My August!

Geez, why am I so bad at this all of a sudden? Obviously a whole lot has happened in the two months since I last updated. This is what went down in August!

August was actually fairly quiet, as many of my friends were abroad for at least half of the month. Our original plan was to go to Rwanda for the long weekend at the beginning of the month, but just before we booked our tickets, the international airport burst into flames. Wish I was joking. It was pretty crazy. Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) is the main hub for East Africa and offers many connecting flights to destinations across the continent and it was pretty bad there for a while. The blaze went out of control pretty quickly, as the fire crews who responded were incredibly under prepared (both training-wise and having-water-in-their-fire-hoses-wise) and it gutted the entire international arrivals terminal. Crazytown. A lot of people who were flying into the country were either cancelled or rerouted to other airports, including Mombasa which is an EIGHT HOUR bus ride away. Not ideal.

Thankfully there were no casualties.
Photo Credit: AP via BBC

It ended up just being a quiet weekend, and I enjoyed spending time with Clayton and Sanya who were both in town. Lots of movies and take out make for a good, relaxing weekend. Our dear Sanya left a week later to go back to HBS (grossss, haha) and finish her final year. I miss that crazy girl, but we keep in touch via WhatsApp (she holds the record for the most WhatsApp conversations with different international numbers for me: Kenya, India, and the US) and I'm sure we'll run into each other again in the future.

Goodbye dinner at Misono in Westlands.
Me, Clay, Ali, Hilary, Sarah
Theresa, Sanya, Elaine, Farah

Crazy faces...sort of, lol.

By the end of the month, Chris, Kalpana, Theresa, and Jess had all returned to Kenya, so there were lots of reunion dinners and fun hang outs. Good to have some "welcome backs" to balance out the "goodbyes."

I also had the honour of going along with Elaine to get a tattoo! We headed to the tattoo parlour in Yaya Centre, which had come highly recommended, and Elaine worked with the artist to get exactly what she wanted. It came out beautifully.

Getting the stencil just right.

Yes it is.

Getting inked!

The print was really fine and he was soooo concentrated.

All done!

On August 28, Erich, a dear friend from my time teaching in Korea, arrived to hang out for a month. Erich and I were on the same flight from Chicago to Seoul in August 2009 (he sat one seat over from me actually) and we spent a lot of time together traipsing around South Korea and Southeast Asia. The first weekend he was here a big group of us headed out to Lake Naivasha for the Rift Valley Festival. There was a group of about 12 of us, so we rented out the entire Bilashaka Lodge.

The lodge is located on the banks of Lake Naivasha (about 50 meters from the water) and though it was sketch as hell to find in the dark and pouring rain on Friday night, it was a lovely place to stay. Friday night we ate dinner, drank a lot, and just hung out around the house.

View of the house from the bluff above.
Photo credit: Angus

The house has a really nice grassy area where hippos and zebras come to graze at night.
Photo credit: Angus

And a lovely pool.
Photo credit: Angus

Dining area with LOTS of colours and patterns.
Photo credit: Angus

Bar area that we used frequently.
Photo credit: Angus

Kitchen and lovely staff.
Photo credit: Angus

Front lawn of the lodge.
Photo credit: Angus

Zebras just nonchalantly walking around. As per usual.
Photo credit: Angus

Hanging out with some Tuskers, like we do.
Erich, Chris, Mick, Kalpana, Angus
Malaika and I
Photo credit: Malaika

Saturday morning was overcast, then it got sunny and beautiful for a while, before clouding up and getting cold. Our first order of business was to go and stop in at the Grand Opening Ceremony for one of our new schools. It was interesting to see a school in the final stages of construction and see the community turn out and kids who were excited at the prospect of coming to our academy.

Face painting should always happen at school, haha.

Sample ECD class.

Wanted to steal these little munchkins!

Almost there.

Naveen, Kalpana, and Erich participating in the Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes lesson while Chris plays on his phone.

This is how we lure them in...songs and shiny classrooms.

Who let that cat in?

Intermediate classroom.

We finally made our way to the festival in the late afternoon, however it was really rainy and very cold so Chris, Kalpana, and I headed out fairly soon after we grabbed some food. It was just not really weather conducive to a music festival, and there was no where covered to sit and people watch...so...what's the point, haha. We stopped off for a bit at Fisherman's Camp to get some food, and then the three of us headed back to the lodge where we hung out around the fire and watched a movie before crashing. Old people represent. Sunday morning we had breakfast before braving some dust storms and heading back to Nairobi.

And that, friends, was August. More to come soon!