Habari

That’s ‘Hello’ in Swahili, and it literally means ‘What’s the news?’ to which the response is Mizuri which means ‘good’. This is always the case even if things are going badly!

I am pleased to report that I have survived my trip into the African interior! We set off on New Year’s Day on the ‘four’ hour drive to Amboseli, Now we left Kijabe later than was planned and we stopped for lunch in Nairobi and took our time over that, but we thought that the drive from Nairobi would take us three hours, we were wrong!!

We left Nairobi just before three and thought we arrive about 6pm just before the park closed, and we would have an hour or so of daylight for the campers to set up. It was nearly half 7 when we finally got there and the park was closed!!! I had worked all this out, about 2 hours earlier and a sense of dread had come over me. If the park was closed then all 9 of us would have to sleep in the two vehicles!!! So I had started to pray, and thankfully God did not want to teach me patience or fortitude and the gate guards where friendly and welcoming and couldn’t do enough for us, for which I was truly grateful!

This did mean, however, there was still another 90 minutes driving to the Banda where I was staying and the campsite where everyone else was staying. So at around 9.30pm I was warming soup and cutting bread in the Banda whilst the gang where erecting three tents in the field! Now when I describe it as a field it is no word of a lie. There was a couple of standpipes and a pit latrine and not a lot else!! I was so grateful I had been willing to owning up to being a wimp and asking for alternative accommodation.

There was another blessing in this as well, as when the vehicles were finally unpacked, the stoves where found to be missing and were assumed to still be in the garage back in Kijabe. Had we not had the Banda we would have had to build a fire for each meal we wanted to cook!

Despite myself I did actual enjoy my time in Amboseli, and on the first night it was amazing to look up and see all the stars in the sky, that are normally blocked either by cloud or the huge amounts of light pollution we have in our modern world.

I joined the others for a couple of game drives over the next two days, one in the afternoon and one setting out at 6.30 am. We saw thousands of animals and it was amazing to have to stop whilst a troupe of elephants crossed the road, large ones, medium sized ones and even little tiny ones!!

They were so majestic and it was awesome to be that close to them in their natural habitat. I didn’t manage to see any lions though some of the others did on the third game drive, but it was a lone lioness and she was a fair way from the land cruiser, so I don’t feel too robbed.

The roads here in Kenya are in many places better than in Karachi, which is good. Though sadly this is not true on the road from Namaga to Amboseli, which is about the last 30 miles of the journey. This is a corrugated road and is exactly like it sounds. It is like drive over corrugated iron roofs for 30 miles, very, very uncomfortable. This also took its toll on both the vehicles! The Pajero sprung a leak in its fuel tank and we had to catch the fuel in a bowl under the car whilst it was parked. Thankfully, it made it safely back to Kijabe, and is waiting for the ministering hands of Justus to bring it back to life. The Land Cruiser also suffered during the return journey where it has either got a hole somewhere in the exhaust or lost a part of the silencer! All in all a great time was had by all 9 of us, but we were relieved to get back to a shower that removed all the dust!!

Monday was spent recovering and I ended up in bed by 9pm as I was totally exhausted. Then today Pam, Jackie (another mum here) and David and Mary (Jackie’s parents, visiting from Poole) went shopping in Nairobi. Now compared to Karachi Nairobi is well off for shopping and I was able to pick up a couple of nice “decoration pieces’ as my Urdu teacher calls them, ‘ornaments’ if you come from ‘t’Bridge’! I also bought some books, including one for school (you see teachers are never really on holiday) and also several grocery items so that I can cook dinner on my last night here on Friday.

The boys have gone back to school today and all the boarders have returned, so Ali didn’t arrive home from school until 7pm, just in time for supper, as he had been playing football with his friends since school finished at 3.15!

The rest of the week will not be too straining and I intend to finish my third book of the holidays before I leave on Friday (I have to its Pam’s book). This is called ‘Salmon fishing in Yemen’ and is really good, in fact I think I might finish it tonight...