The one with the Church music (Kerry)

Today we started our Church shopping with an Anglican Church in the center of Nairobi. This was an old Cathedral built by the British during the opening years of the colony and still has that old colonial feel, only now the congregation was 98 percent African. The service started with your standard Episcopal role call: hymns, readings, the prayer book, the apostles creed, etc, all occurring exactly as they were laid out in the program, when all of a sudden we got to the printed "free worship time"  and then we knew we were in Africa because someone started drumming, someone grabbed the mike and the place exploded in a burst of Swahili worship songs with various hand movements and lots of clapping.  Andy and I stereotypically struggled to stay on the beat (think Steve Martin in "The Jerk").  And then, just like it started, the "free worship time" ended and we went right back to the program until the end of the service which only ended up lasting 2 hours which, for an African church, was pretty remarkable.  We liked the Church and plan to visit some more before making a final decision.  


We spent the rest of the day running various errands to try to get our TV hooked up and WiFi and we were only marginally successful.  At some point my mother called and passed the phone around to various relatives from Mississippi that I had never met which was mildly awkward but not entirely unexpected knowing my family.  Andy built our first fire in the fireplace tonight and so I am going to sign off to go and enjoy it!

(note from Andy: we promise the next entry will have original pictures, even if they are just of me or Kerry typing the next entry)

The one with the rabbits (Andy)

So many things happened over the past week to bring us to this point that we didn't reflect on the fact that we had moved to Africa until the next day.  Getting out of our house and around town helped that fact sink in and solidified that we made the right decision. Despite extreme jet lag, we accepted an offer from our social sponsor Larry to take us out for the day for some shopping, food, and a little sightseeing in some of the rural areas bordering the city.  


First an foremost, the weather is amazing--mid-70s, breezy, no bugs (yet).  We went the Village Market, a very nice outdoor shopping complex about a mile from our place, to get feel for what the shops in the neighborhood were like and get a few more provisions. Found and organic grocery and a nice butcher shop, too. Dropping off the food, and unfortunately failing to remember our camera, we to lunch at the Kempware Club, and old British colonial-era club in the tea regions approximately 20 mins outside the city. The food was ok, but the scenery was amazing, there and on the drive, and definitely made us feel like we were in Africa (again, if I'd remembered the camera, you could totally see what I am talking about). 


After lunch, we drove a little more to see the tea and coffee fields--beautiful--and then Larry took us to his house to show of his garden, 12 rabbits, 5 chickens, two Kenyan mutts, and, randomly, one turtle. We sat outside for about an hour taking in our surroundings before heading back to the house. Amazing.   

The one where we arrived in Kenya (Andy)

(Technically this occurred on Thursday, July 28, but we can't figure out how to post date it in this thing) 


Tonight we landed in Nairobi and Jommo Kenyatta airport, twenty minutes late due to an unexplained delay out of Amsterdam. The tiny airport, like many of its class in the third world, has been punching for so long above its weight that each new flight exhausts everything associated with it: the ground crew, the terminal, the baggage claim, so much that even the paint seemed to wish for simpler times (by my estimation, sometime in the mid-seventies). We waited an hour for our last bag to show up--the baggage cart no doubt fearing another round at the antique carrousel--before we could begin traveling across town to our new home in the Gigiri area of Nairobi. 


We arrived and were very happy to see the townhouse we will be living in for the next two years, a definite upgrade from our current place back home (no offense condo, you served us well). The next day, Friday, we slept in, unpacked, then started the checkin process for work, getting the internet setup, and getting a few provisions for the place. Feeling slightly more settled in after all of that, we went to dinner at the restaurant in our housing compound then retired to our couch to watch a grand total of 30 minutes of "Munich" before falling asleep.