amerika

omg. the packers won. i am sure my dad and youngest sister are elated. i'd be lying if i told you i was personally invested in the NFL, but on their behalf, it is certainly exciting. now, i'm at the bottom of my (instant) coffee cup and the back of my eye balls hurt. the game was on the AFN (Armed Forces Network), a channel for our service men and women stationed overseas. The channel is operated by the DOD, and doesn't show Budweiser commercials, so we missed the cultural significance of advertisement and watched PSA's on quitting smoking, protecting your social security card and how to safeguard your OPSEC (secrecy when in the field?) and famous athletes read the Declaration of Independence over 15 minutes before the game started. The food was good, people ventured to the Embassy grocery store and we had burrito dip, tortilla chips and brownies! kick off was at 2:30am here. I survived through the first-half.

view of the living room

the rest of the weekend was super! becca and wingo came from kisumu and we hung out at home and got some beers nearby my house and just relaxed on friday night. on saturday morning we drove the hour to Naivasha and picked up Jonathan at a gas station. He rode a night bus from Kampala! Like a true African man! And we found him at a table chugging through some instant coffee and reading and maybe regretting his decision to take the bus. We then drove to Crescent Island--essentially a wildlife sanctuary in the middle of Lake Naivasha (by island they mean peninsula) operated by a British lady where you can walk around with the water bucks, giraffes, zebras and gazelles (of sort). Our guide's name was Momo and was super nice and we just wandered in the sun for awhile searching for a python. naturally.

the wild west

DGH would be proud

our picnic spot

i pretty much blended in with the zebras

giraffes never get old

Then we took some lunch and piled in the car. Took some naps and arrived at our taxi driver and friend, Daniel's mother's house, where she fed us tea and showed off her kitten and cow. It was gorgeous out there. Green and quiet and no cars WHICH would come into play when Daniel's car wouldn't start. He left the headlights on. opps. Oh, but he had cables (essentially black cables with exposed wire. Not what we would think of as jumper cables, more if you pulled the cables out from behind your TV and used them to conduct electricity) but, huzzah! by chance his aunt (or sister or cousin) had a battery in her house, so he hoisted it on a stool and put two 8-year old boys in charge of holding the wires on the battery. As we watched Jonathan said, "Uhh, they can't hold that..." to which Daniel replied, "yes they can! they are strong." In the face of an ethical dilemma and concerned we would see two 8-year old's electrocuted, we turned away when Daniel went to start the car. Thankfully, our moral compass was not scrutinized, because they were fine and the car started! We returned to Nairobi by dark.

taking tea at Daniel's mom's house

That night we went out and danced our rear ends off until 5am. Good conversation. Good music. Great company. Sunday we recovered over brunch at noon and wandered the market downtown. We had about 3 personal shoppers each and spent a majority of our energy trying to explain why we didn't need a t-shirt or a soap stone elephant or a mask or a necklace. Despite how much the Kenyan vendors thought my life was not complete without them. Then I napped in anticipation for the football game.

listen to this and try not to dance. and "nimedata" is a lil slang for 'i'm crazy about you.' that's nice.