the days keep turning into night

life here is hard. today i woke up on a farm with giraffes, came back to the compound and made some eggs, took a nap, played soccer (pulled my quad--wonk wonk), had sundowners by the pool and went out to chinese food for dinner. then got in a taxi that got us lost:
us: "we are going to elgon view drive"
taxi driver: "oh yes, i know this place"
us: (passing the street) "oh! that was it"
taxi: (still driving) "yes, i know the place"
us: "sawa sawa" (still driving away from the place, thinking he knew a short cut) "umm, it's not up here it's behind us"
taxi: "ohh!! you know the place? you will tell me how to get there?!"
us: "yes, we will give you directions."

in about an hour we will go watch the football playoffs. more so as a procrastination technique than my actual interest in american football.

recently we have befriended a mzungu kenyan pair of guys that work on a nearby farm. (<-- click that, you won't regret it) its a huge piece of property and they breed giraffes for the sake of conservation and also raise your standard farm animals. the place is beautiful. friday night we all went out dancing until quite late. we pushed ourselves and were out until about 4am, but a kenyan will tell you "that's when the fun starts!" and we have been ridiculed in the past for leaving "early." saturday morning we woke up and piled into the van to go to the farm, for a little hike and giraffe tracking. the pictures will suffice and depict how wonderful it is. then we went to lunch at a restaurant that overlooks the Great Rift Valley. take note though, if you are going to a restaurant because you are hungry, this is not the place for you. the views are stunning, there is a keyboard to jam on, but you will wait for a sandwich for about 2 hours.

meghan and i, the explorers

we found them! the twigas!

my dirty feet and a view of the great rift valley

then a few of us went back out to the farm to socialize with american games, dancing and rabbit-chasing. the rabbits were the highlight of the night. whereas we have cow tipping in america, mzungu kenyans drive out to their landing strip, leave the headlights on and jump out of the car to chase rabbits at full speed. it's near impossible, obviously, and no one successfully caught a rabbit. chasing after birds and gazelle-like animals is also socially acceptable in the game. all-in-all it was a wonderful weekend in our understanding of paradise; i hope you had a great weekend too.

what it looks like when someone sprints ahead in hot pursuit of a rabbit

necessary rabbit-chasing costumes