Being Touristy

Today Eric's flight left, so yesterday we drove back into Nairobi. Eric is working on something where he'll write about the experience of taking a matatu, so I rode with him from Kikima to Machakos to provide more observations from non-local eyes in case he missed anything. I've taken lots of mats by now, but I've never sat in the back. Oh man, it gets dusty back there. Dus-T.

Then we all woke up early early this morning and drove out to the Rift Valley. Man, that is a pretty cool view. It's just so cool to think about how long ago people were there. Like in Canada, at most a walking path can be what, 500 years old? But Lucy walked in Kenya. It's pretty mind blowing.

Then we drove back into the city for a meeting with people who make solar cookers- more on that later, but first stopped at some fancy pants mall to get money at a bank and a bite to eat. Tip for foreigners on getting withdrawing money: Barclay's seems to be the only place that takes my debit card. For brunch we went to a place called Wimpy's and it was so good even though the orange juice was yellow. Ahem ahem, it's called orange juice.

Them we headed to a giraffe centre. You can feed them right out of your hand and even out of your mouth! You just put a little pellet between your lips and she'll come in for a kiss. The giraffe's name was Laura. She was so pretty (just like my sister Laura, am I right?) with those giant black eyes and long eyelashes. They really are beautiful animals. It's sort of like a horse but with a long neck and better colours. Anyway so it's hard to take a quick enough picture if you just let the giraffe have the food pellet, so you kind of have to hold it tightly. This will ensure that it takes a few seconds for Laura to get it, and that a picture can be taken. Let me tell you something. Giraffes have a very rough and goobery tongue. But we got a pretty cool picture and it's fun to be that close to them. There was even a tiny baby off in the distance. GIRAFFES! Oh, then we got ice cream and it was like, ICE CREAM! Because I love that stuff and I haven't had it in two months. It took me a second, but then I was like, giraffes! AND! Ice cream! Eating ice cream while just a few meters away from a giraffe is the best.

Then we headed to the animal orphanage. Have you ever been centimeters from a cheetah? Sucker, I have. It's was a pretty great little zoo, with all sorts of monkeys, lions eating huge pieces of meat, wart hogs, no less than four cages of cheetahs, and even buffalo. There was this one adorable adorable adorable baby monkey, oh, and an alligator!

Before dropping Eric off at the airport, we had a goodbye dinner of sorts at their aunt's house. Over the part few days there have been lots of goodbye-Eric things. In wrapping things up for him, I've really realized how ready I am to wrap things up myself. Three more weeks. That's forever! I wouldn't want to leave without finishing the school term, but if the term had finished last weeks, I would have been a happy camper to have gotten on that plane with Eric. I guess three weeks isn't that long. But I'm just ready, you know?

Tomorrow Kay is going to put my hair in corn rows, and then we're going to one of those jumbo churches with tv screens and things. I mostly want to gawk. Then we'll go to this monkey park, and call it a day. On Monday I head back to school via matatu, but I'm first stopping in Machakos to visit Elijah's children's home because they've been asking about me and that breaks my heart. Also, I'm not sure I'll get another chance to see them before I go. Oh, Baraka and Mumina! I guess when you think about it in terms of what there isn't time to do, then three weeks doesn't seem so long at all!