My Kitchen

Gas Stove and Food

Many people who live in towns, such as Kisumu, do not have a stove and oven like we see in the US or England. People in Africa who can afford it may use gas cookers. Those who cannot buy a gas cooker or pay to replenish their gas tanks cook over charcoal.

This is my gas cooker and some of the food items available at the local grocery store. Because I do not have a refrigerator (only a few people can afford to buy a refrigerator), I purchase milk that can last a year on the shelf if it's unopened. I buy the small packs because once the milk is open, it must be refrigerated. The same is true of the fruit juice packs.

Only very wealthy people in Africa have clothes washers and dryers. Everyone else washes their clothes by hand. A woman named Grace washes my clothes for me. She always asks for extra money when she washes my jeans because they become very heavy when wet, making it hard to wring the water out!

I'm very lucky because I have electricity in my house. And the electricity heats water for my shower. Otherwise, I'd only have cold water for showering. But, as you've seen from the typical houses in Kenya, about 80% of Kenyans do not have electricity or piped water in their homes.

Looking Down on the Clouds from Kili

View from Atop Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanazania

Here's what the top of Kilimanjaro looks like. (The mountains nickname is "Kili.)It is 3 and a half miles up, halfway through the Earth's atmosphere!! You wouldn't believe how large and bright the stars appear from up here. Dazzling!! Mount Kilimanjaro is in the country of Tanzania, which borders Kenya to the south.

Glaciers sit on Kili's two peaks, as you can see in the photo above. Though the glaciers are shrinking, they are still huge, huge, huge. The one in the picture is about 60 feet high, or as tall as a five-story building. In the 1800's, when explorers from England went back and told people there was snow in Africa, everyone laughed. No one could believe snow would be found on the equator, which sits very close to the sun and is always warm. Year round, it is like summer here in Kenya and Tanzania. But because Kili is so tall, the air gets thin and the weather gets cold up top.

When we climbed Kili, we started out walking through tropical forests while wearing shorts. Within five days, when we reached the top, we were wearing several layers of clothes, including two pairs of gloves and two hats. It gets down to 15 degrees fahrenheit at the top! Plenty cold to keep the glaciers frozen and visible from many, many miles away.

Giraffe at Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

People travel from all over the world to come to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. It's the highest mountain in Africa, at 19,340 feet. This lovely, long giraffe lives in the shadow of Kili with his family. He's munching on an Acacia tree and doing a good job of eating around the very long, very strong thorns that grow amongst the leaves. Many varieties of Acacia trees grow all over Africa. The one you've probably seen before has a flat top. They're quite beautiful, just like the giraffe!

Farmer in Sukuma Wiki Field

This kindly farmer, Boniface, tends to a field of Sukuma Wiki, a leafy vegetable much like turnip, mustard or collard greens eaten in the American South. The name of this plant means "to stretch the week," because it is usually grown in home gardens and helps people eat a balanced meal for very little money. The field is owned by the college where I work, Tropical Institute of Community Health and Development (TICH). They have 20 acres in this neighborhood and will build a new, larger college campus here in a few years.

You can see the nearby mountains in the background. This is the escarpment leading into the Great Rift Valley, which runs from Northern Africa, through Kenya and Tanzania and further south. Buses climb these steep mountains, slowly, taking people to Nairobi, Kenya's capital city. Once over the hills, you can see into the beautiful rift valley that goes on for miles and miles.

Elephants in Ngorongoro Crater

Ngorongoro Crater, in Tanzania, is really a collapsed volcano. With a lake on the "crater" floor, this beautiful, lush area attracts all kinds of animals, not just elephants. While on safari here, you'll see leopard (if you look very carefully), cheetah, warthogs, zebra, wildebeest, hyena, hippos, lions and all kinds of beautiful birds. These elephants are rather old because they have such pronounced tusks.

Cape Buffalo

Cape Buffalo live all over East and Southern Africa. This particular fellow lives in Tanzania where I met him while on safari ("Safari" is Swahili for "journey"). As you probably know, "Safari" has been adopted by English-speaking people and is the world's most well-known Swahili word!

While Cape Buffalo are one of Africa's Big Five (Giraffe, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, Lion, Cape Buffalo), they usually try to avoid people. Sometimes, though, an older male may be forced to leave his group. When these old buffalo live on their own, they can sometimes become violent and may attack people. It's always wise to keep a little distance between you and Cape Buffalo.