Kenya, Travel

Decorating the Christmas tree
Decorating the Christmas tree

A few Nairobi VSO volunteers got together to have a small Christmas thingy. Randi and I are, of course, a very entertaining duo so we were invited. We decorated a small tree, told stories, and had a nice meal. Sandy is a professional when it comes to brownies and I do spin a mean salad (salad spinner!). There are no pictures of me, which is good because I just got a haircut and it looks a bit dorky (so count on me wearing a hat for any pictures in the next few weeks).

Randi’s been here almost two weeks now, and I’ve taken her to all the local joints that I know. She is even starting to crack people up with funny Swahili jokes, recognizing streets, matatus, etc. We didn’t plan so well, but tomorrow we’re definitely on the move to Tanzania. It’s been a hectic week but we’ve booked two tickets for Arusha for Christmas morning. Who knows if we’ll be able to find matatus to town at 5:30 in the morning, but we’ll go a bit early just in case. The tickets are only 1,000 shillings each (about 12 US dollars), so I guess we could just try again on Saturday if we are unlucky. If all goes well we’ll be in Arusha by lunch time. Arusha ain’t no thing cuz I’ve been there a few times.

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Kenya, Travel

I haven’t been on hiatus, I’ve been on holiday! Actually I’ve been working a lot, but I did make it across the border this past weekend for a little rest and relaxation. One thing I realized during my 24-hour stay in Tanzania was that my Swahili is permanently Kenyan-ized. I’ve already accepted that I’m nowhere near fluent by Kenyan standards, but I’m a disaster by Tanzanian standards. You see, after their independence, Tanzania embraced Swahili as the national language in order to unite their country as a common people, no longer colonized and no longer a collection of tribes — they were Tanzanians now! Kenya chose both Swahili and English, and while people here do speak Swahili, it’s kinda a watered-down, English-ized version (“sheng”). Kenyans even make fun of Tanzanian Swahili because it’s a chore to speak correctly, it’s boring, and it even sounds funny because it’s so polite. And I know it’s terrible, but I do too.

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Kenya, Nature, Pictures, Travel

3964I went to Fourteen Falls with Pat this past weekend. It’s about an hour and a half drive from Tala via the Thika road route. The road isn’t too bad as long as you sit in the front of the truck (they only use modified pick-up trucks on this route for some reason). The fare was 100 shillings, which isn’t too bad. The other option is to go to Nairobi (150 shillings) and then to Thika (150 shillings), which takes you on a nicer road but eats an extra 400 or so shillings and a few hours of your time. There hasn’t been too much rain lately, so the water was a little low (and green…), but we still had a nice time relaxing with some snacks in the shade.

You can find the rest of the pictures here: http://thefro.org/gallery2/v/2009/fourteenfalls