Night and Day

Tea plantation

Coffee beans

Where's Rheba?

The Karen School kids

As I cling to my bed, trying to stop it's quick roll and spin movement, I try desperately to fall asleep. It is after midnight in Nairobi and I am pushing into my 36th hour of being awake. I can hear the rumblings of Swahili in my head and a bit of Maasai. I had asked Samson if he would teach me both.

"Yes. Tomorrow."

I, being persistent had said, "Well, maybe tomorrow will be too late. I am going to pray and ask God just to download the language into my head. Maybe I will wake up fluent in both!"

Samson finds me amusing.

I can feel myself right on the edge of sleep and then I hear a word in my ear. I ignore it. It's a nonsense word. I've never heard it. I am hysterically tired and making up my own language in my sleep...

"WHAT?" I snap back awake. I heard a word. It is nonsense... right? I grab the pen out of my purse, which I have strategically placed under my pillow. (you can never be too safe.)

I scrawl the word down on my hand in the dark. I'm sure it isn't a word, but...

I only sleep for about 4 hours and wake to darkness. I can't believe that I am in Nairobi.

As morning arrives, I hear what sounds like a Kenyan crow and I think of my mom's crows in VT. I wonder if they would be friends. Then I hear the sounds of a broom on the pavement outside. I jump up laughing, to look and see. The guard is sweeping the grounds. I smile, knowing this means that this is a respectable house and think of Mma Ramotswe of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency. (a set of books my parents and I love)

We are served a breakfast of boiled eggs, bacon, sausage, cereal, tea, coffee and a variety of fresh fruit, including PoPo, a local favorite. I tell my friends I heard a weird word in the middle of the night and show them my hand. We are all excited to see if I am crazy or not.

Samson and Rachael come to take us around and bring us to a school in the Karen area, near Ngong. I jump up and say, "Samson! I heard a word in the night.... tell me, does it mean something, or am I crazy?"

I tell him the word.

Mungutosha.

He laughs.

Great, I'm nuts.

He says, "Mungu Tosha. Yes."

"It's a word? Really?"

"Yes, it's Swahili. Mungu Tosha. It means, God is enough."

"WHAT!?"

"Yes, God is enough."

I jump up and down, screaming.

"SEE Samson! God has a sense of humor! He's teaching me Swahili in my sleep!"

Leon and I head off with Samson and Rachael, while Wanda and Eilene stay to rest.

Michael, our driver, whisks us around Nairobi, dodging vendors in the middle of the street, bikes and people who take jay-walking to a whole new level. There are absolutely no road rules. The combination of this with driving on the wrong side of the road, has us clutching our seats.

We bump along a side road to The Karen School and Leon tells me about Mombasa. How they would drive 50 miles, one way on roads that were even worse. I hit my head on the ceiling handle as we negotiate the path to the school. We honk the horn to be let in and are greeted by a brightly painted set of buildings and immaculate grounds. I can hear the children's excitement from inside their classrooms. Gladys, the school principal, introduces us to different teachers and groundsmen while Leon gives her his suitcase full of goodies he has brought for the children. I hand her a large bag of eyeglasses which she quickly distributes to the teachers. Samson heads off to find a ledger, he wants to write down words for me to learn.

We are brought before the 300+ children that attend the school. They welcome us, "Caribou!"

Which means, "welcome" in Swahili. We reply, "Jambo!" (Hello).

The children are divided by age and spend the next hour entertaining us. I wander and snap over 300 pictures of them. They LOVE the camera and fight over who gets in the picture.

Leon speaks and then hands it over to me.

I start to cry. They laugh. I cry more. They laugh more.

Apparently, adults DO NOT cry and if they do, the children get so upset that they laugh.

I explain to them how I have waited my whole life to come to Africa and I am overwhelmed by how beautiful they all were. They laugh again. It's okay with me.

Rachael tells them in Swahili that I am so happy and that is why I am crying. They clap.

I get stampeded by the children and end up on the ground, tackled and dirty, but now we are all laughing.

We head out to see coffee and tea plantations. They are both right outside of Ngong, where "Out of Africa" took place. I am surrounded by lush, green grass, beautiful trees and great forests. The temperature drops by about 20 degrees as we climb the Ngong hills. It is stunning. The tea plantation is simply acres and acres of tight knit tea plants. The harvesters wear boots to their hips and leather aprons as they shove their way through the plants, only picking the very top sprig of lime green leaves. Tedious work, I have a new appreciation for tea.

I whisper a little prayer as we climb another back road, with cliff on one side and no rails. I am hoping Michael knows how to negotiate the pot holes so we don't plummet to our death. We pull in to the Inn that is owned by Eda, our landlord in Nairobi. The inn is an African equivalent to a B&B. The grounds are insanely beautiful. I stand in awe as I watch the sun setting over the hills of Ngong. The light hits everything differently here. Trees sparkle and shimmer as the wind speaks to the leaves. I am surrounded by life. Beautiful, green, life.

A cattle herder comes and brings us to Eda's farm, behind the inn. I dodge paths of cow dung as the inner child in Leon jumps out and he starts to photograph the piles of poo. I laugh at how much he reminds me of Tony. I tell him I think they are long lost brothers.

Rachael explains to us how there are leopards around and I inform Leon that he is welcome to walk in front of me. (In Africa, the man ALWAYS walks in front of the woman.... "for protection." Leon has repeatedly informed them that his wife or any other woman would always be beside or in front, never behind.)

Rachael says not to worry, "LEO PERDS are very shy".

We look at the goats, and are confronted by a very grumpy bull. He snorts and growls and then finally lets out loud gutteral sounds that have us hastily leaving the pasture, leopards would be welcome by comparison.

I look up to find a man with a bow and arrows. Leon says, "Oh, to protect against the leopards!"

"no, to protect against the Europeans!" We laugh at the joke, until we realize it wasn't one.

Leon asks to see the arrows. They are mean looking with barbs beneath the head.... ouch. Samson stops him and asks the guard if there is poison on the tips. "WHAT? For real?"

We take tea in the gazebo at the inn. I breath in my surroundings, wondering how I got there. The sun is bidding us farewell, as I watch the birds on the roof bobbing and dancing in time with the music playing over the speaker.