A Hug and a Kisii

Wow it was another great day followed by a very interesting night. This morning we packed up and ate another yummy breakfast of fresh fruit and peanut butter toast then we headed towards Kisii. The drive was beautiful! There were tons of green rolling hills. We saw a lot of corn fields, and a lot of tea plantations. Everything was so green and lush. After driving for about 3 hours we got to Narok. In Narok Pat and Don had a meeting with a man from an organization called “World Concern” and Dad and I took that as an opportunity to do some shopping! I got some Maasai bracelets, and some traditional cloth. Shopping was really fun! The people would follow us everywhere. We asked one lady where we could get some of the cloth and she said, “shoes?! You want shoes?!” and then ran off only to catch up with us later with her arms full of shoes. When I told one guy I didn’t see anything I like he told me, “Hakuna Matata, I’ll make you something” Hakuna Matata is Swahili for no problem.

Then we met back up with Pat and Don, and we were introduced to John.

 

John works for World Concern and helps out with a lot of really amazing projects in Narok with the Maasai, and he wanted to take us out to a library they had built. Before we headed out to the school and the library we stopped at a super market to get lunch. We picked out some crackers, a jar of peanut butter, an orange Fanta, and Don and Pat and I all got some ice cream. The grocery store was really different. You had to check your bags before you went in. When we were getting ready to get back in the van a lady came running up to me and looked in my bag, and asked me where my receipt was.

We thought we had done something wrong. My dad showed it to her and she took it and ran off. She came back two seconds later with some juice and told me I got it free. Another stay in jail, averted.

 

To get to the library we had to drive through the Maasai Mara, which is the main game reserve in Kenya. It was sooo cool. When we first drove in we saw a herd a zebra pretty far off, and I thought this was the coolest thing in the world. We saw some gazelles, and some impalas, and a couple giraffes really far of in the distance. We saw a bunch of wildebeests really close up! They are so funny looking! John told me that the joke about wildebeests is that they are made up of spare parts with the head of a buffalo, and the tail of a horse.

The more we drove the more and more zebras we saw! A whole heard crossed the road in front of us! We honestly saw over a hundred zebras. I don’t think I will ever get sick of seeing them. After driving for an hour from Narok, and getting to see a lot of the traditional Maasai houses, we reached the school. The library looked great and really well taken care of, but a lot of the books were old text books that were really outdated.

 

While they toured the library more, my dad and I went exploring a little bit. We headed to a building where the walls were made completely of split rail. It looked too old to use, but we were surprised to see four classrooms inside of it. The only light came in through the small windows, and the light sneaking in between the rails.

The classrooms were empty now, except for in one room there were four little boys. We spent a long time taking pictures with them and showing them. After we left to look at the other classrooms in the buildings they would crawl through little holes in the walls to get to the next classroom over to follow us…and the camera. We headed back into the library when we heard the recess bell and went outside to play with the kids. They again loved getting their picture taken, and this time Dad and I got really brave and tried something new. We  let them take the pictures. They were so funny. One little boy had used my dad’s camera and when he finished he marched right up to me and demanded I gave him mine. He kept turning the camera around backward so that the lens was facing him. He was able to laugh at himself, and we were all giggling by the end.

 

We said goodbye to our new friends living in the Maasai Mara and headed back towards Narok, stopping to see vultures, and some more zebra and wildebeests. We dropped John off and continued on our way.  I fell asleep for most of the drive to Kisii and I when I woke up I found us on the bumpiest road I have ever been on in my entire life! Paul, our driver, would swerve back and forth to avoid the huge pot holes – as well as the oncoming traffic.

 

We dropped Don and Pat off at a restaurant because they had a meeting, and Paul and Dad and I continued on to the Bluu Nile, our hotel. We have been told this is the finest hotel in Kisii. We weren’t sure which impressed us the most: the toilet with no seat, or the way that after I went to the bathroom and tried to leave the door handle fell off and is now hanging by one screw. Probably the fact that the shower head is about three feet in front of the toilet takes the cake. The color scheme is tan-ish and with Lime green doors. I was a little bit nervous about sleeping with the mosquito net and getting claustrophobic, but my dad was kind enough to inform me that it was not, in fact, a mosquito net, but just a part of my beautiful princess bed. It was a good thing I was exhausted and fell right asleep. I am totally fine though, it is just another part of a great adventure!