Sunday – the day of rest and relaxation….well not here! Our alarm, also known as Nini, banged on the door at 7am – she had seen a `once in a blue moon Matatu` (Taxi) coming down the road and wanted to catch it – as we didn’t know when the next one would be! Today we were to visit her Nini’s house at the Western Foot of the Ngong Hills – about a 20minute Matatu ride and then a 1 1/2 hour walk away.
We were very rushed and didn’t even have time to shower, eat or have our morning cup of Chai tea – instead we were forced into the Matatu and bumped our way down the dusty African road – a feeling we were certainly getting used to already! We stopped off in the town of Kimuka – about 20 minutes from our first Masai house – and proceeded on foot further into the dusty plains, on the way spotting gazelles, baboons and giraffes – even some as young as 2 days old!
On the way we stopped off at Nini’s sisters house to meet her family and as custom has it – have some chai tea and bread – before we were joined by Aunty and trekked off to grandmothers! The sun was hot and piercing – making us regret being so rushed in the morning as we forgot sunscreen! Africans have never heard the term ‘sun burn’, and in the time it took to explain it to them – we could also show them an example!
Ninis mothers house was smaller than the other compounds we had been to – and for some reason was extremely hot! This usually isn’t a big problem for us – but when you have half a bottle of water left for 2 people at Midday you do have to start to worry! After meeting another of Nini’s siblings and having another chai tea (see the pattern here??!!) we headed up to meet more family members – so far we had met some many we started to wonder where they came from!
While lunch was being prepared we headed next door to visit a step sister from the family we were living with -and met up with her husband and two new twin babies! We had more chai…
Before long we were called back to Grandmothers kitchen to have lunch – rice and potatoes. The difference with this lunch was the atmosphere – never had we ever been surrounded by and eaten with SO many flies! The Africans have a great tolerance of these critters. Flies can crawl on their face, legs, arms and even dinner and they wont bat an eyelid. In complete contrast, two white people are in the corner concentrating more on swatting the flies than eating lunch! Anyone got Fly Spray?? Soon we had received some gifts from Grandmother as she welcomed us to her family!
We did have to get going though – as later that afternoon we hoped to meet with some fellow volunteers. The walk back to Kimuka was a long and hot one – along the west side of the Nogong Hills to the far edge – back to the first homestay to meet some friends – and more importantly stock up on some water for the journey back home -as we still had a further two hours ahead of us!
Its amazing what you do and see in a two hour walk in Africa – during this journey we hiked through rocks and spotted snake tracks in the dirt ground – which put Jax on high snake alert! We were also spotted by another part of the family – but this time there was no chai tea offered to us – instead they had just slaughtered a goat – and offered us a taste of the fresh goat meat…we took the meat but declined the offer of trying the fresh goats blood to wash it down….
