Mtoto

So things are sailing along quite nicely.

Ryan sat his exam the other day (to get a licence to fly in Kenya) and met a Kenyan guy called Jamie who invited us to go paragliding in Maasai land with him and his friends. We all got up bright and early, ready to glide and camp in Maasai territory, but unfortunately the weather was terrible and Jamie cancelled. So instead Ryan, Zelalem and I went to Lake Naivasha.

Lake Naivasha is about 2 hours drive north-west of Nairobi. On the way there you pass by the Great Rift Valley which looks like this:





It's a breaktaking expanse of desert and mountain ranges...Unbelieveable.

We reached Naivasha and found this cute little place called "Drifters - Floating Restaurant" for lunch.

The lake is gorgeous and has lots of hippos in it apparently.

The next day I went with a guy from the hostel called Rene to Nairobi National Park. We saw a lot of zebras, ostriches, buffaloes, gazelles and giraffes. We also managed to see two lionesses and a lion, but we were pretty far away so my camera didn't really capture what we saw.

Tuesday was a public holiday for Iid (I think that's how you spell it) so I caught up with Mr. Ekesa for lunch - Betty's father, who's place I will be staying at in Mumias. He took me to an Ostrich Farm in Maasai land - a place called Kitengela. Check out these baby ostriches, they're only a week old.

Then we had ostrich for lunch. I actually ate ostrich. The guy informed me that they're slaughtered at the age of 8 mths - they taste the best then. It wasn't bad...it tasted like chicken.

On the way home I took pictures of random Maasai women and children walking along the side of the road. I hope that wasn't rude... They're so beautiful.

That night I had a few drinks with Reena at a bar called Gipsy's. It's in a place called Westlands which is apparently the Asian hangout. Reena is my mum's friend's daughter and she works for the UN as the assistant to the Secretary-General in Africa. She deals mainly with matters concerning Somalia and has to fly there pretty often. She is really good fun.

On Wednesday I went with Martin and "big" Joshua to the Ebenezer Children's Home. It was funny, a bunch of children stood around and stared at me and I couldn't really say much to them beyond "Jambo" "Habari" etc... so instead I took a picture of them and showed it to them. Boy, did that break the ice. Pretty soon I was the most popular person there and everyone wanted their picture taken...



The kid on the right is Kippy - he's my favourite :)







They're all trying to be homies...
They showed me how to do a dance...

Other than that I haven't really been up to much.

I went to the Giraffe Sanctuary today and kissed a giraffe - that was hot.

I'm leaving for Jinja tomorrow in Uganda to do some white water rafting at the source of the Nile, and then I'm heading to Mumias, where the EWB potential project is. I'll base myself there and do a bit of travelling around the north west of the country.

Exciting times!