Fun Firsts and Etc

We are fast approaching our two-month anniversary here in Kisumu and the second month has definitely flown by far more quickly than our first month. Among other things, our second month has seen us going on our first excursion and (for the boys and I) eating our first meal of ugali, a traditional Kenyan dish.

FIRST EXCURSION
Last weekend, we joined two of the families in our compound as well as some friends of one of the families, and headed up to Lake Nakuru. We drove through the Rift Valley and one of my favorite sights was the rolling hills and the beautiful green fields full of tea plantations. It actually reminded me a good bit of California's wine country--so beautiful and soothing to the soul to behold!

We stopped at the Kericho Tea Hotel. I will include a link here that shows some photos. It doesn't necessarily do justice to the views of those fields of tea, but it gives a bit of something. And as I have yet to post any photos, it is at least SOMETHING visual.
http://www.shoortravel.com/kerichohotel.html#1


We then proceeded on to our destination: Saroval Lion Hill Game Lodge overlooking Lake Nakuru and itself located in Lake Nakuru National Park. Among the most stunning inhabitants of this park are the hundreds and hundreds of flamingoes that congregate at the lake. There are so many that the lake itself appears to have a pink border all around it. We went on a game drive and one of my favorite sights was watching flamingoes fly. They are very graceful and elegant and when they fly you catch a bit of black that is on the underside of their wings. Up to this point, I had only seen flamingoes fly in Dis.ney's The Lion.King during the Circle of Life opening. I thought the animated birds in flight were stunning even in a cartoon and to see them in real life was a thrill for me.

We saw many wonderful animals, including white rhino, grey rhino, giraffes, buffalo, and baboons. But for some reason, the sight of zebra casually grazing within feet of our vehicle really struck me. Something that looks so exotic so very cavalierly doing its thing made me really FEEL that we were here in Africa. While we saw neither Micah's beloved lion or cheetah on this game drive, we do expect to see many out in the mara next month, so are content to wait for the big cats and happily savor replaying memories of the animals we did see.

Here is a link to our lodge, which includes a bit more information about the park. It was a beautiful, beautiful place. What is not described in the blurb below is the presence of extraordinarily large numbers of very gifted hunters--we encountered a veritable plague of mosquitoes there! They are not the type that carry malaria--just a nuisance. Still and all, we managed to leave our weekend adventure with many happy memories and very few bites!

http://www.sarovahotels.com/lionhill/index.php

FIRST UGALI
Deron returned home from his conference on a Monday evening (detained on runway in Atlanta and, along with 18 others, missed connecting flight to Nairobi in Amsterdam. He was thus sent off to London to take a flight to Nairobi the next day. So, after 11 nights without him home, we resigned ourselves to wait another 30 or so hours. SIDENOTE: While delayed at the Amsterdam airport sorting out how to get to Nairobi, Deron evidently strolled through various shops. Watching him present the boys with presents from the airport made me love a whole new facet of Deron. For Micah, he had picked out a ruler with a magnifying lens and pictures of windmills and tulips on it AND a giant pencil holding colored pencils AND, best of all, an alarm clock shaped like a K.LM cockpit. Micah was delighted and I was touched beyond measure by the whimsical and fun and perfect gifts Deron had so thoughtfully and lovingly selected. Tiras received a cannister with all sorts of Netherland themed pictures, including cows grazing. When turned over, a loud mooing sound emitted from the cannister. This was a giant hit with Tiras and Micah. Sadly for the cannister, Tiras's joy of the moo was eclipsed by the joy of tossing the cannister about and now it is quite silent. I already thought Deron was the greatest ever and fell just that much more in love with him because of the sweet gifts for the boys. Guess what? After the kids were put to bed, he had me come downstairs and there on the table were chocolates for me!) Good grief--that was some giant and rambling parenthetical. Back to the ugali topic.

So, Deron's first night back home, we had our first traditional Kenyan meal as a family. While Deron has been out in the field and here before and is quite well exposed to authentic dining, the rest of the Burton crew hadn't really experienced much Kenyan style cooking. We asked Rose, who is working for us and is wonderful, to cook us something Kenyan and she was excited to make us some ugali sukuma wiki. I will include a link to Wikiped.ia but it is basically a doughy starch made from maize flour and water which is used to wrap around or scoop other foods (much like flat breads in other cultures). Sukuma wiki is a green maybe comparable to collard greens but more grassy tasting. It's a strong taste, but Deron and I in particular enjoyed it. A little sukuma wiki went a long way with the boys. The Ugali, a food you are encouraged to roll up into a ball and then press a little hole into for scooping was a GIANT hit with Micah and quite a hit with Tiras as well, given that he is very much into feeding himself these days and ugali is very user friendly for a new self feeder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugali

READING LIST
My Amazon books have arrived and I am starting with a seven-hundred page book about the history of Africa's fifty years since independence. It's called The Fate of Africa (by Martin Meredith) and while it is going to take me some time to read, I am excited to start learning more background information about Africa!

I also have some memoirs and another big book, Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles by Richard Dowden. Will update with my "reviews" should anyone be interested in doing some reading about Africa. Am also taking reading suggestions. :-)