Life on Gogar Farm

My house.

For those of you wondering more about how I'm living, this post is for you!

When I arrived I moved into a house with three of the girls volunteering at the schools. After a week of sharing rooms myself and another girl moved into the second house so we would all have our own space. Now we share a kitchen and common space, where we spend most of our time eating and watching movies on laptops.

We have indoor plumbing though we have to light a fire for hot water, which has turned out to be really hard to do. I'll post a picture of the burner soon and you'll understand.

For drinking water we use rain water and put it through and sand and bone filter. It's a pretty great system if you ask me.

The inside of my house. The bathroom is in the back.

My bed.

 The farm where we live is huge and has security gates at all the entrances. There are eight houses (that I know of) on the property that are mostly inhabited by British families. There are some really cool things happening here including a floriculture business (they propagate seeds and send them overseas) that has an awesome boigas system and permaculture garden. There are cows everywhere and corn (maize) growing in all the fields they're not in.

Everyone has been very inviting and we have had delicious meals and drinks with many of the people on the farm. It's not quite how I expected to live in Kenya, but it's important to experience and great to meet all these amazing people.

What do we eat when we're not at other people's houses? Rongai (the closest town) offers us rice, pasta, vegetables from the market, beans, fruits and most of the things we need. If one wants cheese or meat you have to go to Nakuru about an hour away on matatu (think mini van meets city bus). This is where we get our cereal and coffee (it's instant) as well. It's about as exciting as going grocery shopping at home except the roads are a bit crazier and the prices of things are cheaper.

Nakuru is also where the craft market is. They have some beautiful things, but probably the most popular with the girls I'm living with are the kiondos. These are bags that they just can't get enough of. They are beautiful and I had the chance to learn to make them last weekend. Emily, one of the volunteers, and I were taught by the principal at the handicap school. It was a lot of fun and now I know how to use all the scrap wool I have at home.

A kiondo.

Prices of things vary. For the most part everything is very cheap. I spend about ten dollars a week on food and drink (a big beer is about a dollar). If we feel lazy we take a boda boda (a motorcycle) home at the end of the day instead of walking the half hour home. It costs thirty cents so it's easy to justify.

 That's just a quick update for you all. I can't really think of anything else to share. If you want to know something, ask away!