Friday, February 18, 2011

Hey everyone. The last two weeks have been tons of fun. Super Bowl weekend was a mess, I saw the sunrise three consecutive nights. Saturday my friends had a house warming party. The party consisted of beer pong, flip cup (its amazing how I never lose my competitive drive when it come to drinking games, as you can imagine I was quite the spectacle for the Europeans), Jell-O shots and a blender making tasty cocktails all day and night. I even managed to meet myself a nice Kiwi girl. This all day house party obviously resulted in us being the last ones to leave bar, walking home with the sun up. Sunday (Super Bowl) involved me and a few others attempting to cook for 30 people while being incredibly hung over. We made hot dogs, Mexican dip, wings and burrito stuff. What more could you ask for to watch football? Super Bowl here started at 2:30am but we still had a loud and rowdy crew of American with a couple international observers who seemed more entertained by our cussing and drunken antics than the game itself. We watched the game at 40’s, our trusty beach bar. At about the start of the 4th quarter the sun began to rise and I was able to watch the game and simultaneously see the sunrise over the Indian Ocean without even moving my head. All in all and amazing night/weekend!! Work wise I am having major problems with the water project. What a difference a week can make, but such is life in Kenya. Theres a problem with the filters and the water is coming out benignly contaminated. We are unable to pinpoint the problem and as a result can not produce or sell. On the lighter side I actually did some very exciting work with the Whale Shark Trust. The sharks should be migrating through our area within the next month, therefore we are now going on expeditions to try and locate them. This past Tuesday I went up in a Micro Light (picture a hang glider with a fan attached to the back of it) to try and spot them. We went up to about 2000 ft and patrolled up and down the coast in search of the giant fish. Unfortunately we have yet to find any but I did see some dolphin, turtles and truly breathtaking views. It was kind of like parasailing but 10 times cooler. Once we finally spot some sharks will be when the real fun begins, as I am promised to get some water time with the giant creatures. Something that is likely to be the highlight of my time in Kenya. No plans yet for this weekend I guess it depends on if I get paid today or Monday. As much as I love it here not a day goes by that I don’t miss America and all of you! Talk to you soon.
Love,
Dino

Friday, February 4, 2011

Um, yes I am aware its been 3 months since my last post and I apologize. Those of you who have not herd from me since should be happy to know I am still alive and doing fine. General recap of the last three months….. Work wise up until recently much to my dismay, I did next to nothing. All my projects dried up at pretty much the same time. This left me bored, agitated and feeling without purpose. However, this is a common occurrence in the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer and I am happy to say I have successfully mentally navigated these difficult times and am now working and accomplishing things. (more specifics to come) Socially, I love it here! I love Diani Beach! In all honesty if I found a well paying job here, I am pretty sure I could live here long term and be very happy (don’t worry folks as the chance of me finding a well paying job in Kenya outside of Nairobi is slim to none). In the past couple months I have made what I consider to be life long friendships with a small but amazing group and friends and have met countless other awesome and interesting people. Once again, as beautiful as it is here my favorite thing about Diani continues to be the people I meet. One last thing I want to touch on and that is the value of money. I assumed Peace Corps service would devalue money in my eyes, make me want it less, make it less significant to me. They say you never realize what you have until its gone, I guess that’s a big part of the problem. Living in a tourist environment on a volunteer budget SUCKS! I realize that I signed up for this, and I honestly never dreamed of having the social life I do and for that reason I’m not complaining as much as I’m trying to make a point. My Peace Corps service has made me want to go out into the real world, work my ass of and make money. Probably not a common side effect from Peace Corps service but I don’t live the “common” Peace Corps life and I’m not a “common” Peace Corps volunteer. I don’t consider myself materialistic but what I want is money to travel, explore and do fun things. I constantly meet people who have been traveling for months and sometimes years, and yea it sometimes makes me jealous. Here I am living half way around the world surrounded by amazing and exotic places but unfortunately travel is not in the budget of a volunteer. Those of you who might argue the value of money, yes I am aware that my pursuit of money is motivated by travel and fun but try telling my neighbors who can not afford to send their children to school that money isn’t everything. I realize those are polar opposite ends of the spectrum, but my point is that money has definite value to everyone and the pursuit of money is a good and natural thing. OK, sorry for that rant but it was something I needed to get off my chest. Now I will highlight the last couple months….

November

November is really when my work began to really slow down. I did however go to a couple different primary schools and give a Whale Shark Conservation lecture. As a side project, I do work for the East Africa Whale Shark Trust but there really has been very little work to do. November I guess was the month I met and formed lasting friendships with whom I consider to be my core group of friends. Nick has been my best friend since Peace Corps training but I just noticed I have not mentioned him so there’s that. He’s from Arizona, fun and the only person in Peace Corps almost as crazy as me. The first person I met in Diani was Ben. He’s a Kenyan raised Brit who works as a mercenary. He came to Diani for a month last year and has been here for almost a year now. This seems to happened a lot here. Ben goes out pretty much every night and is good fun (wow “good fun” yea apparently I speak and think in British slang now). Next there’s Malti, he’s on his gap year from Luxembourg. He’s only 19 but is hysterical and was one the first real friends I meet in Diani. Malti even came out to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. Then there’s Bash. Bash is Nick and I’s “big sister”, she’s amazing and does everything for us. She’s from South Africa but lives and works in Diani now. Bash knows everyone and has been integral in assimilating me into the Diani Beach community. Aunt Pam, I even found Bash to be a worthy recipient of your Care Bear and explained to her the story behind it. Towards the end of November I met a bunch of US Navy guys living here in Kenya they are awesome and a blast to hangout with. Specifically there’s Jack and Dash. Jack is from the same place in Arizona as Nick (small world). I spend a lot of time hanging out at their hotel and they have been great to me. Dash is a surfer from Hawaii so obviously we get along great. He even brought his SUP over from the states and lets me use is whenever. Both of them are great guys who would give you the shirt off your back. Lastly is Adrian. He’s from the UK. He’s awesome, smart as shit and the captain of our quiz team. Lately he has been great in helping me get my water project marketed in Diani. Like everywhere else I have lived, I am incredibly fortunate to have an amazing group of friends.

December
December was even slower work wise so I decided to start my holiday early. My last day of work was around the 18th and spent the rest of the month living it up in Diani. Christmas consisted aside from me being really hung over, of a beach BBQ at a beautiful secluded river mouth beach spot. It was an awesome truly Kenyan way to celebrate the holiday. On Boxing day (the 26th of December to us Americans) Forty Thieves had its annual camel races. People sign up to race camels on the beach and everyone else bets on them and drinks. We all participated in the races and I came in second to Malti. The week between xmas and new years was drunken mayhem. I was told Diani gets crazy for new years and that was an understatement. The entire bar and 200 yard area of beach in front of it was packed with people every night. During the week was the Kenya Cup, a big Kitesurfing completion with people coming in from all over the world. Even though I don’t particularly like or respect kitesurfing it was cool to watch. Forties Thieves’ New Year’s party dubbed The Psychedelic Seaside Circus was entirely organized by Bash and accurately named. A bunch of South Africa’s biggest DJ’s who were all good friends of hers came to perform. We got to hang out with them the week leading up the party. New Years itself was fuckin crazy!! From 9-12 Nick and I volunteered as bartenders. I missed being behind the bar and had fun doing it, and we were allowed to drink the whole time which was nice. We were a big hit as you can imagine and everyone especially the ladies remembered us for the rest of the night. After our shift was over we partied are asses off dancing to sick ass dubstep on the beach literally till 1 in the after noon the next day. I saw my first sunrise of the new year come up over the Indian Ocean out of my mind dancing to dubstep. Hell of a way to kick in the New Year!!

January
The first week in January aside from detox, was our advanced Kiswahili training. A trainer came in to Diani and taught us for a few hours a day. It was nice to expand my language a little and get back in a learning mode. After a week or so my water project finally got its license from the Kenya Revenue Authority to begin selling water. HOORAY!! Since then I am happy to say I have been busy. In review, my school is producing and selling purified bottles of water as an income generating activity. Me, myself am in charge of all marketing, selling, accounting and logistical aspects of the company. Right now most my time is devoted to trying to market and sell the water in both my village and in Diani. It is a slow process as Kenyans are very advert to change but we are beginning to see positive results and I am very optimistic. Digoland (the name of my water company) is even the sponsoring next months quiz night at forties. So that’s it, we are caught up now. Looking forward, I am very excited for this weekend Malti and Adrian just moved into a new really nice place and are having a house warming party. Being Super Bowl weekend they decided to make it a American themed party with a keg, beer pong, flip cup and jello shots. As for the game itself we rented out a bar with a big HD projector. They are going to keep the bar itself open for the game and I am going to make a bunch of classic football food for everyone. Happy Super Bowl weekend everyonce I miss and love ya!!

Oh yea, I have now been here 9 months now. No visitors yet, understandable…. However the only thing I have received via mail from any of you guys (family excluded) was Brendan’s xmas card, unacceptable!! Step it up folks I love getting mail. I live in Kenya and have minimal contact with the western world its all I have to look forward to. (Wardo, Alex I specifically talking to you two)