teaonthestairs: ([misc] very destressed)
After Kenya (or how Rosie is NOT dealing 15 months on)

It's been fifteen months since I left Mombasa, Kenya, in body at least - I confess, I walked through Mombasa airport with a sigh of relief, because I was leaving and I was tired and sick and more then a little heartbroken, I never really felt any kind of passion for Africa - it was never somewhere I talked about going, in fact I told myself I wouldn't go at all - I just wasn't interested. Not like Asia, not like Europe and Russia and the Americas. I've always known I would travel through Asia - I would experience India, and eat my way through Vietnam, and sun bake in Thailand. Europe was always on the map - how could I not want to explore the Greek islands and dance my way through Spain and write bad poetry in the UK? Africa was never a dream - I didn't want to go on a safari, I was not interested in the food and the sheer size and need of it scared me, I never thought of volunteering there until I accidentally did.

Don't ask me why, or when I decided it was Kenya I was going to go to - I don't know. I joke that it was exams that did it to me - never book a holiday when you are studying for exams right? Or maybe it was because the travel agent priced a trip to Kenya for me as an example, and I held onto that as something to hold on to. I don't know...

But somehow I ended up there, flying into Mombasa airport at 2 in the afternoon and getting knocked over by the humidity, the poverty and the homesickness )

I'm tired, and angry, and (once again) teary eyed. I have a written guide to volunteering I'm going to post soon. But not tonight - tonight I'm angry and upset and feeling useless.
teaonthestairs: (Default)

Kenya.

I promised photos and so now I deliver. A small selection of my Kenyan photos.   

     

Kenya )




teaonthestairs: (collide)

Reporting to you from Turkey, where I have access to 24 hour internet while my dad attends this conference for the first two weeks of my stay here. God it's good to have internet access, it means I have something to entertain myself with - unfortunately I'm the only one under 35 here and though that usually isn't a problem the fact that everyone is here to work means that they have other things on their minds then entertaining me. The town I'm in is pretty, if touristy, it's a town on the eastern Mediterranean called Alanya and it has a beach and shopping aplenty - which at this point is all I really need, I just need to wind down and adjust to the fact that I'm not in  Kansas Mombasa anymore, after my mum arrives here next week I'm going to drag her off to see the places I'm desperate to see - like the Temple of Artemis and a hugely nerdish amount of museums. But until then I'm going to indulge and read too much fanficion, lay around on the beach and eat the best food in the whole world. I'm telling you after 9 weeks of no fresh food, of soups, rice, ugali, stews, bread and chips I'm so glad for the mountains of salads and veggies we get served here. 

The place I'm staying is pretty cool, it used to be a hotel but its been converted into a workshop and conference center for the WMO, it means that it has all the perks of a hotel and the perks of a conference centre - which means wireless internet! fast wireless internet. So I'm right now laying around in my room (a room of my own! pure luxury!) listening to bad 90's pop and eating Australian chocolate and trying to decide where to start in my fanfiction reading. 

I really wish there was someone here I could hang out with - okay I demand someone comes over and keeps me company! Right now! Yes that means you!



I'm seriously craving photoshop. And bed. And fanfiction. And my DVDs. And choclate. Maybe not in that order.

teaonthestairs: (Default)

The rainy season has finally come to Mombasa, it has been pouring rain ALL week, I got soaked going to work today, though somehow everyone around Vicky and myself seemed more or less dry. I think the Kenyan's have a keeping dry secret they are not sharing! So I spent all today in wet clothes, it wasn't too bad, a bit cold - at first I didn't even recognise the feeling, feeling cold hasn't happened to me since... well since Melbourne. Way weird. Its nice sleeping at night though - much, much cooler. 

Did I just talk about the weather for a paragraph?! I must be getting boring. Or I just really have nothing to day. How can I be in another country and have nothing to say? Okay, I have got things to say, I'm sure of it.
 
It's weird to think I've only got a week left in Mombasa, at the beginning it felt like it was never ending trip, but now the weeks seemed to have flwon by. Except for this week - is it STILL Wednesday? Gosh how can I want this week to end and never end at the same time? I'm going to miss Bee Hive and the kids SO much! I've become so hopelessly attacted I just don't want to leave them. But I'm so eager to get to Turkey to see mum and dad, I can't wait to get home and sleep in my own bed, use my own bathroom! Gosh I miss my bathroom so much!

Okay I'm sure I started on one track and went completely on another - my mind is compeltly scrabbled - not that taht is much different from normal - I blame lack of internet and extreme photoshop withdrawals. I miss making icons!

Okay I've crapped on for long enough, I really do have nothing to say. I think I need some... soemthing. Sugar maybe. Or Fanfiction. Yum! Fanfiction. You know when I get back to Melbourne I'm going to be in need of reccs - I would have missed THREE MONTHS of new fanfic! It's tragic!
 
Okay, I'm going to hunt down some sugar. or possibly a lion. Whichever comes first.

teaonthestairs: (Default)
Just a quick hello to say that I am still alive, though I would kill for some decent cake and chocolate. I'm having an awesome time and can't believe I only have two weeks left! Though I will be going to turkey afterwards. I love the orphanage and have started a few projects, we have just put a room together for the older girls with beds and mattreses and we painted teh walls and all taht fun stuff, the kids love having beds! And the girls love having their own space!

Will try and update more, maybe. If I can be bothered! I'm so exhusted all the time - its the weather and the work and the stress, plus the lack of decent chocolate doesn't help! Hope thinsg are going okay in the world outside Mombasa.
teaonthestairs: (Default)

On the low point of my week last week, when I was feeling like I wasn't of any use here in Kenya at all and I wasn't using this chance I have to help the kids I'm working with, I got an email from live journal. My paid account expired. Thanks LJ, you made my week! 

But then the next day I had a fantastic time at the orphanage and school. I think it was because on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week I spent most of the day washing dishes, washing clothes and cooking - which was helpful in the moment but not really in the long run. On Thursday I spent all day teaching the nursery and grade 1 kids English and Maths. They are so cute! I just want to take them all home with me! I don't think I should be teaching them Maths though - I forgot what Devision was the other day! Actually English either - I mean LOOK at my spelling!

Anyhow, I'm loving it here in Mombasa - well I'm loving parts of it. I'm despretely homesick though and I just want to so somewhere where I don't stand out in a crowd! I like blending in but its impossible to do it here in Kenya.

The weather is hot and humid, but sometimes I can be getting burnt but rained upon at the same time and that is way beyond cool. Freaky weather is my favourite thing! Working all day in the hot sun is exhusting though, if I can I try and confine myself to indoors - either in the rundown old ruin that they use as a school or in the kitchen with Ester the cook, who is by far my favourite person, barring the other volunteers, that I have met in Kenya. She is so nice and jolly and she teases me and is teaching me to cook all these yum things. When I get back to Melbourne I am so taking a cooking course, I want to learn how to cook EVERYTHING not just things I'm farmilar with!

It's great living in the volunteer house, there is 9 other volunteers as well - its so weird living with boys - do boys always walk around half naked? They all have great accents and its so nice having people to talk to that are going through the same experince I am! I spent over two hours today talking with 3 other girls - we basically bitched about i-to-i, which is the company that organised the volunteer experience. I would so NOT recommended it to other people wishing to volunteer - do it with someone else, we have had so many problems and concerns and they aren't getting addressed! Its so frustrating - we are trying to help our projects but we can't access the money - money that was promised we could access and that is actually money that we paid!  - so that we can help these places. Like at my project we are trying to get them running water - but we have to wait 6 months before the application will go through! no one will be here, that is here now, in 6 months! its the stupidest, most annoying and frustrating thing ever!

Gosh! Sorry is makes me so angry! Anyhow besides all the problems we are having I'm having fun, I'm just hoping time flys by though. I want to be on my way to Turkey!! 6 more weeks! I love the kids I work with but its so hard and different and confronting and hot and insane and frustrating here. I want to be back in my comfort zone!  

telegram.

Mar. 11th, 2006 08:59 pm
teaonthestairs: (Default)
got to kenya alive and well stop am having a brilliant time stop have drunk to much soda stop it's so hot and humid here stop the ophanage is amazing stop the kids are great stop miss you all stop don't have to much fun without me stop will update more when not on a sugar high stop
teaonthestairs: (dru //)

I love you guys so hard. Thanks for everything yesterday with my uh kinda-sorta, semi, really small breakdown

So last night was kind of a low for me - after that post was made I chucked a major tantrum - like throwing books across my room, swearing and slamming doors tantrum - very worthy of a 2 year old. Amazingly I didn't wake anyone else up in the house - even though I have no door to my room and it was 2 in the morning. Good news is that my computer is semi-fixed, I can use it but I'm a bit hesitant to put any strain on it until I can wipe the hard disk and reprogram it again, I have everything backed-up, I'm not going to lose anything but I will have a nice, semi-new shiny computer that actually works! But that won't happen for a couple of weeks - that means icons might be a bit scarce for a while.

Tonight a couple of Kenyan women come over for dinner - mum had meet them while gardening out the front and they wanted to meet me, I got a heap of awesome advice and an offer to stay with Minnie's family in the highlands of Kenya - it would be awesome to do so. They also gave me a kickarse necklace, as seen below (I so was a game show hostess in my previous life), and Lillie and Dad got into a discussion with them about the effect of the expansion of the British empire. It was fun all round, and in a couple of weeks we're going down the street to their place for traditional African food, should be very, very yum.

Oh! I passed the first of the two tests you need to get my license, oh yay, I don't know who's idea it was to encourage me to drive - I despise it with passion. I hate having that kind of responsibility over a vehicle I feel is just inside my control - plus I am so going to end up the driver for ALL my friends - none of them are really even thinking of getting their license.

On Monday I get my exams results back, nearly only four days. I'm so freaking out - what happens if I can't get the score I want to get into the course I want and then I end up having to apply for a job a Maccas - which won't take me anyway because by then I'll be too old and living off the dole - and I'll never achieve my plan for world domination peace!! /hysterical

Oh and thanks LJ for the sending of the comments you didn't send before - two weeks late.
teaonthestairs: (housewilson //)

I feel all dizzy - stupid varnish. My dads re-doing the benches downstairs and the kitchen is right above my room, my room has no door. Hence dizziness. I feel all stressed too but that's not because of the vanish - stupid school, I have four weeks left of term and everything is due, all my final artworks and final SACs and the formal, I have nearly everything for the formal, dress, shows, earrings, hair appointment ect. and my sister just has to make my necklace.

In three months, that's including the exams, my high school life is over forever. Scary.

This weekend I booked the volunteer program I'm going to do next year - Mombasa, in Kenya - working with the street children there. I'm kinda freaking out. I've never been overseas. I'll be staying with a family I don't know for two months. I don't speak the language. I'll be by myself.

Anyone been to Kenya? Want to tell me some handy hints?

I also applied for my Uni course last week, my first pref. is Nursing at RMIT and then Development Studies at La Trobe -after that several Social Work, Art's and Social Sciences courses. Everything is changing.

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