My last blog post of 2012 (weirdddd!)…and it happens to be
my 12th blog (I think), love that J Well, tis the season
to be jolly, fa la la J I am back in Sipili and wanted to tell you about my
Christmas on the coast! I traveled 16 hours or so via matatu and bus to get to
Kilifi where Deirdre, a deaf ed volunteer, lives now. A total of 6 of us, 5
deaf ed and one math/science volunteers met up for the holidays. On Christmas
Eve we hung out at a friends house by the beach who Deirdre knows, some guy
from England, and it was a lot of fun! Christmas Eve is also Mackenzie’s
Birthday who lives in Malindi, a coastal town about 45 minutes away. We had
great food, some drinks and just relaxed. I don’t think I could’ve done much
more than that after the long day of traveling so it worked out well.
Christmas Day I had wanted to run but the coast is sooooo
hot!! I have no idea what the temperature is but I’m sweating every day, all
day if that helps a little. It’s just hot all the time-morning through the
night and there is no air conditioner to retreat to haha.
We headed down to the beach early in the morning and met up
with a Swedish family that comes to Kenya for a month every year. Their family
started this tradition of swimming across a small segment of the Indian Ocean
(they call it a creek but it is about 50 times larger than any creek I’ve
encountered) and back about 7 years ago. The original swim was done to raise
money for malaria and now they just do it every year because it wakes them up
and feels great. I was not as amped to do this swim as I would’ve rather run to
the other side but it was too hot and I didn’t know where to go haha. I am not
a swimmer at all and although lots of my cousins and siblings are swimmers, I
didn’t get that gene…however, I did the whole thing!! YOLO J
(You Only Live Once!) I was swimming in total for about an hour and 15 minutes
perhaps? The water was incredibly warm and I think that was probably at least 5
times the length of any distance I’ve ever swam consecutively and that was from
way back when during elementary school swim lessons in the summer! I did do
some aqua-jogging as well while reminiscing about our early JCXC morning swims
but the water was def never that warm!
After our swim we headed back, ate some spaghetti lunch (I
think I’m going to hit a record of consecutive days eating spaghetti-I might be
7 for 8 days right now!), and then just relaxed for a bit. Around 4 we headed
down to the dock where another one of Deirde’s new friends met us and he took
us out on the water on his boat. It was so incredibly beautiful! We saw a lot
of mangroves, awesome birds I don’t know the name of, tons and tons of white
jellyfish and a sweet sunset over the water! It was pretty amazing!
My day ended on a great note because I got to skype with
both my family and Nate! It was hard at some points during the day when we
would be reminded that it was Christmas but when we were weren’t thinking about
it, it wasn’t too bad because it didn’t feel anything like Christmas at all. I
was sweating, getting tan, swimming, surrounded by lush greenery and I was
thousands of miles from my family-the very opposite of every Christmas I’ve
ever had. It was really good to chat with everyone and see faces though!! It
made me really thankful to have the support I have been blessed with!!!! Thank
you!!! J
The day after Christmas we decided to treat ourselves. We
went to this resort place where you pay a flat rate to swim all day and eat a
buffet lunch. It was sooooo surreal!! It didn’t feel like we were in Kenya…or
in the Peace Corps! Haha it was a really nice getaway and time to hang out. We
did the water aerobics class in the morning for half an hour and relaxed by the
pool. We decided that going once or twice a year would be a wonderful way to
indulge ourselves and have a break. I have only been to a few places like that
before and it always feels a bit peculiar because it’s so unlike places I
normally go to. It was a really nice way to relax and take a breather from the
craziness of everything here and prepare ourselves to teach!
The whole break was a lot of fun and super good to talk and
see the other volunteers!! I think that was the best part because we’d only
been at our sites for one week but it felt like a long week. We’d gone from seeing
each other for at least 9-10 hours every day and spending most of our waking
moments surrounded by other volunteers and our host families to being totally
on our own. It was great to talk with the 5 girls and know that we were all
going through the same emotions. We talked about how it’s awesome to be on our
own but there is so much we have to learn about our communities and since the
students aren’t there for another week it can get kinda lonely at site now. We
are trying to make friends but it is tough stuff. It’ll get easier though and
once the students are back I’ll have my hands full.
I hope everyone had grrrreat holidays and continue to do
so!!!
Merrrrry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!!! J
Kisses from Kenya,
Lizbeth
p.s. I took lots of pictures but I wont be able to post any until I have my first break or go somewhere with my computer where I have faster internet, here in Sipili I can upload one or two but it takes a little bit. Hakuna Matata
No comments:
Post a Comment