Baking a Cake - Jiko Style

One of the highlights of my Mombasa stay was helping bake a jiko cake. The jiko is an outside charcoal cooker used to prepare - - - everyhing. Pictures tell it best, so there's not going to be too much actual text in this post.

The charcoal - sometimes people use branches and small logs as well - is in the bottom of the jiko.

Atop the jiko goes a large pot (our "oven") filled with wet sand. Stones are set in the center to serve as a base for the cake pan.

The sand (and stones) are heated.

The pan with the cake batter is set into the oven.

A lid is placed atop the oven, and hot coals are heaped on the lid to provide an all-around heat environment for the cake.

30 minute test - not quite ready.

15 minutes later - oops - the cake rose to the level of the lid and the top is a bit burnt.

Our cake - so moist that most of the bottom fell off. But no worries . . .

Stephanie prepared her special secret sauce that makes the cake's looks irrelevant - water, two different flavored powders, and a melted candy bar for good measure.

The result - delicious!

Mombasa visit

I'm so glad I decided to take the side trip to Mombasa.  I had a lovely, relaxing time with Stephanie and her family, got to observe at Stephanie's and Diane's schools, and collected memories that will remain with me for a long time. Even got an extra day there, courtesy of the Horizon Bus' "mechanical difficulties" on the return trip.

Some of the highlights:
 - walks along the beach during low and (nearly) high tide. I never tire of the incredible vistas, or the immediate sense of calm the sea brings. How can you beat this?

     

 - rousing games of Spot It! (seriously, this is the BEST game - fun, challenging, easy to learn and portable - it can't be beat.
 - cake baking on a jiko ( a small coal/wood burning hibachi-like stove). Sure, it was from a Betty Crocker mix, but only because that was cheaper than the combination of ingredients we would have had to buy. Think super-moist chocolate cake topped with Stephanie's special mocha sauce - heavenly.
 - our midnight encounter with the praying mantis atop the laundry basket of clean clothes;
 - delicious kachoris at a small Indian snack shop;
 - long discussion about Kenyan politics with Stephanie's dad.

I spent much of Thursday and Friday observing at Stephanie's and Diane's schools. Steph has a class of five special needs children at Mombasa Academy. They range in age from 5 to 17. Two have behavior issues, one significant. Two communicate appropriately, using full sentences. The 5 year old, who was totally non-verbal when  I saw him last year, had been started on a donated single-message device to request "toilet." He now initiates a few verbal requests, and has been naming pictures in books. He follows directives, and is able to stay seated when asked. Huge progress.

Few schools have workbooks for their students. Teachers hand write pages  of  exercises for their students each week. Here are two pages of exercises  Stephanie prepared for one of her students.

Diane runs Angels on Earth, a school for special needs children she opened in August of 2011. She began with 18 students and is now up to 31 ( 3 new students were enrolled during the three days I visited). The school offers services to students with a wide range of ages, needs and abilities. In addition to Diane, who works with each child individually at least once a week, there is a head teacher, several assistants, and in-house speech, occupational and physical therapists. Diane has a hard time turning away students who cannot afford the monthly fees, so it has been a struggle to continue to grow. She's a great woman with a great vision (www.angelsonearth.za.com).

Angels on Earth  - Diane's special needs school in Mombasa.

On to Mombasa

6:22 AM - Ring-ring, ring-ring . . . "this is Horizon Bus. Sorry, the bus is having mechanical difficulty. We cannot go to Mombasa today."

Now what?

Tom to the rescue. You can always rely on Tom, the proprietor of the guest house, to come up with a solution to any problem. Within 20 minutes, he had found 3 bus companies claiming to have open seats to Mombasa, all leaving within an 8 AM to 10 AM window. Breakfast would be at 7AM.

After a final pack of the two suitcases I was leaving behind and a quick scan of the room, I raced down to breakfast. Rush hour was surprisingly uncomplicated, and we were soon on a street filled with the booking offices for many of the bus companies serving Nairobi. Tom maneuvered his truck into a tight space between 2 busses that we're facing each other, argued with the bus drivers about his right to be there and the availability of seats (two of the busses were full and ready to leave).

10 minutes later I was settling into the seat across the aisle from the driver, with plenty of room to stretch and set my backpack and other carry-ons. I was delighted to have gotten a seat, but not sure I was ready for such a close view of city to city traffic. Kenyan bus drivers in general, and drivers for this line in particular, have a reputation for total disregard for safety or posted speed limits. Accidents are frequent and sometimes deadly.

Ou driver was the exception. He drove carefully, took no unnecessary chances, and was considerate of the other vehicles on the road. I'm not sure how fast he was driving, though - the speedometer needle never moved past zero.

The road to Mombasa is one lane in each direction, and drivers drive on the left side of the road. Pedestrians (and sometimes goats) are common along the highway, and rarely move over for traffic, although I did see one man throw himself onto the grass when he realized a truck trying to merge from the left was not going to make it off the berm in time. ).

It was so good to catch up with Stephanie and her close-knit family. Steph had attended the Mombasa training last year. She is in charge of a small special-needs classroom housed at Mombasa Academy. Her mom, Diane, opened her own special needs school last Fall. Rounding out the family are Dad, a project engineer for Bamburi Cement, and brothers George (nearly 18) and Bruce (15). Diane had gotten an iPad for her birthday in April, and she was eager to get her iTunes account set up and to start finding apps that might be helpful.

Arrivals

Somewhere over the North Sea . . .
This was my first time flying with Turkish Airlines and I'm very impressed. Friendly people, tasty food beautifully presented, and individual consoles with your choice of at least 100 movie offerings. The 777 is packed, and seating is tight, but no more than on most other airlines.

Sleep never comes easily to me when I'm flying. Six hours into the 9-hour New York to Istanbul leg, and I've had a few 20-minute power naps. I see a few of my fellow sardines playing games or watching movies on their individual entertainment consoles, but most appear to be sound asleep. The final leg - Istanbul to Nairobi - speeds by with the help of "We Bought a Zoo" and "Ratatouille."

We arrive in Nairobi at 2:45 AM, and those of us needing visas patiently wait to pay our $50 and have our pictures taken and fingerprints scanned. I find my bags - once again thankful for airport luggage carts - and assure the customs officer that my intentions are honorable and that I have no contraband and nothing of real value to declare. Then out to face the mob of drivers - "where do you want to go? I can take you." "You need a taxi?" "You want to go on safari?" Each is disappointed to hear that I do not want to make safari plans, and already have arranged for a ride.

Once at the guest house I unpack, make a few calls, organize my belongings, and sleep soundly from 10 to noon. Showering is . . . an experience. There seem to be 3 temperature options - scalding, cold, and frigid. The trick is to dart under the showerhead during each 15 second transition phase.

Lunch is huge. They've remembered that I like simple country food, and give me the football player's mega platter.

I had hoped to email and write some blog posts this afternoon, but the guest house's Internet is down, so I'll have to go the the Nakumatt, a 24-hour megastore with nearly all the goods and services you'll ever need. It's a short walk (15 minutes or so) and this is a safe neighborhood.

It's 3:30 by the time I've made my phone calls, and compiled my Nakumatt list (ATM, Internet, bus ticket to Mombasa, crackers, lotion, books for the long bus rides to come), and . . here comes the rain . . . heavy rain. . . hours of rain.

I'm happy for Kenya. The rains have been minimal or absent the past few years in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, leading to widespread loss of livestock, food shortages with staggering price increases, starvation, and death. Although lots of rain now is good for Kenya, a chronically inefficient food distribution system all but guarantees there will be shortages again come December.

Airport Thoughts

Packing - You'd think after all these years I'd finally have it all figured out.

I've been frustrated in the past with the amount of potential storage I lose because my suitcases weigh so much empty. So, this year I opted for all lightweight bags, to save as much space as possible for the contents. I don't pack much for myself, and all my clothes have to pass my stringent weight and drying requirements, but I do take a lot of materials and supplies.

I have no AAC low- or mid-tech devices with me this year. It's all no tech - but not necessarily lightweight. There are pictures, mini picture albums, books, Velcro, rolls of clear tape and stiff backing for making communication supports; For the OT in Mumias - splinting material (many thanks to Bill Schuele, our Patterson Medical rep), foam tubing, and other odds and ends an OT might find useful, as well as pants and shirts for some of the children who come to the EARC (Educational Assessment Resource Center)barely clothed; and for the jump rope program in Kibera - shoes, socks, shorts and ropes.

So I packed and repacked multiple times, debating, discarding, replacing, each time closer to that magical 23 kg (about 50 lb) limit.

Really lightweight, though, pretty much eliminates rolling wheels and telescoping handles, and certainly my nearly 9 pound carry-on case. I replaced the carry-on with my 20-ounce ultralight backpacking pack. No problem, I thought - I can carry the pack, plus a straw bag and accordion envelope for my papers and iPad.I could always pay someone to carry the larger bags. Anyway, luggage carts are everywhere, right?

Not everywhere. Not, for example, in the 3rd lane of the outer drive at JFK airport, which is where the LaGuardia/JFK Shuttle driver deposited me and my luggage. Miraculously, there was an escaped terminal cart waiting for me on the sidewalk separating the inner lanes of traffic from the outer lanes, and traffic kindly waited while I slowly maneuvered the 2 large suitcases, backpack, "purse" and accordion envelope.

If things go as planned, I'll be leaving one of those suitcases behind. I need a bigger one.

It Begins Again

This is the 2012 edition of my East African travel blog. It's a way for my family and friends to keep track of me and be assured of my safety.

My plans have changed many times in the last couple of months - a lot of things are fluid in Africa until you're actually on the ground.

This is what I'm hoping to do:
- Start out with a day or two in Nairobi to get re-oriented, make calls and firm up plans;
- Spend a few days in Mombasa visiting with some of the people who attended the AAC training last year;
- Return to Nairobi for a few days to visit with a friend who is involved helping kids with disabilities get services; with several of the SLPs in Nairobi; and, of course, attending one or more practices of the Paka Skippers, the jump rope team that has grown out of the program might established in the slums of Kibera in 2010.
- travel to western Kenya to spend 10-12 days with staff at two of the EARCs (Educational Assessment Resource Center)

I need more time!!!

P.S. This is the first I've been able to access the Internet since I left on Saturday. If Blogspot will let me, I'm going to try to change the dates on these catch up posts.

A SPECIAL Special Needs School in Nairobi

Heshima is the kiswahili word for dignity. It's also the name of a small, but growing center for special needs children that Tracey Hagman started in the Ngando slum in the southwest corner of Nairobi. See: (http://www.heshima.org).

The center currently serves 14 children between the ages of 2 and 15. Heshima recently broke ground for a new school complex that Tracey envisions will serve up to 75 children.

Things I like love about this school:

 - to make sure all families are given the opportunity to pay for the services their children receive, mothers work part-time for Dignity Designs, a small jewelry business started at the center. They get an hourly wage for creating beautiful jewelry that is sold in Kenya and around the world.

 - two older children with cerebral palsy and cognitive deficits are being trained to become paid teacher assistants. The two boys set tables, help feed some of the younger children, make sure they get to the therapy rooms, push strollers, etc. These are children who would normally have no employment options to look forward to. What a sensible way to provide dignity and hope!

 - two substantial hot meals a day!

 - there are enough teachers, assistants and therapists to ensure that every child gets a lot of loving, one-on-one attention every day.

And, as an SLP, of course, I loved that there were visuals of activities, needs and behavioral expectations attached with Velcro to walls and trays.

I spent several hours at Heshima: problem-solving with Tracey and head teacher Nelly, working with three of the children, reading to little ones, and cuddling.