I spent this week visiting Kenya with some good friends. It was pretty much amazing. We ate delicious food, saw both bizarre and beautiful things, bought way too many tchotchkes, soaked up the humidity and rain and GREEN that surrounded us (I smelled that delicious aroma of rain falling on vegetation for the first time in...well, too long).
the saleslady said these scarves were for the "good ladies" who lost their hair covers while at the beach
I also learned that Kenya has delicious food. There was the local food - chapati (flatbread), coconut rice, samosas, masala chips, beans, and some delicious garam lentil dish. Fresh fruits and vegetables everywhere - passion fruit, pineapple, oranges, mangos and avocados as big as coconuts, it was heaven. And then the best Italian food I've had outside of Rome, Japanese teppanyaki, Indian food, fresh seafood. Lastly, amazing frozen yogurt, gelato and ice cream..sadly, I was too busy tasting everything to get any pictures.
I developed a healthy appreciation for the mosquitos. I only needed one warning ("the ones with dengue fever come out during the day and the ones with malaria come at night") to develop into a religious user of bug spray and Neem oil, a local mosquito repellant. Unfortunately, it takes a little while for malaria to incubate and sometimes a fever is the only sign you have it...so I imagine I will be checking my temperature quite a bit in the next few weeks.
this dude was also hella scary but we left him in place, hoping he was busy eating mosquitos
Lastly, I learned that Stoney Tangawizi is the greatest creation on earth. It's basically Ginger Ale on crack.
Overall, it was a totally fascinating country - I hope to go back someday, even if just for the Stoney and to have a better camera for picture-taking. In the menatime, some more of my favorite images...
And of course, we went on a safari.
First, the non-safari parts...
I learned that Kenya has a significant Muslim population. This meant I got to hear the call to prayer in a Kenyan accent, try Kenyan schawarma (it was really more like Arab chicken salad than schawarma - good but I prefer Mawwal's, here in Amman), and see an African twist to many Arab design elements. It also meant I got to hear my least favorite Arab phrase, inshallah, which means the same thing in Kenya as it does in the rest of the Arab world..."not a chance that's going to happen but I'll pretend it might, to get your hopes up?
The rainy season just started in Kenya and everything was lush and green. The dirt there is bright, orangey-red which made for some pretty amazing contrasting colors. Coming from the desert, I felt like my body and eyes were bathed and saturated in moisture and color. I spent a lot of time while we were driving around just soaking the green in...
I developed a healthy appreciation for the mosquitos. I only needed one warning ("the ones with dengue fever come out during the day and the ones with malaria come at night") to develop into a religious user of bug spray and Neem oil, a local mosquito repellant. Unfortunately, it takes a little while for malaria to incubate and sometimes a fever is the only sign you have it...so I imagine I will be checking my temperature quite a bit in the next few weeks.
Lastly, I learned that Stoney Tangawizi is the greatest creation on earth. It's basically Ginger Ale on crack.
Overall, it was a totally fascinating country - I hope to go back someday, even if just for the Stoney and to have a better camera for picture-taking. In the menatime, some more of my favorite images...
ingenious solution to the rain-back-of-truck problem
Mt. Kilimanjaro
the screw we found baked into our bread
if only I'd stayed another night, I could've seen SpiderBoyKenya live, in concert
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