Sorry for the delay between posts it has been a crazy (in a good way) month. Diani Rules was awesome!! It would of definitely made my top five memories list. Like all Diani events it was well organized, taken seriously and drinking was a major part of it. Combining many of my favorite things including sports, the beach, drinking and being competitive it is definitely one of my biggest Kenyan highlights thus far. My team started of slow but performed well in what I would consider “the important” games. We were dominant in “waterball” a variation of water polo and also recorded victories in tug-of-war, the relay race and a beer drinking race. I am very proud of my team and look forward to next years competition. Lastly, I am equally as proud of the fact that over $4000 was raised during the weekends festivities. That money will be used to provide eye surgery for needy Kenyans.
For my birthday weekend Nick, his friend Jonah from America, Cara and I rented out Trixie’s beautiful beach house for the weekend. Cara and I have the same bday and Nick’s is the day after so as you can imagine it was a pretty crazy weekend. It was amazing to “live” in a real house for a few days and have access to its amenities. There was tons of day drinking very little sleep and thanks to Jonah we were able to introduce all my Kenyan friends to real tequila. No one here had ever tried any tequila better than Cuervo so as you can imagine they were quiet impressed with the Petron. My birthday itself was on Monday and I was incredibly hung over all day but did manage to go out and have a nice seafood lunch on the beach followed by delicious Italian ice cream. Thanks again everyone who helped make my birthday awesome!!
Last weekend was the Diani Beach Touch Rugby Tournament which is another big deal here in Diani with teams coming in from several different countries. I had no intention of playing as I have no rugby experience and didn’t even fully understand all the rules, but I was asked to play for a team that came in from the UK and was down a man. My first game was against the eventual champions and needless to say I was pretty embarrassed by the games end. The second day I got the hang of it and I feel played quite well. My team even finished runner up in the “B” tournament. As with all Diani events and rugby in general, drinking was a huge part and I was quite impressed with my ability to perform at a reasonably high athletic level at 9 in the morning with almost no sleep on an equatorial beach. All in all another great weekend and a great introduction to the sport of rugby I look forward to watching the World Cup in a few months.
As of late I have actually been fairly busy at work. I have made flyers to advertise our coco wood furniture project and hopefully the school will soon begin making money as a result. Also, I have designed a billboard for both the coco wood project and our schools auto body work project that will be put up in front of the school. All of which were recommendations from my marketing plan. I am especially proud of these billboards as they will be around long after I am gone. Instead of going to help train the new volunteers as I had mentioned in my last blog, it turns out they are coming to me. On Sunday I will receive a group of PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) that will shadow me at work and learn all about “real Peace Corps life”. While I definitely don’t live the “real Peace Corps life” I will definitely show them a good time as well as teach them some useful stuff. If nothing else its exciting to have guests and to be able to help some future volunteers.
That’s about it for now, plenty of exciting stuff to look forward to coming up. I hope everyone back home is having an awesome summer and has not forgot about me yet. Miss you all, this time next year I will be packing to go home!!
Love,
Dino
