Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

The family enjoyed a few days off thanks to a combined--but unintentional--US-Kenya government effort giving us the 24-26th of December off. In addition to using that extra time to spend with family and friends, we also spent it with pretty much non-stop rain and house plagued with so many issues we began to think it was haunted.  But more on that later.

The past week has seen a flurry of Christmas cookie making and parties at co-workers homes. Our first party was on the 22nd and it was fantastic. Our friends have an excellent house for entertaining and it was one of the few days without rain, so we got to enjoy some great food and conversation in the perfect setting. There were a ton of kids running around--a staple of parties these days--and our hosts provided a bouncy castle, swings, and toys galore to keep both children and parents content. Even Santa Claus showed up, making at least one party goer very happy.

But eventual, the party broke up around 7pm when all the kids under three collectively broke down and the first wave of party goers left.

As mentioned earlier, the holiday season was tempered by near non-stop rain and house problems. The rain has been very strange, as December is supposed to be the warm, dry season, here and we aren't supposed to get any serious rains until March. However, the past week as been as rainy as any of the rainy seasons we have encountered living here. The irony of all the rain is that we ended up not having running water in our house for days, due in part to the storms breaking pipes and disabling the primary pump system on our housing compound.  A few hours without water is a minor inconvenience; but several days without water when you have a small baby and have been doing a flurry of Christmas cookie making and cooking borders on catastrophe. But, everything eventually was fixed and life resumed.

Christmas Day was a big day because it was Aliza's first Christmas. Like most kids her age, she doesn't understand gifts or what to do with them and focuses on the wrapping as the primary source of pleasure.  Her grandparents were extremely generous to her for her first Christmas, which is nice in and of itself, but more so because Santa's gifts got hung up in customs and didn't arrive in time.  But she was happy just the same:

That night, we had a big dinner at our friends' house a few doors down, enjoying all the Christmas dinner staples and some welcome Christmas cheer.

On the 26th, the last of our three days off, we celebrated Boxing Day, an old english tradition that seems to have lost popularity over the years but still is a government holiday in most Commonwealth countries. The purpose of boxing day is to provide gifts to your employees to say thanks for their service. Given that this assignment allows us to employ people to help us around the house, we definitely wanted to take the time to say thank you and what better way to do it than host a party for our staff on the official day of thanks.

We invited (almost) everyone that works for us or has worked for us over the past year-and-a-half: Eric, Peter, Lukas, Phoebe, and Grace. Peter and Grace were unable to attended, but everyone else did, including Emmie the dog.

We had a nice spread of American junk food and the movie Home Alone playing in the background. We had Crackers and a small white elephant gift exchange, too, which everyone enjoyed.

We are truly thankful that we have been able to find such great people to work with since we've been here. They have been a tremendous help to us--especially as our family has grown--and we are glad to have them as part of our lives.

After the new year it will be only six months before we return home; six months that likely is to go quickly. As we move forward it was nice to have the past week to reflect on all that we have accomplished since moving here and all that lies ahead for when we return. All of it is wonderful.

The One Where We Spend Thanksgiving in Zanzibar (Andy)

September and October were fairly hectic for our family. The three luxurious weeks we spent back in the States were drowned out pretty much upon return by a baby that spent the first week jet lagged, the second week sick, and the third weekend cutting her first teeth. Work was also very busy, all of which combined to make our vacation seem like a distant memory. During the height of all this, Kerry and I decided that we needed to plan a getaway for November in order to regain some sanity. With Thanksgiving approaching, we decided that a four day weekend would be the exact amount of time we would need to recharge. As you will recall from last year's post, we spent Thanksgiving on Safari in the Masaai Mara with Kerry's parents. We decided to continue our trend of non-traditional Thanksgiving destinations because both of us were feeling somewhat homesick after being inundated with emails, Facebook posts, and Skype calls about the beautiful fall weather back home and all the fun that surrounds that time of year, that sitting around our house in Nairobi would bring us down even further. So, we decided to cross off a destination on our Africa bucket list and booked a trip to exotic Island of Zanzibar.

Like many Americans, I didn't know Zanzibar was actually a real place. It evokes to much Disney movie wonder to actually be real. Zanzibar is, in fact, real and its history is anything but a fairy tale. It's most famous/infamous as the primary hub for the African slave trade and a port-of-call for many a pirate ship. Today, it's mostly known as one of the worlds spice capitals and for its amazing beaches (that part is like a movie). Several of our friends and co-workers recommended we go, and when we heard it was easy to get around with a small baby, we booked immediately. 

Since we've made several trans-Atlantic flights with Aliza, we assumed our hour and fifteen minute flight would be no problem. We packed tactically: only carry-ons, baby food, diapers, and toys strategically located throughout all our gear. Everything was set. Then we got to the airport and discovered the plane was a regional jet and our carry-ons wouldn't fit. Then we got to the gate and found out the flight was delayed an hour. While I won't bore you with every detail of what transpired next, but suffice it to say that our plane was delayed for one hour approximately five separate times and that we likely still would be there had a certain set of passengers with a small baby seen the writing on the wall and started prodding the Kenyans into action. Eventually, we made it on the plane and into the air.

 We had to make a short pit stop in Mombasa before heading to the Island

Finally made it

Zanzibar is 90 percent Muslim but doesn't have a large population. The people are colourfully dressed in traditional Islamic grab and very friendly. The drive from the airport to the hotel took us through rural banana and coconut groves. The weather was perfect, but fairly humid. Since we were delayed basically all day, we missed out on some crucial beach and seafood eating time. But just being able to get out of Nairobi and spend time in a tropical setting was great. 

We booked ourselves into the Bluebay Beach Resort and Spa, which is located on the Northeastern coast of the Island. Since it was the off season, we got a great price and the place wasn't overly crowded. We ditched our things and immediately checked out the pool and the beach, which is where we would spend the next day and a half.

On Saturday, we booked a driver to take us to the old capital city of Stone Town. Since we were travelling with a baby we new it was probably best to pick out a couple of strategic locations and aim for them rather than meander around town and be lost right in the middle of a baby breakdown. So, we picked our three places, parked the car, and began our walk. 

Stop number one: the boyhood home of Freddy Mercury, the lead singer from the rock band Queen.

It doesn't get more random than this. I truly had no idea that one of the most famous singers to come out of the 70s rock scene was born here to parents of the British imperial high commission back in 1946 when Zanzibar was still a protectorate of the crown (yes, I got most of that from the Internet. For the rest, feel free to visit here). There isn't much to see except the main entrance--the house is now a boutique hotel--and numerous picture of the man in various flamboyant poses and impressive moustaches. Nevertheless, it was a great find and beat most of the Queen exhibits I saw at the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

Stop number two was to the Zanzibar Curio Shop. This was a recommendation from a guide book and was a shop filled with an absolute ton of random antiques; not the regular Afri-crap that one normally encounters on tours of African cities. The amount of stuff was overwhelming, and we could have spent an entire day looking around, but given our time frame, we settled on an antique bank and an old map of Africa and went on our way. As we walked, we stopped in a couple of shops to buy picture frames carved in the traditional Zanzibar style.

I've never seen two people so happy to be standing under a bunch of lose electrical wires.

The final stop before our return to the car was at the Zanzibar Coffee shop, were we stopped for a quick drink and to get out of the rain.

Travelled all the way to Zanzibar to sit next to someone from Montana…or at least a really big fan of Jon Tester

We called it a day and headed back along the harbour to the hotel for an afternoon at the beach, stopping along the way to get a fresh coconut from the side of the road.

Dinners at our hotel were served later in the evening, which cut into Aliza's bedtime. But on the last night she seemed to be doing fine so we decided to try our luck as a family for dinner. 

Aliza was doing fine, in part do to a great trick we picked up form Aliza's aunt Jen: chewing on a bread stick. This kept her occupied throughout the majority of the meal.

The next morning we took at stroll at sunrise for one last look at the beach and one last feel and smell of the salty ocean breeze.

The return flight to Nairobi was on time and went relatively smoothly, but it was fraught with its own headaches (literally);  airport staff that all wanted tips, from the bag handler down to the guy that randomly walked into the bathroom after I was done using it; and a small, cramped air plane filled with Africans. I guess maybe no great vacation goes unpunished. We definitely want to take another trip here before we leave and if you are ever in this part of the world, make it a priority to visit.