Vasco De Gama and Eliot Smullen Visit Malindi

While I was in Watamu for Christmas, I went to a city called Malindi. That was a place that Vasco De Gama landed on his journey to India. He needed to go to open up the only known trading route to Asia which wasn't blocked by the Muslims. When he sailed up the coast of Africa he landed first in Mombassa. The people there did not want him to land there, so he moved on up the coast until he got to Malindi. The people on Malindi were more hospitable than the people in Mombassa so they let him stay for awhile. He and his men built a small church that is still there today. When I went to Malindi I saw the point where Vasco De Gama landed. It is marked by a pillar with the portuguese set of arms.

By Eliot

12-17-08 What makes Christmas Special

Wether I am on vacation or with my family at home, there are lots of things that make Christmas special. Christmas is always super special with my family. I go to my grandparents house and see all of my cousins and aunts and uncles. When we're there we have dinner, go caroling, play games make cookies and sleep over. My favorite christmases are when we go on vacation with my family. One Christmas we went to Queenstown, New Zealand. We did lots of stuff like go on a ferry to see waterfalls, luge rideing and speedboating on a river. Finally I am sure Christmas will be special in Kenya. I'll miss all of my family and friends here in Kenya but I am sure that I will have alot of fun at the beach swiming in the ocean and playing in the dand with friends. Chirstmas is special no matter where you are.

By Eliot

12-16-08 The Nest

Today, the sixteenth of December, I went to an orphanage called The Nest to donate sweaters and bring treats for them. There are about forty children staying there. They come from families whose parents are in prison or abandoned them. They have children who are one years old to teenagers. When we arrived, they greeted us with a welcome song. The person in charge of it gave us a tour of the orphanage. We first saw the boy's dorm. It had bunks with tons of stuffed animals on them. When we were there, we met a thirteen year old boy named Bernard. Next we saw the girls dorm. The beds where bunk beds, but unlike the boys beds, it was one big long bed with mattresses right next to each other. Next we saw the nursury where all the babies sleep. The thing that I thought was funny was that they slept in "bunk cribs". We saw the kitchen next. They cooked the food in huge pots. It is about ten times bigger than the largest pot that you have in your house. We finally saw the courtyard. They had a cat, dog, goose, rooster ad some hens. We saw their playground and garden. In the garden they grew potatoes and spinach. THen we finished the tour. Then we went inside to meet the kids. They sang a Christmas song and we taught them "Every Move I Make" WE passed out cookies then had to say goodbye. I thought that the place was pretty nice.

By Eliot

Lake Naivasha/Crescent Island

12-12-08

One place that you need to go to is Lake Naivasha in the Rift Valley. There is so much wildlife at the lake. There are many trees, many bushes and shrubs and a ton of birds where we were. We took a boat to an Island (used to be an Island but now it is a penninsula) called Cresent Island. It seems like there habitats all pressed into one place. We first walked through a forrested area from the dock. Then we walked up a hill and got to the savannah part of the island. ER saw zebras, deer, wildebeasts(all wild), and sheep and lambs(domestic). They were all grazing in the grass. We watched them for a bit and saw the deer leave. We walked around the herd and then when we got passed them they started stampeding. Its was very very random because they weren't being attacked. What I thought was that one started running and the others did the same thinking that there is danger. We went back to the forested area and saw a wood pecker and some tiny deer. We walked until we got to the lake habitat. It had many birds like you would see at any lake, but there was one thing that you wouldn't see at a lake in CA that was at lake Naivasha. That was hippos! We saw about six hippos. After that we got back into the boat and got even closer to the hippos. Going to Lake Naivasha was an awesome experience.

Bird-watching in Kenya

   In Kenya, I picked up the hobby of bird watching. There are one thousand sixty five species of birds in Kenya. There are birds everywhere you look; on the ground, in bushes, on fences and flying in the sky. So pretty much in Kenya you can never get away from birds.

So far on this trip I have seen and identified eleven birds; some big, some small. Some big ones were Ostriches (2 to 2.5 M), Hadeda Ibis (76 cm) and the Steppe Eagle (75cm). My favorite of these birds is the Hadeda Ibis. An adult is mostly brown with a curved black and red beak and a metalic blue spot on its wing. There are also the smaller birds such as the Helmeted Guinea Fowl (51-56 cm). the Speckeled Mousebird (33cm), Nubian Woodpecker (18cm), African Black-headed oriole (23cm), African Pied Crow (46cm), Coromon Bulbul (18 cm), African pied wagtail(which I like to call the tuxedo bird) (20cm), Supurb Starling (18cm) and the Marico Sunbird (13 cm). My favorite of these if the Superb Starling because it is so colorful. It has a black head and tail, a red breast, blue wings with black spots and a white rear end. The favorite bird that I've seen in my backyard is called Fisher's Lovebird. It has a black crown, red face, dark green wings and light green belly and breast. Here are some pictures of the birds I've seen:

Bird Watching in Kenya

International School of Kenya

12-9-08
Yesterday I went to I.S.K (International School of Kenya). I did lots of stuff and met new friends. One person was a boy named Harrison who was from Uganda. I also met some other boys named Guastav, Eric, and Famus. First I started the day with music class. I wasn’t very much like music class at home. Next I did a daily worksheet that they have to do which is just like daily bite except you correct a whole paragraph. Next they corrected their homework and went out for our first recess. After recess we had P.E. All they did was run a mile and that was it. I ran it in about 11 minutes. It probably sounds easy but it isn’t because you can’t stop, its humid and its at high altitude; so its like running a mile in Lake Tahoe. After we did math. The funny thing was that they were doing the exact same thing as us. Then we had lunch. The food there was nothing like it is at H.S.S… There was only beef, chips (French fries) and jello. At lunch I only played soccer with all of the boys. When lunch was over we did problem solving. We had to find the volume and density of a shape from the info that the teacher gave us. We finally had science. They were talking about solids, liquids and gases. We also let an ice cube melt and the melted ice cube boil so we could observe it. Then we had a third recess and did an activity with their second grade.

12-8-08 St. Catherine of Siena

The Church we went to in Kenya is very different from the ones in San Jose. First of all the building was smaller and there is only one room. Also it was out in the middle of nowhere with only fields and two streets within a mile of it. It was built from wooden poles with a straw roof and wall made from clear tarp. There was a smaller similar building for the children’s Liturgy of the word. The bathrooms were only a wooden shed with big concrete hole in the ground like an outhouse. They are raising money to build a more permanent church with walls.

We went to Sunday mass with Nora (one of the maids) and met her family. A cool thing was that mostly all the songs were in Swahili. There was a visiting priest from the Vatican, and another priest from Nigeria. After mass everyone there wanted to meet us and talk to us.

12-7-08 Nairobi National Park

Have any of you been on a safari? Most likely you have. A safari is any trip or adventure like camping. Yesterday I went to Nairobi National Park on a safari. We saw tons of animals because it was dusk. First when we were going out into the grasslands we saw about five giraffes, and one peed for about five minutes. When we got to the grassland we saw even more animals. We saw an antalope, a pack of about 100 gazelles and then a group of deer. On the way back out of the park we saw the giraffes eating again. But then I saw a rhino run across the road in front of us. It was huge, a bit smaller than the size of the car we were in. That reminds me. We had to stay in the car or else we would be Rhino-dinner (Not really dinner but they do attack humans or cars). We didn’t see any lions because they were pushed to the other end of the park.

"Ting and the Possible Futures"

The book can be ordered from United Nations Book Shop or Amazon, but I can also bring a few back if you let me know.


Dede

Ting and the Possible Futures Book Cover

Tunza Book: Ting and the Possible Futures

Jambo!

Today I wanted to tell you about a book that shows what pollution does to the Earth and how to prevent it. It's called Ting and the Possible Futures. It's about a girl named Ting who has a transporter that lets her travel in time to see the future.  First she travels 50 years into the future and sets the scenario to 'Business as usual'.  When she gets there she meets the science teacher Maria.  Maria told Ting to put on a breathing mask and Ting asked why it's so dirty and dry.  Maria told her that the climate changed so dramatically because people didn't take care of the environment.  The biggest problem was that everyone burned more coal and oil and cut down more trees instead of only using solar and wind power plants.  Next Ting asked to go out to the coast.  The site that she saw breath-taking.  It was very different from fifty years back.  All of the shops and houses that were near the ocean were now under water.  This happened because it got so hot that the ice caps at West Antarctica and Greenland melted so the sea level rose.   Because of that many people called "climate refugees" moved inland.  Next they drove to what was a busy market town.  She remembered buying fruits and vegetables there.  It used to be green fields and forests with many animals in them but now it was like a desert.  Drought came to the farmlands.  It was covered by a city of shacks and tents made by refugees from the coast and people from dried up farms.  

After that Ting set the transporter to "Best Care."  When she arrived at her school everything was clean and there was a big garden.  The buildings had solar panels and there were wind turbines.  Again Ting met the science teacher Maria.  She told Ting this happened because the people decided to become "carbon neutral."  Buy doing this they got energy from the sun, wind and water.  They insulated buildings so they used less electricity for heating and cooling the building and used florescent light bulbs.  There were many trees, planted because they soak up the carbon dioxide in the air. The biggest change was that they stopped using coal and oil because they polluted the air and would run out, unlike wind and sunlight.  Most of the people walked or biked, or used public transportation to get around.  Changing the types of energy made many "green jobs" which not only helped the environment but helped the economy.  Factories that were shut down could come back to life making solar panels and wind turbines.  

Finally Ting went back in time to tell everyone at her school how to be carbon neutral.  For example, if everyone in the world planted a tree it would make a huge difference.  I would recommend this book to everyone because it shows tips on how to be carbon neutral and keep the environment clean.  To see more got to the TUNZA web site link:

http://www.unep.org/tunza/children

Produce of City Park

Country Produce at City Park

If you are wondering about what a fruit and vegetable market looks like in Nairobi you'll find out now.  First of all it looks nothing like Safeway or any other super-market.  It mainly sold fruits and vegetables but some cloths, fish and meat were being sold there.  All the fruits and vegetables looked so good. There were mountains and mountains of food and everything was fresh.  The bad part was that the ground was muddy and I was wearing flip-flops.  So that wasn't very pleasant.

Natural Nairobi from November to December

Kenya's landscape is varied and the weather is unpredictable.  You might think Nairobi is just very hot and dry but it is the exact opposite.  In the morning it is usually raining cloudy and very cold.    Then at about nine o'clock it gets sunny with a slight breeze and it still isn't very hot.  From noon to three o'clock it gets very hot.  Finally in the evening it cools off again.

The landscape ranges from vast grasslands to lush forests.  Nairobi seems very wet from my point of view.  We went to a furniture store in the forest and it was very wet with a river flowing through it.  Instead of having brown soil it is very red. Wherever you look you will see tons of birds and maybe a monkey in the forest.

Also the seasons here in Kenya are very different from California Seasons.  July and August is winter.  January and February is dry season.  March and May is the "long rains" wet season.   June through September is dry.  October through December, the time we are here now is the "short rains" wet season.

Feeding Giraffes at Giraffe Center

Wild Monkey, Domestic Ostrich

Large Cranes On the Ride From Nairobi Airport

HELLO FROM AFRICA

Hello everybody! I just flew into Nairobi Saturday. On the drive to our friends house I saw many things. There was lots of really colorful trees and flowers, acres and acres of grassland and lots of storks in the trees.

Their house is up on a big hill where we could see everything. They have a huge house with a clubhouse and play structure in their backyard. Yesterday we went and saw lots of animals. First we saw giraffes, pheasants and warthogs. We only got to feed the giraffes. When they licked the food out of our hands, our hands were covered in slobber. A funny thing was that the giraffe would open its mouth and we would throw the food into it.

Finally we saw crocodiles, ostriches and rabbits. We saw both baby and adult crocodiles. When the keeper poked the crocodiles with a stick it would snap its huge jaws. It sounded like someone cupping their hands and clapping but it was about fifty times louder. Then we saw ostriches, camels and rabbits. Then we went back to their clubhouse.

The Houses of Parliament

Although England has a queen it still is a democratic country.  First I'll tell you a bit about how the Parliament building looks.  It has many statues carved into the walls.  Also Big Ben is a part of it.  Finally it contains the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

First there is the House of Lords and they do many things.  They improve and write new laws.  They check the work of the government by asking questions and debating.  Also they provide a group of experts to discuss issues. The House of Lords consists of Life Peers, Bishops, Archbishops, Hereditary Peers and Law Lords.  

The House of Commons is  very similar to the House of Lords but there are some differences between them.    First of all, they write the laws and send them to the House of Lords to review them.  Unlike the Lords, the Members of Parliament (M.Ps) are elected by the people of the U.K.  M.Ps  represent a big group of people like Congressmen in the Untied States.  An M.P. can talk about things that concern people in debates in the House of Commons.  

(P.S. If you are wondering, I'm still not answering yesterday's question about Westminster Abbey. If you know the answer you can post it in the comments section)

Westminster Abbey

If you ever go to London you should visit Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey was originally built by King Edward the Confessor and then rebuilt by Henry III.  King Edward began the building it in 1055, and many things were added since then.  When it was rebuilt it had many Gothic styles.  There are many statues, stain glass windows and gargoyles.  In the center of the church is the alter surrounded by many chapels and shrines.   The abby is famous because the coronations (crowing) of all the kings and queens of England took place there.  In all the chapels there are many tombs of queens, kings, poets, writers, scientists, musicians, warriors and other famous leaders.  The Abbey is still used today for worship.  When we visited, they gave us a children's trail which led us all around the Abbey. The children's trail asks many questions about the history of the Abbey and the things that are there.  For an example: Who was Queen Elizabeth I buried with? Want the answer?  

Just kidding, to find the answer you'll have to go to London's Westminster Abbey!

TOWER OF LONDON, VIEWS FROM LONDON EYE, RIVER THAMES VIEWS, BIG BEN TOWER, HARRODS

THE TOWER OF LONDON

Yesterday my family and I went to the Tower of London.  I saw and learned many things.  A cool thing that I learned about was the crown jewels.  They are worn when the queen calls in the Parliament.  The jewels consist of many things but the six biggest things are gold, diamonds, sapphire, rubies, emeralds and pearls.

The second thing that we saw was the armament.  This included all their weapons, armor, and defense systems.  They had many weapons that changed over time.  The first was the long bow which was deadly accurate if you used it correctly.  Next there were swords, lances, maces and axes.  Lastly guns, like the pistol and riffle were made.  They also had many kinds of armor.  The armor suits were used when the soldiers went out for battle.  They also had armor for their horses.  The tower had two walls.  One was twenty-five foot thick and the other fifty feet high.  Lastly they had defense systems for the tower.  They had a fifteen foot deep mote around it.  They had canons stationed around it.  Lastly there were slits in the wall so that archers could hit people without being hit themselves.  

The last thing that we saw was their torture instruments.  The first one was called "The Rack" which pretty much stretched you out and tore out your limbs.  The second one was called "Scavengers Daughter" which crushed you to death.  The last way was to hang you by your wrists by metal cuffs. 

After that we left and saw many sites from the London Eye.

Hello Everyone!

Yesterday, November 21st I left for London. We went to the SF Airport and we left around 7:00 p.m.  We went on a pretty big airplane that had t.v.s on the back of the chairs and was pretty roomy.  We arrived at around 1 p.m. London time.  There is an eight hour difference between London and San Jose time. 

There are some things that I want to tell you about London.  Instead of driving on the right side of the road, they drive on the "wrong"  side of the road (left side).  I have a little piece of advice.  If you ever plan on walking around London at night in November, you better go to the ski shop first.  We were wondering for a long time, looking for a place to eat.  When we found one, we ran inside because we were freezing.  The Restaurant was called Brompton Quarters Cafe. We ate there and then returned to our four story apartment. Thats pretty much all that we have done.

I took lots of pictures, I want to show you some.

Hi Mr. B., 

this is my new blog for my trip to London and Kenya. I think this trip is going to be so fun because I'll see the London Eye, Big Ben, a safari, and much, much more. Check back here for daily updates and pictures of London and Kenya.

       Sincerely,

                                            Eliot Smullen  

Just getting started.

What do you think of your new Blog Eliot?