Rift Valley, Kenya

Summary
Volunteer and live in a traditional Maasai village in the Rift Valley of Kenya where you will see giraffes grazing in your backyard, soda lakes with millions of flamingos, volcanic mountains, and Maasai herdsmen grazing their cattle.

Programs
We have the following programs available in the Rift Valley:

Location
The Rift Valley, less than an hour from Nairobi, is the longest valley in the world -- 4,000 miles long and 35 miles wide. It is a continental fault system that stretches from the Dead Sea south through the Red Sea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and into Mozambique.

On the way to our volunteer locations in Kenya's Rift Valley, you will pass by the Ngong Hills that were made famous by Karen Blixen and her book "Out of Africa".

There are very few foreigners who stay near our volunteer locations in the Rift Valley. You will be living among the Maasai tribe of Kenya, often featured in documentaries done by organizations like National Geographic.

Language
English is widely spoken. You will also hear a lot of Swahili as well as several local tribal languages.

Accommodations
You will stay with a local Kenyan family who will provide you with your own room, all meals, include you in family activities, and generally help you adjust to and learn about their culture and country. Our families can host more than one volunteer at a time, so you can stay in the same house with your friend(s) or partner. You can also stay in separate host families that are very near to each other. The host families have been hand-picked and trained by both Cosmic Volunteers' staff as well as our local Kenyan Coordinators. Cosmic's staff has visited the families' homes, shared meals with them, and conveyed to them the unique responsibilities involved with hosting foreign volunteers.

Meals
Meals usually consist of meat (beef or chicken), beans, potatoes, and a wide variety of other vegetables and fruits. Vegetarians are easily accommodated by our host families.

Communications
Mobile phones are widely available in Kenya, and the service reaches the Rift Valley. You can buy and activate a mobile phone for 75-100 USD from one of the many shops in Nairobi before you head out to Rift Valley. For Internet access, there are shops in the nearby town of Ngong Hills where you can use the Internet and make international phone calls. Your host family will also have a phone that you can use for emergencies and local calls.

Transportation
Our local Kenyan Coordinators will accompany you by private car from Nairobi to Rift Valley and introduce you to your host family and the school or medical clinic where you will volunteer. On a daily basis, you can walk from your host family to your volunteer job in 10-20 minutes. To get to Ngong Hills, you can catch a local truck (usually for free). You can also buy an inexpensive bicycle – but keep in mind that the ride out of the valley is very strenuous. Once at Ngong Hills, you can take am inexpensive minibus taxi (“mutatu”)

Health & Safety
Rift Valley and the surrounding hill towns are very safe in terms of personal safety as well as health. The biggest problem faced by volunteers is usually an occasional upset stomach as their bodies adjust to the food and water and warmer climate. There is a small medical clinic in this part of the Rift Valley for basic medical care, as well as a medical facilities in Ngong Hills and Nairobi.

Climate/Weather
Rift Valley has a warmer climate year-round and is prone to droughts.

Sightseeing & Activities
There are several wildlife parks and reserves that you can visit. The most popular and best known is the Maasai Mara National Reserve ("Mara"). Most travelers will tell you that no trip to Kenya would be complete without a visit to Mara, which was featured in the movie "Out of Africa" and is home to the Masai tribe and the annual wildebeast migration in July. Mara is better suited to a long-weekend trip, since it is 270 kilometers southwest of Nairobi. For daytrips, you can visit Nairobi National Park which sits right next to Nairobi and has four of the "big five": leopard, lion, buffalo and rhino (there are no elephants). You can also relax at a beach resort in Mombasa, the largest coastal port in East Africa and a six-hour bus ride from Nairobi.