So the inevitable finally happened yesterday, my cell phone was stolen. I suspected it to happen sometime, but as my time in Nairobi was coming to an end I was beginning to doubt it. Here is my journal entry about the exciting events...or not so exciting events.

"...The next event that made me take notice was when I got to the center and tried to text message Mike but couldn't find my phone. And that was when recent events became clear to me. It became clear to me why the fat man in the business suit was so eager to have me sit beside him, but on the seat that I would have to slide across in front of him. It became clear why my pocket carrying my cell phone got caught on the hanging file folder that he was carrying. It became clear why he nervously fiddled with the lady's broken seat in front of us while we drove down the street.

I admit. I didn't think that I based my trust of people on stereotypes of how they look, but if I am completely honest with myself, I have to admit that I did just that yesterday. If it would have been any other person I probably would have instinctively checked my pocket as soon as I felt someone/thing touch it. But because this was a fat guy in a business suit I didn't instinctively check. Looking deeper into the issue I realize that I shouldn't have judged him positively on his size anyway. In my experience there are two type of Kenyans who can, ahem, enjoy a good share of food. One, people who actually are good in business and two, people who are corrupt. A good portion of the police, for example. (Ok, that was probably a little biased because of my experiences with the police and GSU in the Mathare valley, but I still hold to that statement.)

Looking back on it I realize that this guy was able to feed himself excessively and wear business suits because he was...well, good at his business. I don't think it was mere coincidence that he chose the seat he did. It was right before the back row and nobody wants to sit in that row unless they absolutely have to, thus my choosing to squeeze in beside him. I also don't believe that it was by chance that he was right behind the broken seat, which was in actuality drawing about 85% of my attention to make sure that I didn't rip the head off as I slid in beside him. All in all I give the guy props for doing his business as well as he does; however, I do plan on head butting the guy the next time I see him, and I do hope to see him again. I don't plan on intentionally tracking him down, but I do remember which matatu it was on--just in case he works that broken seat often.

Still, at the end of the day, I had a feeling of joy knowing how disappointed that guy felt when he found out that he had ripped off a mzungu for the oldest, crappiest phone in all of Nairobi. Let's just say that he's not going to be buying a new suit with that sale."

Have you ever slept with your face rubbing up against the wall of a mud hut? Have you ever gone hunting with a group of 10 Maasai warriors? Have you ever eaten every single part of a goat? These are just a few of the highlights from my trip to Edoynya Erinka, a small village in Maasai land.

My classmate Mike and I traveled to Maasai land on Saturday morning and stayed for three nights. A friend of my mentor named Jonathon Ololokum was the Maasai guy who took us around, found a place for us to stay, and did all of the translating.

On Sunday after church we went hunting. The weapons were spears (which Mike and I tried throwing but didn't have the skill) and clubs used for throwing called Eringas. It wasn't a very successful hunting day as we only captured a baby Bushbaby, (and that took 45 minutes because one of the Maasai guys insisted on climbing an Acacia tree to get it, and if you know anything about acacia trees they are covered in thorns; therefore the guys had to hack off branch after branch to get up to the Bushbaby) we killed one snake and one bird. The bird kill was impressive. I have heard that people in Australia used to kill birds with boomerangs, but I never knew how they did it, but this week I saw how it was possible. Someone would spot a bird in a bush, (most of them only as big as sparrows) everyone would surround the bush, they would throw rocks or sticks in to scare it out, and when it came out the closest people would through their clubs at it while it was flying away. Of course, while this was happening everyone also had to be careful not to get hit by another flying club. It was an amazing adventure to be trampling through the African bush armed with nothing but a club.

Later that night we went jumping hare hunting again (which I told an earlier story about). We were successful this time! I was in hot pursuit of one jumping hare and my hands had brushed against his tail when I fells into the dirt. I was soon running again after the same one and he stopped when it came to an acacia tree. I had to slam on my brakes to keep from running straight into the thorny tree, but again my hands slipped around his tail but he jumped out just in time. Luckily he jumped right in from of another Maasai guy who just grabbed the whole hare by the body. Success!!

Jonathon drives a Toyota Hilux, but because we broke the truck on the trip out to Edoynya Erinka we weren't able to go on a big game drive that we were planning for Monday. The day didn't turn out all bad through. It was their first day of cold winter, but it still wasn't too cold. Since we couldn't drive places we ended up tracking elephants on foot rather than by car. This was another great adventure and I kept thinking that my life is like a dream at times; how many people get the chance to walk across the African savanna and cross rivers in search of elephants? We left the spears at home this day because we didn't have enough people in the hunting party to be taking down an elephant anyway.

The first two nights we slept in a guest house of a missionary family, but the third night was spent in a Maasai hut. We watched a lady prepare dinner in one house and we ate dinner there also. The houses are set up with a bed one one side, a fireplace/cooking area in the middle and another bed on the other side. And by fireplace I mean open fire with a U-shaped ridge that the pots can sit on above the fire. The interesting thing about the Maasai houses is that they don't have ventilation for the smoke to escape. It works well for heating purposes, but it doesn't work well for visitors who aren't used to EXTREMELY thick smoke going into their eyes at all times. It doesn't phase the Maasai who grew up in the smoky huts, but for me, I begin crying after three seconds of entering the hut and I continue crying for about an hour, and my nose runs the entire time also.

After eating in Jonathon's sister-in-law's house we went to the house where we were staying and just sat on the bed for a while. We went into the house, Jonathon said goodnight because he was staying in another house and he left--taking with him all forms of communication because no one in the house spoke English, and Mike and I didn't know any Kimaasai. We sat on our bed and looked at the bed across from us, the room was lit by the remaining coals from the cooking fire and a small lantern made from a rum bottle. All we could see were six young faces just staring at us and sitting their silently. We didn't know what to do. Were we expected to go to bed right now? Were we supposed to take off our shoes and socks? Were the girls going to stare at us until we fell asleep? We were quite the attraction because I'm sure they had never had wazungus staying in their house before. Mike and I started talking to each other about what we should do while the onlookers just watched. I was finally brave enough to take off my shoes and make it look like I was preparing for bed and I laughed hard when Mike said, "I'm trying to find a way to tactfully take off my pants." I finally laid down in my bed and put my blanket over me (still being watched by six people) and I said "lala salama" (which is sleep peacefully in Kiswahili) and this finally broke the silence. A bunch of them giggled and started talking in Kimaasai and I just then realized that they knew Kiswahili. So we were finally able to communicate a little bit. I told them we were tired, so we were going to bed, and we would see them in the morning. After I said this five of the people left because apparently they weren't even staying in that house that night. I guess we were simply the main attraction and our act was simply preparing for bed. That night I slept in many different positions, trying to get comfortable on the bed which was a frame made of sticks but covered with blankets. I would have slept comfortably if it was a little longer so I could have slept on my back, but because it was too short I had to sleep on my sides and it made it more difficult. It was a fun experience anyway.

Life has been pretty exciting lately. If you keep up with international news (or if you watch CNN at all) you will have noticed that Nairobi has been a pretty exciting place lately. With the Mungiki gang and "blasts" happening downtown it has made a few international headlines. To ease your worried hearts, I am doing fine and am completely safe. I'll probably write more about this later and the injustice that is present in handling these situations.

This morning I arrived from Mombasa. My classmate Mike and I traveled to the coast for 4 days and saw historical sites as well as enjoyed the white, sandy beaches. You can see more photos from this trip on my facebook here.

For the trip to Mombasa we left Nairobi on Sunday night at 10:45. I slept very well on the bus, although Mike had a rough night trying to use the curtain as a combination pillow/blanket. We arrived early in the morning in Mombasa, took a matatu to the ferry, floated to the mainland from Mombasa island, took another matatu to Ukunda, walked for quite a few kilometers with our suitcases in hand, got lost, took a taxi to where we were staying, and were on the beach by 10 am.

The second day we saw an old fort in Mombasa, visited the old town, went to a beautiful Jain Temple, and ate mangoes for dinner.

The third day we went to old Swahili ruins along the beach, went to a crocodile farm with over 10,000 crocodiles, and visited a Hindu temple that was inside a cave.

I will soon have more descriptions of the trip as the captions to my pictures on facebook.

I must leave the cyber cafe now because I want to beat the traffic going home.

I thought it was about time for another update on my life in Nairobi.

Life has been extra busy lately. I had a busy week of creating more student profiles for our child sponsorship program at Mathare Family Hope Center—this was the week after I returned from the Congo. The week after that, I spent with my classmate Michael Shepherd in Masii, Kenya. It is a village that is close to Machakos (if that helps any). There I helped with a Vacation Bible School for over 400 students of all ages. I helped teach a class for the grade 10 students.

I have been back in Nairobi lately and I have been working on more child sponsorship work, I taught the morning Bible study at a church in Kosovo last Sunday, and as always, my favorite, I’ve been cruisin’ around Nairobi on matatus.

Yesterday was the worst day of traffic that I’ve experienced. I was trying to board a matatu at about 8:15am, but it was a challenge. Apparently there was a big UN conference at the UN place, and that’s exactly where I was trying to board a matatu. There were a bunch of presidents and other diplomats attending, so they had a huge police force stopping traffic to let them through. It took about 1 1/2 hours to get to downtown then another 30 minutes to Mlango Kubwa, where I work.

Returning from work that night was even more fun. When I arrived at my matatu stage there was the yellow, piece-of-crap, 30-seater beast waiting for me. I refused to get on it since it has broken down the past two times I’ve ridden on it. This proved to be a bad choice considering not another matatu would come by for over an hour. Finally some guy made an announcement and the line began quickly dispersing. I asked the guy next to me what was happening and he said, “The matatu isn’t coming” and then he left. Oh great! So I asked the guy behind me (hoping that he would be a little more helpful) what was going on and he gave me many more details. He said because of traffic the matatus wouldn’t be coming downtown and he said he would show me where to load for the 108 along Ngara road. We walked and talked for a long time. He told me all about his business and then he told me all about the dangers along River Road at night. He also let me know about all the business that I could take care of in “third world Nairobi”, (as he called the old part of Nairobi). He said I could get a fake ID, fake passport, fake driver’s license—basically anything fake, and he said they were fast at their business. I told him that I appreciated the information and would store the information for future references.

We made it a far distance down Ngara (past the “coward” section, as my friend called it, where people stand if they want to pay the correct fare) and waited. Finally an empty 108 came but they said they weren’t going to UNEP (which is where I needed to alight). This is where my friend bid me farewell and left. Now I was standing in an alley perpendicular to Ngara road with very few people around me—none of which were going to UNEP. As I looked at the sky, realizing that it would be getting dark soon, I was hoping and praying that a 106 would find its way into this alley. Luckily I didn’t have to wait too long before I was comfortably seated in a soft seat, along a bumpy, pot-hole infested, unforgiving alley-way. Home free!!

Last week as I was visiting friends in Bondeni (part of the Mathare valley), I asked them if any of them liked “kichwa ya mbuzi” (goat head). Much to my pleasure, they loved it, and they knew exactly where to get it. So I said, “next week”. Well, today was next week, so we went to the “best restaurant in Bondeni” and ate some good goat head. They didn’t serve the brain but we had the eyes and any other meat that could be taken off of the head. It was soooo good!! I recommend it to anyone! All it needs is a little salt.

The rumors are true. We did make it back from the Congo alive!

I'll try to summarize what we did, where we went, and a few other interesting details.

We left on a Thursday night from Nairobi at about 7:30 pm and rode a bus all night long. We were in a city called Kisumu at about 1 am and I got off to stretch my legs and go to the bathroom. When I got off the bus I believed I was the only one of my traveling party (which is one American and 4 Kenyans) getting off the bus. I was on the ground for about a minute when suddenly, BAM! The door slammed shut and the bus took off very fast!! I was absolutely terrified because I had nothing with me, no phone, no money, no passport; they were all on the bus! I turned to sprint after the bus but a guy stopped me with his arm and started speaking to me in Swahili (and I'm sure he had a good laugh later about how terrified I must have looked). I was pointing to the bus, when I saw that Mike was also on the ground with me. This gave me a feeling of comfort because I thought, well, if I'm stuck in Kisumu at 1 am, at least I have someone else who is stuck and lost with me. We found out later that the bus was just going to refuel. It really took a while for my heart rate to slow back down after that experience.

We arrived in Kampala, Uganda around 9 am, then Kigali Rwanda at about 6 pm. We stayed in Kigali to rest a day before moving on to the DRC.Sunday morning we left Kigali and rode another bus for 6 hours through the most beautiful scenery I've ever experienced. And part of the trip was through a tropical rainforest. This was a dream-come-true for me! Ever since we studied tropical rainforests in fourth grade I have always wanted to visit one and I was finally able to do that!

We crossed a bridge and were then officially in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Entered in the city of Bukavu and then went to the village of Katana. Here is where we had a week of CHE (Community Health Evangelism) trainings. Essentially these are community empowerment trainings. The trainings were very successful and many people even experienced a sort of paradigm shift in their thinking about community development. Shifting from an attitude of, "we're helpless and we can only wait on outsiders to come in and to the work for us" to "we really can begin address our own issues, with our own resources, because we are the ones who know our community the best." This is exactly what CHE teaches and it was great to have such a good response.

Here is the class that graduated from the trainings.

The day we left Katana we traveled back to Bukavu in a taxi. Poor planning led to a fun little adventure there. Our taxi took us to Bukavu and as we got into town we realized that no one in our taxi knew where we were going. So the driver dropped us at a roundabout and left. This will be easy to fix though, the other taxi will soon be coming and they'll see us standing here, right? Wrong. That's ok, we'll call them to come get us, right? Wrong, none of us have a phone that works in the Congo. That's ok, we'll use a pay phone to call, right? Wrong, we don't have any contact numbers. Here's a good idea, how about we just stand here on the roundabout for FOUR hours until the sun is long gone? Well, we didn't have many other options so that was the one we took. Were there street lights? Of course! Were there working bulbs in the street lights? Yeah right! After overhearing a conversation of some guys who were planning on grabbing one of our bags we decided to huddle under the light of one 60 watt bulb on the side of a building. By no small act of God we were finally found, and we made it to the house we were supposed to stay in that night.

We woke up the next morning beside the beautiful lake Kivuu and we were eager to begin our six hour boat ride to the city of Goma. We were aware that there were three classes tickets and we had budgeted for the $20 tickets. When we got to the boat and found out that the only tickets left were the $5 tickets it was still ok. They can't be that much different, right? Well, if you can see clearly in the picture, they were a little different. We spent 6 hours in the luggage compartment/kitchen/animal transport area. I began the trip sitting on a suitcase with three GIANT charcoal stoves on my left, more luggage and people on my right, a goat at my feet, my feet were resting on gerry-cans of cooking oil, there were drums of diesel right next to the stoves and the engine room was a few feet behind me with no doors. It was definitely a fun experience!!

The next week of CHE training was in the city of Goma. We had another good week of training with many people coming to the realization that they can make a change in their community.

In 2003 Goma had a volcano erupt and it buried most of the town and we got to go to the place where the lava began flowing from. At night you could see a red glow coming from above the volcano.

I got sick for the first time since coming to Africa in January. And I was only sick for a day, so that was good.

On the return trip we stayed in Kigali, Rwanda for a day of rest. During that time we were able to go to the genocide memorial. However, it wasn't an ordinary day at the memorial. We happened to be there on the annual, week long, memorial week. It was a very sad place to be since they were having burials, 14 years after the genocide. They said that new mass grave sites are discovered all the time, either from discovering them when starting a construction site, or from people confessing to knowing where the people are buried.

I learned new interesting information while I was there. I had previously thought that it was strangers from one tribe who killed strangers from another tribe. But I was told that wasn't it at all. The people who killed each other weren't strangers, they were neighbors and even friends.

Overall, the trip to the Congo was a success. One of the objectives that Mike and I had was to return alive. We completed that objective and a few others as well.

For more pictures you can click these links.

Congo Album 1
Congo Album 2
Congo Album 3

I will be leaving in 5 hours for my trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo. I don't think I'll be able to make any updates while I'm there, so this will have to do for a while.

We're leaving Nairobi at 7:30 tonight, traveling by bus to Kampala, Uganda. We arrive in Kampala at 9 a.m. then we have a 30 minute stop break, then back on the bus for another trip to Kigali, Rwanda. We arrive in Kigali at about 5 in the afternoon. We're staying with some people for the day in Rwanda and we will get to see the city and go to the genocide memorial. Then on another bus to the D.R.C. I don't remember the names of the towns/cities that I'll be in, in DRC but they're somewhat close to the eastern border. Pretty far from the capital where the unrest is. I'm making sure to leave my viva la Bemba shirt at home.

I'll be in one city for a week doing a Community Health Evangelism training, then we go on a 8 hour boat ride to another city for another week long training.

Michael Shepherd, one of my classmates from Hope is going on this trip with me and we're both excited for all that we're going to see and experience. We're hoping to see Pygmies and eat monkeys.

Please pray for the safety and everything to work out well for this trip.

I had a little run in with a bee the other day. Last Saturday I decided to go for a walk. I decided to walk barefoot, which turned out to be a very bad idea because the street became very hot for the 80% of the walk that wasn’t in the shade. I returned after my one mile trek on hot, rock asphalt with blisters all over my feet. I’m a moron and I’ll never do it again! Yet that wasn’t the most exciting part of the walk.

I was the only person on the street except for a man who was a long distance ahead of me but was walking towards me. I wasn’t far from the house when I heard a loud buzzing right above my head. I kenw it was bees but I was sure they would fly on by…but they didn’t. I knew they were going to attack soon and I wanted to make the first move so I started swatting around my head. As soon as I started doing this two comedians instantly came into my head, Dane Cook, with his stand-up routine about the killer bees, and Brian Reagan with his routine about walking into a spider web or being chased by a bee. So as I’m trying to defend myself from these bees I’m also embarrassed because I know this guy ahead of me is thinking, “Hey, is that guy waving to me? Wait, what is he doing? He’s going crazy just flailing his arms in the air and spinning around and hitting his head!” In the meantime, NOOOOOO!!! as the first bee stings me on the right earlobe and I continue going crazy because the buzzing is still very loud around me. Finally it ends and I continue on my walk along the street. Soon I encountered the man who had witnessed the mayhem and he asked, “Are you having a problem?” I said, “Yeah, some bees were attacking me back there, but don’t worry, I punched every one of them in the face!”

I’ve decided to put another entertaining update on here. I’m going to include another entry out of my journal for you to enjoy. It is another matatu experience.

March 1, 2007

“I think that one day I may write a small book on all of my matatu experiences. The again, it may end up being a rather large book.

This time it was a Monday and I didn’t arrive to my matatu line until about 6 p.m. The air temperature had cooled down a lot from Uhuru Park to where I was now and I could tell it was going to rain sometime soon. The first sprinkles started after being in line for about ten minutes; the line held fast. As soon as the drops became a little bigger, bam, the line cut to less than half its original size. People scatter in all directions, running to find cover—while the braver ones (or stupider ones) moved up in the line. I was having a great time—I had moved from near the back of the line to a position where I could get on the fifth or sixth matatu that came, and I was loving the rain since we don’t get to experience it too often in Fullerton. And I continued enjoying it, until thirty minutes had passed, only two matatus had come, and the downpour didn’t seem to be letting up. Then, after an hour had passed by I was standing I a puddle with my soaking clothes clinging to my body, I was thinking, “Hmmmm…I guess it might not have been that bad of an idea to run for shelter as soon as the monsoon began.”

Finally my turn came and the matatu pulled up beside us and the conductor attempted to open the sliding door, but it would only open about six inches. This was unbelievable; we had waited to get out of the rain for an hour and a half and finally when it was our turn our dreams were suddenly shattered by a broken door. But our hopes were revived again when the conductore reached through the window and managed to get the door unstuck. We loaded up and began to back up while the conductor slammed the door shut, Bam! It slid back open, Bam! It slid back open again, Bam! OK! There’s no way that door’s going to shut! So we left in the rain with the conductor holding the door shut. As I glanced to my left I realized, “No wonder the door won’t work, it looks like this little Nissan was t-boned right where the door slides back and it looks like someone just beat the doorpost back out with a sledge hammer and slapped some body-putty on the spot to smooth things out.” Seriously, is body-putty on the inside of vehicles a common practice?”