The week that was

6^th June 2011. The last week has been pretty busy really. It seems that after a month in Nairobi, we are definitely starting to settle here and create a life for ourselves.

Last Monday we were kindly invited to a birthday party for a 4 year old girl at her home here in Karen. Evan and I went off and had a great time. I met quite a few new people and after clinging to my knee for the first 2 hours, Evan also had a blast. He spent time on the jumping castle, in the swing and playing on the grass. But most of all, he spent time eating. Since we’ve been here, he’s been a bit of a fussy eater (to say the least) preferring cereal and yoghurt to all else offered. But not at Tori’s party. He ate 9 of pork sausages (the cocktail/chipolata ones), a heap of pineapple slices, chips, popcorn and then to finish up, chocolate birthday cake. After all that food and playing, he was no trouble at all to put to sleep that evening.

On Wednesday the 1^st June, it was a public holiday here – Madaraka day - which celebrates Kenya’s self-rule and independence from the UK in 1963. It was great to have Mark at home with us and we gave the driver the day off and just literally hung out together.  Even better actually was that Mark took over morning Evan duty and for the first time in 15 months, I got to sleep in! I’ve been up by 5.30 (often earlier) for so long, it was bliss to stay in bed until after 9.00am.

Evan’s hair grows like a weed, and it was getting more and more evident every day that it was once again time for a haircut. He was pretty well behaved when he started going to the hairdressers at about 6 months of age, but he has regressed rather badly as he’s got older with the previous two trips being screamathons. So off we went on Thursday morning to a random hairdresser that we saw advertised by signboard on the road, Salon Jaqi’s. I think Evan may be the first child that they’ve had as a customer, but they welcomed us none the less. A young guy came over and we put Evan on my lap, tied on the apron goody and all went well for the first three snips of the scissors. Then Evan realized what was going down and he cried like he was being beaten. Gut wrenching sobs and screams of agony filled up the salon. The poor hairdresser, he didn’t know what to do and I could see him get more nervous and uptight with every scream but I made him push on. We left there with the most diabolical haircut – but at least it was shorter. I had to do some trimming and fixing up while he slept later that afternoon to bring it back to some sort of okay-ish-ness. Needless to say, we won’t be heading back to Salon Jaqi any time soon … and I don’t think they’ll be at all sad about that.

Evan's bad hair day

 On Saturday, some new friends invited us to join them for a tea / light meal at the Muthaiga Country Club before going to the Soko Soko fair where they had a booth promoting the magazine that they publish. The Muthaiga Club is beyond colonial – it’s so on point in terms of it’s décor and ambience, it really could be a set for a movie set back in the fifties or sixties when colonial Africa was de jour here in Kenya. Kids are pretty much not allowed anywhere except the pool area – which is currently closed for renovation, so we were very quickly moved to a small garden area adjoining the ballroom where a table was set up for us – and there is even a bar that women are not allowed to enter. It apparently takes about 18 months to go through the process to join up, providing you meet the club’s requisite standards of course. We then drove a few minutes away to the Soko Soko fair. I love Arts and Crafts, so browsing for me is a pleasure, but Mark not so much. So after speeding around the different stalls and buying some quilts (we so needed some extra blankets) at one of the booths, we spent some time with Evan in the kids’ play area before heading back home.

Riding a sheep

Enjoying the slide

 And something else great happened on Saturday, our new bedroom furniture was delivered. And some study furniture. It has been great to sleep on a good bed again and I’m typing this seated at a desk rather than on a couch – so all round, a much better environment for my back! Now just 8 weeks or so to go before our container arrives and we get our earthly goods back; then we’ll be truly at home.

Yesterday started out super lazy, we were still lounging around in our pyjamas at 11.00am – the only thing missing was the Sunday Times really! Then in the afternoon we headed out to another new friend’s house (the same people from Monday’s birthday party) and just hung out at the pool, in the garden and trying to watch some of the Roland Garros final on TV. Evan didn’t want to swim, but had a blast playing with their two labradors and even more – being the centre of attention with their two daughters who kept him busy and running for a lot of the afternoon. All in all, a great weekend really.

On to other things, I have discovered a delicious new fruit. I’d seen them in every fruit/veg shop I’d been in and eventually asked the counter lady at Karen Provision Store what they were. She said it was a tree tomato & very kindly gave me one to taste – yum, yum, yum! Apparently they are also called Tamarillos elsewhere in the world and even more interestingly, apparently they are grown in South Africa. Well, I’d certainly never had once before, but now I’m a huge fan. They are great as they are, but also outstanding in a smoothie mix with pineapple and passion fruit. I think I’m going to buy something new that I’ve never tasted every time I go shopping and see if it leads to more great food discoveries.

Yummy tree friut

Mark is away again this week, but we’ve got some stuff planned so we’ll keep ourselves busy quite easily I think. Evan starts his nursery school on Wednesday, so hold thumbs that he takes to it like a duck to water – but I’ll update the blog with pictures and news of that later this week.

Take care & love from Nairobi xxx.