Greetings from the airport!

So I am waiting for my flight to Ethiopia at the moment and got a good couple of hours of time to kill at Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi. I am flying to Bahar Dar via Addis Ababa today. I will be in Ethiopia for one week and my mum is there as well! I can't wait to see her again after seven weeks! <3 Our plan is to stay in Bahar Dar for four days since mum is working there on a project and the weekend we will spend in a town called Lalibela. I promise to post pictures of my trip next week. :)

I guess it's been a long time again since I last wrote here.. I have been mostly in Juja although we have done some day trips with Enni. Last week we went to Hell's Gate National park located near Lake Naivasha. We went all the way there using only matatus which means we needed to take four different matatus each way and it took us like five hours to get there and another four hours or something to get back. But it was like ten times cheaper than a taxi and part of the adventure as well hahah. The national park was super awesome! Tomb Raider II was filmed there and also Lion King has got inspiration from the scenery of the park. And an amazing place it was indeed. We rented bicycles and also did a hike. It was pretty amazing to ride a bike at a place where there is zebras, wart hogs and gasells on the road side. Such an adventurous day, I loved it!

We also went to Maasai Market in Nairobi last weekend. There was sooo many things I wanted to buy and I was bargaining like never before. It was so much fun! So in case anyone wants some Africa stuff, let me know and I'll go get it for you and bring it to Finland. 

There has been quite a lot of going out the last few weeks. Many of my friends are graduating this November and they got the results back last weekend. So obviously that called for a party. Also we went out in Nairobi last saturday, it was so much fun! Just a looot of dancing the whole night.

Okay this post was pretty lame. I will write something better next time. :D Now I need to start heading to the gate and I should be in Ethiopia in the afternoon. Have a nice week you all! <3

Haha this last photo, I was walking back home from the campus and all of a sudden like at least 100 cows filled the whole road. :D And I was texting while I was walking so I almost got hit by the cows. :DD #onlyinkenya

HABARI!

Can't believe that we have already been here for five weeks. At the same time it feels like one of the quickest months in my life but it also feels like it was ages ago since I left Finland. Crazy. And in case you are wondering "habari" means news in Swahili and it's used as a greeting. 

Last week was super busy since we were asked to work in an agribusiness conference that was held in Nairobi last week from monday to wednesday. We got a chance to exhibit the products that we developed during the intensive course. It was super fun to see the guys from the intensive course again! Some of us were exhibiting the products and the rest were working as ushers at the conference. I have never seen as much chaos in organizing an event. :D The whole event was behind schedule all the time and there was so much confusion and misunderstanding everywhere. That event could've really used some serious Finnish precision.

I also got to experience the big city traffic in the mornings since the bus drive from Juja to Nairobi lasted almost three hours at worst. And the distance is only about 30 km. I am so glad that the traffic isn't like that in Finland, the bus drives were again putting my patience in test. I will never again complain about the traffic jams in Helsinki.  

I was really annoyed to attend the conference at first since it took four whole days but then it turned out to be a lot of fun and we were doing some serious networking there! And I also got to go to the rooftop of the conference centre and the view from the 29th floor was pretty amazing! So all in all I am happy that I decided to go there. And also decided that sometime in the future I will be a speaker in some conference somewhere...



Last saturday we went to Aberdare National Park with the German interns and some other friends. The weekend included mountain biking, Thomson waterfalls, Equator and a gamedrive at the national park. We were supposed to do a 5-hour hike on sunday but it was raining heavily all night so the hike wasn't possible because of the mud. The rainy season is about to start now, no idea what to expect... We drove to Aberdare with two cars and we had a lot of trouble with the police officers on the way.. Apparently the fact that the driver of the car is white is enough of a reason to stop the car and ask for the passports etc and obviously a payment for driving too fast or something. Luckily there was one kenyan guy in the car with us so he talked us out from paying anything. We also witnessed couple of accidents and some kind of a riot where people were throwing rocks to the road to block it. No idea why.. but it was so strange. Anyways it was a fun weekend!

Now the life in Juja is going pretty smoothly. I have classes only
thursdays and fridays but the courses are surprisingly hard. It is really hard to take notes in for example food microbiology class since the teacher is using a lot of words that I have never even heard of and with a thick african accent. And we also have a lot of assignments.. I was just saying to Enni today that the classes are making our life here too complicated! I also bought a gym membership and it's always fun to go there since a lot of people come to talk to me there. I'm the only white girl there as well so people stare at me a lot, but I don't mind. They are also trying to get me attend a dancing class but I don't think I am ready for that yet. :D I've got a lot of new friends here so the days are always pretty busy, too bad there isn't much to do in Juja. But anyways, I am really enjoying my time here and just hoping it wouldn't go so quickly! I haven't even been feeling home sick at all so maybe I'll just stay here... 

Love, Iisa