From Mary Canada

Hi All - thought you'd like to see some of the fabulous animals. For my birthday I went to Amboseli National Park. Not the great herds of Masaii Mara, but still beautiful to see several kinds of giraffe (there are nine in all..!)hippos, eles, zebras, secretry birds, a hyena, the antelope, diks diks and flamingos roaming in their own environment.
I've recently been to Mombasa with a few other trainees to see some business sites that support HIV centers. The Ministry of Health in Kenya does work with the UN on AIDS education and treatment but the US provides 83% of the medicine and maintenance treatment ABR's and training for the Kenyan medical teams.
More on that later. The trip to Mombasa was especially exciting because I may be placed there after I complete training (with ECO ETHICS, an environmental maritime conservation organization with three offices throughout Kenya). What a beautiful harbor with carribean blue water and a expansive coral reef surrounding. Vasco De Game first came here with his Portuguese sailors in 1498 to establish an east African base but they were met with hostility from the locals and moved up the coast to Malindi. The natural harbor here soon attracted the Turks who build Ft Jesus in the mid 1500's. The Portuguese prevailed however, taking Mombasa back and expanding on the fort in the 1590s. Completing the rectangular shape of the fort to resemble Christ on the cross (since they regarded themselves as representatives of Christendom first rather than Portugal) this fortress lies tranquilly in the sun. But it was not always so. Ft Jesus has suffered a history of murder, seige, starvation and treachery that makes our modern world of hi-jacking and thuggery seem tame. Every sail that appeared on the horizon must have caused nerve racking hours of anxiety to the small colony of around 100 men separated from home by six months of sailing.
This amazing place is a long clear vision into the past.

More soon, but here I am at the waters edge of the fort and then again looking out from an original canon portal to the harbor.

Lots of love Ma and Dutch

Report from training in Taveta, Kenya

So far I am in training and there is no internet. I forward these messages to Billy to post. My training is in Taveta south of Lotokitok doing business visits for HIV projects, a farm, water purification plant, fish ponds,

I am in classes all day, how to market products better, culture, health, 4 hours daily of language...packed. 4 more weeks of training to go.

I have classes all day, I may get to Mombasa where I can write a narrative but hard to do from phone.

This is a fascinating time to be in Africa with Lybia, Egypt, Ruwanda, ect

Some people were worried because of reports about the humanitarian crisis is Dadaab Kenya. I am not near the 10 million Somalis on eastern border, and the unrestful Turkana tribes in NW. Below is an insert about Taveta….

Feeling stronger everyday...

More soon
XO’D

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Taveta is a town in the Taveta District of Coast Province in Kenya. The town has an urban population of 11,500 (1999 census ).
Overview
The town of Taveta is wedged into a projection of Kenyan territory bordered on the north and west by Tanzania. The irregularity in the border was created c. 1881 when Queen Victoria gave Mount Kilimanjaro away as a wedding present to her grandson, then Crown Prince of Prussia and later Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Subsequently, the border was adjusted so that Kilimanjaro would fall within the boundaries of the German colony of Tanganyika instead of the British protectorate of Kenya.
Taveta thrives as a point of commerce between Kenya and Tanzania, with a twice-weekly outdoor market especially large for a town of its size. The market is fueled in part by Taveta's distinctive rail connection through Voi with the Mombasa-Nairobi-Kampala line, built by the British during the era of the Kenya protectorate and celebrated in the 1996 film The Ghost and the Darkness. Large numbers of people walk across the border from socialist Tanzania to buy and sell wares in Taveta; smuggled goods such as Tanzanian rubies and coffee are occasionally available there.

Source
Description above from the Wikipedia article Taveta, Kenya, licensed under CC-BY-SA full list of contributors here. Community Pages are not affiliated with, or endorsed by, anyone associated with the topic.

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Here is a link that will gives you good general information and maps about Kenya;
http://www.kenya-advisor.com/kenya-map.html

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The Market

Masaii blankets at market day!

The cabbage "Duka" at sat market day..
The Masaii prepare it as "sumukawiki"
With garlic, onion, karoti, and spinachi.
I don't care if I see another cabbage!

Dozens of Kukuyu and Masaii vendors..selling everything from flip-flops to cilantro. Avocados are practically freebut no crank canopeners governing in Loitokitok!

Mt Kilimanjaro from Dutch's backyard

We cannot hike Mt Kilimanjaro now while in training. Darn border regulations!