Vacations are so wonderful. Especially this variety, the "no responsibilities" variety...no having to worry about a car and how to get from here to there and where are we going to stay and when, etc etc etc.
So, what does a vacation to Nairobi look like exactly? You shouldn't have asked. For Ashley and Nathan and I, it's been pretty carefree. Like I said in the last post, we're visiting WHM com padres who live and work here in Nairobi. Three single women who do a variety of medical/dental/youth outreach/discipleship type work here, Rachel, Abby and Karis have been wonderful hostesses. The three of us from Bundi are actually staying at the Carr's house (East Africa Field Director and his family) who are currently out of town. It's a great house with a wonderful back yard/garden/patio, and two animals to keep us company (Emma, a wonderful black lab with slightly short legs, and Brady, the demon toe biting cat).
What have we done since we've been here? Um, primarily a lot of sitting around and talking...for hours at a time, actually. We never really do this in Bundi. Maybe it's the magic of the rocking chairs in the back yard or the white lights on the christmas tree in the sitting room...not really sure, but we've had a great time just gabbing...about close to everything under the sun...from evolutionary biology and young earth creationism to bad dating experiences and family philosophies on video games...we've stayed up late and slept in late, just enjoying the quiet of the big city (believe it or not) and each other's company.
Surely you've done something other than gabbing, you're likely thinking. Indeed, you are right. We've enjoyed Java House (coffee shop started by an MK who grew up in Kenya), the Nairobi National Park (a game park just next to the city, imagine seeing lions lounging under a palm tree with high rises in the distance, and giraffe's meandering across the savannah on the horizon with the lights of the city in evening begining to dot the back drop), a tea plantation tour (Kenya is the biggest exporter of tea in the world, and third only to India and China in production) complete with a glass of wine and lunch in the English Garden on the plantation, a tour of Kibera (the largest slum in the world, one of the most densely populated places on earth), ice skating, swimming (don't know that I've ever in my life done both of those things in the same week), shopping at the Masai market, church at New City Nairobi, and eating BAGELS for breakfast :)
I will write more about the things we've done and the really interesting contrasts to life in Uganda but just wanted to say it's been a wonderful week. Just FYI, we fly back to Uganda tomorrow evening and then drive back to Bundi on the 9th. Happy New Year.
So really you should probably start looking at these pictures from the bottom up...I always forget that I need to load them in the opposite order I want them to appear...but in any case, these are pictures from our team's retreat at Semliki Safari Lodge...a once in a lifetime opportunity to stay at a luxury safari lodge for a *fraction* of the cost for 5 days/4 nights...it was amazing. We did an evening game drive one night, and here's one of the many warthogs we saw...I love these little guys...
And here's a colobus in a tree just outside the front of our tent...we would get tea/coffee delivered to our tent's front porch each morning and wake up and sip away while watching the monkeys play in the trees....so fun.
Here's a couple buffalo from the game drive...they call these guys "rejects" or something like that because they are too old to run with the young guys, so they are rejected from the pack and run on their own as a group...
Mama warthog and her nursing babies...so cute
team girls having fun (Sarah, Julia, Bethany Ferguson, and Naomi)
Quinn eagerly looking for elephants and leopards...we were dreaming big...Usually it's the singles on safari together, so it was fun to hang with the Pierces on this game drive, and none of us had to drive for a change...
Semliki National Park at dusk...there's a beauty about a dry savannah that I never knew before this trip...
Cob in the grasses
The inside of the tent I shared with the lovely Ashley Wood...we groaned together from our respective beds (with real mattresses, not just foam ones!) in the mornings when the coffee and tea arrived, chatted in the dark about life and whether or not that was a lion or an elephant we just heard outside the tent...we prayed and laughed and just had an all around good time
my bed.
from inside the tent
the porch...it was from here one evening that we each caught glimpses of an elephants trunk...we never saw the rest of it but heard it trampling around in the woods and trees and bushes JUST in front of our tent...it was soooooo cool. I had been talking to my brother on the phone just before, and we lost connection (surprise surprise) so he called me back and I whispered in a whisper loud enough to be heard over international phone wires..."jeff, I've gotta call you back, we're watching for elephants!"...you just have to laugh about it, when else in life are you going to say such a thing?!?!...
