From Pyramids to Tiny Ants: Reentry After a Peace Corps Break

May 28, 2003

Hi all, been kinda lazy about updating. Too busy visiting with friends in Seattle and eating all the great tasting, in other words, fattening foods I can get my hands on. I head out today (it's after midnight now) for Egypt. My mom is coming with me so my enjoyment level and luxury expectations have just climbed a few notches!

I've had a great visit home with family and friends. The time has gone by way too quickly but so too will the time I have remaining in Kenya. I head out in a couple hours for the airport. I'll arrive in Egypt on the 30th and leave for Kenya on the 8th. Mom and I have both always wanted to go to Egypt so we're both pretty excited. We'll do the normal tourist stuff - see the pyramids in Giza, cruise the Nile and see the temples in Luxor.

I'm looking forward to getting back to Kenya though so I can begin wrapping up my projects and to start putting into motion some of my thoughts on what I'll do post-PC. It'll be interesting to see if I have reverse culture shock when I get back to my village. I didn't really have much when I came home, probably as I spend so much time in Nairobi which isn't exactly like the U.S. but a lot closer than my village is. I did have some culture shock when I visited my friend Karin in Los Angeles. Just seeing all the limos and fancy cars at the airport kinda freaked me out. Probably shouldn't have taken that drive through Beverly Hills... Had really nice visits with family and friends and to be honest, it felt like I'd never left. The nice thing about close friendships is that they are timeless. With that said, I'm gonna go put the finishing touches on my packing and head out to the airport. I'll update again once I'm settled back into the Kenyan routine.

June 18, 2003

Here I am, all settled back into my routine in Kenya. Sending this update from Machakos. I spent 2 days in Nairobi after I landed but then headed to Nunguni as I was anxious to see what condition my house would be in - and I really missed the goats!

The house was just fine. Lots of spider webs but not many web owners home. Had some pretty impressive dirt piles from carpenter ants. Had to take a long roll of tape to my bed to collect all the tiny ant carcasses that had accumulated; been having a wee bit of a problem with that lately. Still not sure what’s killing them but I’d rather have them dead than alive so I guess I shouldn’t complain too loudly. The goats greeted me as if I’d never been away which warmed my heart. The housegirl for my neighbors greeted me too but then her second words were, 'What did you bring us?’ Aargh. Nice to see you too. I had some mail to catch up on but it was mostly Newsweek magazines that are now outdated. Didn’t take long to unpack as I didn’t really bring all that much back with me. More than half of my one bag was filled with gifts for various people.

The other half was clothes and miscellaneous supplies. Let me back up a bit. After my last update I was off to the airport, flying out to Egypt. My mom and I took separate routes so she arrived half a day before me and was fast asleep in the room when I arrived at 2 a.m. We took it easy for the first couple of days as we were both jet lagged. Saw the less than spectacular exhibits at the Egyptian Museum that first day. The highlight was definitely the King Tut stuff. I saw the traveling exhibit when it came to Seattle back in the 70s or was it 80s? Much more impressive this time around.

We then transferred hotels to one closer to the pyramids at Giza, which is just about 5 miles outside of downtown Cairo. And when I say closer to the pyramids, that’s just what I mean. Our hotel used to be the hunting lodge and palace of a bigwig and thus was built within a stone’s throw, literally, of the pyramids. It’s the only hotel that was allowed to be so close. By the way, Prez Bush stayed at the same hotel just days after us when he was in the area touting his Peace Plan. Our room was upgraded to one in the former palace and came complete with a balcony that overlooked the mammoth structures.

What a surreal experience to sit on a balcony and stare at something that was built thousands of years ago. I don’t even think I could get the whole thing in my picture frame as we were so close! Took a tour of them (there are 3 big ones) the next day and got nice and sweaty while climbing (actually squat walking) through them. Damn, those Egyptians were short little buggers. Amazing to see all the hieroglyphics which covered just about every square inch of the inside of the tombs.

After a couple days of luxury at Giza we were off to Luxor via an overnight train. I love train rides. Slept ok but was still pretty tired when we arrived in Luxor at 5 a.m. We were going to join a Nile cruise later that day so hung out at the cruise line’s hotel (actually the hotel chain’s cruise line) until we met up with the rest of the group. There would only be 22 of us in total, 12 of us English speakers. The capacity of the boat was 130. Tells you how down their tourism is. Then again, there are over 250 boats that ply the waters between Luxor and Aswan and vice versa. Not all of them were running of course.

Toured the main sights in and around Luxor for the first 2 days. The cruise was 4 nights and 5 days. The distance between Luxor and Aswan isn’t great so the boat actually crawls along but the scenery was best appreciated slowly anyway. All settlements are alongside the river as are all the crops. Later I saw the area from the air and you can see that only about a half-mile wide strip on either side of the Nile is green and inhabited. The rest is desert.

We saw some pretty impressive tombs at each of our stops. It was pretty hot, around 100-110 degrees F (40 C) so we either saw things early in the morning or later in the afternoon. The nice thing about the boat was it had air-conditioning and cold beers. As our group was so small, just 12 of us, we all got to know each other pretty well. Surprisingly, we all got along great and formed some good bonds. Two other ladies were also traveling with their children, besides my mom. The "children" were also grown; in their 20s. My mom had a couple ladies close to her age to hang out with too. I'm hoping to stay in touch with the young women I met.

Our last day was busy. We disembarked from the ship and took a flight down to a place called Abu Simbel where there is an impressive tomb dedicated to Ramses II just sitting in the middle of the desert. That’s all there is to see there so after we did, we got back on the plane and flew to Cairo. Hung out for half a day and then I flew out to Nairobi at midnight and my mom left at 4 a.m.

We both made it to our respective destinations just fine. I was really impressed with how nice everyone was in Egypt. They sincerely like to greet visitors and have absolutely NO PROBLEMS with Americans. In fact, everyone I proudly announced to that I was American, couldn’t smile any bigger or exclaim any louder how much they admire the Americans (yet another reason to think twice about what you see and hear on the news). I was also impressed with how developed the country is - even what I would call the rural areas. Kenya is light years behind them in most every area.

No jet lag this time for me as Egypt is the same time zone as Kenya. Shocked at how cold Nairobi was and really freezing in Nunguni. It’s not even the coldest season yet, July is. Slept in my sweat pants last night so I could fall asleep (my alarm clock’s temp gauge read 55 F inside my house). The night before I had on my sleep shorts and couldn’t sleep cause my teeth were rattling too loudly! For all those wondering about the safety situation in Kenya: there isn’t anything to really report. I learned that the PC has curtailed all unnecessary travel by volunteers to Nairobi and the U.S. Embassy has cut down its staff.

My counterparts at JCI also told me that the one big shopping mall in town is now doing security checks of people and their cars. No incidents have happened but the Kenyans are trying to show the American Embassy in particular that they are taking measures to prevent any trouble. British Airways has still not restarted flights into or out of Kenya, mostly because they don’t see the Kenyan government trying hard enough to beef up its security in and around the airport. They only do random checks of cars and their contents and the British want every car checked. The plus side to all this is that airfares just went down again and tourist lodges are lowering prices in an effort to lure tourists back here.

Well, that’s about all I’ve got to say right now. It’s hard to believe I’m back here and back in the groove. My trip home was too short and went too quickly. Then again, my ladies in the group here thought I was never coming back as it seemed I was gone so long. Just depends upon your perspective I guess.