So I leave late tonight to return home (30 hours from takeoff to arrival) Everyone has left except me and two older ladies who are leaving tomorrow. The hardest was the family with two girls. They just left. I got along so well with the whole family. Margaret and I have many similar interests. Jim and the girls are great.
So one last email, a summary of some impressions of Kenya and the safaris.
Meals:
So you may be wondering what do they feed us (OK, maybe not, but I'll tell you anyway). Most of the meals in the lodge meals were buffet. For breakfast there is always omelets, fruit, breads, bacon (not nearly done enough), sausage, and various other breakfast foods. For lunch and dinner we get 4-6 meats, a few potato dishes, several vegetables, salad, cheese, fruit, soup, and desserts. There are often Indian dishes, and sometimes what I assume is traditional Kenyan. They try to cater to the tourist. So, like one day for lunch I had turkey and for dinner the pasta bar. The another night we had barbecue - chicken and lamb.
Driving:
Another topic - driving. They are fearless. They will drive over anything, and most roads are not only unpaved, but have deep drenches. The amazing thing is we are often going 80-90 km/hr. We drive through streams, up steep hills, it doesn't seem to matter. Luckily we only got stuck two times.
Our drivers like to drive fast over the gravel/dirt roads. Because of the potholes and zigzagging to avoid whenever possible, it can get rather harrowing. A few times I felt like we were playing chicken with the oncoming cars. Paul is often telling our driver, "pole, pole" (pronounced with a long “o” and an “ay” sound), which means slowly, slowly. A few times this has changed to "roly-poly", and when he is exclaiming over the speed, "holey moley".
The other thing I notice is how close they pass by one another. When we arrived at a hotel one night, I was convinced there was no room to get between two parked trucks, but the driver had no problem. Even in the middle of the plain, no actual road in sight, we passed another truck with only 6 inches to spare. I guess there is no sport if you leave too much room.
Dust:
There is dust everywhere. Because the road (really paths) are just dirt and gravel, and we are often moving rather fast (unless we are watching animals), the dirt blows into the car and coats everything - especially when another vehicle passes.
I find myself constantly wanting to wash my hands. Because I have been wearing sandals, my feet are so dirty I am not sure they will ever be clean again.
I am sure everything that I bring home will have a fine layer of dirt on it.
“Kenya” time:
Kenya has there own version of “island” time. You here “akuna matata” (don’t worry) a lot. They definitely move at a slower pace. If something does not work, or goes wrong, they either ignore it, or stand around until someone tells them what to do. A good example of this was my luggage, when it was not at the courier office in the town. We would have recognized it was not coming that day (the only delivery is overnight) and continued on our way, following up on our cell phones. They stood around for 30 minutes waiting for a call back on their cell phone to explain what has happened, even though nothing they could have heard would have changed what we needed to do – go on to our next destination. Finally, Paul made an executive decision and we left.
The Maasai:
Kenya has 42 different tribes within the country, each with its own language and culture. One of the most well-known is the Maasai. The men are recognizable by their red blankets that they wear. I went to a talk on the culture. Many of the things they do seem barbaric to us, but there was a historical reason (such as polygamy, which started because there were more women than men due to wars and hunting deaths). There are changes happening, but slowly because they do not want to lose their culture (for example, the guy talking said he would only marry once and have 3-4 children because he wants to make sure he can afford to educate them all).
So hope you enjoyed traveling with me. I certainly enjoyed keeping up. See you all back in the US.
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