Circle of Life (Part Two)

Last night was my first night in my house in Bungoma. It's not posh by any means but there's electricity and running water!

Going to preface this next bit with some back story. For those who don't already know, I had a traumatizing moth situation in my apartment in NY. Somehow moths kept getting into my tiny studio apartment on the 32nd floor of a midtown Manhattan building and psychologically terrorizing me.

So I'm unpacking last night in my room, trying to put up makeshift curtains when I notice a dark fluttering in my peripheral vision. Not my imagination; it's a moth. Keeping my cool and patting myself on the back for it, I turn off my light and turn on the one in the hallway to guide it out. Success. Hydie 1, Moth 0. Then I notice another moth. And another. And another. My housemate Alan, hears me muttering obscenities and comes out to help. By that time there are like 8-10 moths flying around. He turns on my light to see what's going on with the window situation and that's when I see the image that will stay with me until the day I die. Real life Arachnophobia moment. Moths swarming in through the cracks of the windows. Nonstop.

Then survival mode kicks in. Alan quarantines my room with hardcore bugspray (I proposed also spraying a pentagram on the door) while I go on a killing rampage. There are literally dozens of dead moths all over our house by the time I'm done and I feel a strange mixture of calm and adrenaline. Crisis averted, we go back to our rooms. Only, when I come out a few minutes later, there are now swarms of ants surrounding each of the moth carcasses! Alan hears me swearing again and comes out to see what's going on. Turns out, Alan's one phobia is ants! Eff our lives. We spray toxic bug spray on each of the moth carcasses and that solves that problem, but now the floor of our house is covered in both moth and ant dead bodies. It's like a minefield navigating the house. But I'm going to chalk this one up in the win column. Sort of.

PS. I would show you pictures to prove I'm not exaggerating but I really don't want photographic reminders that this really happened...

Circle of Life

Jambo from Nairobi! One day and already destroyed by mosquitos (FML). Just a quick update in pictures today!

Me feeding giraffes:

Tortoise laying her eggs in the backyard of Wildebeest Camp, where I am currently lodging:

Just missed baby elephant and rhino feedings; sadness. Will definitely have to return for that at some point!

T-5 days

Several people have suggested that I keep a blog during my time in Kenya. Never one to disappoint my public, I'll be posting some pictures and thoughts here. Please leave comments (good and bad!) so I don't feel like I'm talking to myself :)

Here's where I'll be based -- a town in Western Kenya called Bungoma, population 44,000.

In case you're wondering, it'll take me about 32 hours to get there (including layovers in London and Nairobi). I'll be 7,000 miles from home but only 7 hours ahead of EDT, so will be seeing you on Skype and gchat!

Edit: For those who don't know why the heck I'm going to Kenya -- I'll be working with a nonprofit called One Acre Fund for 3.5 months before starting business school at Kellogg. They are an awesome organization that provides agricultural inputs on credit as well as training and other services to help bring subsistence farmers in Kenya and Rwanda out of poverty. In five years, they've already grown to serve over 30,000 farm families, and aim to serve 100,000 by 2012, and 1,000,000 by 2020. Check them out here: www.oneacrefund.org