A collection of observations:
Nairobi is a new world. People walk the streets alongside us as we drive through. Car horns blare, motorcycles dart between cars going in the opposite direction of traffic, drivers brake with easy nonchalance as four cars attempt to squeeze together through a two lane street. I write this from my phone and cannot decide whether to look out the window and keep typing or to simply try to absorb it all for later.
To our right and left, pop-up shops burst with flashes of hot pink, blue, and orange.
Rain has just started to fall and it pours down in drops the size of pebbles. Surrounded by heat and humidity, it feels almost like we are caught un the kind of summer storm I love in Georgia.
Goats and oxen appear periodically caught amongst the organized chaos. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of yellow. On the side of the road, a small patch of sunflowers, faces tipped to the sun, drink in the rain.
As we drive, we munch on a variety of foreign potato chips. Each reads “fresh, tasty, and decidedly different”. I decide that this should be my epitaph.
To my left a group of goats with black faces and white bodies stand in a clump, each numbered in blue sharpie. On the ground, trash mingles with dirt mingles with rain and mud and people, animal, flower, and bright grass.
As we come into the country between Nairobi and Nanyuki the land opens into green. Cows and sheep wander grazing along the side of the road. We pass a preschool and a primary school, and from the grass with his mother a toddler shouts hello, giggling and waving, arms wide. Looking at the tall trees behind them, I find it hard to distinguish between what is indigenous and natural, and what has been planted for profit. I never thought Kenya would be so vibrantly green. I suppose I should have expected it; the program has tropical in its name. But all pictures of the research center showcased wide flat grassland. Right now, we seem to be driving through a rainforest.
Soon though, the land flattens into plains. Animals graze, tractors roll along, and in the distance Mt. Kenya appears, dark and imposing, the clouds around it obscuring an otherwise blue sky. It is hard to believe that the ten of us will attempt to summit the mountain later in March.
I want to hug a cow. Multiple are just laying in the grass, dozing in the sun, flapping their big soft ears. This is probably not an urge to indulge when one is on the way to live with elephants and giraffes...will update later.
B!A!B!O!O!N!S!
We saw baboons and I got excited. It has been approximately 25 hours since I last slept.
First impressions:
As we are arriving to Mpala, somebody shouts within the car. To our left is a herd of elephants. Minutes later, we run into a giraffe on our right. We all wave, giggling, and he takes a moment to observe the commotion before calmly returning to his dinner. After that there are multiple zebra. An array of four legged herbivores. A very cute family of squirrel looking creatures. Warthogs. More giraffes. We are going to live here. Every single person in the car is smiling ear to ear; we all share expressions bright with wonder. This is home.
We arrive, and after an extremely brief introduction, are left to our own devices. I am in a wide circular room with four other girls. Mosquito netting hangs above our head, reminding me of the private princess canopies some girls had when we were younger. In the center of the room, a ladder leads to a gorgeous loft nobody wants to sleep in (it becomes stiflingly hot at night, apparently) but we agree to make it into a shared game space. We don't have wifi in our rooms, and so we spend the time unpacking, talking, sharing stories, and unwinding from the travel. Getting online is a distinct effort and requires walking to wifi areas holding all of your stuff while aggressively swinging a flashlight so as not to run into any animals.
Being here reminds me a lot of summer camp, except the only rule is don’t go out past the fence or you might get eaten by a leopard.
Earlier, at dusk, we watched the brilliant performance of a lightning storm many miles away. The clouds cover most of the stars right now, but those that shine through do so with an oddly vibrant light.
I cannot believe I'm here.
Cheers til later:)
-Carolyn