Sunday, August 15, 2010

Deeper and deeper

First of all let me apologize all of you who started wondering whether something happened to us. I know that we promised daily updates, but we were really unable to connect to the Internet, as last few days we spent in the Interior, that is deep into the country.

We visited some Miraa (the drug I write earlier about) plantations and were able to see how is it cultivated. It is a commodity that everybody desires here, either to chew or to make business with. Some people try to steal it, but on most occasions they are easily stopped by guards, that patrol heavily secured fields. The punishment? Just cutting the arms. Ouch.

Here courtesy to Aurelia © you can see how fresh Mirra just from the tree looks like. That is what most people in Kenya (up to 80% of populations here are users!) want, as Miraa is only effective up to 48 hours after cutting. The fresher the higher it gets you.



Than we went to some Masai settlements, where we interviewed witch-doctor who is the one conducting female circumcisions - the process of cutting out clitoris (at least!) of girls that come to the aged when they can be married. It's a cruel and dangerous process that leads to many health hazards and can even mean death to the "patient". It's been banned illegal by Kenyan government, but is still conducted in many regions of the country. It is even common for Kenyans that live in Europe or USA to take their daughters on vacation to "visit grandparents" - a code name for bringing them to their motherland for a procedure.

Courtesy to Aurelia a photo of one of the Masai's women ©:



Other than that we had plenty of nice and not so nice adventuress that included loosing a phone (pickpockets!), getting some stomach problems, meeting Swedish woman that is trying to change the world with hers husband invention and... finding out about Majini - evil African spirits that are most common in Mombasa... but that is another story that I should not start during night time. You may laugh, but I have witnessed a Majini activity and I would not like to angry them while on their territory.

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