Unlike in the mystical and half-remembered place called Alabama, we do not have such devices as "washing machines" here in Nairobi. When our clothes get dirty, and boy do they get dirty with the walking and the "mud" in the slums and the dust on the sides of the roads and the dirt on the autos and the walking, they end up in a pile in the bathroom.
At some magical moment when it is determined that they need to be cleaned (someone runs out of clean socks or underwear, or someone has to stay in PJs all day because all 3 of their pairs of pants are dirty, or we need to go somewhere and will need clean clothes, or the pile is approaching the point of critical mass), one of us (us = Toni or myself) will venture forth into the bathroom and begin the cleaning process.
Set under the sink are 2 buckets (they came with the flat). The washer places the buckets into the bathtub and fills each to about half full with water. A sprinkle of washing powder added into the "wash" bucket causes suds to spring forth.
The process is simple enough:
The wash cycle is now complete. Now on to drying.
Likewise, we have no clothes drying machine in our flat, so the washed clothes must hang out to dry. Luckily for us, the roof is flat and has clothes lines strung across the space for our use. Other than socks and underwear, which are hung in the bathroom, clothes are taken to the roof and hung out on the lines using clothes pegs.
Assuming they do not get an extra rinse cycle (rain), the clothes dry in a few hours. Lastly, just like normal, the dry clothes are collected, folded and given to the various family members for their placing in their closets.
I like the hanging out of clothes to dry, but the washing by hand has really gotten old. It will be good to be home.
River turns 9 today!
The local grocery store, Uchumi, has a bakery section and cakes. River says, "I have been watching those for over 3 months," so Toni went to pick up the cake ordered for his birthday and got some ice cream, too.
For the first time since we've arrived in May, we had cake and ice cream. Toni and I are still buzzing from the sugar (we have not had more than a small glass of soda at a time since we arrived).
All we were missing was comfy furniture, lots of friends, and chili-cheese dip.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RIVER!!!!
How many times do you get a chance to have a birthday in Kenya?
It is 06:15 (too damn early), and I am up and getting ready to go to Lake Naivasha.I should have looked at a map, then I would have realized that we were headed into the Rift Valley today!
Joseph collected us at 07:00, with chapatis, from his wife, in hand. The morning is gray and the light drizzle dampens my spirit and my expectations for the day. Winding through traffic for a few minutes, we emerged on the A104 headed northwest out of Nairobi. The roads leads us through lush valleys of green, the garden plots easily definable and the houses a little further apart. We seem to going up more hills than down.
Suddenly, there were souvenir shops on the left and behind them stretched a wooden fence painted with black and white diagonal stripes. As Toni and I struggled to snap shots of the scene beyond the fence, Joseph pulled off the the road and parked near the fence. Resembling rehearsing clowns, we piled out of the car, leaving the doors open. At first, I was only vaguely aware of the hawkers' approach, like one is aware of the other crossers when the light changes. I stumbled out of the car, only to come up short at the fence. This lookout is at an altitude of 2461.5 meters or 8000 feet and on the eastern rim of The Great Rift Valley.
The scene presented to anyone taking a moment to stop and look is almost indescribable. I stand and stare, my head swinging left and right. I am trying and failing to take it all in. I snap some pictures, knowing they are but the palest image of this magical sight before me. Like the gods on Mount Olympus, I stand and overlook acres and acres. Below me stretches out left, right, and ahead to be lost in the horizon's mists, are rectangles of farmland, stands of trees, terraces containing hundreds or more houses, plots, and many thousand people. The people, unaware that the gods are looking down from on high and their houses are as match boxes from that height above one terrace, then another, then the valley floor far below. The floor of the rift valley, an expanse of grasslands, detail lost to distance except for Mount Logonot and Mount Margaret. Toni takes a sweeping video as I try to take shots that I can make into a panorama later. We spend many minutes transfixed by the vista, all the while hawkers failing to enter our attention any more than the giraffe notices the mosquito. After the taking of many pictures, the many guffaws, and the shooing of hawkers, we were off again. Further we climbed, then we started the decent into Naivasha.
On Monday, 10 September 2007, we left our flat in Nairobi and rode with Joseph, a friend, into the Great Rift Valley. While there, we visited Hell's Gate National Park.
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The road is a gravel and dusty one-lane, intended for the bicycles they rent at the office and at the intersection of the main road. As soon as we take the first curve, bicycles appear being ridden by many very pink tourists (the sun is intense today). The landscape is amazing. There are 2 freestanding towers of rock, many bluffs, rolling hills, and grasslands. We stop by the first tower to stretch our legs and take in the atmosphere. We walk around the tower and find some small pieces of obsidian on the ground and some bones. As we walk back toward the car, the antics of a girl, having successfully climbed the tower but having trouble on her decent, caught our attention. With her climbing instructor and the park's resident climber trying to talk her down, she began freaking out. We started out amazed, but soon the sniggering fits started as her yelling and protestations got wilder. She had gotten half way down, but was now scared and had grasped the guide rope and they could not lower her down unless she released it - which she was not willing to do, even though urged by the instructor. Finally, the instructor "free climbed" up the rock and tried to get her to release the other rope so they could let her down. Failing to get her to release the rope, he finally grabbed her and pulled her off the rock. Her legs flailing, she began screaming, "You're trying to kill me!" Ignoring her protests, the un-roped instructor carried the screaming girl down and placed her on the ground. Toni used her camera to take video of the episode. We later learned that the girl, once she stopped screaming, phoned her father to tell him that the instructors had beaten her. Some people....
Passing the first tower, we took an unmarked left turn onto a dirt track leading into a thicket of acacia trees. As we passed through the trees, we passed a zebra on the left. After clearing the thicket and topping the next hill we came upon some more animals. Again we are standing outside the car taking pictures in awe of the sight before us.
The scene is classic Africa. The grass carpeting the ground is a dusty brown and deceptively deep. Tufts of low green shrubs poke up through the grass carpet here and there, lending some color to the dull ground. The background so dominates the scene that my eyes sweep it before returning to the middle. The bluff rises hundreds of meters, covered with low trees and shrubs of bright green on every space where dirt could settle. The bluff could have been thrust upward only just the day before, the rock appears dry from exposure to air only in a few places. At the base of the bluff, some of the ground is piled as if recently fallen off the bluff or been thrust upward with the bluffs emergence. In the middle space, there are a few leafless tree trunks poking through the dusty grass. Slightly to the left of center and far off to the right, zebra congregate in small groups. Individuals roll on the ground, stirring wispy clouds of dry dust that drift off to the right on an unfelt breeze. In front of the zebras, two giraffes stand and watch us watching them. It appears that they are the dominant male and female, but I cannot tell for sure which is which. As my eyes get more accustomed to the colors and subtle hues of the scene, one of the leafless tree trunks turns its head. Suddenly, I notice several of them - smaller giraffes laying down, only their long necks and heads visible above the dusty grass. The scene, though not still, remains calm for several minutes - we watching everything, the giraffes watching us, the zebras mostly ignoring our presence. I turn around and behind us is another similar scene on the low hill behind us. Two large giraffes have emerged from the acacia trees and stand watching us while a large zebra near them also watches us. We seem to be as interesting to them as they are to us. So as to not startle them too much and break the calm, we get back into the car and drive on. In a word - wonderful!
Further down the dirt track, we pass near a herd of Gazelles. They are shy of the car and move away as we approach. The dirt road circles back and we head back the way we came.
