E- I - E - I - No!

48 hours after boarding a bus to Rongo we were boarding a bus back to Nairobi. Un freakin belieavable!

First of all wwoofing is an organinzation that connects volunteers to small communities and organic farms to exchange food and accomodation for hard work. We had e-mailed our hosts numerous times to work out the details. In that exchange they said everything was covered but they would need $9 to cover the cost of some food for us. No problem. Our budget was heavily based on wwoofing for this part of the trip but that $9 was certainly doable.

The sun came up after we napped from our 4 a.m. arrival and before we left the house I went to give the wife a U.S. 10 dollar bill. We didn't have 9 but take the ten it's ok.
She asks "what is this"
"it's the nine dollars you asked for."
"No no no, this is not enough. $9 a day"
My face changed and I said "that's not what you said"
The conversation persists for a minute and I ended with, "I need to talk to my husband about this."

By the time we got to the school we realized that these people believed we were there as some sort of philanthropist offering financial support. Only the school director and his wife knew about wwoofing. The staff had no idea. In fact, there wasn't even a farm there.

That night Mateo and I had to have a silent conversation by passing paper back and forth to discuss the issue. There was no private place to talk and the walls were open at the top so any sound could be heard. We asked to talk to our hosts the next morning and expressed to them that we felt we were invited there under false pretenses. We felt we should leave because we didn't want to be a burden but in addition to that we were uncomfortable with being lied to.

We ended up getting to the next town to catch a bus back to Nairobi but we had to take a chaperone with us because if you remember from the "Fools Gold" post we had no shilling...our hosts used it all. We reimbursed our chaperone, paid for his way back and invited him to have a meal with us. Don't you know a few days later I received an e-mail from our host asking why did we refuse to pay for the matatu fare like we agreed. The wife said she was forced to pay him. I was livid. I don't know what type of games those people are running but I sure am glad we're away from there. We got to Nairobi and were greeted with some real Kenyan hospitality.

Major, major appreciation to Baba Kanyana and Mama Kanyana and the Muriuki family. We spent 5 days at their house and it was great. The first morning Mama Kanyana fed us then had us go take a nap to rest from our long trip then woke us up to feed us again. We were like two little kids. We Spent a full day with Baba Kanyana touring the rural area, meeting his lifelong friends, seeing where there family is from and visiting family and friends. At every point we had to take tea or juice or at least water. They said you can't leave a place without swallowing your spit. We swallowed so much that we almost burst before making it to the bathroom to relieve ourselves when we returned to the city. It was great!

They connected us to an NGO and set up another opportunity for us to volunteer. So here we are now back in western Kenya but this time in Kisumu. There's truly a farm and lots of other projects. We'll be here for 3 weeks. We've already gotten blisters on our hands from trying to dig water channels.

We are living in a traditional Kenyan village. There's no electricity, no running water and the sanitation system is a pit latrine. The houses are made from mud and cooking is done over coals. We will be involved in the creation of water channels, poultry as well as community needs assessments and impact assessments. Two full nights under our belts and it's a good experience already. We'll have so many stories to tell. We live 13 kilometers outside of town. So we will be able to get on the internet whenever we come to town.

Joronda