On the 30th of January to 2nd of Februrary me and the rest of the senior class at ISK had the opprtunity to spend 4 amazing days at the Kenyan coast, at Ocean Sports hotell in Watamu.We were divided into 4 different strands with varying activites, associated mostly with the coastal life of Watamu.
- Service
- Environment
- Culture
- Creativity 1 & 2.
I was placed in the second creativity group and also signed up as one of the photographers of our strand, so that we later would have pictures for the newspaper that would be made about our trip.
The IC trip was not only filled with fun but we also learned so much that you normally wouldn't at a beach hotell. We arrived at Ocean Sport's around lunch the first day and had time to settle in and enjoy a nice lunch at the restaurant. However the day started early the following morning, at 6.30. The activity was beach clean up, for all the strands. With yellow plastic bags we scanned the whole bay after anything considered trash - bottle caps to plastic and string. This was not only to make the stay better for tourists, but for the animal and marine life around Ocean sports. Especially animals like sea turtles are affected by trash and can both get trapped and try to eat it and then die because their metabolism can't break it down. It was quite tiering in the sun, even though it was early but we felt like we did something good and that kept the motivation up.
Once the different strands had gone of to their individual activities, my creativity group settled down at some tables for a workshop on water color with mrs Corum. I chose the creativity strand, not because I am very artistic but because I don't take art at school and rarely get the option to develop creative skills. I saw this as a great way of doing something different and was not disappointed. Even though we all new some basics about colors and mixing, and some in the group actually were IB art students, it was very nice to go through it again and practise and see how much water and what color should be used to end up with the perfect result. When we started our individual pieces it was quite nice how everyone slowly fell quite, absorbed by their own work. I got to practise my artistic skills as well as concentration and it was very nice to have mrs Corum there to ask for advise if necessary.
One afternoon the entire grade participated in a presentation about sea turtles and what work Watamu Marine Association does with them. We learned that only 1 in 1000 eggs surive to mature age and that female turtles come back to their birth place later in life. One of the problems here is that we start building along the coast line, some times on old nests, and mess with the turtles inner compass as they become very confused when they can't find what they came back looking for.
The activity that I think I apreciated the most was the swahili cooking. We had help from the chefs at Ocean Sports restaurant and made chicken and beans in coconut sauce, along with the indian bread chapati. My family loves cooking and I have always spend lots of time in the kitchen at home. Therefore I found it very interesting to see someone professional prepare both something that I had done before, the chicken, but also new things like the chapati and the coconut sauce. We got to interact alot and try many of the things like scraping out the coconut meat form the shell, pour the milk through it and then sqeeze it out, for maximum flavouring, and how to make the chapati thin and with the special 'layers' that it has. However something that I would have wanted to learn aswell, or at least see, is how they actually prepare this much food for and entire hotell. We only did small portions because it was easier but one of the trickiest things in a kitchen is really to be able to produce a enjoyable meal for so many people at the same time. It was a great activity and I feel like I learned more than I actually expected, mostly about timing, which matters alot in a kitchen, but also techniques that I didnt even know about before this, like how coconut is produced. Next time I would want to participate in the full process, because this time many things, like the spices and the onions, ginger, garlic and chilli, very already prepared, to save time.
Additionally to this we walked into Watamu town one day, along the beach, through the next bay and then through the streets of the town before we found the famous Italian ice cream place that indeed was amazing. It was hot and we deffintaly had to show some endurance and not just sit down in the shade and rest after half the way. Unfortunately we got lost in the town and had to walk all the way around before reaching our destiantion. Still this was nice, because we got to see more of the every day life of people in Watamu and passed shops of all kinds, kids playing, street cats, ladies doing laudrary etc.
Even though I have already spent 3 years with most of the people in my grade this still resulted in many new bonds, with people that I before had not really given a chace and I got even closer to the ones that Im already friends with. I deffinatley made me realize how much I am going to miss them and Kenya once we graduate.
