Fantasy Day

I wake up and stumble downstairs in jammies, because there's no one installed in the kitchen at an indecently early hour doing dishes and mopping.

I leave my home without having to go through a series of gates and wave to a dozen guards on the way out. Nor are there guards at the entrance to my daughter's school where I drop her off, who ask questions about her behavior or demeanor that in my own culture are none of their business.

The street is wide and smooth, with no inexplicable speed bumps or outrageously poorly maintained asphalt, and no one attempts to make 3 or 4 lanes out of what is painted as 2 lanes.

Children are walking to school in shoes, on sidewalks, and I don't have to swerve into oncoming traffic to go around men struggling to push an overloaded cart up the hill.

There's a the drive-through at Starbuck's, and the cashier is curt but polite, and doesn't ask what else is in my wallet when I hand her some bills that require change.

There are traffic lights, stop signs, and signs indicating street names. I do not see anyone driving the wrong way in my lane even once, and buses and trucks are able to maintain a speed greater than 15km an hour.

At the grocery store, I find a parking space that is not on the sidewalk. I do not have to be searched to enter the store; nor is there a soldier sitting outside the store with a rifle. At the butcher, when there is a busted sewer drainage pipe and they have to dig under the floor to repair it, they actually close the shop, rather than continuing to do business with an open sewer pipe in the store.

After school/work conversation with the neighbors does not revolve around the recommended frequency of deworming or best places to use for importing heavy duty shocks and struts.

For dinner I pull out some frozen risotto, salad-in-a-bag, baby carrots, and hummus, and steak that is so fresh I can't even smell the "eau de butcher".

We enjoy a peaceful dinner uninterrupted by people asking us to test our house alarm or distrubingly loud crashing or popping noises from the road across the way.

Later, we sit down and flip through way-more-than-8-including-sports-and-news channels. Nothing is on, so we settle on my default: House Hunters International. Thing is, that show always makes me wish I could live someplace that's more interesting.

Nairobi haiku

Bump, swerve, hold on tight

That one was ten inches deep

Nairobi pot holes

My dad, looking at zebras, with Lake Naivasha just beyond. Just another weekend in Nairobi.

My parents came out for 3 weeks at Christmas, and we had a great time while they saved my tukus once again on the child care front. Swimming, endless games of pretend, computer games, books, the park, they really wore her out.

A couple months ago the kiddo came home from school with her weekly journal, where she had noted that mommy went to the track over the weekend (lovely picture too). I exclaimed to dearest hubby: "We took that child on safari [any self-drive in these parts is stress inducing] and she writes about me going for a jog???"
He answers, "Really, which is more unusual?"
Ouch.

Now, we've been to Kenya

Don't get me wrong, we have driven around quite a bit. We've seen more of Nairobi than we care to. We've been to several different parks within a 4 hour drive (closer than you'd think...it takes a while). We've seen the astounding number of people who walk along any given road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, because that is how one gets from place to place. We've commented on the proliferation of 'hotels' that look like a series of dark and dilapidated telephone booths by the side of the road. We've driven through teeming rural markets, where matatus, donkeys with their carts, goats, children, and bicycles all present hazards.

But now, we've been to the interior. We went scouting for a friend who runs a prison/family ministry in the States, to the Kisii highlands. They've been asking, and asking, for her to come. Since we are here, well, we went to meet and greet and get some American-style details. We met with 10 pastors, and went to see their "church under the trees" in a remote village. The kids in this photo are the orphans - parents are in prison or have died in prison. We met many joys and frustrations on this short trip, but I can't get over these faces looking at me as I take the picture, and Andrew standing next to me; wary, curious, playful, sad.

Driven Crazy

We have rented a car to keep us moving while awaiting the arrival of ours from Japan. First non-embassy trek: the local market less than a mile away. A very easy trip, if you don't consider the crazy matatus zipping down the street; front-tire-swallowing potholes; curved, hilly, bi-directional roads that are - I swear - less than 2 lanes wide; and the occasional bicyclist or cart driver pulling impossibly wide heavy loads given their mode of transport. While driving is not stress-free, it's better than walking along the same road.

Additionally deterred from braving Nairobi traffic to see "animal stuff" by the fact that our GPS is still somewhere in the mail and we are not sure we could get both there and back, we headed the closest direction out of town and went to Hell's Gate National Park. After navigating a too-narrow, truck-clogged, matatu-ridden drive clinging to the edge of the Rift Valley wall, driving in and around the park was cake. The biggest challenge was this steep grade, rocky hill where we were met by shepherds sheep and goats, and an oncoming safari vehicle. Andrew handled it like a pro and I actually enjoyed it, except for worrying that our rental car tires would pop.