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Day 11 - Jambo!
Since our last blog entry we have been busy out and about in Nairobi, getting our first taste of African life.Nigel (Louise's uncle) has been an excellent tour guide, and we were both very thankful we had someone local to drive us round the city, as the traffic is crazy, even compared to Malaysian standards! The city itself is developing rapidly with so many building projects, particularly new roads. However the Kenyans do not favour warning signs, which make for interesting journeys!
Our first stop was the Nairobi museum, which houses archaeological artefacts dating back millions of years. We saw the famous 'black skull' and many ancient skeletons showing evolution very convincingly. We continued our African education by watching 'Out of Africa' and reading books on the history (even John Robbins!!)
Our next day was spent at Giraffe Manor, very close to the Stenning's house. This is a posh hotel and giraffe sanctuary, where you can feed the giraffe from a high platform. We even got to 'kiss' a giraffe called Daisy (you would love it diz!) by holding a pellet in our mouths for the giraffe to take from us. John Robbins did it twice as apparently the first photo was not satisfactory - very suspicious!
We visited the school where Ruth works as a teacher and the girls go. Anna gets a half day each week so we went with Nigel to pick her up and watched her play tennis at the country club. We spent the rest of the afternoon chucking Anna in to the swimming pool (mainly John Robbins, Louise is nice to her cousins!!) That evening we were visited by an African wood owl, which managed to fly in to the house and sit on a beam keeping a beady eye on us all evening! Luckily it had found it's way out by the morning and we did not get pooed on!
We had an authentic African evening by candlelight thanks to a powercut after a heavy rainstorm. Apparently this is very common in the rainy season, as the main power boxes aren't waterproof! Fortunately it came back on after a couple of hours, rather than the usual couple of days.
At the weekend we got to spend more time with Natasha and Anna, who took us to some local shops. One was full of wooden sculptures and gifts, which were amazing, but a bit big to put in the backpack. John Robbins wanted a Masai spear, probably not the best choice for getting through customs! We also visited a local bead factory called 'Kazuri' which was set up to give local single women a good job. We saw how they made everything, and Louise bought a lovely necklace made from the beads. That afternoon we went to the dance school which the girls go to each week, it was a fantastic studio which has been recently built and was very popular.
Yesterday we went to an elephant orphanage and saw lots of baby elephants, very sweet but can still move at quite a pace! They rescue the elephants from all over Kenya when they have lost their mother/herd to either poaching or their land being taken by developers. They look after the elephants for 3 years before reintroducing them to the wild, where it takes a further 5 years to get them adopted by another herd.
This week we are mainly staying at the house, planning the next parts of our trip. We have been very well looked after and have eaten LOADS!! Margaret (their cook/housekeeper/wonder woman!) is a fantastic cook and makes excellent brownies. Louise is chief taster so will soon become a tubster if she is not careful!! The girls also decorated a cake for us this weekend to celebrate both our birthdays in advance, very yummy!
We hope you have enjoyed our essay! We have also added a select few of our photos. Thanks for the messages, we love reading them (even yours rach - Natasha and Anna have now adopted the name Ron Jobbins too, much to his delight, ha ha!)
Bye for now! Louise and Ron xxxx
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