Paul, Ute and Nikki's Blog: From Vihiga to Kima and Kipepeo

Saying goodbye on Friday to the kids at Vihiga Children's Home was very hard. We played and talked with them until our very last momment as we wanted to spend every second we could with them.

      We took a matatu (like a mini bus) to Kima which is the home town of Kipepeo. Jethron, Julius and Jesse (the 3 main guys of Kipepeo) gave us a very warm welcome along with the rest of the volunteers up at Stone Mountain. We had a short introduction about the next few days and then headed over to our hotel. Some of us went on the motorcycles but I didn't. I don't trust their driving here... too sketchy...especially with all those potholes, the fact that it was getting really dark, and them driving on the wrong side of the road. We had a good, long conversation with Jethron and Julius. Jethron says a lot of things that reminds me of Professor Don Jacob (from our jiu jitsu club). For example, he pointed at someone and said 'Hey! You're doing this wrong!' but he showed us how 3 fingers pointed back at himself. Things like that and all of his positive energy reminds me a lot of how I pictured Professor as a younger man.

      Saturday was the big opening of Kipepeo's new office. It's only about 100m away from their old location but has two rooms and an overall bigger space. It was a great presentation throughout the morning and Scott, Matias and my dad made speeches. After lunch we took a matatu to Luanda to see the street kids and we got the chance to play a legit soccer game with them. It was a very large field with almost no out of bounds. When we were all tired, we gave them all food at a church. They got beans, rice, and chipati (like naan bread).

      This morning, we had another small meeting and then took a long hike up Esibalika Hill which is a tall mountain with enormous boulders everywhere. It was a very interesting hike; trying to find footing on slanted rocks. Little kids were following us. I guess they found it weird seeing muzungus (white person in Swahili) walking around boulders. It was tiring at some points when the adults with the cameras kept stopping every second to take a picture, but I'm sure when I see the wonderful photos it will all be worth while. We ran out of time so we weren't able to see the caves, so that will have to be saved for the next trip. On our way down the mountain/hill, we saw MONKEYS! Jethron, our guide for the day, told us we can feed the monkeys some bananas. They came over slowly at first, but the Columbus Monkeys eventually came close enough so I could actually hand over the banana to the monkey :D It was so cool! On our way back to our hotel, we walked by the equator! I was a bit disapointed that there wasn't an actual line on the ground showing the north of the equator and the south. It was still cool jumping from one side of the hemisphere to the next. We took another legit matatu back to Luanda for lunch and now I'm sitting at an internet cafe that actually works writing this before we head back to our hotel. Tonight though, we are planning on staying at Gilbert's house which should be quite interesting. Can't wait to tell you guys about it!

     Just to let you know, we don't have a lot of internet access so don't be surprised when we don't post for a few days. We'll try to keep you updated as much as possible.

-Nikki & Ute