Saturday, October 2, 2010

polepole...

Polepole...slowly in Swahili. (say the e's, like long a) That is a good summary of how things go. Our roof is back in place and the bathroom is usable, although still in progress. At least the tree crashing through led to a new paint job, which is a nice thing. The seemingly old oil based paint that was used for the job might have taken a few years off our lives, or at minimum stolen a few brain cells!, but it does look cleaner and brighter. The paint smelled horrible!! We are pretty sure that they aren't planning to cut down the entire eucalyptus forest behind our apartment, but I am still sort of wondering. The Kenyan habit of telling you what you would like to hear, as opposed to the actual facts, makes me unsure about the "assurance" I have been given regarding this tree cutting business. The chainsawing has been steady for 3 weeks now!!
All that aside...we had a great Piki ride to our friend's place at Mayer's Ranch last night, where we ate an amazing meal and spent the night so that we wouldn't be riding home in the dark. At 7:30 this morning we rode back so that Warren could take over call in the ICU for the weekend. By the time we got to our place at 8a we had seen many birds, a dik-dik darting across the road and a whole family of baboons. They had heard the neighborhood leapard the night before so we were hoping for a sighting, but the word is that you only see a leapard when it is already on you! They have actually seen it there, but not easily or often. It did run off with the smaller of their two dogs once, puncturing him in the throat just exactly in the place that stole his voice!, but their massive Great Dane, Zeus, chased them down and Elvis has been as good as new, although silent! ever since.
I was met with an enthusiastic response from the matron of the nursing school when I offered my services to them for the year. I am meeting with the faculty on Mon at 9a. John has a mid-term break coming up next weekend. He is brewing plans for Piki rides, camping and a climb up Mt Longonot. So he seems to be settling into life here. And I am sure another weekend of call will bring a few more vignettes from Warren.

3 comments:

  1. What is a "piki" ride exactly? a safe, protected vehicle for animal sight-seeing tours I hope. (I just looked it up on another blog. Is it a 3-person motorcycle ride through the jungle?!) Wow, you guys are much braver & stronger than I ever knew!

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  2. Hmmm...thought I already left a comment here regarding my terrible spelling of leopard. I was so tired when I wrote that post! Piki is just the word used for motorbike around here. We have two of them! I ride on the back so far, but Warren says he is taking me out in the field to learn how to ride on my own! Right now I am good with driving the car on the right side and super proud of myself for driving John and I into Nairobi on Sunday...without Warren. ;)

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  3. Driving on the wrong side of the road in a major African city? You rock, Sandra! You're going to be jumping leapards on your piki in no time.

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