Iten Adventures (part 1)

These past 6 weeks have been pretty incredible—the first 3 were spent in Kwale, living with some incredibly passionate and generous Kenyans who have hearts of gold, serving their community well, and spending the past 3 with Elizabeth Marie, my darling and hard-working younger sister who is volunteering with the Peace Corps at a Deaf School in Sipili, Kenya. She’s allowing me to be her first “guest blogger” – so here goes.

Visiting Kenya is JUST like Disney World, but a million times better. Take a look:

1. It’s kind of like living the Lion King. Simba means “lion” in Swahili, Rafiki means “friend” and the sunrises are 1000 times more gorgeous than the movie portrays. Everytime someone says “Asante!” (thank you), I start singing “asanta sana squash banana” J Sometimes it’s in my head…sometimes not.
2. They have these sweet minibuses you can ride—and on dirt roads after a heavy rain they can totally feel like a rollercoaster!
3. Instead of just 7 dwarfs, we have 20 little boys who share a wall with us, giggling the whole night through. Also, they love to take out our compost. They actually fight over this chore.
4. Luckily, we don’t have any “Mickey’s” hiding in our house—just a few bats and birds staked out in the roof. They love to sing to us in code as we fall asleep at night, although we have yet to find creatures who like to clean the house!
5. A spoonful of sugar does help the medicine go down. Literally…that’s how Bis takes her malaria pills.
6. We eat porridge every day-just like Beauty and the Beast! Ours is made with sugar, and any combination of the following milled grains: millet, amaranth, sorghum and wheat. Oh, and sugar.
7. They don’t have spaghetti, so eating Lady and the Tramp style is difficult, BUT they do have kale and it is grown in every single garden. Therefore, everyone has a love affair with it – it’s basically served at every single meal. I’m not complaining J
8. Elizabeth is a bit like Gus, the mouse from Cinderella, because she loves cheese. We went to a cheese factory this weekend—now she’s satisfied!
9. My sign language “name” ( a sign given to everyone in the community so one doesn’t have to spell out every single letter every single time) is the sign language symbol for “princess” and Elizabeth’s sign name is the one for “color!”
10.  We have crazed tea parties every day in the teachers lounge. Sometimes they get super crazy and we get a banana.
11.  We have “Nights in Shining Armor!” Each night we fall asleep snuggled up next to him, he protects us from the bad guys, and is always there to comfort us. Thank you, oh mosquito net!
12. We live on the Bare Necessities J

This weekend was probably the most exciting weekend we’ve had together in Kenya. It started with us planning a simple weekend to Iten, the running capital of the world, to see a 10K race. Little did we know how exciting it would get…

We left Friday afternoon with the headmaster’s blessing, as he let us leave at 10, since it would take until 7ish to get to Eldoret, the last stop before Iten.

Leg 1: uneventful, although we had to wait 1 hour before the matatu left Sipili. We had to wait for it to fill up. “fill up” means 16 people in an 11 passenger van.

Leg 2: We rode the matatu alongside a VERY drunk man. Mind you, it was 1:00 pm. He had to get out 2 times to pee, fell over while doing so, and probably apologized “pole, pole” a gazillion times. He had a great sense of humor, so it was pretty entertaining matatu ride.

Leg 3: Our matatu broke down about 45 minutes in. Luckily it was in a town, so we were able to find some French fries and Peptang, Bis’s favorite ketchup. Two hours later, we were on the road again.

Leg 4: We got into Eldoret around 8, met E’s fellow Deaf Ed Peace Corps member, Jennifer, and we headed to stay at her place in Iten…

We got up super early Saturday morning to watch the 10k race…because there wasn’t a time advertised anywhere. Shocker. There were about 1500 men and women participating in the race—all Kenyan, we were told. E and I were sitting on a hill prior to the race near the finish line, when a man named Robert Kiptanui approached us and took us down the hill to take a picture with him. We talked with him for a long time and he introduced us to anyone he knew (which was about 75% of the people there!) Olympians, marathoner and trainer Gilbert Koech, (check out http://www.examiner.com/article/koech-pushkareva-win-the-rock-n-roll-san-antonio-marathon) who also happens to be Edna Kiplagat’s husband. She’s kind of a good runner…you know, ran in the London Olympics, 3^rd in the London Marathon…) I talked to him for a very long time—he watched the race with me and told me who was who as the racers were finishing. He told me about his training and it turns out he trained in Valley Forge for 2 or 3 years and now trains in Iten and Magnolia, Colorado. He’s coming to Philly in September to run the Rock’N’Roll half marathon!

p.s. The top time for a 10K at 2,500 meters altitude? 29:39. It was a “hard course” say the locals.