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 1st
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 |
No comments:
Post a Comment