I can start with a little irritating thing that has happened..We got home from the coast and after two days in Antsirabe we realized that we had forgot that we put five of our dresses in the closet at the hotel.. So the picture of me at Christmas-eve is the last picture you will ever see of me in that dress!
We went to Kenya for infield last week, and it has been the week of my life! First of all, we got to see alot of Hald-people again, something that was really nice! And a lot of you know that I love animals.. Well, I got to see some in Kenya as well..
The first day we visited an Elephant-orphanage, and got to see when they fed them with bottles of milk. We got to touch them as well, and their skin felt like touching a rock.
After being in the Elephant-orphanage we went to see a Giraffe-park. It was really cool, because I have never been so close to a giraffe before!
Yeah, this is as comfortable as it looks like.. (They assured us that the giraffes didn't have rabies.)
One of the days at Infield we went on safari.. I have to admit that it was a bit more boring than actually getting to touch the big animals, but it was good to see them in the wild as well.. And the coolest animals that we saw at the safari were baboons. They were outside the nationalpark and they were stealing things from the cars that had left the windows open.
Here you can see a baboon inside the car.
This baboon is eating a mango he stole from one of the cars.
This picture speaks a bit for itself..
Besides from the baboons I have to say that the coolest animals we saw were the zebras, I don't know why, but they are facinating..
Here you have Julie and me and an overview of the park.
Even though it was fun to see the animals, the best experience I have from the trip to Kenya is the visit to the Mathare-slum.. The way people live in Mathare is so different from my life, and it really put things in perspective. There are over 600.000 people living in Mathare, and when I walked through the slum I couldn't help but notice that I could not se a face that wasn't smiling..
In Norway you see so many commercials to help the people in the slum, and they show a crying baby with flies all over. That is not the impression I have of the slum at all. Yes, people are struggling with money, HIV/aids and crime and it is an unhealthy invironment to live in. But we have so much to learn from the people that are living in a community like Mathare. I have never felt so welcomed by strangers anywhere else in the world.. As many of you might know, I don't like kids that I don't know so much.. But this is the first time I have ever experienced a totally unknown kid running right to me, and giving me a hug. Actually a lot of kids ran up to us to hold our hands and talk to us.
We visited something called "The Lepta Community" and I have never met so inspiring people in my life. Here you can see what it says on Lepta's homepage: http://sites.google.com/site/leptacommunity/mathare-valley I highly reccomend to read it, it's not long, and then you can see a bit more of what I have seen.
Here you see an overview picture of the slum, here it lives over 600.000 people.
Here you can see the river that runs through the slum, and a man looking for bottles that he wants to sell.
This is a random street in Mathare, this is the houses that people live in.
This is our friend, a member of "The Lepta Community" and he showed us his appartment in Mathare. You can also see me, holding his neighbour's baby. She was so cute!
Here you can see one of the kids that ran up to me on the street.
- Mary Ann
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