Nils Arnold Eggen

There are many birds in Kisumu. Some of them builds nests in the trees. They have to build special nests bacause snakes can come and eat the eggs. The nests are shaped like a big heart with the opening in the bottom. Sometimes the wind is very strong in Kisumu, and a nest fell down just in front of me. Now I have adopted the egg inside. I don’t know if the litle baby bird will survive, but I have named him Nils Arnold Eggen, and he sleeps in my room.

In the name of love

In Kenya there is one serie on the TV you just have to see. It starts at 20.05 and last for one hour with a lot of comurtials in between. The serie is from Spain and was maybe made in the 1990’s. The mane character is a girl named Paloma. She has an evil aunt who kills her mother because she is in love with her lover. There is a lot of drama. Everyone love each others boy- or girlfriends, and they try to separate all the happy couples. There is a lot going on in the Church and everyone meets there. No one knows who their parents are. And the parents don’t know that they have kids and so on. The serie reminds me of Glamour and For better and for worse. It is almoust as popular as Hotell Cæsar is in Norway, and it’s a toppic of discution during worktime.

Second hand

In Kisumu there is many second hand markets. Here you can find everything from Victoria Seecret underwear to teddy bears from McDonalds. I think it’s a good thing to use clothes in stead of throwing them away. In Norway we shop for fun and forget half of the clothes we are bying in the closet. Angela and I had a lot of fun playing with the toys in the market, and i bought to tights for 20 norwegian kroner.

Dancing at the Sunspot

On friday night we went out dancing in Kisumu. The disco was called Sunspot and was packed whit people from 18 to 60 years old. The dancing was completely different from norwegian discos, and we got a big culture shock. The dancing is verry intence and there is no persenal space. Most of the night we had to run away from old and drunk african men. It was an interesting night and we had a lot of fun.

The big beer flod.

Outside of Kisumu there is a big factory making beer. The waste from the factory is lead through a long plumming system in to Lake Victoria. Beside the road there was a river and «as we went down in the river to pray we realized it was made of beer». Do you know the song :)

What a man should know.

Today we vissited a youth group. The group worked with different things like making soap and dresses and educate about health issues. Family planning and equal rights between wife and husband is also some of the main toppics of the information work. They showed us some of their products and took us for a boat ride on Lake Victoria. The boat was made of tree and took in a lot of water.

A juicy meal

The meals in Kenya are good, but there is only three meals a day. We norwegians are hungry all the time and that is why we had to find a snack meal between lunch at 1 pm and supper at 8 pm. We love juice and ceriales, so why not combind them?

New mzumgus in Kisumu

Two girls juind us un the guesthouse og YWCA on monday. They are participating in a program calld communication for change. It is nice to be able to talk norwegian and I will enjoy their stay. They will leave us in December and go back to Norway. Silje Dising is from Trondheim ans Angela Bakke is from Ås.

Bro-bro-brille

I vissited a school and playd with the children. We toght each other games and draw pictures of our families. I hope we will be able to go back and mabe teach if it is possible.

Fashionshow in Kisumu.

The past three days 34 children from the western part of Kenya have stayed in YWCAs guesthouse. These children have different chalenges. Some are physikaly and some are mentaly handycaped. In this small seminar, organised by the organisation Girl Child network the chidren have learnt about Childrens rights. And when I asked them what childrens rights are the first answere was: «Children has a right to education.» This i tink is a good sum up of what the organisation girl child network works with. Every child has a right to education regardless of any physical or mental handycap.
The last evening of the seminar the children held a fashionshow, and I had to attend :)

Visit the website for more information: www.girlchildnetwork.org

Save Kåre!

Kåre was a happy rooster. He learnd to crow from his father and every morning he awoke the people in his farm. One morning he got the opportunity to see the city and he was very exieted. He saw a lot of houses and a big crowd of people. Sudanly the car stoped and some people came to see him. He was not the only rooster in the car, and when the people said that he was the best one he was very pleased. The people bought him and carried him in to a strange room with a lot of knives. It was in this room I met him. This was the first and last time I saw him alive, but he tasted good.

Home sweet home.

Im staying in the hostel of YWCA Kisumu. The house has a beautiful garden with flowers and trees. On the picture my window is the second from the right.

To the left, to the left.

The traffic in Kisumu is sometimes crazy. Cars, tuktuks, bodabodas, motorbikes and bicycles are driving past eachother in a ever lasting stream. This can make it quite dangerious to cross the road. And the fact that they all drive on the left side of the road makes it even more confusing for me, because we in Norway drive on the right side. Some of the roads have a lot of hols and you find your self dirving in zigzag. It is no secret that it is a lot of car acsidents in Kenya, and our driver experienced one a couple of days ago. Tha car survived but the windscreen got some scratches.

Motorbiketrip

On sunday Joy and I went on a motorbiketrip with a guide named Ezekiel Oduor. He showd us Lake Victoria. We visited different beaches. Firstly the Carwash beach. This beach is used to wash the cars in Kisumu. Some of the Hippos in Lake Victoria likes the Hippobeach. In the evening they walks on this beach eating grass and sleeping. I love to swim and I liked the Kiboko resort beach where I can swim and get tand ;) The last beach we visited was the Fishermen beach. On this beach we witnesst a boat sinking. The fishermen in the boat were saved and everything went well in the end.

Pictures

Easy coach

I stayed in Nairobi from sunday to wednesday. On Wednesday Joy and I went with Easy coach to Kisumu. It was a long trip. It lasted for 8 hours.

Hair

Joy and I have bouth gotten new hairstyles this week. Joy made my hair. She is now my personal stylist.

Fish

We have now tasted a typical Kisumu meel, fish from Lake Victoria. You are suposed to eat the head, but I havent deard jet.

Receptionist

Joy and I are learning about the work of YWCA Kisumu and we have spent the last days in the reception of the hostel. Tomorow we will wissit one of the programs of YWCA Kisumu. Im looking forward to it :)
We are also learning some Kiswahili words..

Kisumu

I have finaly arived in Kisumu city, and I will hopefully get my own room tomorrow :)
The internett is not good, but I will try to find a way of bloging at least 3 times a week. I hope everone back home in Norway are ok, and that the GoCYs all are feeling good ;)