Easta

         Things are going well here, The green house has gotten underway and the new schools are in the process of receiving their supplies. We will be doing formal launches at the schools in may, A launch is where the Aqua Clara staff goes to the school, introduces the program to the community as well as build the first filter for the school. But this week has been all about the green house, lots of timber gathered as well as information shared, It should be finished by next week thursday if all sticks to the plan. 

    I was lucky enough to be able to take a little time off for a trip to the rainforest with a friend. The trip was great and I saw some amazing things. Included was a jaunt to Lake Victoria and Kisumu, Kenya's second largest city on the shore of the lake. Kisumu was a great time, the place has lots of good food so I ate well for a couple days. I went out on the lake from a place called Dunga Beach, a small fishing village a few miles outside of Kisumu. We took a boat out on the lake to see some of the wild life. Hippos and lots of birds, My pictures do not do the hippos justice because they are truly massive. You cant really tell but this fella was really really big, We did not get too close in the small boat because of their tendency to flip boats and trample the people inside but it was still great. The birds were also amazing, several different types of storks, lots of king fishers and many unidentified brightly colored ones. All in all it was a great morning.

    After the morning on the lake I moved on to Kakamenga Rainforest, It is the largest remaining chunk of equatorial rainforest in Kenya. There was a time when it was joined to the big forest to the west and the whole forest reached from the Atlantic to the Rift Valley, This is no longer the case due to development, logging and the quest for more farm land in both Kenya and Uganda. We stayed at a place inside the forest reserve, Small thatched roof huts with mud walls and a large communal dinning area. There were a few other tourists there and all of the people who ran the place were great. We took a dawn hike to catch the sun rise from the top of the largest hill in the park. The hike started at 4:30 a.m. I thought it was a little early but after the two hours of walking the sunrise was worth it. We got to the top of the hill around 6:30, right on time. As you can see from the following pictures it was quite an experience. After the sunrise we headed back into the forest to see lots of wildlife. Baboons and a couple different types of monkeys. There is an abundance of reptiles and birds in the park, the most common are chameleons and a whole bunch of different types of snakes, many poisonous luckily we did not come across any of those. There were also lots of different types of butterflies everywhere. 

         

   Easter is a big holiday here in Kenya and many people travel, Unfortunately work requires my direct attention so I will not be going anywhere this weekend. But the couple days off are welcomed with open arms. I am missing my favorite holiday meal at home so on sunday I will try my best to come up with something that rivals it a little bit. I hear the bars are a good time tonight so I think I will have to make my way into town in a few hours. Kigeugeu, a very popular song here, so this is what I have been womping to when I get the chance. Hope all of you are doing great, I am bummed to be missing such great playoff hockey from the red wings but I catch as much as I can on the internet and sometimes if the timing is right I can argue enough and get the kenyans to change the channel from soccer or the news. (the news is hugely popular here for some reason that I can not understand) Have fun and stay healthy,  Talk to you all later.

Love Sam