First long day of travel/being in Kenya!

I have a lot to catch up on here. The flight was long- 7 hours one way to Amsterdam and 8 to Nairobi. However, for the most part the flights were nice. I learned that the Dutch people are the tallest people in the world, according to one of my co-travelers. This came up as we flew KLM (Royal Dutch Airways) and the flight attendants were indeed very tall! And they were also happy and seemed to enjoy their jobs- female flight attendants wore less make-up than I have seen on other flights in the US and seem less happy, although I haven’t seen enough of them to consider this a trend- maybe having health insurance makes a difference? I’ll have to report on the flight back . . .

After flying, we drove to a hostel in Nairobi to stay the night. We had tea/coffee immediately on arrival- Kenyans have tea three times a day, which is how it will be during this week of orientation! Tea is made with milky water, a tea bag and sugar- I think the tea is normally chai tea, but I’m not sure; the entire mixture ends up tasting somewhat like chai. A woman named Winnie owned the hostel and was very kind to us- I talked to her about soccer as she was watching part of the African Cup. We all slept on bunkbeds and this was our first night with cold showers. In the middle of the night (3am) I woke up to the sound of what I thought was horse hooves outside; however, when I looked out the window, I saw a warthog enjoying the local foliage! I was happy to have seen my first wild animal in Kenya.

The next day we left the hostel and went back to the city (downtown Nairobi). Mainly, we went to pay a visit to immigration, where we got resident Kenyan cards and resident visas to other countries (Tanzania, Rwanda, other surrounding countries). I am staying after one week and don’t yet know what I am going to do. . . suggestions accepted!

We also exchanged money in downtown Nairobi. The currency in Kenya is the Kenyan shilling. I think the exchange rate is 1 shilling equals about .013 dollars or 1 dollar equals 75 shillings. The resident visa to travel to other countries was only 200 shillings- less than 3 dollars. I paid 390 shillings for lunch.

After spending some time in the city, we headed off to Lake Nakuru National Park. On the drive there, we had an interesting experience. We were traveling in a bus with our luggage on top and we encountered a telephone pole that was halfway fallen down. This normally wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that the telephone wires were stretched across the highway. This meant that we had to off road it (drive into the near ditch) to get through. This feels somewhat like a child’s fair ride in a large bus on unfinished roads/the grass. As we were driving under the wire, a rogue bus (taller than ours) whizzed by on the regular road and hit the wires, causing the wires to also hit our bus! It was quite an experience, but luckily no one got electrocuted!

We also stopped at the beautiful Rift Valley on the way to Nakuru. This was exciting as I have read about it in class and seen pictures. During colonialism, two colonists- Delamare and Edgerton- kicked off the Kenyans living there and took over a very large part of the valley. After colonialism, the Rift Valley was given back to Kenyans in plots, although apparently Delamere’s grandchildren still live there . . . Also at the valley is Mount Longonut (sp?). This is a large hill with a huge crater in the middle.

When we got to Nakuru, we met monkeys for the first time! Some monkeys crawled up onto our luggage and ate food from people’s bags! Monkeys run around like squirrels and are very entertaining unless you hiss at them; they will run away if you get too close. On the way to the park, we encountered a surprise on the road- two lions sunbathing! We all gathered around to take pictures. That evening, we moved into the place where we will be staying until Saturday, which is in the Park itself.