Yellow House

February 19th, 2007

Well here I am in Nanyuki. We haven’t had electricity for about 12 hours so I am facing a very cold shower. I am filthy though, so there is no getting around it. This district is incredibly beautiful and I have had a lovely visit so far.

But let me go back. It’s easier for me to write chronologically it seems.

Saturday I arrived in Nairobi and met Claire and a Dutch speech therapist Lynn. They both belong to Special Education Professionals (SEP) an organization based out of Nairobi that I intend to join. Every third Saturday of the month there are assessment days so I will plan to make about 6 a year when my travel schedule finds me in the central districts. Anyway, I met them for ice-cream and then Claire and I headed to her home in Westlands where Tanya, Canadian a special education teacher joined us. The three of us then embarked on a pretty massive girlie night. We started at a beautiful bar/restaurant/club called Casablanca that had lots of outdoor seating around fire pits. The night sky was filled with stars so it was a really lovely, slightly glam setting. Anyway, we moved onto the dance floor, but soon after bailed on the whole establishment because it had filled with 16 year old Swedish teenagers making out in very trendy outfits!! Next we went to a karaoke bar, but before my song came up Claire had become involve in a ridiculous altercation and so we moved to a ‘Kenyan’ bar (?). We then went somewhere else and after much action on the dance floor moved back to the Kenyan bar for reasons unknown to me. I had by this time quit drinking because I was famished and the only food options were chicken on a skewer and suspected goat samosas. It was also about 3 am and I was fatigued beyond belief. So.. while the others danced some more, I got into a very extensive debate with some guy about why people who come to Africa to work in development are ridiculous. His points were valid. It was a fairly interesting conversation and he gave me his blog address which I am may check out. It is an interesting pick up tactic.. to begin by completely disregarding someone’s work.

So. 4am. I crashed out on Claire’s floor. And the next day after scraping our brainselves together we met another friend of Claire’s for a delicious lunch (salad- ahhhhhhhhhhhh!) and then got a matatu for the 3 ½ hour journey to Nanyuki. I managed to crash sleep which given the space restrictions was a miracle I was thankful for.

We are staying at the Equator chalet and really this is another spectacular part of Kenya. I will upload the photo of the peak of Mount Kenya covered in snow that presides over the town.

Unfortunately the work day wasn’t terribly successful. While I got to meet the EARC staff and come up with a plan for their service provision next month, none of the parents in Claire’s parent group showed up!! So we headed to this community spinners and weavers (www.spinnersandweaver.org) project to visit their workshop. I ordered two blankets – one for each bed, in the off chance Kisumu’s temperature ever drops below 20 degrees celcius at night. Ha.

Then we headed out of town on a matatu to trout tree farm which was basically a restaurant tree house on a trout farm. The colobus (?) monkeys were playing in the trees and the food (trout pate, avocado, tomato and mozzarella salad, trout chowder) was delicious. It was just such a pretty spot to spend some time. I then napped all afternoon, so I suspect at midnight I am going to be cursing myself.