Making the Most of Kenya

Aware that we would soon be leaving Kenya, we have made the most of our time here before moving on to another East African country.

Road Trips:
As our time here began to run out, we made the trips to the area around Naivasha, featured on the earlier blogs. It was good to have these few days to appreciate some of the beauty of this vast and varied country.
We also made another special trip to spend time with Andrew's sister and brother-in-law, who live and work in Kenya. We met up for an overnight stay at a beautiful game lodge. Great company, great food, all within the stunning and peaceful surroundings of a National Park! What a wonderful way to spend a weekend.
Once again, we sighted some amazing wildlife in another of Kenya's outstanding National Parks:

Birthday Fun:
This past week was Ben's 9th birthday. This was the first time Ben has had a Kenyan birthday! Joel and Andrew celebrated Kenyan birthdays in 2014: which means that all the boys of this family have now had Kenyan birthdays- but not us girls!
Ben's absolute ambition for his Nairobi birthday was to go quad-biking. Imagine how happy he was when this ambition was fulfilled this weekend! Ben, Esther and Joel were joined by 5 friends and had a rip-roaring morning of fun at the quad-bike trail:,

The Birthday Boy:

His big sister, after a rather fast ride around the course involving just two crashes (!!), which did not detract in any way from her enjoyment of the sport!

His younger brother, receiving some instruction before revving away from the start:

And his Dad, getting into the spirit of adventure after picking up Joel from where Joel's bike had an unfortunate argument with a ditch... Andrew and Joel then rode the course together as a team:

I actually think that it was the dads who enjoyed the quad-biking just as much as, if not more so, than the children!!
We rounded off the morning with a health lunch at KFC (!!) and some birthday cake for those hungry bikers!

The day before, on his actual birthday, Ben had a relaxed afternoon birthday tea at home. His guests were our fantastic friends from our Nairobi block of flats. These are the lovely people we have met here and enjoyed getting to know over the past few months.One of our Serbian neighbours arrived with a delicious birthday cake that she had made especially for Ben! It was like a banana Swiss roll, covered in cream and filled with fresh bananas. Tasty!!

Before the tea-party, I took the children for their last Science class at the Little Einstein's home-schooling class. At their final class, they were excited to learn about how to make ice-cream and enjoyed the hands-on activities which the teachers there provide- and I enjoyed an hour of watching my children being taught rather than teaching them myself :-)

More Farewells:
A few weeks ago, we said goodbye to MAF colleagues and friends based in Nairobi. We enjoyed an afternoon tea party, on the lawn at the MAF compound. It was good to be able to say farewell to some of our South Sudan team members who were still in Nairobi and had missed the Juba farewell.
It was also important to us to be able to say goodbye and thank you to those who work in Kenya and have hosted us during our interim periods in Nairobi: first in 2014 when civil war broke out in South Sudan and again after July 9th this year when serious fighting began a second time in South Sudan.



Preparing to Leave:
Before we leave Kenya tomorrow, we have to have a "certificate of good behaviour" from the police department. Dutifully, Andrew and I went along to the correct department a few weeks ago, to have our finger prints taken and fill in various forms.

Despite Andrew's minor stint as a jail-bird back in 2014 (!!) our certificates were granted. So we can leave Kenya tomorrow with a clear conscience and our printed certificates in hand, proving that we have been good and are ready for a new stage, in a new African country!

We had a final meal this evening with our fellow friends from our black of flats, around the pool at here in our appartment complex. They've been great company and we will miss them! Andrew took a last photo of me with the ladies:

The bags are packed and waiting to be loaded into the two taxis tomorrow:

Our baggage is overweight and we are over the limit of the number of bags allowed on a Kenya Airways flight- but where would the fun be in life if everything was straightforward?? It seems we are still in line for a few adventures in Africa... and I look forward to relating them from our new home in Uganda... Until then, it is farewell to Kenya as we move on!

A Walk on the Wild Side

On our recent trip to Naivasha, we stopped for a walk at the unusual, beautiful "Crescent Island".

This is a peninsula jutting out into Lake Naivasha where zebra, giraffe, wilderbeest, gazelle, water buck and vervet monkeys roam free- and visitors are invited to join them! The land is privately owned. For a small fee, you are given the privilege of walking around this extensive, carefully preserved area of nature, joining in with the wild animals.

We loved every minute! What an incredible experience :-)

At Hell's Gate

It sounds like a terribly frightening place: Hell's Gate! Mental images of a dreadful pit scorch my imagination: screaming ghouls, faceless phantoms cloaked in darkness, burning red-hot flames of torture, hideous creatures contorted by agony...

Yet in actual fact, Kenya's National Park, "Hell's Gate", could not be further from the images conjured up by its name!
We visited Hell's Gate National Park two weeks ago. It is just over two hours drive from Nairobi. It is a peaceful, open savannah, surrounded by towering, red-stone cliffs and filled with quietly grazing, beautiful animals.
There are no threatening lions or large predators in this park, so visitors are allowed the freedom of climbing out of their vehicles to wander among the game. We took full advantage of this amazing opportunity on the cool, rainy morning when we visited:

As the sun came out, Ben ventured as close as he could before the timid animals bolted:

Later in the afternoon, after our picnic lunch (in a spot frequented by cheeky baboons) we drove a little further on and surprised a hyena running across the grasslands:

I have to say, we were a little taken aback by his presence! We were not expecting to meet a hyena in a park where the rangers had assured us that it was perfectly safe to walk around with our children! Thankfully we were in the vehicle at that point, but since our encounter with Mr. Hyena, we made some inquiries and have been told that they are most unlikely to attack. As scavengers, they rarely initiate an attack.

All in all, we had a fantastic day out at Hell's Gate!

We rounded off our day-trip with a family photo, by the VW van which kind friends in Nairobi had lent us for the trip.

After exiting Hell's Gate, we returned to overnight at Carnelly's Camp on the banks of impressive Lake Naivasha. We had stayed here as a family back in April 2014. It was good to see that the hippos are still in evidence... 

We braved the warning above, edged past the sign and were rewarded with this close-up sighting from the safety of a wooden jetty:

As darkness fell, we were treated to more amazing sights from Nature, as we looked up into the dark night of rural Kenya and spotted some quick-fire shooting stars. Suddenly, an exclamation from Ben alerted us to the most incredible comet, zipping across the velvet night in a blaze of white-hot, red-tinged glory. It was over so fast- too fast for a photo! I have never seen anything so startling- a falling ball of fire with such a long, bright tail zooming across the night skies. We "oohed" and "ahhed" in wonder! What an AMAZING sighting!

Andrew built a roaring campfire for us to enjoy, where we could recount our day's adventures at Hell's Gate and look forward to our next day's outing...but that's another blog-post!

A couple of extra pictures from Juba

Here is another photo from our last week in Juba, which a friend sent through after I had written the last blog post. This is the children and I having lunch with friends at the street cafe near MAF on the Wednesday lunch time: beans, rice and chapati were on our menu:

We often used to visit this cafe. Rather than sit out in the hot street at the rickety wooden tables, we would take away our chapatis and beans and return home to eat in the luxury of our air-conditioned house.
This used to be a thriving street cafe, very popular and often over-crowded. It was sad to see it less busy this time round. The previous owner fled during the July crisis and the new owner told me that she really struggles, with the difficult economic situation in the country. Another indicator of the changes in Juba since July.

Last week, Andrew spent his final full week in Juba. He had 3 days of flying, plus 2 days to complete the packing up and to empty the house. Our goods will follow us out of Juba once we get our Ugandan work permit; for now, they are in storage. Our old house has been left free for another MAF family to move in.
Just before Andrew left, he saw our house-lady Grace and met her new baby boy. I would have loved to have seen her myself to say goodbye properly and meet her little one, but circumstances in my final Juba week did not allow this to happen. So I will content myself with this great photo of Grace, baby Lado and Andrew: