The rain in Kenya falls mainly on Joanna.

It’s been a while, dear reader. A while. And please rest assured that you have missed us more than we have missed you. So what have we done for the past few weeks? Not much.

One of the problems of being somewhere long term is that the new and exciting quickly becomes normal and mundane. An example of this would be the Karen Blixen museum. You may know her from books such as ‘Out of Africa’, or as I like to call it ‘Yes, I married my lover’s brother and cheated on him, weirdly caught syphilis, then made money from the story.’ Sorry for ruining the story if you haven’t seen the film.

And so, seeing as we are staying in Nairobi for longer than we thought (for reasons that are probably best left out of the public domain, darn Yankees), we have embarked on a campaign to see all that there is to see here, the Karen Blixen museum (aka her house) being the first to be crossed off.

 

The Karen Blixen museum is disappointing for many as Dennis Finch Hatton looks nothing like Robert Redford, and it proved to be a disappointment for us too, although this is mainly because it is wildly overpriced at nearly £7. The house is small (maybe 7 rooms, that’s a pound a room) and the original furnishings are long gone. A quick 10 minute squizz was all that was needed to do it justice.  Admittedly, there is a good view of the Ngong hills. Not a good verdict.

So we then decide to try out the wildlife walk in Nairobi National park. Described in the guide book as ‘a showcase of Kenya’s vast ecological diversity, the wetlands, the savannah… … are simulated behind concealed safety barriers to create an intimate environment which is both captivating and informative’. You can decide the veracity of this for yourselves (here’s hoping that more than one person bothers to read this) from the photos (but please note neither animal is native to Kenya).

Needless to say, it was wildly overpriced (as Jo told the ticket dude at great length). The icing on the cake being that we paid for it ourselves (a good use of EU grant money, me thinks not). We did however see what might have been a leopard, but it was miles away, up a tree and not moving (and in a cage). It may well have been dead. But we saw it.

Kenyan factoid of the day.  When it doesn’t rain the reservoirs from which much of Kenya’s electricity is generated become empty, so there are power cuts. When it does rain, transformers etc blow, so there are power cuts. This means (seeing as it is either raining or not raining) that we have power cuts nearly every day. 

And so to our title. Does the rain in Kenya really mainly fall on Joanna? Would it want to if it could? Probably not, she can be quite fierce. But boy can it hammer it down. The last few weeks have seen proper rain, and I mean proper. Roofs have leaked,springs have appeared in various parts of our pretty flat compound and water is coming through the walls of the main building. So, just for the fun of it, we have started putting gutters on the missionaries house. Hopefully this will stop the walls going inwards.

I must go now as Jo is half way through a bottle of wine and has started tickling my feet.