Headed Home

After a long three and a half weeks in Kenya our team is headed home. We had a great group.  In John Renouard's words, "Everyone was respectful, caring, tolerant and able to not only tease good-naturedly but also take some ribbing as well.  They all made it really fun. They worked hard and played hard too. They accomplished a lot and hopefully learned a lot too." Below are some pictures of their last couple of days in the field.  Thanks for a great expedition!

The team's last Kenyan sunset (this time around)

Visiting an orphanage in a slum in Nairobi

Founder John Renouard with Kenyan Member of Parliament and Boston Marathon winner Wesley Korir 

Kilifi's Pump and the Team's Safari

It's been a busy last couple days for the Expedition Team!  Check out Mariah's account of the Kilifi Pump Dedication and their safari adventures!

The past two days have been pretty action packed! Yesterday we had a rare morning off and were able to sleep in and spend some time down at the Indian ocean and relaxing by the pool. In the afternoon we headed to Kilifi to go back to where we were able to help drill the well. On the way there we were also able to stop by a different site where the Village Drill had started to drill another well. Once we arrived to Kilifi, the crowd was much bigger than the first time we had gone for drilling. We were all able to be there for the grand opening of their new well and we all pumped the well a few times and tasted the water that was coming out. Everyone was so excited to see the water. It was incredible.  Afterwards we hung out at the village for a while and watched some of the guys play soccer and handed out bread muffins and sweets. The kids basically swarmed us when the sweets came out. It was pretty intense. 

Now the people of Kilifi won't have to walk 6 miles every day for water -- they can pump it from their own village!

WHOlives Founder John Renouard with Kilifi's new pump

Today, Thursday, we woke up early and headed to the safari! The first animal that we saw was an ostrich. It was pretty far off but it was still pretty exciting. Also on our way to the hotel we saw some zebras,  warthogs, giraffes, monkeys, baboons, elephants, and we were even lucky enough to see a Cheetah!! It was only about 20 feet off the road. It was funny to watch the zebras run across the road because when they walk or run they bob their heads like a little bobble head toy. 

We then checked into the hotel, ate lunch and we were able to watch elephants at the watering hole from the dining area. There was one little baby elephant that was probably less than a month old. There was also a water buffalo down there rolling around in the mud like a puppy. After we ate we were able to walk down to a viewing area that puts you about 15 feet from the elephants and the watering hole. It was super crazy being so close to such a large animal. At one point an elephant was looking right at us and threw its trunk towards us. It scared us pretty badly.

After lunch we headed back out in the safari van and were able to see lions! There were three females sitting about 40 feet from the road sleeping. We spent the next two hours or so watching more elephants, zebras, and water buffalos and many other birds and animals. On our way back to the hotel we saw the same group of lions again but instead of just sleeping they were up and walking around, which was cool. Finally, after dinner we walked back down to the elephant viewing area and saw a few more elephants at night.  Now we are back up watching a movie and getting ready for bed! Can't believe we have less than a week left! It has been awesome.

Mariah

**********UPDATE**********

Safari Pictures!

Sunrise, Sunrise

The expedition group with the staff and children from Sunrise Education Children Center

This field update comes from WHOlives founder and president, John Renouard.  He shares the group's experience visiting East Africa's largest open air market and a small orphanage in Nairobi.

We have crossed into our last week here in Kenya. I'll be honest, it's hard to put into words the experiences we have had.  This week has been less taxing from the grind of the Village experience but everyday we see and do something new and amazing.  

I hope everyone will find a way to look at the pictures we have taken, available in full on our Facebook page, so they can see a little into the experiences we're having. Even the mundane, like going to a grocery store, is intriguing. But then we experienced the very crowded and right on the edge of our comfort zone visit to the open market, the largest in Eastern Africa.  There are not a of visitors to the market so the introduction of eight outsiders garners a lot of attention.  Like in any society, we received a variety of responses to our intrusion to their daily lives, some very pleasant and others bordering on anger.  After our visit we chatted a bit about the experience and drew some conclusions to what it might have been like in other eras where the presence of outsiders was not always warm and many times extremely hostile and unfair. 

Our visit today to a small orphanage did much to build our faith in the future of Kenya.  We visited with 20 of the most well mannered, grateful and cheerful children you could ever imagine.  They would sing at the top of their lungs and share their "sweets" with each other.  As each of our trekkers finished teaching them a cool science project they would break into this cool little jingle, thanking the "teacher" for doing such a good job. It was very cool.

Tomorrow will be a banner day. We are returning to the school in Kilifi where we started drilling a well the first week we were here.  We will be dedicating to this village the first and only clean water source for 10 kilometers (or 6.2 miles)!   I'm not sure, even now after two weeks, that the Trekkers will totally grasp the impact our efforts will have on this community.  This well was made possible by an extremely generous gift from the Barker family from Washington State, along with some funds from the cost of this expedition that was donated to this project.

It truly is amazing to see the "Ripple Effect" so many people can make.  Thank you for all of your support. We love and appreciate you so much.

Thanks,

John

Founder John Renouard with the children from Sunrise Educational Child Center

Most of the children at Sunrise have lost one or both of their parents to HIV/AIDS.  They all had this poem memorized

Some of the sweet children at Sunrise.  They love to sing and laugh

Expedition team member Mariah brought a stethoscope with her to give the children the chance to listen to their heartbeat for the first time.  This little one can't get enough of it.

Jambo Bwana

Today the gang visited a local school in Dzendereni, tried their hand at washing their clothes by hand, visited a nearby waterhole and learned about Buruma tribal traditions.  Reagan Moss shares her experience.

Today, the whole group, along with our new physical training friends, headed over the dusty roads in our bumpy matatus (safari vans) to a school in a village called Dzendereni. Try saying that ten times fast! When we arrived, the entire school was outside the buildings to greet us. This included around 60-80 kids, big and small, all dressed in their school uniform. Of course, the youngest yelled "Jambo!" with as much gusto as they could, and the older children joined in, some vocally, others waving. We stepped out of the vans and they separated into three general age groups and sang us welcome songs and introduced themselves. The best performance was rewarded with sweets (the youngest got it, because they're the cutest of course). Then we met the school's Chairman, and he introduced us to the rest of the staff and showed us the classrooms. He told us about how the schools started out, with just a few supportive parents, mud and sticks. Now they have several well built classrooms, teachers, supplies, and boarding! The progress in two years for the school is really inspiring! Two in our group gave short science lessons and sang with the kids, and of course, gave them all candy. Then we helped with the construction of two new classes, mixing cement, water, and gravel, loading heavy grey bricks into wheel barrows, and practicing our water balancing tecniques. After all the hard work, we took the long drive home to have a late lunch. After that, the group relaxed and washed our clothes- two buckets with soap and water with lots of scrubbing. John then commandeered the safari van (some of us weren't too sure about this...) and took us to the water hole/river to see the water condition and take pictures. When we got back to Koins for Kenya's compound, our home for the week, our friend and guide, Buffalo, was ready to teach us about the local Duruma tribal traditions. From marriages to burial and deaths and becoming a man, it was a pretty interesting lesson. The traditions are an extremely important foundation to African societies. All in all, its been a successful day, and it marked a full week of an incredible trip!

Students in one of Dezenderei School's original classrooms

Mariah practicing her balancing skills

Lending a hand in constructing a new classroom

Washing clothes by hand

Visit to the Water Hole

Fetching water

Taking a swim

Mama knows best

Yesterday our team spent the day shadowing women or "mamas" in the village.  WHOlives founder and president John Renouard shares his account of the experience.

One of the goals we have for our expedition is to do an immersion experience so we can "feel" what the daily life is like here in rural Africa, instead of simply observing it.  We asked if we could do a full 16 hour day immersion starting at 4am, but we were told that it would be too difficult.  My competitive spirit wanted to take the challenge but the village Mamas were not giving in. It was a good thing too.  The Mamas knew what they were talking about. Almost from birth they have been doing these tasks daily, it was foolish of me to think that we could keep up with them for even part of one day. After about six hours of fetching water, cutting firewood, preparing the meals and caring for the little ones we were done, exhausted, worn out and humbled. 

We arrived back at camp and most of us just collapsed and took a short nap, but the day was not yet done. Dinner still needed to be prepared.  When they suggested chicken we all lit up -- that sounded great because we have not really had much protein since arriving at the camp. What we didn't expect was that we were still "on the clock" so preparing dinner was on us, which included of course, choosing our meal as you would pick a lobster from the seafood tank.  

After finding the perfect "meal" we chased him down and then of course, unless we wanted to eat a live chicken we needed to butcher and clean it.  We posted a couple of pictures of our meal after giving his life for our sustenance not realizing that the pictures would be rather graphic to someone not involved in the meal.  But amazingly this experience actually gives you more reverence and we now take our meals much less for granted, understanding that food is precious and should not be wasted or taken for granted.

A picture is worth a thousand words -- and we've got lots of them!

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?  Well, we hope you enjoy these pictures from the field.

4th of July

Future photographers

Mariah giving a friend a ride 

Reagan with some new friends

Ty,  Candise and Kaylie

July 5th:

Mariah milking a goat

Kaylie milking a goat

Learning to cook the Kenyan way

Bringing baby blankets to a local health clinic

A new mother with her precious baby

July 6th:

Candise and Kaylie help drill a well in Kalifi

Jake and Ky lend a hand

Jake G with a new friend

Local school children

 July 7th:

The whole team

Mariah and the waves

Ty posing for the camera

Ky has a lot of fun playing with the local kids

The group went to visit a local artisan village.  Pretty cool stuff