Weekend Review: Hike, Furniture Shopping, and the arrival of my air frieght!!

The excitement began with my goods arriving on Friday. As I began to unpack there were some things I wondered “Why did I decide to bring this!?” and then there were others where I was like “Right on Amanda!” That would have been when I discovered I did buy and pack 300 Ikea tea lights- tea lights happen to be very expensive here, so that was thrilling. Sure enough the packers in Calgary took me in for all I was worth as the packing paper was more than enough. Is it really necessary to wrap toothpaste in 5 layers of paper?!? One box which was quite large- small refrigerator - held 5 items! As you can imagine there is an email going out to the company on Monday morning to discuss the paper issue.

Friday night I enjoyed unpacking, putting things away, and setting up my life in Kenya. I also managed to catch up on episodes 1-3 of Grey’s Anatomy as a friend from work downloaded them for me during the week! Hooray!!

Saturday morning Dana, Jim, Manon, Kevin and I hit the trails for an adventure of hiking Mount Logonot which is outside of Nairobi. It was great to get out of the bustling city of Nairobi and to just be outdoors. The great thing about the trip was that on the way, as were driving, I yelled “Watch out for that dog!” Lo and behold it was not a dog on the road, but a pack of BABOONS! It was great!! We slowed down and watched as baboons sat on the side of the road eating the garbage (not the prettiest picture, but not like seeing them at the zoo). When we approached the mountain we had to pay an entrance fee and thankfully I am now considered a resident, thanks to a diplomatic ID, and as a result only have to pay a fraction of what foreigners pay to enter the national parks. We started our climb and out in the distance we saw a giraffe having its breakfast and a pack of zebras! It was totally amazing- the first time I have seen animals like that in their natural habitat.

The one thing about the hike was that it was pretty much uphill the entire way and it was dusty and dry. By the time we reached the top we were all covered in dust head to toe and our boots and clothes were no longer the bright colors we started the hike with. Manon did mention that she didn’t think her clothes in Kenya would make it home as the dust certainly results in a lot of wear and tear on your clothes.

When you reach the top of the mountain you get to a huge crater which is beautiful. Amidst this completely dry landscape is a vast forest in the crater.

All in all the day was a great success and we were all thrilled to get out of town and enjoy the sun and the dust. The evening ended with Dana, Jim and I ordering our first pizza via delivery and watching the movie “Shopgirl”.

Sunday I met up with a friend, Tia, and we went to check out the furniture stores on the side of the road. They can pretty much make anything you want- lots of beautiful wooden furniture as well as iron works. I then headed out to this posh shopping mall called “Village Market” which is close to the US Embassy, UN Compound, and Canadian High Commission- so a huge ex pat community at this shopping centre. I went there to meet with Mitch (friends of Maxine and John’s from Guatemala) and it was great to hear about the US Embassy environment here, what it offers, etc. He is putting me in contact with a Canadian guy who happens to have a softball team in the 4 team league they have here- should be interesting. I am more interested in meeting people and the after softball beer drinking then the actual sport, but will pretend to be pro-softball for the next while.

That was the weekend!! Now it’s Monday and back to the grind of the work week. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

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