I dont know why, but the night before I left to go to my placement, I thought i would sleep like a baby, dreaming of all the ways i would be a star volunteer. I think i slept for 45 minutes.
9am, time to hit the road. Our transport: 9 seater mini van. Our cargo: 12 people, 9 BIG backpacks, countless shopping bags and over 100 litres of water. It was... cozy, to put it in a positive term. Our first stop was a small Maasai home, just outside of Kimuka. The lady living here, Virginia, is the director of another NGO, MEAC. She was extremely hospitible and served us a delicious chicken soup. I was fortunate enough to get the chickens spine in my bowl. Tasty.
We trundled on, driving along dusty, bumpy dirt roads winding through the dry, red valley below Ngong Hills until we reached Saikeri, where we dropped off 4 volunteers and continued our journey. Shortly after leaving Sairkeri, we ran over a goat. Not a stray dog, or a kangaroo. A goat. Tears welled instantly in the girls eyes. For the NGO staff, however, fear was the only emotion shown on their faces. Goats are extremely valuable to the Maasai, and beacause we had just killed one, it would most likely result in a fiery conflict if we were to stop. We sped away before the spears were thrown. Putting the goat incident behind us, we moved on and 4 hours later (2 of which were spent on the side of the road trying to fix the broken down van), we arrived.
Rolling red plains, scattered evenly with thorny acacias and Maasai manyattas, all nestled naturally under the hot african sun. Baron, isolated, dry, simple. Beautiful.
This was my new home.
