water water everywhere

it's wednesday here, at 1:22pm. blogger needs to get it together.

all is good in the neighborhood here. we (kei, kayla, megan and i) switched houses with the other girls (meghan, wambui, kanjani and rachel) which means 3 things:

1. we have been here for 5.5 weeks

2. i no longer live in a hostel with a balcony

3. i have cold milk, all the juice i could want, a washing machine, hot water and 3 included meals a day.

(i recognize my excitement with western luxuries may be a little out of place, but i'm okay with that for right now)

on monday, as a final-farewell-to-the-first-chapter-of-our-time-here-in-kenya activity we went to umbrella falls just outside of town. we took "taxi max" there, who is quite entertaining and doubles as a tour guide! we drove in his diesel-power 1978? mercedes listening to "the music i know you ladies like," which is typically kenyan dancing jams and old-skool pop music. we "off-roaded" through "california" (a nearby village), past the landfill for eldoret ("it smells lovely, right ladies?"), and dozens of beautiful children in school uniforms. we got to the area where the falls are (it is a local power plant) and began to walk (err, scramble) through the woods. max had us jump over this 6 foot stream of water. i was uncharacteristically (?) nervous about jumping over and whined a bit. then i did it (thinking it was imperative to getting to the waterfall). we jumped. we walked 12 steps. we looked down at the waterfall and max had us jump back over! really? i have never heard a kenyan laugh (at himself) so hard.

bronsen jumping over the stream

the sky is pretty

us ladies with the waterfall

kayla and i

OMG! me in front of a waterfall!

us ladies in the waterfall (max was a phenomenal photographer)

the ride home

the falls were pretty. and we got to swim and hike and frolic. we even saw a hyrax (which was a first for me) apparently, because of their tusks they are related to the elephant. you can be the judge of that. then we rode home in the car and had a delicious dinner ("yes that's right, we will have 4 cheeseburgers, pleaseandthankyou.") at a local restaurant with dubbed spanish soap operas playing in the background.

yesterday i held some babies, got SUPER excited about the sasquatch line-up, went to class, read this about kenyan politics, and enjoyed the downpour that engulfed eldoret for a few hours. oh! and i went to the gym and got my butt kicked by the runner up in the mr. africa heavyweight competition. naturally. today we gave a presentation in class about the socio-cultural determinants of health in sub-saharan africa. i had marriage: the average age for first marriage in kenya is 26.3 for men and 21.6 for women, and the maasai typically have an average of 2.8 wives. just so you know.

the rain after class