Hakuna Matata

Hakuna Matata.  Remember those words from Lion King?  It's been many years since I saw Lion King and I don't even remember the story line.  But now that I'm here, I realize that this film is all about Kenya and the animal kingdom here.  Several production crew members actually traveled here to Kenya to Hell's Gate National Park (I've shown pictures from that park in past blog posts) to check out the landscape and the animals.  The Lion King's name is Simba, which is actually the Swahili word for lion; Rafiki is Swahili for friend. There are probably other Swahili names and words that I'm not aware of.

But back to hakuna matata. . . . It's Swahili for the concept of "don't worry; be happy."  And that is definitely the mind set of a lot of people here.  "Don't worry.  I'll get it done today.  If not today, tomorrow."  "Yes, I'll be there today.  If not today, tomorrow."  "I'm coming right now.  Well, maybe I'm starting to think about coming."  Kind of hard for us westerners to get used to.  There must be a happy medium between hakuna matata and the stress we westerners feel to "do it now . . . or yesterday!"

It's been a hard, frustrating week.  Some "political" complications with some Kenyans that we deal with have been upsetting.  I've been fighting a sore throat and a tooth problem.  There's been a lot of office work to get ready for the incoming missionaries.  Then to top it off, I found out on Thursday that someone I work with has been sitting on postal slips for ten packages from parents to their missionaries and some of these slips are from November!!!  That means that the packages have been sitting in the post office accruing storage charges all this time.

So maddening.  The parents want their missionaries to get the packages and the missionaries want their packages.  Oh my.  I was not impressed and let him know (hopefully in a firm but not rude way).  On Friday when he brought all the packages, he said that he had learned a good lesson.  So have I.   He really is a very nice man but I've learned I need to be very direct with him.

So I'm very sorry to all you missionary moms and dads out there who hoped your sons would get these packages for Christmas.  Hopefully we can distribute them this coming week when transfers are happening.  We'll do our best to get them out as quickly as possible.  Our mission covers two countries and we can't use the postal system like we would in the West.  Our missionaries in Kenya are spread from 10 hour's drive to the east of Nairobi to 10 hour's drive to the west and all on narrow, bumpy roads full of potholes, speed bumps, and heavy traffic.  Missionaries in Tanzania are in three major cities: Dar Es Salaam, Arusha, and Mwanza, and we generally fly to those areas.  But we'll do our best to get the packages out as quickly as possible.

Hakuna matata!!!

All the senior couples in the Kenya Nairobi Mission at our Couples Conference in December at Tsavo West National Park.  I did a post about the conference but at that time I didn't have this picture.  Everyone is here except my husband LeRon.  He had been very sick the day before, which is very unusual for him.  But the day of this picture, we had driven down from Nairobi (5 1/2 hour drive).  By the time we got there, he needed to just go to bed so I went to the rest of the conference without him.  L-R: Elder & Sister Petersen (LDS Charities based in Nairobi), Elder & Sister Ford (Public Affairs based in Nairobi but covering Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda), Elder & Sister Colemere (Member/Leader Support, Mwanza, Tanzania), Elder & Sister Pehrson (Seminaries & Institutes, Eldoret, Kenya), President & Sister Msane (our fearless leaders), Elder & Sister Jones (Office and Member/Leader Support, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania), Elder & Sister Jensen (Member/Leader Support and LDS Charities based in Mombasa, Kenya), Sister Torrie without her side-kick, Elder Torrie (Mission Secretary, Nairobi).

Nakuru National Park with the Missionaries

God's creations are so amazing.  How he could have ever come up with ideas for some of the animals is beyond my puny brain!  All things in nature prove to me that there really is a God and that he loves us and cares when even the smallest sparrow falls to earth.  He loves us, his children, and he also loves all of his creations from dogs to warthogs to black and brown and white-striped zebras to gangly long-necked giraffes to teeny-tiny Red-cheeked Cordonbleus and Purple Grenadiers.  He loves them all and so do I.

We had a wonderful morning driving around Nakuru National Park with Elder Noel and Elder Odhiambo.  Saw my wonderful zebras and giraffes, baboons and warthogs, lots of antelope-type creatures and . . . a rhino!!! So now we've seen four of "The Big Five":  leopard, buffalo, elephant, and rhino.  We just need to see a lion.  I don't know why the zebra, giraffe, and hippo aren't in the list because they are amazing creatures too.

And it's so much nicer to see them in the wild.  I will never look at animals in a zoo with the same eyes ever again.  I remember seeing penguins in the zoo after we had seen them in the wild during our trip to Chile/Argentina/Antarctica.  I could hardly stand to see them behind glass.  And they weren't nearly so cute as in the wild either.

Makalia Waterfall in the park.  Not much water falling at this time of year.  There was a herd of antelope drinking here but we scared them away.  Ran so fast with long, loping strides.  For a minute I hoped a lion had scared them but I think it was just us.  And, as we were out of the truck, I'm glad it wasn't a lion!

A huge herd of buffalo.  At first I was not excited to see buffalo because we have buffalo at home. In fact our nephew raised one until it kept rubbing against their house and wrecking things.  But these African buffalo are truly interesting.  And they can be dangerous too.

And again, I wasn't very excited about antelope/deer-type creatures.  But they are actually very beautiful.  So many types: gazelles, impalas, elands, waterbuck, hartebeest, wildebeest, duikers and the tiny dik-diks.  Don't you love the horns on that Grant's Gazelle?  

I have so many pictures of zebras and can't get enough of them.

Baboons climbing trees.  Fun!

We saw so many baboons this trip.  Right beside the highway.  Playing in trees in the park.

Love this picture of a Red-billed Oxpecker pecking ticks and other bugs off this African buffalo.

LeRon and Colleen overlooking Lake Nakuru.

Elder Noel and Elder Odhiambo in their P-day clothes enjoying the sunshine by Lake Nakuru.

A whole flock of Helmeted Guineafowl ran across the road in front of our vehicle.  Their skinny speckled bodies and bright blue heads are striking.

If you click on this picture, you will be able to see the brown tones in the zebra lying on the ground.  And the different stripes are easily noticed in the two standing zebras.  Interesting how the stripes continue up the mane.

Zebra just chillin' under the tower of a high power line.

Elder Odhiambo and Elder Noel at another look-out point above Lake Nakuru.

We were busy looking right and left, trying to spot wildlife when Elder Odhiambo announced that there was a rhino RIGHT IN FRONT OF US on the road!! So exciting.  Our first rhino!

Oxpeckers pecking away at insects on this White Rhino.  Even though there are White Rhinos and Black Rhinos, all rhinos are actually gray!

Elder Odhiambo was born in Nakuru and grew up in Kisumu and Nairobi so he was very familiar with Rhinos.  He said that for sure it is a White Rhino and that it is a fairly young one.

Black rhinos have more pointy mouths and White rhinos have flat, broader mouths.  This rhino is trying very hard to hide from us as he blends into the dry grass behind the bush.

Good view of the rhino's two horns!

This is either a Cattle Egret or a Yellow-billed Egret on the back of this buffalo.  They like to eat insects kicked up by the buffalo.  I would guess it's a Cattle Egret since it's on a "cattle-type" creature!

This zebra looks like it's seen better days if you look closely at its skin.

Love those stripes!

These vines growing on bushes look like they should be in a Lord of the Rings movie.

And then there's the graceful giraffe, crossing the road just in front of us.  Lovely!

Zebra and a Cattle Egret (probably).  Notice how dry the grass is.  This is definitely the dry season.  Everyone said it would get blazing hot in December and January and yes, it's hot during the day, but nothing like we've seen some summer months in Alberta.  I don't think it gets much over 85 here and in some summers, we've had 95 degree weather.  (Yes, I'm still using Fahrenheit even though Canada's been metric since 1975.  Actually, I'm bilingual -- I understand kilograms, at least I know that there are 2.2 lbs in a kilogram!  And 250 grams in a cup.  Or is it 500 grams in a cup?  Hmn . . . But I still like Fahrenheit and feet and inches.)

More baboons in the trees.  They're so ugly, they're cute.

Imagine running up and down tree trunks and swinging by the tail.  I know monkeys swing by the tail, but do baboons?

More interesting landscape.

We had a staring contest with this giraffe.  I think we won because it moved off the road and into the bushes.

Click to enlarge and you will see a "Yellow-billed Stork".  Gorgeous red skin above its yellow beak.

Grey Heron down by Lake Nakuru.

Lake Nakuru, along with other lakes in the Great Rift Valley are "alkaline soda lakes" having a very high concentration of carbonate salts.

I wondered why there were so many dead trees in the water and Elder Odhiambo told me that it was because it was a salt lake.  I was surprised and didn't really believe him till I looked it up and sure enough . . .  The Great Salt Lake in Utah is not the only salt lake around!  I knew the Dead Sea was salty and was in the Rift Valley but I never thought of other lakes.

Pelicans napping on driftwood on Lake Nakura.  Are they Great White Pelicans?  Not sure.

A Great White Egret enjoying the salty water.

LeRon, Elder Noel, Elder Odhiambo  soaking in the sun by the lake.  Lots of alkali on the beach.

LeRon and Colleen at another lookout point.

Last look at my lovely zebras in the shade on a hot day.

Click on this picture to see the sign:  "Customer Service."  The lake has risen and this place is no longer usable.  On the other side it said something about "Tourists."  Funny.

New Year Busy-ness

Christmas in Kenya is not a season but a day.  Although there's not as much commercialism as in the West, there's not really the "season" of Christmas and I really did miss the season.  The New Year is bigger than Christmas here even though this is definitely a Christian country.  I've heard more Happy New Years than I've heard Merry Christmases.

It was back to business as usual in the mission office on January 2.  It was good to be back into the routine of things although we were never really out of the routine of things since there's always some missionary challenge that needs to be dealt with.  One evening we got a call from a missionary saying he was out of power.  So LeRon had to "M-pesa" (pay by phone) to the power company and then send a code for the missionary to punch in to the power panel so power could be restored.  He explained to the missionaries that they need to watch their power and let him know BEFORE they're out of power.  We finally got power restored to them about midnight.  Power at night is not such a big deal except that it's very hot everywhere in Kenya (except here in Nairobi, thank goodness) so they needed the power to run the air conditioner.

Paying with M-pesa is a really interesting thing.  You go to an M-pesa place (they're always in green little buildings) and give them cash and somehow it goes on to your phone.  All stores and businesses have an M-pesa number so most people here don't even carry purses; they just pay with their phones.  You can also M-pesa someone some money just by punching in their phone number.  That's where LeRon's had a few problems.  On Friday he needed to send 50,000 Ksh (about $500 US) to someone and he was in a hurry (why does that not surprise me?) and got the phone number wrong.  So he sent $500 to an unknown person.  Thank goodness he was able to get it reversed.  That's the second time he's done that.  So far the people have always given it back.  Pretty good for honesty here.

Our daughter Heather is very creative.  Every year she makes a unique Christmas card for each of her family.  This year she cut shapes out of the newspaper.  I love the cards she makes.  One last photo before I put away the Christmas decorations.  As some of you know, I have a Nativity collection.  I have about 45 Nativities and swore I was finished collecting.  But I did pick up a couple of Kenyan ones that I particularly like.  This one is carved out of rosewood.

We're ready to head to the mission office on January 2.  This rooster crowed that morning for about two hours!  We were ready to have it for dinner.  It hopped up on our truck as we were ready to leave and it was VERY hard to get it down!  James, the compound handy-man finally threw his coat at it and got it down.  Silly rooster!

We had promised the Naivasha missionaries, Elder Noel (from Washington state) and Elder Odhiambo (from Kenya) that we would take them to the Nakuru National Park on Saturday.  So here we are on Friday afternoon, driving from Nairobi to Nakuru.  It's not very far but takes about 3 1/2 hours or more to drive it because of the narrow roads and the traffic.  So nice to get out of the city.  I love seeing all the stands along the way with things for sale.  These sheepskins look so lovely but we stopped one time to look and found that they STINK!

All the gardens are up and growing.  Nice to see into the yards.  Usually you just see walls.

Interesting dichotomy:  donkeys pulling a cart alongside a busy road with an advertisement for technology.

Mt. Longonot is a volcano in the Rift Valley near Lake Naivasha.  I love looking down into that green valley.  There is beauty everywhere in the world.

So interesting to see evergreen trees here on the equator.  The altitude is quite high here.  Nairobi is almost 6000 ft and this area is higher than that.

Big buses are always heavily loaded.  This bus looked like it could easily tip over.  Besides crazy matatus (those other two buses are matatus--small taxi-type buses), loaded buses, traffic coming toward you in the wrong lane and people crossing the road, you also face speed bumps and broken pavement and pot holes.  Makes for an interesting drive.  No one pays attention to solid lines.  You just pass whenever you think you can.  If someone's coming toward you in your lane, you just move over.  Thank goodness most people don't drive super fast.

The Great Rift Valley starts up in Lebanon and continues on down through Israel and the Dead Sea and into Jordan (Wadi Arabah) and then to the Red Sea and then down into Africa as far as Mozambique.  We've seen the Rift Valley in Israel and Jordan and now here we are seeing it in Kenya!  So interesting.

Lots of vegetables for sale here.  So interesting to see how Kenyans market their wares.

We love to look at farmland as we go.  The crops are starting to grow here.

So excited to see a pivot!!  There were a few a long the way (a very few!)

African women are continually going to hairdresses to get their hair braided in different fashions.  They braid colored fibers into their naturally wiry hair.  Any time you see a color, you know it's some kind of fiber woven in.  And if it looks very smooth (like a western woman's hair) you know it's a wig.

Driving down the street in Nakuru you see all kinds of shops with everything you can imagine for sale.  We noticed that we were the only white people around.

We loved seeing the hustle and bustle of life here in Nakuru.

So fun to see the people going about their late afternoon business.  Since it gets dark by 7 p.m., people are out doing their last-minute shopping.  It reminded us a lot of some of the market places we've seen in Thailand or in Viet Nam.  We had a good feeling about Nakuru.  Lots of friendly nice people.

We met up with the missionaries, Elder Odhiambo and Elder Noel, Friday evening so we could find out where they lived to pick them up early Saturday morning.  Since there are no addresses, we had to find them Friday evening.  We phoned them and they said they would be walking along the highway.  We told them that we would be the only white people in a silver truck.  They stood out like sore thumbs (and so did we) and we found them easily.

Had to get a picture with me in it.  I always wear sunglasses because I find the sun very bright here on the equator.  I don't know why most Kenyans don't wear sunglasses.  Missionaries aren't allowed to wear sunglasses unless they have a medical reason, which I do.  And besides that, seniors don't have to follow the same rules that young missionaries do!  But ever since I had the retinal tears in my right eye (and surgery on them), the sun has really bothered my eyes.

These two children wanted me to take their picture but I think really they wanted money.  They didn't speak much English and I don't speak Swahili so I could plead ignorance.  But really, it's against mission rules to give people money.  All we have to offer is the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Our Africa South East Area President is very firm on that.  We harm people more than we help them when we give them hand-outs.  Our goal is to help people to become self-reliant.  And we do that by offering them the gospel of Jesus Christ and then they help themselves.

Now we're on the 6th floor of our hotel.  It's a new hotel, only opened for a year.  It's right downtown but there was good soundproofing.  At night we only heard dogs barking a time or two.  I had found the hotel on the internet and it turned out to be really nice and in the perfect location between the missionaries apartment and the National Park.  Just a 10-minute drive in one direction to the missionary apartment and a 10-minute drive in the other direction to the park.  You can see Lake Nakuru just behind LeRon's shoulder.

Took some pictures from the 6th floor of the hotel.  I love the street scenes.

The Jacaranda trees are coming back into blossom.  They have purpley-blue blossoms and a heavenly scent.  You can see them just behind me.  They were blossoming a couple of months ago and now they're blossoming again.  Trees back home only blossom once a year!  Here it is about 6:30 p.m. and it's not hot but it's not as cold as in Nairobi in the evenings.  In Nairobi, as soon as the sun goes behind a cloud, or as soon as it drops to the horizon, it gets VERY chilly.  But here it was just nicely warm.

This was our hotel right in the midst of a bustling city.  The only problem with it was no air conditioning and you can't open the windows because of the mosquitoes.  Nakuru doesn't cool down as much at night as Nairobi does.  (We're glad to live in Nairobi!)  After we climbed into bed, we thought that we ought to ask for a fan but we were too tired to do it.  Bad decision.  Was hot all night so we tossed and turned all night.

Another view from the roof of the hotel.  People actually live in that small shack.

More street scenes from the hotel roof.

I'm pretty sure a family lives here.

And notice that this is half a house.  Looks like it was just broken apart!

This might be a boarding school.  Children were playing in the playground earlier and there are numbers by the windows like they are dorm rooms or something.  Doesn't look like a very high-class boarding school.  Boarding schools are really big here in Kenya.  Or more likely it is an orphanage.  There are also lots of orphanages here as the life expectancy of adults is 59.  The median age in Kenya is 18!! 

The sun going down over Nakuru.  It's about 6:45 p.m.  We have longer days here in Kenya right now than they do in Alberta Canada.  In the winter in Alberta, the sun rises about 8 a.m. and sets about 4:30 p.m.  (Of course in the summer the sun rises at 5:30 a.m. and sets at 10 p.m.)  Here in Kenya, it rises about 6:30 a.m. and sets about 6:30 p.m. year round.  It used to bother me at first but doesn't anymore.  I'm too tired by evening anyway and besides that, I don't have a yard to take care of.