Weather, Wild animals and one friendly cow!

Omondi went back to school on Monday and Judie went back to school on Tuesday and I went back to work on Wednesday. Njenga my pikipiki driver came and picked me up as usual. I had to make a quick stop at the cyber so we were a little late getting started on our journey…but if we had been on time I would have missed my close encounter with some very majestic giraffes.

Male giraffe on the left side of the road.

At one point there were giraffes on either side of us on the road, but we stopped and the females crossed to road to the side the male was on.

This giraffe, I'll call her Curious Georgette, stopped to check us out.

Then Georgette rushed across the road to join her friends.

Just before we got to the small town of Sakeri, Njenga said "Giraffes!" I peered around his shoulder and sure enough a hundred yards ahead of us on the side of the road were 8 giraffes. The male was on the left side of the road and the females were on the right. We got close enough to photograph them. (I wear my camera on my belt just for these kinds of photographic emergencies.) And then all the females paraded across the road in front of us. It was magical. After chameleons, giraffes are my favorite animals and seeing them every so often without a barrier between us is thrilling! They are graceful gentle giants. I love being in their presence.

As we got closer to Ilkiloret we could see that they had significant rainfall in the area recently. Even before class started there was thunder in the distance.

By early afternoon as Rebecca and James worked on their new mayatta, the sky darkened and the thunder intensified.

At about 2:45 the skies opened up and dumped rain on us for about 40 minutes. Non-stop cats and dogs with even some hail thrown in for good measure.

For Ilkiloret this kind of water all at once is epic. The bad news is that the addition to James and Rebecca’s home where I stay leaks.We had to move all my things in a rush.

The new part of the house hasn't yet been cemented and the roof leaked over my bed so we had to remove the mattress. Three kids, my mattress, and Rebeka and and I sat on her bed while the storm raged outside.

The good news is that the classroom building doesn’t leak! There are some run-off issues around the building that will have to be addressed, but the building weathered the storm perfectly! Janet had been waiting for me to come and was inside the classroom during the storm and said not a drop of rain entered!

I walked out to the network tree later in the evening to survey the damage and call Njenga to see if it had rained in Ngong. The thorn tree next to the network tree has fairly decent reception.

Rebeka told me to wear flip-flops instead of my canvas shoes. I’m glad I did because I ended up walking in the small river that had formed in order to not get my feet stuck in the mud.

My feet and legs were full of mud.

One just has to pray that one doesn’t get some kind of worms because of walking in this water. There are cows everywhere and cow business (if you get my drift) everywhere, so the water is contaminated with all kinds of good stuff. I try not to think about the nastiness of it all and instead dwell on how much fun mud can be.

For those of you who have been to Ilkiloret, this is the dusty path that leads from the main road back to the adult education classroom. Forty minutes of rain and there is a river in place of the path.

We had ugali and sukuma and potatoes for dinner. Rebecca sat outside and peeled and cut up the veggies. One donkey and one cow in particular were very interested. The cow was extremely friendly and after she kissed my camera lens with she posed for a photo.

Best cow photo I’ve ever taken by far! I have to find out her name from James so I can title the photo appropriately.

I decided to leave Ilkiloret a bit early to avoid any more weather that might be on the way. I made another trip to the network tree in the morning to call Njenga to tell him to come at 11am instead of 1 pm. At 11am I was at the road – Njenga was no where to be seen so I decided to start walking. An hour and a half later, I got to the place where there is regular network coverage. I called Njenga he was only a few minutes away from where I was. He had gotten a puncture and had to repair it on the way. When we got back to Ngong I stopped at the post office to see if my license had arrived. There was a parcel slip in my box so I was pretty sure it had arrived, but I didn’t have ID with me so we were forced to go back to my house to pick it so I could get my ID. Another exercise in futility! But I am now the proud owner of a Kenyan driver's license!