Video

As promised:

Here's a hippo chasing another hippo:








And here's me and Farah with some lions:

Back from Kenya

I look a little fearful here, not so much because I'm a coward as because there's a goddamn lion within pouncing distance of my head.

Also, I'm a huge coward when it comes to being eaten.

So I'm back in the U.S. jet-lagged out of my gourd and suffering from what I'll politely call a case of "persistent indigestion". I'm a bit pissed about that last because I was fine the whole trip until the very end. I think I ate a tomato like a huge git.

I'll write more later about reflections and so forth on going to Kenya and helping to connect the school to the web.

As I say, I'm a bit under the weather today (didn't even go to kali class), so if I was supposed to contact you today, I apologize. I hope you'll forgive me.

Just got bitten by a safari ant

. . . which hurts!

More importantly though, I've managed to help connect Farah's program for street children, Jitegemee, to the Web. I've also downloaded some upgrades to programs and drivers that should make the kids' experience of the Web a lot more like the rest of the worlds'.

I feel like a bit of a thief taking credit for connecting the place though. The computers came from other donors (from MSU I think) and Safaricom makes their service quite simple to sign up for. It's still slow - we got 15 Kbps during the download of the driver (and remember 64K was dial up, right?) - but it's not bad and it works.

I won't write much except to point you at this horrifying little beastie, which I'm told is what crawled up the back of my leg and gave me a thorough biting behind my knee .

Kenya kenya kenya

This will be unadorned with images and web stuff, because i'm sitting in a cybercafe in Nairobi.

Just got back from safari, which was fundamentally awesome. Do you remember the rush you got from going to the zoo for the first time and realizing that the animals you'd read about or seen on TV had physical mass? Well, multiply that times awesome.

Right before heading to safari we also visited a company called Nairo-bits. They teach slum kids computer skills from basic skills up to web development. At each level, the kids open up a new vocational training. Knowledge of Word and formatting allows them to design business cards and format CVs, while those kids who learn enough to create dynamic web pages usually get jobs with the firm they do their final project for.

The whole thing resonates with the idea I had to teach my mentee back in Yonkers how to code. I figured if I was making $55/hour at something I learned in a couple months after I graduated, why shouldn't a "child at risk" be able to deflate some of that financial risk on his own.

Anyway, got to run. I promise pictures and video of wild animals when I'm back.