A Family Christmas Part 1

December 20th, anxiousness lied happily upon Anne and me. Her parents, my in-laws, her brother, my brother in-law, and his wife, my comrade out-law were set to arrive at 9:00 pm. The day before came the phone call; Mechanical failure, Nor’easter, cancelled flights, sheep on the runway, whatever. They would arrive 24 hours later than expected.
December 21st, anxiousness again. This time, no worries as of yet so Anne and I picked up a four dozen roses bouquet and hopped in the safari van airport transport to surprise them. We arrived at the airport at 7:40 and awaited their 9:10 pm arrival. I sipped on a tusker and we both read. The airport was in a bustle, with people coming and going everywhere. Families waiting, drivers waiting, safaris waiting, we were waiting. Ten after nine came and went, no “arrived” stat on the message board as of yet. On the fourth check, “arrived” finally clicked on and we hurried up to the litany of waiters. Our eyes strained to see inside, but no sign of them. No sign of the large Italian man, no sign of his bubbly little blonde haired wife. We waited for over 45 minutes as people came and went. Anne and I started to show concern. How would they have contacted us had they not made their connection flight in Amsterdam? Suddenly, out popped all four, luggage in tow. Anne’s eagle eyes locked them in. John and Steve were decidedly off to the restroom while Kat and Aud stood guard over the modest suitcase/backpack pile. Anne ducked down fast and ordered me to do the same. We snuck to the end of the waiting person line and stayed down. Our driver greeted them with the “Kathy x 4” dry erase sign. They approached, John in lead. The stream of arrivers came towards us as the waiters parted and there they were. Anne lept out, and jumped to her dad. I tried to capture the Kodak moment but failed miserably. The enormous hugging and chattering and laughter began. A huge decompression sigh rang out as all were safe, all had made it, all were in Nairobi, visiting us! The 52 hour journey from America had finished, the 6 person family safari was about to begin.
Our safari was to leave on Christmas Eve morning, leaving us with two days to explore Nairobi. December 22nd was all planned out. David Sheldrick Elephant orphanage, followed by lunch in the town of Karen, a trip to Kazuri bead store and factory, then on to the giraffe center, finished up with a dinner at Carnivore (the infamous Nairobi establishment, similar in dining style to a Brazilian steakhouse). We hired a driver with a spacious van, the Nairobi “limo”, to cart us all around. Spacious meaning just spacious enough to hold six with a spare seat. The orphanage was great as always, baby to teenage elephant, random dik diks, and warthogs. The elephants put on their usual one hour show. Sucking down the elephant milk formula from bottles, rolling in the dusty dirt to cover themselves, and spraying water over their backs using their trunks. The earth is a burnt cyan in color similar to that of tobasco and its dust is as fine as confectionary sugar. The elephant show is from eleven to noon, and after a few minutes of shopping we trekked on to lunch. Lunch was great, near the Karen Blixen museum, in an outdoor garden. We relaxed, fed, sipped some cold drinks, and went on our way to Kazuri. Kazuri was an interesting place. Beautiful ceramic beads, ware and décor all hand crafted and hand painted. The mission of Kazuri is respectable. They employ mostly single mothers. They obviously give employment, important in a country of 40% unemployment, and they offer free healthcare for the mothers and their children.
Alex, our driver collected us and we went off to the giraffe center. It is an interesting place to say the least with a gift shopped named zoovenirs. The spectacle was obviously the free roaming giraffes. Sometime we would see up to 5 or 6 including some younglings. Pictures were snapped of the enormous creatures as they approached close enough to lick your face. All of us were kissed by a giraffe…most of us kissed Daisy. The kissing was done by holding a small nugget of giraffe munchies somehow in your mouth while Daisy would simply turn her 2 ft. long head, stick out her meter stick tongue and slobber your face for the juicy morsel. The tongue felt like 30 grit sandpaper which left an aftershave type burning sensation behind after the lips and cheeks were scraped. We finished off learning small non-recollectable information about the giraffe local to Kenya. There are three; Masai (snowflake like pattern), Rothschild (white legs, broken pattern at the neck), and reticulated (large squared off patterns with multiple horns on the head). We all sanitized our hands and reconvened at an outdoor table at the refreshment bar and had some cokes, delicious.
That evening, we held dinner at the famous Carnivore restaurant. The wild game servings have been pared down over time but crocodile and ostrich meatballs were still tried by most. Pork, turkey, steak, sausages, goat, lamb, etc. were all brought around until our fill had been had. In the traditional brazilian steakhouse manner, all food was cooked and served on large sword skewers onto a broiling hot plate. We stuck our flag of surrender in the carnivore pyramid on the table. The dinner was great enough and it was refreshing to finally have a big family feast again. The night finalized with some conversation back home and most likely some bourbon sipping and cigars.

One day left until our safari began it was the 23rd of December. The day was spent accomplishing four main tasks; drive-by of our places of work (Kenyatta Nat. Hospital & Landmark Plaza), souvenir shopping at city market, a trip the Nairobi Nat. Museum, and dinner at Osteria Italian Ristorante.
We got up and walked to Java house to have breakfast and coffee. It is an absolute taste of Americana, refreshing down to the soul for those of us residing in Kenya. Alex picked us up in the white limo and strolled up around Upper Hill Magnate where both Anne and I have our work offices. Mine is a normal 13 story office building. Anne’s office at the hospital is actually in a nicely appointed 3 story office sector that house many researchers and university affiliated staff. We simply slowly drove by and then went on to downtown Nairobi, the central business district, to visit City Market. City Market is a typical street vendor market. Shacks of Kenyan knick knack pushers lined the walkways. There is a small outdoor portion and probably a hundred more shacks quarantined inside what appears to be a scathed out church. Everything Kenyan can be had here. Skull basher Masai clubs, soapstone figurines, baskets, wood carved anything, painted dishes, Kikoy and kangas (traditional women wear), meat, fruits, chess sets, spoons, bottle openers, spears, machetes, carved birds, carved animals, flip flops, cards, paintings, and the list goes on, and on, and on… Anne was the official negotiator when it came to the market. Her tactic is to be firm and spew wit with a side of ruthlessness. She always got what she wanted, for all of us. We should have named her the mzungu market machete as she slashed prices and Kenyan hopes of a good sale down to ground level and then kicked a little dirt on it for good measure. She sent vendors into a tizzy and onlooking Kenyans into hysterics with the most quotable phrase in market history,
Kenyan Vendor: “Come on, 100 shillings won’t make you poor”
Mzungu Market Machete: “ And 100 shillings ain’t gonna make you rich either!”
Take a SEAT! The Kenyan vendor was down for the count.
The market was usually demanding on most people. Flocks of vendors constantly approached, grasped, chatted, and cornered you in any way possible to get you into their store. But after over an hour of good, strong bargaining and buying we were done with the City Market. It was on to Simmers for some Tusker lager and slight respite.
The National Museum was next. There was a good hour and a half spent on touring the artifacts, skeletons, and displayed Kenyan big five and big game. The most interesting part of the exhibits was of course the human skeletons which happen to be the largest collection of evolutionary skulls in the world. The famous “Lucy” remains were impressively displayed behind glass. There was also a bird exhibit that displayed some of the over 1000 species of birds that exist in Kenya. The birds in Kenya are magnificent in style, color, and sheer diversity. Anne has become an avid bird fanatic since living here. The museum wrapped up and we found Alex to take us to Village Market and Osteria for dinner.
Village Market is a posh shopping area quite a bit north by northwest of Nairobi proper. It caters the United Nations and Embassy clientele as well as the healthily affluent Kenyans and expatriates. It was somewhat busy as usual. The design of the center is a large expanse of shops built into a mall designed to mimic a small village store front theme of Europe. It was 2 to 3 stories tall and the storefronts all face an interior promenade that was open air with waterfalls, highly polished stone steps, canopies and umbrellas to shade the patrons of any of the many excellent restaurants in the food court. There was Turkish, Greek, Italian, Indian, pastries and desserts, sandwich shops, and all had amazing authentic flavors. We all did some shopping, with of course a short reprieve for Tusker replenishment.
Osteria Ristorante exists on the second level of Village Market and has a quaint, warm Italian atmosphere. We ate quite early for Kenyans, so only a few other diners had filed in. Gnocchi, Lasagna, Ravioli, overpriced decent wine, buttery wafer thin proscuitto appetizers, and of course bread with olive oil, butter, and balsamic vinegar all entertained us for over an hour. Mousse and tiramisu were the encore. Another wonderful large family meal made Anne and I sense for a moment what living in the States might feel like once again. We hailed again for Alex and hopped in the limo for a short 25 minute drive back to our apartment at Avenue Flats. Only the drive wasn’t 25 minutes. It was 45 minutes either. Not even an hour and 45 minutes. It took us over 2 hours to get back from dinner. Steve had to pee 30 minutes in but remained a trooper and then Kathy just couldn’t contain herself or her voice and absolutely insisted that we all sing Christmas carols. So there we were, stuck in traffic for two hours, only 2 kms left to go, a Kenyan driver, no mzungus in site, and we rocked it. Anyone who knows Kathy would tell you her voice is simply that of an Ariel, and the rest of us were on point as well. Rudolph, jingle bells, o holy night, ohh you’d think we were drunk. Alex smiled, then laughed, then dropped us off back at the flats, then said thanks to God that his hire time with us was finished.
The next day was Christmas Eve and we would be starting out on safari. The biggest question looming heavily over all of our hearts was simply, "Would Santa come down the chimney in a tented camp?"