A bit of a break

I have left it so long I don’t even know where to begin with this entry. To start with now, I am writing from a little seaside cottage south of Mombasa listening to the waves and waiting for fresh calamari to be cooked for dinner.  I haven’t seen any coastline since January so I feel like I deserve a little boast about finally being within a stone’s throw of a beach. It’s not quite the peaceful shore of Loch Etive at home where you can only hear birds, the occasional boat and the wind. On Diani beach as soon as your foot touches the sand at least four beach boys descend forcing seaside education or seashell necklaces on you. But it’s the Indian ocean and it’s low season and as soon as the tide comes in leaving just a few feet of beach, it’s practically exclusive.

Diani Beach

My mum, auntie and sister are nearing the end of their two week visit to Kenya and our beach break is very welcome after a hectic first eight days. Despite my rants about Nairobi traffic on here and elsewhere I don’t think anyone really believed how bad it is (or didn’t listen) until we spent the first 4 days largely stuck in a jam visiting various friends in different corners of the city. Apart from being a little stressful it was nice and a bit surreal having my family meet the people I’ve been spending time with over the past four months.

With my mum and my Kenyan mum!

On our last day in Nairobi we made a trip to visit the Maasai women Ibrahim’s been working with. I mentioned them a couple of posts ago, and since then I’ve accompanied Ibrahim to Ngong hills to see them twice. Both times we went we took a matatu to Kiserian which took about four times longer than it should have since they kept stopping to fill up with more passengers. Once we got to the little town at the foot of the hills, we crammed ourselves in the boot of a car, the equivalent of a matatu outside of the city. It wound its way up through Ngong hills and dropped us on the other side where some ladies were sat around a tree beading Vivienne Westwood clutch bags with the slogan ‘I LOVE CRAP’. I sat around and talked top a few of the Maasai while they worked, most of the older ladies didn’t speak English so I mainly just  sat back and watched them bead, enjoying the fresh air and green away from Nairobi. They largely ignored me, were happy to smile in photos and told me I was welcome back any time.  The first time I got lucky and shared the front seat of a car matatu with an old man on the journey back to Kiserian. As soon as I sat down he pointed to the toddler on his lap and said, ‘You mind?‘ I said I didn’t, and he plonked the little girl on my lap until her mother lifted her out of the window when we reached the town.

First visit to see Vivienne's beaders

However when I visited with my family it was quite a different story.  We got an actual driver to take us all the way from Nairobi, the visitors in the back seat and Ibrahim and I sharing the front. When we got to Kiserian we stopped and met Josephine, our main contact in the group. We watched them load five crates of soda bottles into the boot before three Maasai ladies crammed themselves in beside them! We drove through the hills further than I’ve been before. Josephine told us there was a good road the car could take into the valley so we wouldn’t have to walk so far. I don’t think the driver (Ibrahim’s unsuspecting friend) was too impressed when she pointed out said ‘road’. Even calling it a track would be taking liberties a bit as we got out of the car and walked in front of it finding the least stony, bumpy route we could through the very green and vegetated valley. Eventually we were met by about 15 Maasai ladies where we unloaded the crates from the boot and each took a side of one carrying them the last leg of the journey to where we were meeting.

Carrying crates through the valley

We arrived to the very surreal site of three sofas and a coffee table  in a clearing surrounded by around twenty more Maasai sat around beading away. When they saw us they stood and sang to welcome us. The next couple of hours flew by in a blur of singing, speeches and beads. We had a little tour around- inside a traditional manyatta (little hut with walls made of dung) and the spot where the men had slaughtered the goat they were cooking for our lunch (the head was still there). The whole time, more and more women were arriving from every direction. We were presented with a kanga each and a little beaded item before they all spread out their own work and we made our way around and bought a few bits from as many as we could (there’s only so many beaded things a person can have- bottle openers, hair clips, bracelets, keyrings…)
After we made the obligatory speeches saying how much we appreciated their hospitality we wandered back to the car, by now at the main road surrounded by several hopeful looking people who were after a lift to Kiserian. We piled in and I was handed a baby in the front seat this time (people are amazingly happy to hand their babies to strangers here). Half an hour later the baby was lifted from my arms by its mother at which point she told me he was ‘very sick’ and she was taking him to hospital. So far so good as far as catching whatever the baby had goes.

Rona receiving her kanga

Between then and now, we went on a three day Maasai Mara safari. We saw some pretty exciting sights but the best part was standing with your head above the open roof of the safari van whilst driving across huge open plains not entirely unlike a scene from The Lion King.

 

The only thing which has ever so slightly spoiled the past couple of weeks is a massive hole in my leg caused by an insect bite gone wrong. I took it to the doctor who decided the best thing would be to just cut the whole thing out. I think he got a bit carried away (he asked the nurse to please stay in the room while he did it as we wasn’t 100% sure what he was doing. Always encouraging) and I now have to go every second day to get the dressing changed and I haven’t been able to swim. It doesn’t help that every nurse/doctor I see says something different- ‘Oh, it’s healing very well, it’s very clean’, ‘It’s not healing well at all’, ‘It’s still infected’, ‘It won’t take long, maybe a week’, ‘It will take a VERY long time, you will have to cover your legs for the whole year’… At least my leg didn’t fall off/get eaten by a lion (though if anyone asks in later life, the scar on my leg is from that time a lion got me on safari in Kenya).