Postage

Now that we have completed our teaching program...

Sunday: Demarathoning
Slept in until 9. After a month of early wake up calls and busy schedules a day of rest was much needed (especially after a half marathon). Some of my favorite days are lazy days spent lounging around the house in my pajamas, and today was no different. We took our coffee and breakfast on the patio to enjoy a late brunch. Later we walked down to the library to meet our guide for a little hike. We were going to the skull caves (caves filled with human skulls of buried village ancestors). Anyone that has met me knows that I am hyper-ligamentous (my surgeon's term for clumsy), thus far I have managed to not maim myself, but I guess today was my dat. I somehow managed to launch myself into a thorn bush, impaling a branch into my leg, immediate bruising and bleeding occurred, awesome. I suppose its not a successful trip until I receive a battle wound. Luckily I wasn't the only person to leave with a souvenir from the hike, Bob managed to walk away with a nice little head wound. And as always we had a late start, this paired with out of shape people, random battle wounds, extreme heat, African terrain and the setting sun was not the ideal setting for a hike. We were about a quarter way through the hike when we realized this. We settled for the cave with one skull low on the mountain, unfortunately this scene was not as exciting as we had anticipated. After a sneak peak we resigned to the Banda.

Monday: Stigmatized
Today we hosted a community HIV/AIDS tutorial at the Bungule library. It was an open house, the community was welcomed to join us for donuts and a video from 10-4. One person came. The young man informed us that in this society a person's attendance at such a gathering could be misinterpreted as them having the illness. The stigma associated with this disease has created such a negative vortex (and rightfully so), that something as simple as an informational meeting can be misread. This was irritating but understandable. After he left we decided to call it a day, back to the Banda.

Tuesday: Lounging

Wednesday: Lounging

Thursday: Mount Kasigua
Seeing as our first hike was so successful we decided to try another. We retired the idea of the skull caves, the narrow trail and angry baboons were enough to detour us from further exploration. This time we were going to try Mount Kasigua, we were told it could be anywhere from a 4-6 hour hike. This was a bit frightening being that my hiking experience is basically nonexistent (Two Trees is my paramount excursion). This trek was led by three locals welding machetes, these were used to clear a path an whack unwanted intruders (snakes). About half way up we lost a couple of boys, hiking is not everyone's cup of tea, they decided to head back down to the van and retreat to the Banda for a couple of Tuskers and cigars. The girls continued on. This hike was definitely an experience, we traversed through so many microclimates. We began in the hot savanna, made our way into the bush, then onto a forest, then into the rain forest and out at the top of the mountain. The rain forest was magical to say the least, think Fern Gully. An eerie mist rests just above the trees, sun light peaking through and fragmenting off the fog illuminating our path. The ground springs back after you step on it because of the moss.  You can hear the wind whistling through the trees, little drops trickling of the brush, a constant mist swaying overhead. When we finally made it to the top it was like we were sitting on top of the clouds. We found a flat   peaking out of the mist, and there we enjoyed lunch as we gazed down our conquered mountain.

Friday: Demos and things
After a day of hiking we decided to give ourselves another day off. We slept in most of the day then made our way down to town to say our farewells to our friends.

Saturday: Buh byeee
Caution: When running beware (be aware) of poisonous snakes and rampaging elephants.
Before a long da of travel I like to go for a run in the mornings to get my wiggles out, and today was no different. Today we were FINALLY making the trip to Mumbasa to head down to Sand Island. But before the trek we decided to go for a little morning run, as we headed down the trail we maintained our usual running routine. Megan in the front pacing us and Alex and I trying to keep up. About 20 minutes into our run we noticed that an elephant had decided to take our running path the night before. We were a little hesitant (African elephants are not friendly...they will try to run you over) but it had probably passed hours before so we had nothing to fear? False. It had just passed through we decided to avoid a collision with the ele and took another path. I haven't seen the beach in a month, the withdraws were beginning to take a toll on me! Nothing was stopping me from laying in the sand next to fields of starfish and crystal clear waters.