So this is going to be my last post.
We all got safely back to Finland and are trying to get used to “Finnish time” (with out the two hour plus) and back to work, doing thesis ect.
I have been in Finland for about three weeks now and I am quite happy to be back. It felt amazingly good to go in to a shower where the water is actually running, to go to sauna and to eat ruisleipä and salmiakki. 
I miss the children from the school and I am really worried of how they are doing, hoping they will all survive if there is any bombing and the elections next year. We’ll hope it doesn’t get that bad as it was last time..
If you want to go and do your practical training in Kenya, here is a tip for you; be open minded! Do not trust anyone (especially if there is money involved) and find out a lot from the country already before you go, also when being in the country, you have to be active, or else you may not get much help.
That’s about it.. bye!
For the last two weeks we have been travelling and seeing Nairobi a bit. Our practical training has been going on and we have enjoyed our stay here in Kenya.
First of all we went to Masai Market on Saturday one week ago. Lots and lots of nice stuff you can buy, but the prices are really high unless you know how to bargain. Sometimes they ask you to pay three or four times the price.. So just be rude and suggest something like one third of the price or half. Then on Sunday we went to Karen Blixen museum, Bomas of Kenya and Kazuri. Karen Blixen museum was nice and we got quite a lot out of it because we took a guide to tell us about the rooms. The guide was speaking very quickly and wasn’t very interested in questions but it was quite easy to get the idea. Also the guides in there don’t cost anything but you are expected to give some tip for them. To get in to Karen Blixen museum costs 800Ksh, even tho it says in lonely planet that it is a lot cheaper.
Kazuri is a factory where single mothers go to do pots and beads from ceramics and sell them there and also all over the world. The place is awesome and the work they do is absolutely beautiful!! You can imagine we spend some money in there.. 
Kazuri means beautiful and small.
After those we went to Bomas of Kenya, which is a place where small African villages as samples from different tribes are. It was quite interesting and our taxi driver walked there with us and could tell us more about the villages. There are no signposts that would tell you much about them, so I think it was good we had George with us there.
On the next week there was a national holiday, Kenyatta day, or hero day as some of them say. We were asked to go to climb up Mt Longonot with a youth group and so we went We left from Nairobi on Wednesday to Naivasha which is supposed to be one hour drive away from Nairobi. Well this time it took about 3 hours in the matatu.. On the next day we woke up early and went to have breakfast, to wait our ride to the mountain. As normal in Africa the ride was a bit over two hours late.. Finally we got to the mountain and it was awesome! I really recommend you to go there as long as you remember you need also warm clothes and that also this park is under Kenyan wildlife service, which means you have to pay the whole 20 dollars when you get there, or if you are under 23 years old, do the student discount letter two weeks earlier! We had some problems with the money things and found out that the boy who booked it for us (and we trusted in) told it was more expensive that it was supposed to be and took the money from us.. It is hard to find people you can trust in money situation here.. So be careful!
After the trip to longonot we found out that the situation in Kenya has got worse and the Al-shabaab has threatened to attack on Nairobi. New news come up every day about the kidnaps, security, corruption, suicide bombings ect. Nothing so big hasn’t happened yet, but the school told us and we also figured that out, that it is not safe for us to be here anymore.. So we are all flying out during this week and the next one, hoping to get back one day. The trip here was nice, but not easy. There are a lot of things that are hard to get used to but you can also get a lot from your time in Kenya. Lets hope the political situation gets better soon, tho I think it might be quite bad for the next year because of this Al-shabaab thing and also the elections that are supposed to be next year.
We went for the weekend to Nakuru which is one of the big cities in Kenya. It felt good to get out of Nairobi for a while again, this is so busy!
We were supposed to go there on Friday by matatu but that was easier said than done.. We couldn’t get any matatus from Mathare to Nairobi city center and therefore we couldn’t take matatu to Nakuru. It is good we have this taxi driver who is always ready to take us where we want, this time he took us to Nakuru 2,5 hours and 6000KSH (42€). We thought it was quite expensive because the matatu would have coasted us only 400 shillings per person, but we really wanted to go!
During those few days in Nakuru we went to Lake Nakuru national park, which is famous from flamingos and rhinos. We saw a lot of animals and the park itself was very beautiful. The minus thing from the park is that you have to be under 23 years old to get the student discount, which we didn’t get and then it is really expensive: 75USD… So I guess we are not going to visit that many parks, at least if they are under Kenyan wildlife service, we just can’t afford it.
In Nakuru we met some locals (they were a friend of our friends) and they made dinner for us. It was really nice to talk to some local and ask about things, see an African home and eat homemade dinner. We even saw the news there from the TV, although I don’t know if that is a good thing because we all got a bit scared from them. The situation in Somalian border has got a bit worse and I am a little worried if we can go to the coast during our stay here at all 
Nakuru was really nice city and a lot more relax and smaller than Nairobi. I would like to visit it again.
On the weekend when we got back to Nairobi and to our own Matatu stop in the city center I had my first experience of pickpockets in here. Someone opened my backpacks small zipper, but didn’t take anything because of course I didn’t have anything valuable in there. But apparently it is true that there are a lot of them in Nairobi.
Now we are back to our work and the weather in Nairobi is horrible, cold and very rainy. We’ll see weather or not it is going to get any warmer.. I hope it will anyway.
Also this week we have been going around in the classrooms and assisting where we can. Activities they do in classrooms are similar; sorting out colors, writing from a model, practicing alphabets and numbers, some mathematics and English. With older students they practice how to prepare food, how to clean and also some tailoring (like pearl job). We still have tailoring class and workshop to go to, those ones we are going to do tomorrow and Tuesday.
On Monday we need to discuss with Phanice how we want to do our practical training in here. I hope we can do something that would be useful for everyone, for us, for the kids and also for the teachers.
On weekend we went to Masai Mara to see all the animals. We had a three days two nights package which included 3 game drives, meals, accommodation, guide, driver, transport ect. It coasted us 340 US dollars. We were really happy with this tour and we saw a lot of animals! The camping site was nice, food was good and our driver was really good at finding animals from the huge park.
I will load up some photos here again, from preparing the food, from the slum and from our trip to Masai Mara.
