In answer to Rachael's comment question - here are our three (each) favourite things about visiting Kenya, and our most surprising thing (each) - you have to decide for yourselves who picked what!
Favourites (no particular order!)
- Seeing Lani
- Choosing, bring home and getting to know two very sweet puppies
- Spending time with Naomy, including thinking about her NGO lots with her
- Chapattis
- Seeing Anne after so long
- Dengu (mung bean stew with garlic - good with chappatis!)
- Getting to know Rebecca
- Our 1000km trip to Watamu - the sea, the night-club, laughing together ...
- Learning some Kiswahili
- The Swan cyber-cafe!
- Seeing animals - including the leopard
- Living in rural Kenya with the Wanyore
Most surprising things
- Chips everywhere - not french fries, but real proper chips. And ketchup.
- How visible disability was. Lots of disabled people, getting around as best they could, no wheelchairs or other help with getting places.
- How small Nairobi seemed for a capital city.
- How invisible/shameful HIV/AIDS is - although it was talked about as a big issue, we didn't meet one person who admitted they or any family-member was HIV positive or had died of AIDS: and the only person we read about in the newspapers (in two months) was Nelson Mandela's son.
2 comments:
Thanks for the list--the randomness gives a flavour of your trip better then a polished paragraph by a journalist ever could! I have wildlife in my living room right now with the two new cats who wrestle happily every afternoon. She's bigger than he is, and she grabs him round the middle under the arms and bits his neck, and he loves it!
Rachael
Looking forward to seeing you soon. Suzie and I are taking our house search way out of town--45 mins out--to a village in the redwood rain forest, since I have discovered that much of the land affordable in this area is heavily contaminated with military and industril chemicals. (To the point where you'd better not grow herbs in the garden.)
So when you see me I may be the happy co-owner of a country place near the coastal hippy/surfer town of Santa Cruz, where I know various people in the Permaculture movement who could help us do greywater recycling and roof water capture, for a start. If there's enough land I want a pond and ducks!
If all goes REALLY well, and we see and manage to buy a house this Friday (we saw a lovely one from the outside on Tuesday but the bidding is brutal and we haven't seen the disclosures yet) then I will be able to offer you rainforest hospitality, but that's less likely--although with the help of the spirits of this place, everything is possible. Ah-che.
Love, Rachael
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