfortable, happy and warm cuddling their mothers back.

Mother carrying baby wrapped up on her back

The children playing on the streets of Capricorn also didn’t seem to have any fancy toys. We were delighted to watch some of them riding on a kind of skate, which looked like to have been built by themselves or their parents.

Children playing on the streets of Capricorn

Other Places Visited in Cape Town

Table Mountain

Table Mountain is the icon of Cape Town, recently being voted a new 7 Wonder of Nature. It’s a pretty impressive site, located right in the middle of the city.

Table Mountain - View from Company's Garden

Dine and I arranged a trekking guide - Paul Harding - to climb Platteklip Gorge with us. We usually like to go trekking by ourselves, but we heard plenty of people advising us against it, as the weather in Cape Town can change rapidly and the mountain can be covered with clouds very quickly. We heard from local friends, as well as from Paul, that some tourists had to be rescued after getting lost or stuck on the mountain, so we decide not to take a chance. Paul is a great guide and we highly recommend him (his website http://www.capeguidedwalks.co.za/).

Clau, Paul and Dine

Platteklip Gorge is a pretty steep climb, but the 3 hours or more to reach the top of the mountain was worthy once we saw the amazing views awaiting for us.

Taking in the view

There is a cable car taking people up and down the mountain, but being pretty feet we preferred to do it the hard way, walking all the way back, which was a lot quicker, taking us about half of the time compared to the climb up. I wish this was the truth, but in reality, the cable car was closed for maintenance for a week. This was the only reason we walked back on foot. J

Cable Car at Table Mountain

We spotted ome very cute wild life as we trekked through the mountain. The bird on the photo looks like a humming bird.

Bird life at Table Mountain

There are also other birds preying on the tourist food.

Birds waiting for food at the top of the mountain

The 'dossi' or as they call them here the ‘rock rabbit’ looks like a guinea pig. They are not shy and come very close to the tourists asking for food.

Rock rabbit

Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden

Pretty much every single place Dine and I have visited in Cape Town is surrounded by colossal mountains and with Kirstenbosch Garden it was no different. 

Kirstenbosh Botanical Garden

This botanical garden is very unique due to the fact that it has only native plants. What was very interesting to me was to see that their native flowers are very similar, if not identical, to the native flowers in Australia. According to Paul (the trekking guide), some studies say that many millions of years ago Africa and Australia were part of only one continent and that’s why they have identical native flowers.

Native Plant - Protea family

Native Plant - Protea family

A plant that I had never seen flowering before in Brazil or Australia was the Aloe. These plants can be seen everywhere on the streets of Cape Town shining with red, orange and yellow flowers.

Native Plant - Bitter Aloe

There are pretty ‘wild’ guinea fowls spread throughout the gardens. They look like chicken but much better-looking. I gave them some bread before reading the sign ‘please do not feed the guinea fowls’ and they nearly jumped on me. I thought I was going to get some scratches but they were only after the food. Dine and I had a pretty good laugh.

Guinea Fowl

Do not feed the birds!

We visited a sculpture garden displaying some pretty impressive stone sculptures. Most of them for sale.

Sculpture Garden

Camps Bay

According to our local friend Sheila, Camps Bay is the beach of the famous and the rich, with houses with ocean view worth millions of dollars. Camps Bay is considered one of the most beautiful beaches in Cape Town, bordered with very tall palm trees. On the main road facing the beach there are many posh restaurants and nice cafes, where Dine, Sheila and I enjoyed a nice lunch. The day was stunning with not a cloud in the sky!

Camps Bay

Camps Bay is surrounded by the spectacular Twelve Apostles mountain range.

The Twelve Apostles Mountain Range

 The Old Biscuit Mill Market 

The Old Mill Biscuit

This market is near the Woodstock train station and so worthy a visit. It’s a very crowded market with a great atmosphere and iwith many locals and tourists coming and going all the time. There you can find everything there from delicious food, to clothes and all sorts of handmade stuff.

Our friend Nick works at The Old Mill Biscuit Market on Saturday mornings selling her cute handmade dolls.

Nick's handmade dolls