Graceland

Fear not my faithful followers (... hi Jari), I have returned! And, just to kill the suspense I know so many of you are feeling right now, so far, I appear to be free of any weird disseases. So sorry Squirrel and Merel, you'll get my stuff later.

Anyhoo, Kenya. To somewhat paraphrase Jon Stewart; the short way to describe it is wow. The long way to describe it is wooooooooooooooooow. It is, maybe with the exception of certain parts of Italy (*Barry White music starts now* Honestly baby, that other country, it meant nothin' to me *Barry White music stops*), the most beautiful country I have ever seen. It's almost impossible to describe it, but there's a certain calmness and serenity in the landscape. Actually, in a way, it's exactly like Tuscany, but then again not quite.

Kenyans themselves are also a lot like Italians. But worse. Basically, I think they are how Italians would be if they had to deal with Kenyan temperatures and humidity rates. What that means is that Kenyan people are the most friendly and laidback people you will ever meet. What that also means is that, like with Italians, it's practically impossible to make appointments with them. In Italy, some trains have 'squigly lines' next to them on the schedules in the trainstations. These lines mean (and I swear to god I am not making this up) "this train may or may not arrive". In Kenya squigly lines would be everywhere. It sounds horrible, but once you let go of European or American time and surrender to Kenyan time, you'll find that an additional 15 minutes (or 30 minutes, or hour) doesn't really matter.

Not that any of the other tourists who go to Kenya ever find out. The hotel we were staying in was somekind of expensive resort located at the beach and with a huge pool. The people that go there generally went into the hotel, laid in the sun for two weeks, and then left. Most never got out of the entire resort. To give you a picture of what their vacation must have been like; at 7 in the morning breakfast started, which meant that at 7;05 at the latest they were awake and active so that they could dump their towels on one of the chairs around the pool. Not that there was a lack of chairs, but imagine having one not exactly next to the pool. Then after breakfast they sat in the sun. Around noon they had lunch, so they were back in their chairs around one. At 4 in the afternoon high tea started. This meant that everybody started waiting outside the restaurant area at five minutes before 4. After that they washed up for dinner, had dinner and went to bed.

Now, personally I don't see how you can do that for one day, let alone for 14 without either killing yourself or your fellow hotel guests (the same goes for being locked up at some godforsaken campingsite in France). The fun of traveling is that you go out, see new things, hear new things and meet new people. You can do nothing (or even worse semi-artistic crap) at home. Is it scary to go out into a new continent. Sure. Is it worth it? Damn right. But the thing I really really don't get is why they go to Kenya for that. It's an 8 hour flight. You can get the same sort of sun in f%cking Spain people!

While in Kenya I got to visit two schools. One is a school for orphanaged girls. Most of these girls have lost both their parents, and usually also some of their brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts to AIDS and god knows what else. It's almost impossible to imagine how anybody can survive that, but these girls are being brought up to basically take over the country. They're strong, they know what they want, they have a sense of humour and, because of international money they get the chance, not only to go to high school, but maybe even to university.

But even more impressive was a school for mentally handicaped children. These kids were dumped by their parents, sometime literary at the front gate, and they are some of the sweetest kids alive. The place they are now going to is, in fact, an actual school where they are being taught to read, to write and to make clothes. Because they can't stay at the school until they day they die they have to be prepared for real life, and the amazing teachers try their best to do just that. One teacher, who was working with four kids who couldn't yet write but who tried to copy lines and shapes, had a student that couldn't use his hands. The kid was extremely bright though, if you showed him a bottle, he could give the English word for it within a minute. The teacher explained that she was trying to help him to find ways to express himself "I'm trying to make it possible for him to try to write with his toes", she said, "Unfortunately, he can't walk so that might not work either. But we'll figure out something".

Forgive me for slipping into JFK mode, but let all those who don't believe in sending money and resources to Africa visit those two schools. Talk to those children. Talk to their teachers. See what is being accomplished there, and then explain to me why it's not worth it.

But then again, they'd have to leave the hotel to see that.

PS. for the record; during a Safari I have seen (aprox.) 8 elephants, one bush thingie, loads of antilopes and buffeloes, an eagle, two giraffes and wild swines. In the real world, I've seen quite a few monkeys, but none of them stole any of my stuff (*......checks for wallet*, nope none of them stole anything), also I didn't get stung by any f##### mosquito, but I was stuck with the side effects of the anti-Malaria pills (which appear to be similar to Malaria itself, so go figure).