As promised, an account of my Sunday (last weekend)
5 girls in my program and I wanted to get out of the city for a bit and go hiking. After consulting a few Kenyans, we decided to head out to Ngong, a rural town about and hour away from the city. Heading out of crowded and smoggy Nairobi, we passed through a much greener town of Karen and then finally reached out destination in the rural highlands. We were told take a matatu (a small bus that everyone uses to get around) to the police station in Ngong and then start the hike from there. I knew we were off to a rough start when the matatu stopped in town and the driver told us all that this was the last stop and that we had to get out. I asked him if we were near the police station only to receive a slight nod of the head and the response, "yes, close." Walking away, the driver's friend burst out laughing and I overheard him say "kidogo, kidogo..hapana!" which means "close, close, no!"
Crossing the street we asked a man how to get to the police station. His response? "Are youwalking there?" Yes, I told him, we were walking there. He gave us directions (in swahili) and added, "It's not to close..and it's not too far." Helpful.
His directions proved worthless (or my swahili translating wasn't great..I'd like to think it was his directions though) and after the second wrong turn we spotted a mzungu walking towards us. Thankfully, this American woman, in her 60s, spoke English and was able to direct us to the station. A mere 35 minutes later we arrived at the base of the hill, only to be told by a police officer (in a "corruption free zone") that we would have to pay her 40,000 shillings (about 40 dollars) to hire two guards to hike with us. I had a few issues with this.. 1) the website didn't say anything about needing to hire guards 2) I wondered what exactly happened that made them decide that guards were necessary and 3) none of us expected it to cost so much and we didn't have that much money. Still very sketched out by this "requirement" for hiking that would allow her to pocket our 40 dollars, we told her that we didn't have enough money but would like to hire just one guard instead. "You see this gun?" she asked as she lifted her huge, possibly broken, and definitely outdated weapon. "Two guards are needed to carry this thing." We declined the guards and decided to hike up to the starting point ourselves and see if maybe we could hire a guard at the start for a cheaper price. What we thought would be a quick walk to the stand to pay the entrance fee (a sign at the bottom of the hill read "Ngong hills hike, this way) turned out to be an hour long trek up the side of this HUGE hill. We made the most of it though and figured that if we couldn't end up paying the fee, at least we were getting a bit of fresh air. The path up was incredibly beautiful too, and I could literally feel the difference in air quality there than in the dirt and pollution filled air in Nairobi.
To our dismay, we were told the same thing about hiring guards at the entrance. Instead of hiking further, we sat down on a grassy area next to the entrance stand and ate our pb+j sandwiches, only to be informed 5 minutes later by one of the guards that, since we were not paying, we were not allowed to stay there. Thanks for the adventure Ngong hills.
Walking back down into town, these three little children ran up to us and started following us. They told us that they lived in the Ngong and were headed into town as well. We kept walking and somewhere along the way, this street dog started following us as well. Initially I was worried about some stray dog sticking with us, but he proved trustworthy as he began to walk in front of us leading the way into town, turning around ever 20 seconds to make sure we were still following him. When it became crowded in town he stuck right by our sides, not wanting us to leave him. Kenyans don't generally keep dogs as pets and I think he loved that we weren't kicking or shooing him away as most Kenyans seem to do when dogs approach them. By the time we reached town, we had quite the family, complete with 6 American chicks, 3 Kenyan children and our very own dog. I wish I had a family picture to put on the fridge back home.
Reaching the matatu station, we said our goodbyes to the children and, after negotiating the price of our ride back into town, hopped into the matatu to head home. While being distracted by a pickpocketing incident (my friend's phone was stolen from her pocket, but we managed to get it back...but that's a story that deserves a blog post of its own) we didn't realize that the dog had hoped into the matatu with us. Finally, as we settled down from the phone incident, we looked down to realize that this dog was next to us hiding under the seat. Simama, Simama (stop, stop) I said to the driver, but we were already on our way back to Nairobi and he didn't want to slow down. We moved to the back of the matatu and the dog followed us, hoping up onto the seat with us. He laid down and rested his head on my friend Janae's lap. At that point, we were sold. This dog was so well behaved and kind and just wanted someone to pay attention to him. We all started calling people to see if there was someone who would want to keep him. Finally, towards the end of our ride back to Nairobi, one of our friend's host mom agreed to keep the dog, saying that they had been looking for a dog but had not found one yet to adopt.
We reached Nairobi, scared that Baby Odo (what we named the dog) would run away as soon as we got out of the matatu. We were delighted to find that Odo stuck with us just like he had in Ngong, following us all the way back to my friend's house. A dozen strange comments from people on the street about white girls caring for a street dog and one mile later, baby Odo finally had a home.
We played with him for a while and then all went our separate ways, heading home to relay the details of our extremely strange day to our families.
Nearly a week later, telling this story still makes me laugh. In retrospect, it probably wasn't the best choice to befriend a street dog, as many dogs in Kenya have rabies, but baby Odo was an exception. I promise not to risk it with any more stray animals Mom and Dad :)
Tomorrow we're leaving for the coast (Mombasa) for two weeks. The first week we are staying in a rural village called Shirazi where they only speak swahili, have no running water or electricity. I'm SO excited. It's going to be tough, but I'm pumped to practice swahili 24/7. The fact that Shirazi is on the beach doesn't hurt either. The second week we are heading back to Mombassa to relax for a few days. We will have class in the morning, but the afternoons free to explore the city, shop and go to the beach. I'm not bringing my laptop and will be out of communication for at least one week. (I'm not sure whether or not I'll have access to computers when we head back to Mombassa.)
Be on the look out for some updates when I return. I'm sure there will be a TON.
Until next time
-Megan
me and Odo
proof that Odo actually came in the matatu with us
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