Kenya: the first whirlwind week! (Part One)

Hello from Kisumu!

Thanksgiving in September

Well, I left San Francisco headed east to Africa, but I made a 2-week pitstop in Florida to visit the family before shipping out for a year. During the two weeks my father seemed to make it his personal mission to fatten me up for the winter, and he dragged me to steakhouses, seafood places, mexican restaurants...and to top it all off, he offered to make me a meal for my last night in the US. I joked and told my sisters to tell him I wanted a full Thanksgiving feast (and then to take a picture of his face :P), but Dad was up for it and actually decided to cook me a whole turkey dinner!!

We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and funnel cakes for dessert!! It was a great way to celebrate my last evening in the US, and I was SO full by the end. I think we have a contender for Dad of the Year :)

It was great to see my family during the trip, and I had a blast in San Francisco all summer, but I had been living out of a suitcase for almost 6 weeks by the time departure day arrived, so I was pretty excited to get to my new home for a year. I packed up my bags for the last time for the next few months and loaded them all into my teeny, tiny rented Fiat. I really thought they weren't going to fit! But with the seats folded down, and no other passengers, I loaded them up and headed to the Orlando airport. I was borderline embarrased to have so much luggage....I'm used to traveling pretty light, but heading out for a year to sub-Saharan Africa gave me the excuse to give in to the temptation of being allowed to check 2 bags up to 50 pounds each. So with my bags stuffed full of bug spray and clothes, off I went!

I started my 35 hours of travel by driving myself to the airport, returning the rental car, and dumping 100 pounds of luggage ( and really hoping to see it 4 flights later...). I flew from Orlando, to Washington, DC. I only had a 1.5 hour layover in DC, so I dashed to my gate, had a glass of wine to encourage some shut eye on my red-eye flight, and got on a flight to Brussels, Belgium! The flight to Brussels was 7 hours long, and by the time I watched a movie, had semi-decent plane dinner, and took a long nap, we were in Europe and it was time for breakfast.

The route

I had a 4 hour layover in Brussels, so I grabbed a croissant, coffee and juice (even though it was midnight FL time) and then went and bought as much chocolate as I could stuff into my already bursting carry-ons! Whenever I travel I try to bring candy with me to give to people, so I bought big bags of Snickers and Milky Ways to make a good first impression on my new Kenyan co-workers :P

My first view of Africa!!! Over Egypt!

I eventually boarded my flight bound for Nairobi, but had totally forgotten the plane made another stop....we were scheduled to land in Kigali, Rwanda for an hour but not switch planes. I braced myself for the 11 hour journey, and watched bad movies for most of the flight. We flew over Greece then over the Mediterranean to Egypt - It was clear and sunny over the Sahara (big surprise!), and it was really cool to see the dunes for hours.

Eventually it clouded over and then got dark, so there wasn't much scenery after the desert. Our stopover in Rwanda was uneventful, and we landed in Nairobi with no problems around midnight local time! Since the International terminal basically burnt to the ground a few months ago, we had to get out and walk on the tarmac to a bus, which took us to a tent/garage to get our bags. My bags made it, customs was easy, and I found my driver!

I arrived at Ana-Claire's house (my boss) around 1am, checked in with the family, and crashed! After somewhere over 35 hours door-to-door I had safely made it to a new continent and my guest room for the weekend!!

Day One in Africa!!

Since I didn't get to bed until around 2am, I slept in until almost 10am - I wandered down from the guest room long after breakfast had been served, and I spent the whole day just hanging out at Ana-Claire's house playing with her two daughters. Kamilla is 6 and Arwa is 3, and they are adorable little bundles of energy! We chased the baby chicks that escaped from the chicken coop, had a yummy lunch, played in the yard, and lounged. Ana-Claire (AC) took me to the store to get my phone all set up, but besides our quick trip down the block for a SIM card, we just hung around the house all day....which was exactly what I needed!! Most ex-pats in Nairobi are pretty nervous at the moment, so besides being relaxing for me to just hang out, AC was being practical and cautious. We had a huge dinner of fresh chicken (I didn't ask if I had been chasing it earlier in the day or if it was store bought), cookies the girls made, and I crashed again.

Day Two in Africa!!

Sunday in Nairobi made up for my rather quiet Saturday - we were up, fed and out the door by 9:30 am to go horseback riding! Kamilla is a horse lover, and there is a stable only a 5 minute drive away. Arwa on the other hand is terrified of horses (and dogs I later found out), so Ana-Claire and Arwa chose to walk, and Kamilla and I donned riding helmets and picked out horses to ride through the local forested park :) We were lead through the park by two nice gentlemen who tried to give me a brief lesson in horse riding....I have ridden a horse a few times, but I've never had a lesson or learned how to trot! I was pretty hopeless until Kamilla's guide saw me, stopped, and lead her and her horse ahead of me and told me to stop doing whatever I was doing and just watch Kamilla and copy her - and it worked! 

Trotting!

I got the hang of it and we trotted a few times with the guides leading us, and eventually met up with AC and Arwa who were hiking through the forest on a parallel trail. After returning to the stable, we found a family of kittens hanging out in the office...and they even had a hutch full of tiny baby bunny rabbits that we got to hold! 

Sykes Monkeys!

Arwa being adorable :)

After leaving the stables, we went to visit a friend of Ana-Claire. The friend had a huge house with a giant trampoline in the backyard, so I played with Kamilla and Arwa, and while we were outside, a troop of monkeys came down from the trees and started playing in the neighbor's yard! They were chasing each other and doing somersaults - it was a blast to watch!!

Baby bunnies!

The last event for the day was an art gallery exhibition: AC knew the woman who ran the gallery and AC's husband is in a band (he's a musician) with her as well. So we all went to explore the gallery. I was beautiful, with a few small rooms but expansive, well landscaped grounds. After walking through the exhibition once (lots of wood carvings), I chased the kiddos through the gardens and they taught me about weaver birds. Weaver birds weave elaborate nests that look like cylindrical wicker baskets and they pick a tree and build big colonies together. We found a tree that had a bunch of weaver bird nests, and on the ground were dozens of nests that get knocked down by the wind.

After the gallery we went home and had a huge dinner and packed up to leave for Kisumu - Ana-Claire and I were headed out on a 7am flight on Monday, so we turned in early!

Week one, to be continued....

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