Post-prandial promenade by the sofa...

January 15, 2013: After several weeks of experimentation and core-strengthening, the baby F. walks - the full length of the drawing room.  His hands are in the air in glorious surrender to our beautiful world, and his gait a tad unsteady, but he is smiling and clearly not a little proud of himself.  As are we!  A full six days short of his first birthday - a great early present to us all!!

Happy new year!

Karibu sana, 2013!

December was the usual crush of activity.  Anno and S. did a quick ladies-only trip to Canada to celebrate Anno’s childhood friend S.M.’s wedding, and so that S. could get a little time with her grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. 

While in Montreal, Anno took S. to see where her parents met, and then they (joined by Auntie. A, on biz in Montreal) drove to Ottawa. 

The boys, in the meantime and back at the ranch in Nairobi, were not exactly sitting on our hands.  F. is getting bigger, stronger, yet more cuddly (as if that were even possible), and has been on the cusp of walking for a few weeks now.  His eating habits are very catholic, but he requires unceasing amusement during his meals, like some reclining Mughal emperor.   Consequently, Anno, S. and I are now adept at cycling through various acts (songs, peek a boo, spatula puppet shows) and props (candles, bananas, forks, sundry art supplies) in order to keep the bites disappearing at a tidy clip.  As a result, our mealtimes have a carnival meets Broadway feeling, and we generally let Frodgie (the resident hound) in to hoover up the 3 or 4 thousand calories worth of food littering the floor by meal-end.  

A bed with wheels on it - why not?

The second half of December (and indeed the first week of Jan) was a staycation, where we hung out, ate, cooked, met friends, and went on a trip in Kenya which had been on our radar for some time: Laikipia.  We visited a lodge called Loi Saba, which is on a private reserve the size of a mittel-european nation-state, and on which there are leopards, cheetahs, lions, and the usual clutch of vegetarian mammals.  They also had a star bed (see picture above) which is wheeled out so that you sleep under the stars (ok, and a mosquito net) - S. joined us for the dinner (complete with Samburu folk songs and a chocolate carrot cake!) and the night in the hut on the Starbed, which detracted a little from (but also added to, in its own charming way) our 6th wedding anniversary celebrations!  Surprisingly (to myself), both Anno and I are really getting into bird-watching here, so that was a treat there as well.  It helps, of course, that the bird life here is staggering (please, just google “Secretary Bird”).  

The view from our balcony from Loi Saba

2012 was such an amazing year, in which we saw, laughed, learned and generally grew so much.  We were also blessed to have been visited by loved ones in our adopted place of residence, all of whom were pretty thoroughly charmed by the joys and beauties this region has to offer.

2013 is already bringing its own delights, not least the 1^st bday of Faris Rai (January 21)!  I am also training for my first ultramarathon (a 88km footrace in June 2013 from Durban to St Petermaaritzbug in South Africa – the race is called ‘Comrades’  and is the world’s oldest ultra (1921!)), which has the side-benefit of allowing me to roam the countryside surrounding our house in Nairobi, which gives onto coffee plantations, deep red cliffs, and ‘Platoon’ style vegetation.   

Team Comrades 2013 atop Mt, Longonot - a scrambly run which took us 2:15, up to 2776 meters

S. loving the great outdoors in Laikipia...

Masaai wallet

The flower was defo fake.

Tracking the GPS-enabled lions, naturally!

S. was so upset with Frodgie (our dog)!

Good looking family hanging otu in

On a bit of a bemol, March 2013 will also bring elections to Kenya.  As most of you know, the 2007 elections were marred by violence, and the upcoming ones don’t promise peace by a long shot.  Much of the underlying socio-economic conditions (of which, in this author’s opinion, tribalism is one) remain or have worsened (unemployment rate 40%, formal inflation rate 3% vs. informal inflation rate of 16%).  Our plans (as of the present) are to leave the country for a week or so (I’m running the Kili marathon in Moshi the weekend of the elections anyway), and then adopt a watch and wait approach for the run-offs. 

One further complicating factor is that some of the frontrunners for the Presidency are also under indictment by the International Criminal Court, which is due to pronounce itself (on what issue I don’t know exactly) in April 2013.  This is relevant because only the winner of the elections will be able to hop behind the shield of executive immunity.  This further dims the already slim chances of a gracious concession speech by the loser, and increases the odds of ‘crying foul’ (in the verbiage of the overblown headlines in local papers) and the inevitable accompanying incitement of violence.  

Anno has become a regular intelligence analyst on the elections (having just read “It is our turn to eat”), and conducts regular breakfast briefings for the team.  Expect a detailed socio-political analysis in this space in the next few weeks…

In any event, a very happy new year to you all, and we hope to see many of you in beautiful Kenya soon (after the dust of the elections settles, though)!

Obligatory artistic shot