A Tourist In My Own City

Ok, I'm loving having Theresa visit. Not only is it incredibly fun to hang out with a friend from WAY back in the day, its also fun to be pushed out of my usual boundaries in my own city. I live here. I work here. But I don't get to do all the touristy things around here- mostly because I LIVE here. But I have a guest who doesn't live here and doesn't have the opportunity to feed giraffes every day if she wanted to! So I get to do all the cool stuff in my city now too! Its kinda fun to be a tourist every once in a while!

Today we decided to go to the Animal Orphanage and the Giraffe Center. I'd never done the animal orphanage before- its in the Nairobi National Park (where we had our ill-fated safari adventure last week with the broken down bus, the hippos and the lion!) So we headed back- it was a bit of an adventure to find this place but we got there just as they were letting everyone in for the orphaned elephants' mud bath. So cute!!
For those who are wondering (KELLY) the elephant orphanage is where young (often TINY) elephants are brought when they have been separated from their herd or their mother has been poached or otherwise dies. They each have a handler who lives with them 24/7 to care for them and when they are 4 or so they are taken to another facility inside on of the game reserves where they will be slowly re-released into the wild. They also have some young rhinos.

Then it was off to the giraffe center to feed the giraffes. Its kinda cheesy but where else can you hand feed a giraffe?

Best Safari EVER!!

Let's just preface this story by saying, when Theresa came to visit, I promised adventure and animals. And today I sure delivered.

We had heard rumors and seen guidebooks that said Nairobi National Park had a bus from town that would pick you up in town, take you to the game park, give a guided tour and drive back to town. Sounds like a great deal. Nairobi National Park is the only national park in the world this close to a major city and I wanted pictures of animals with the city scape in the background. (like this) The only problem was we couldn't get a consistent departure time. Everything we checked said different times (and places). So we went for the earliest time.Left the house at 7:45- got to town in PLENTY of time so we stopped for coffee. At 8:30 we were waiting at the pick up point (that has no sign, no office or anything that would make you think a bus could possibly come here to take people to the game park.) I talked to some watchmen who said there was a bus, it would come today but it wouldn't come until 11am. Ok well its 9 now- we went to eat some brunch and came back. I talked to a guy selling magazines who said that there was a bus, it would come today. Great. So we waited. And waited. And waited. We noticed another family waiting so I asked them about the bus- they were waiting for it too. So we all waited. And waited. At noon, the mom went to ask another watchman who said the bus would come at 1pm. We decided to go, get some iced tea, use a bathroom and come back at 1. We came back and there was the bus! We get on.... and wait. I told Theresa I bet it wouldn't leave until 2 (b/c one guide book said 2pm). So we wait- and wait- and at 1:50 we go. Good thing we didn't wait and come at 2!

So off we go for our day safari. Its supposed to be a couple hours and a nice tour through the park. We get to the park, the bus fills up, we pay and off we go. Saw some giraffes up close, and some rhinos, some heart beasts, etc. Over all, a fun afternoon.

We come around a corner and see a watering hole with 2 hippos heads sticking out- very cool. But as the bus tries to drive around the tight corner of the watering hole, the back tire slips off the road. We are now at a precarious angle, angling down into the watering hole with the hippos we just saw. Fun. The driver starts trying to back up and move forward- great plan except we get more stuck and we are leaning at an even more precarious angle. We are STUCK stuck- and we all have to get out.

Now safari rule #1 is NEVER get out of your vehicle! ESPECIALLY when you are less then 50 yards from a hippo! (Hippos are the most dangerous animal in Africa- they kill more people here every year then every other animal). But the bus is going to tip, so out we go. Kids, adults, everybody. And that's when we find out that the reason we were going on this particular rout was because someone had just seen a lion there (its pretty rare to see a lion at that time of day). So we are standing in the grass with reeds separating us from a known hippo and somewhere ahead is a lion.

Theresa's First Safari: The stuck bus, the reeds separating us from the hippos and somewhere ahead are the lions.

The men decide to try to push the bus out- but only ended up tipping it even more. That bus isn't going anywhere- and neither are we. Can't get back on the bus because it will tip now and we are trying to keep all the kids close because of the lion and the hippo.

So what now? We wait for alternate transportation. I saw the guide calling someone, explaining our situation so I figured the main gate would send a new bus and we'd be on our way. We wait about an hour and a half with no word from anyone and I decide to go talk to the guide to see what the plan is. I'm looking, and looking- I don't see the guide. Or the driver for that matter. Or the other guide! Then I remembered seeing a few men taking off down the road a while before. Yup- that was them. So we wait. I went over to see if the hippo had resurfaced- couldn't see it anymore but you could see it bubble every once in a while and watch its back start to resurface. Cool but it would have been cooler from inside a vehicle!

Now, its coming up on dusk- and what do animals need at dusk?? Water. And where are we? Standing between the animals and their only water source. We are watching a group of giraffes getting closer, a herd of zebras, and we're still keeping an eye out for the lion.

But here comes a big truck!! Yay!! Wait- that's not a truck we can ride in- that's a truck with a winch to pull out the bus. And who's driving it??? The driver who got us stuck to begin with!! Oh this is going to go well. The guys hook up the chains and the winch, a tractor shows up to help (not sure how but that's my call). And now other safari cars are stopping to take pictures of us- from a distance of course- so Theresa and I are the newest attraction at Nairobi Game Park!! After about an hour they get the bus out- but who knows how safe the axels are now?? This bus was sitting at a 45 degree angle for 3 hours. But there aren't a lot of options. Its now almost full dark and we want out of the park. So we load in the bus.

I was talking the driver, he said that he and the guides had gone back for the truck and help but they were so scared of the lion and the hippos that were around. He said "we were very afraid- so we ran. We ran fast." too funny.

You'd think the adventure stops here right?? Nope. We take off down this road on the axles of unknown stability only to find these huge piles of dirt along one side the path. And I mean HUGE- they are 3 or 4 feet high and take up half of the path. Getting around one of these piles was was got us stuck to begin with. Avoiding the piles didn't work before so what do we do now? Drive straight through. The bus is tipping at ridiculous angles, at one point Theresa looks out her window (which was basically pointing at the ground) and says "Linds! there's a huge HOLE under me!!!". But we made it out to a more main road in the park. And now everyone is laughing hysterically (because stress will do that to you!). Everyone starts singing and then started mocking the guide's presentation saying "Bwana George, what type of ecosystem is this?" "What type of tree has the wide leaves?"

So we finally get to the main gate and start heading towards town- but its DARK dark now and I don't go out after dark but there aren't a whole lot of options. The bus drops us in town and Theresa and I make our way home.

So we are fine. Safe and sound and had one ridiculously hilarious safari!!! I'm soooo going back again!! So come visit everyone!!! I'll get you stuck in a safari park at dusk standing in between hippos, a lion and all the animals coming to drink!! Fun times!!!

My Traditional Kenyan Birthday Suprise

So we have this tradition here, I have no idea where it came from, but on your birthday your friends get to throw water on you. I wasn't in the office on my actual birthday but my teammates decided to take care of it today.

I really only got hit with a little bit but my team leader and a few team mates all hit me with water from their water bottles. I don't really get what the symbolism is but I do know enough to try to dodge water bottles and buckets all day on your birthday!!

At least it was warm today. I'm not so sure it would have been so funny if it was as chilly as it was a few days ago.

I don't think Theresa believed they would do it until the water started to fly!

Wildlife in Nairobi...

I woke up this morning, went into the kitchen for some juice and found this:

Yup. A gecko in a coffee cup.

Yeah, that was a first. And kinda strange.

I think it was probably warm when the sun was shining on it but then the sun shifted and the gecko was stuck. Regardless, this was the first gecko I've found in my morning coffee cup...

Theresa's Here! Theresa's Here!!!

I'm so excited! A friend of mine from home is here to visit!! She is the first person from home to see my life here. So for all of you from Good Shepherd, Theresa made it here safely! I'm giving her a few days to get past the jet lag before we jump into life here. Its so fun to have a friend who knows me from my life in the US, come and see my life here. Because my friends here know me only in this context, and my people back home only know me in that context, but in reality I'm a combo of both worlds and no one ever gets the full pictures.

Happy 4th of July!

Today, I went to one hilarious 4th of July party. It was great. There was all this great American food- potato salad, coleslaw, honey glazed chicken, grilled everything and strawberries on the chocolate cake. I know that sounds pretty usual 4th of July fare for the US but this was all a treat!

Today I learned some new skills. My friend was throwing the party and asked me to help man the grills. At home in the US, I rarely get to grill because my dad and brother always do the grilling but I know HOW to grill! I'm just not used to grilling on a not-what-I'm-used-to grill called a jiko. I'm used to lighting a gas grill or charcoal with lighter fluid. I'm not used to tiny, mystery, charcoal grills with no lighter fluid or anything. I worked for 40 minutes and finally got it going... sort of. But it wasn't going enough because it went out completely. So we started again. A friend of mine took pity on me and taught me the secrets of the jiko- ie the secret door in the base where you put the newspaper to light the charcoal. It went SOOOO much better after that! Jikos are tiny grills that are the traditional cook stoves of Kenya. Lots of people still use them. Just not me before today. Then the grilling marathon was on. Jikos are tiny- you can fit about 3 hamburgers on each one- so we had 2 jikos going. We were grilling burgers, hotdogs, chicken, you name it we grilled it! I really wanted some marshmallows to roast on the coals when we were done- but no s'mores today :( It was really funny to have 2 girls grilling- there were tons of guys and dad's around-usually they are the grill masters.

At one point I was standing outside and everyone inside was singing Happy Birthday to one of the little girls. When they got to the girl's name, my friend (who's not American) turned to me and said "I thought they were singing Happy Birthday to America!"


But it was a fun day. I've never shared the 4th of July with so much cultural diversity. We had Caucasian Americans, African Americans, Kenyan Americans, adopted Americans who don't live in America but are US passport holders, Canadians, Kenyans, Brits and about 20 some kids running around. So much food. So many friends. Such a good time.

Time to watch some 1776 "Someone's gotta OOOOOOPen up a window!" Such a great movie!

My New Guard Lizards

Ok, so back when I was in language school, I caught a lizard at school , scared my teachers to death with it and kept it as a pet. I know, I sound like I was 6 years old but there wasn't a whole lot to do in language school. His name was Mng'unikaji (or Sid) and he died soon after I caught him. Some people keep guard dogs, I kept a guard lizard. He was a tiny little skink by the way, I wasn't keeping a komodo dragon or anything.

Over the last few months, I've been seeing more geckos in the house. Now geckos are great to have around- they eat the bugs! People say that when you have geckos around where you can see them in the house, you are cockroach free (because they would be in all the deep dark recesses of the house eating their fill of cockroaches if the roaches were around). YAY for being cockroach free!
I think we may have a whole family of geckos around though because they've been appearing in various sizes and colors. But lately, they have taken to jumping out of the craziest places. Usually they just hang out in the kitchen or in the pantry. Yesterday I almost had a heart attack when one jumped out at me from my dirty clothes hamper (ok "jumped out at me" might be a bit of an exaggeration but I wasn't expecting anything to move or come out of the hamper!) But regardless, I'm now shaking out my clothes really well before I put stuff on!