Our Village Volunteers Hosts

I am staying at Wendy’s house while in Nairobi. She works with Village Volunteers, the amazing organization that has arranged most of our travels in Kenya. Wendy arranges to have volunteers picked up at the airport in Nairobi and brought back to her house, where she hosts them. Normally volunteers stay for one or two days and then move on to the village where they will work. While in Nairobi, Wendy makes sure the volunteers are fed and takes care of their transportation needs.

My stay in Nairobi is a bit different; I am here for 25 days. Wendy has been a great host and is always available when I have questions or concerns, and has been really helpful with figuring out the logistics for getting to some of the interviews I’ve had; I don’t know how she does it, given that she works long hours five days a week. One huge help is Phoebe, Wendy’s niece. She is living with Wendy while she completes a computer course and then hopefully moves on to nursing school. Phoebe does most of the shopping and has prepared most of the meals. She is a great cook and she even lets me help out from time to time…mostly with the dishes, though. She has class five days a week, which is great because I can ride into town with her, enjoy the city for a few hours and then ride back with her. I have to confess…she has got me addicted to cheesy Spanish soap operas with bad English dubbing. This is the late night entertainment.

I am incredibly grateful to Wendy and Phoebe for hosting me while I am here.

Heather arrives in one week…yaaayyyy! We are spending one night at Wendy’s house, and then we are moving up to the “posh” side of town, Karen. One of the members of the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition (KBioC), African Network for Animal Welfare, has a guest house with a master bedroom and a chef. Their director Josphat Ngonyo (who we met in Iowa last fall at the Community Food Security Conference) has graciously offered the guest house to us for the two remaining nights we are in Nairobi. It is near the Giraffe Center, and Josphat is going to arrange a visit for us. Supposedly this is a very green, lush, and affluent part of town; home to a lot of politicians and expats.

From there, we head up to Thika for a few days to visit with the folks at GBIAK, and then on to Western Kenya.

This week, a member of KBioC is going to take me around Nairobi to meet with the directors of several of their member organizations and networks. I also have some exciting interviews at the beginning of the week. One that I am particularly excited about is with a professor that focuses on gender and agriculture in Kenya.