DIY Home Gym - Kenya Style

So my fridge has been broken for about 4 days. It's made cooking and eating at home a bit tricky.  Try making an entire meal with stuff from your pantry..... Although to many the food in my pantry would be a luxury - no reason to complain really.

Actually I've been eating a lot of eggs and oatmeal during the fridge down time. Oh that reminds me so apparently eggs don't need to be refrigerated if you are going to use them within like 4 days or so.  Sounds nuts right?  I thought so too - but in the stores here, eggs are not refrigerated so I looked it up online. Apparently egg shells are a special supa dupa force-field against bacteria and other bad stuff. I still keep them in the fridge just cause I'd rather be safe than sorry if the force field has a crack and I dont know it.

Anyways, some guys came and fixed the fridge today - they took the whole thing apart and some how got it working with just like 2 tools - a hammer and a blow dryer. so freaking resourceful in these parts!

Speaking of resourceful...I meant to show you photos of the most amazing DIY home gym ever.  Dominic is our friend that works at Kenyaways Kite Village - the place we stay at the coast. There are some staff quarters by the house and Dominic wanted to show us the gym he put together there.  Him and I talk about working out a lot - it's his favorite topic...and sort of mine too - so we enjoy each other. He hasn't really been exposed to a much - he's very simple and quiet but when you start talking about working out - he get's pretty excited.  I show him body weight moves from all my little DVDs and bodyrock.com - and he goes on long runs with Sergio - the guy is OBSESSED with working out. It's seriously what he lives for. He told me "Lenna, if I don't do work out one day, I am very sad".  So, this other guy Alex, took us over to see Dominics gym:

He filled the bottom of 5 gallon water jugs with concrete to make one barbell and used concrete in some mold for the other.  The bench was just made of wood.

and a couple of free weights

It's so amazing to me what we could all do if we knew buying something wasn't an option. It's kind of awesome.  It's like my DIY bosu balls made from maize bags! Listen, I dont want to make it sound like this is the only work out equipment you find in Kenya - There are a number of modern gyms in Nairobi and other big cities in Kenya - not as many as we have in the US but modern gym exist here  - but if you are just a normal everyday guy like Dominic, without anywhere near the kind of money that the gyms out here cost ($70 per month!) it's pretty amazing that you can use your hands and some raw materials and throw something like this together. Impressive.

Some of the staff's families live there and there were lots of kids hanging around since there was no school that day

The baby on the little girls back was so cute but was not so into us ..the other kids were like freaking out and everyone wanted to be up in the camera.

The kid with the orange shirt had the cutest face with the funniest expression. Real cutie.

Love how kids out here are so together - i mean they all take care of each other. It's such a great thing. They are raised to take care of each other from a very very early age. There are like 5 and 6 year olds taking care of the baby.

They were showing us their "kitchen area". You know, these 4 days without a fridge, I just kept thinking the whole time that so much of the world doesn't have fridges - they just cook over an open flame exactly what they have and they eat it. The same thing every day. Like here - they cook up some greens and some ugali and they'll maybe save it in a pot if there is anything left. But if you can afford milk, you buy it that day and drink it. That is IF you can afford it. Most people that dont have fridges can't afford daily milk either -

The kitchen.

Okay, that's it! Let me know if you have any ideas for resourceful DIY gym equipment  - I'm without a gym right now so I'm trying to mix it up as much as possible.