and i'm back! i know it has been a long while since i posted, but there really hasn't been much of anything to write about. unless of course lounging by the pool to tan off the prison pallor of jordan piques your interest. so, we have, of course, been mostly in nairobi since just before thanksgiving. the house we are staying in is, well, to say that it was luxurious would be perhaps an understatement. hil and her parents have graciously let us stay for more time than any reasonable people might expect. especially reasonable people who show up looking and smelling like they have been living in bus stations and acting as though they have never seen food before. ever. our accommodations mean we get (at least) three meals a day (we routinely clean out the leftovers in the refrigerator like vacuums), real beds without fleas, and very few bus rides. i think we are getting soft.
thanksgiving was great. i made pumpkin pies and the three of us made the turkey. i think it was a first for all of us. despite our lack of experience it actually turned out to be pretty delicious.



the dinner was massive and considering our on the road diet an amazing treat. A few of hil's friends came over to celebrate with us. all in all it was a cozy little get together and intro to some of the expats here.
our days are mostly spent lazing around, but there have been a few highlights. we accompanied hil to one of her masters' classes at a local university. all of her classmates, and her professor are african, but their jaws dropped and a flash of confusion and something like horror at being stuck in a room with two lunatics crossed their eyes when we explained to them what we were trying to do. after opening it for questions all they could think to really ask was "why?"
another fun way to pass the time is to head on over to the golf course for a walk, which of course involves giving the resident monkeys the right of way.



and finally, you can go down to kibera and go second hand shopping. kibera is the largest slum in all of africa. 750,000 people live there in a mass of sheet metal shacks. (if you have seen the constant gardener, it is that one). but this may have been one of the best places we have been to here, as it is the only one where nobody gave a damn at all about our existence. most places in africa people call out to you with whatever their word for foreigner or white person is (just in case you forgot), but in kibera nobody cared to talk to us unless we were buying from them.

This last week we went down to mombasa. it is on the southern coast of kenya on the indian ocean. the bus ride down was a mere 7 hours and everyone on board had their own seat! it was glorious. a predetermined amount of personal space? unheard of. when we got to our little beach cottage it was dark and we had no idea what kind of lodgings we had. but in the morning when we wandered down towards the sound of the ocean we found that we were staying on a perfect white sand beach that was practically deserted.



at any given time it was more than likely that we were the only people within sight on the beach. this gave us plenty of opportunity to lay in the sand or swim in the bathwater-warm ocean without worrying about people seeing just how badly worn our swimsuits were. our only other company on the beach itself were tiny white crabs that scuttled down into their holes when they heard us coming. up by our lodging, however, we had visitors of another sort.



our place was right next to a monkey reserve. we even had occasion to see two pink assed baboons. but their teeth are huge so we crossed the road and gave them their space.
our cabin had a kitchen, and everyday fruit and fish mongers would come up to us and sell us whatever was fresh that day. and of course the ever present smell of fish brought us yet again, more animal visitors.



on the return trip from the beach we decided to take the train. when the train was first built it ran from mombasa to uganda (it no longer runs to uganda) and was nick named the "lunatic express." being the lunatics that we are, we convinced hil (fairly much against her wishes) to take third class due to its being the absolute cheapest option. 18 hours later we stumbled out of the train (which was pretty much like all the other stupidly uncomfortable and slow public transportation that we take), ankles swollen and ready for a shower and a nap. thanks to hil and her family this was immediately possible. however, the train trip was not so bad. along the way we saw zebras, wildabeest, some sort of antelope and again more baboons. like a mini safari from the most uncomfortable vehicle possible. and as we pulled into towns along the way all the children ran out to wave at the passing train. it was pretty amusing to see the absolute shock on their faces when they saw the three of us waving back out of the cattle class. most everyone had tried to dissuade us from taking anything less than second class, but we figured that if kenyans can do it, there should be no reason that we couldn't.

so that is the update on life in kenya. the stars are all wrong in the sky. the equatorial sun burns like wildfire, christmas comes in summer, and it quite often rains all night. and that is about it. i hope that you all enjoyed thanksgiving and are gearing up for a merry christmas!