Ninapenda Kusafari!

So I’m back! Well, I’ve been back for like a week now, but there have been internet/laziness complications, so here it is. It's a bit long, but deal with it, it's been a while.

To be short, the safari was amazing. One of the best weekends of my life, I would say. It was more refreshing then I can convey to my devoted readers to be out of the city for the weekend. I spent the entire time breathing as much crisp clean air as possible. I spent nights next to a bonfire and the little spare time I had in the afternoon napping on an overstuffed couch on a porch looking over the Mara. The stars were breathtaking. Being near the Equator and miles upon miles from any civilization I could see more stars than I’ve seen in years.

The game drives were so much fun. We were in converted minibuses that had no ceiling so that we could stand up and see everything around us. We went on three game drives, two afternoons and one early morning. We saw four out of the Big 5 animals which was impressive! The Big 5, with it’s origins in big game hunting, are the lion, the elephant, the water buffalo, the rhino, and the leopard. We saw all of the them but the rhino, which are almost non-existent nowadays. Seeing the leopard was a very rare sighting, so we were excited! It was napping, then it woke up and walked around a bit, looking very grumpy. It then plopped back down in the grass and went back to sleep. Otherwise, we came across a whole pride of lions eating a freshly killed wildebeest, which was so gross but even for my vegetarian self was so cool. We also saw warthogs, two cheetahs, hippos, impalas, thompson’s gazelles and tons of baby goats and cows (herded by the Masasii people). Let me tell you, seeing these things in their natural environment is about 100x cooler than seeing them in the zoo.

So check out the pictures in the link below! The place we stayed at was absolutely gorgeous and had the most luxurious “tents” I’ve ever seen.... So if you ever want to safari in East Africa, let me know and I’ll hook you up :-).

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2120512&l=3f046&id=7412016

Otherwise, there has been a bit of a power issue here, i.e. a city wide crazy intense power shortage. For the last 7 days the electricity has gone out at least once an evening, usually for at least an hour. The last few days have been bad, with us having no power for hours and hours (up to 12 or 14) at a time. This is a big deal when you have reading to do for classes and can't do it, or can't boil water so that you can drink it, or cook dinner, or charge your phone. We've also been having brown-outs, which is when the government intentionally cuts the energy output in half, so that the lights are kind of on, but the microwave, stove, and water heater/boiler still don't work. I will never take having consistent electricity for granted again.

On Saturday I went to a fashion show/beauty pageant called Mr. and Ms. Kibera, which takes place and is for the biggest slum in Nairobi. It was pretty amazing, the girls and guys were all beautiful, even walking around a rickety half-stage in the middle a gigantic mud field in the middle of the slum.

Alas, I am too tired to go on. For two mornings in a row now, the homeless man that lives outside of my apartment building has decided it was a good idea to bang rocks together. This morning he started at 6:15am.