Going out in Kenya

February 27, 2006

Today was a great monkey-watching day! It began by raining, which
normally doesn't make me (Monica) happy, but after 2-1/2 weeks of 95
to 120 degree weather and no air conditioning (note we just bought a
fan two day ago), the rain was nice. It also made it easier to find
the monkeys since they tend to be more active when it rains. Also,
the sound of the rain and the soaked ground made us less noisy when
moving through the forest. Once we found the monkeys we managed to
stay with them the WHOLE day. This was definitely a first. They
even let us get relatively close at some points…14 feet. This was
close enough for us to really hone in on our group and the features
that help us tell them apart, their tails and nipples. I know this
sounds funny, but hey, no two nipples are alike! ;-) We counted at
least 15 individuals in the group. At least 7 of these are females,
and least 3 of them have infants. There are at least 5 juveniles in
the group and then of course, our boy, Maurice. These details will
make it much easier to make sure we are following the right group of
monkeys and plot out their ranges. I hope more days are like this.

Steffen left for Kakamega today and won't be back for two months so
aside from some email correspondence from him, we will be on our own.
He says we are doing fine so far, so that sounds promising. Speaking
of good news, Monica found out that she is officially accepted into
the SFSU master's program! Nadia left work early, so Leslie, Scott,
and I walked into Gede with Patrick, then took the matatu to Turtle
Bay where we took Boda Bodas. Max was there waiting for me (I had
made a deal with him so he will likely always be my Boda Boda guy. He
is really nice and is studying Italian. I think it is good for
Kenyans to know Italian here because there are so many Italian
tourists, and tour guides make some decent money. We had dinner, took
showers, and are off to bed.

Swahili phrase of the day: Tunapenda kula chapati na maharagwe (We
like to eat chapati and beans)

February 26, 2006

Being up until 3am took its toll on everyone and no one went into to
Gede until after lunch. Monica slept in then went to Watamu with
Nadia. Scott went snorkeling with Sara and Steffen and saw some
amazing fish and coral in the marine park, taking advantage of the 1/2
meter tide. Unfortunately, Scott burned his backside badly (karma…see
entry from 2/20). Our monkey watching was fruitless, as the monkeys
were only on our side of the fence for about 1 hr and we spent the
rest of the day waiting for them to come back across the fence. Very
frustrating, although, I will say we are progressing with our Swahili
because of it.

We've learned to bring our Swahili book in case we have down times,
and today we got through two chapters. We are now on chapter 14. We
had chapati na marahague tonight, did some reading, and went to bed.

Swahili phrase of the day: Sikukuelewa (I don't understand you.)

February 25, 2006

We watched monkeys, but that was not the interesting part. At 5pm we
piled into Nadia's car (Monica, Leslie, Scott, and Nadia) to return to
Mwamba and change/shower before heading off to Pilipan for Nadia's
going away dinner. Monica and I showered and even had time to do
laundry while waiting for the others to get ready. We finally left
Mwamba at 6:15pm and made it to Pilipan in time to watch the sunset.
Unfortunately, it was not as spectacular as it usually is (there were
too many clouds). We all ordered cocktails (which we were assured by
the waiter, after a prolonged meeting w/the other waitstaff at the
bar, that the drinks were all under 300ksh). We texted Steffen to
determine when he was coming and he replied that he hadn't known we
would leave so early. We ordered some yummy food (Monica had chicken
tikki w/ nan and Scott had grilled tuna, medium rare, w/white bean
salad and french fries) and talked while watching the sunset and the
twilight creep in. Steffen finally arrived at approx 7:45pm and the
food came a few minutes later (which in hindsight meant that we waited
over an hour for our food). The meal was good, and we were ready to
move on to Ocean Sports. The bill came and 3 of our cocktails were
450ksh, so we had to argue with the waiter and then the manager that
we should not have to pay 450ksh per drink when we were quoted 300.
Finally, after Scott played hardball, they gave in and changed the
bill, so we paid the bill exactly (leaving no tip) and left.
Ocean Sports was rather quiet because a group of ex-pats and British
holiday-types were clustered quietly around the TV at the bar to watch
a rugby game between Scotland and England. I was surprised to see
that when watching these types of games, it isn't a rowdy affair, but
more like watching golf. J No one was happy when Scotland won…Nadia
said it was expected. We ordered a round of Sambuka, a blue liquor
that tastes like liquorice cough syrup (an unpleasant surprise). We
tried to light Nadia's mouth ablaze again like we did in Malindi, but
with disasterous results again. Monica lit a match but the match went
out when she was prepared for it. Then by the time Monica had lit
another, Nadia was no longer ready, but Monica did it anyway. She
spit it all over her top and skirt…oops! J Luckily, the blue stains
came out in the wash under Michael's expert hand. The party would not
get started at Ocean Sports, so we called Steffen and headed over to
the "Comeback Club" to meet Steffen and Moses.

Oh the Comeback Club…what a surreal experience. When we arrived, we
waited for approx 20 minutes for Steffen to arrive, giving Nadia the
chance to work her magic and get us in for only 200ksh (we were
supposed to pay 600ksh)! We headed for the pool table and proceeded
to play two games that never ended! Apparently, every single one of
us is terrible at pool…ridiculously bad! I think the locals were
annoyed that it took us so long and at the same time very amused that
anyone could be so bad! After giving up halfway through the second
game, we went dancing there. This was quite the experience. All of
the music was Swahili rap/dance and a drugged up Kenyan prostitute
kept grinding on Leslie, who was dancing the funniest dance (picture a
big cheesy grin, raised eyebrow, and moves like the characters in
Peanuts). The prostitute moved on to Steffen (they tend to gravitate
toward wazungu males). Steffen fought back the way a Sykes monkey
would, by constantly turning his back on her. She did not seem to
take the not-so-subtle hints though. At about 2am, the music turned
off and the lights came on so "the show" could set up. I won't say
that we were not curious, but we were sadly disappointed. While they
were setting up, the prostitute in the black strappy top and short
neon green skirt, took an interest in Scott. Scott was obviously
repulsed by her, which just made Monica think it was funny. Finally,
she took the hint (i.e. Scott yelling, "Go away!" and "Don't do touch
me!") and decided to grind with the performers on stilts.

Yes, by this time the show was underway and there were two guys on
stilts dancing. There were also three guys in zebra print tops and
loin cloths who did contortionist tricks, bent a metal bar with there
teeth, contorted body through a metal hoop in many fascinating ways,
etc. If that wasn't surreal enough we had the background vocals of
D.J. Swen, a Swiss guy rapping in French, along with a local rapping
in Swahili. He was even doing a '90s bebox. Surreal! That was the
point where we left with Nadia and came home and went to bed.

Swahili phrase of the day: Siku njema (Good day)

February 24, 2006

A night of drowning in our own sweat left both of us exhausted in the
morning, but that was to be no more. We hitched a ride with Nadia into
Malindi and did a lot of little errands before returning to Gede. We
found inexpensive silver wedding rings, got a lot of stamps at the
post office, found calling cards, did email, and most importantly we
bought a floor standing electric fan … no more sweaty nights! We
caught a matatu back to Gede, and we had a lot of "crazy wazungo"
looks (it is odd to see people with a large electric fan across their
laps).

Swahili phrase of the day: Mimi ni joto. (I am hot.)

February 23, 2006

Pretty normal day. The male of the east group has been getting less
skittish, and the rest of the group stayed in sight all day. To
celebrate we bought a liter of ice cream and gorged ourselves on the
drive home. We've been enjoying the wildlife noises, like the hornbill
that sounds like a crying child and the bush baby which sounds like a
meowing street cat. Btw, watch out for Monica, she's deadly at rummy
(playing cards are saving our sanity on the slow days)

Swahili phrase of the day: Mimi ni choka (I am tired.)

February 22, 2006

Today we both took a day off and woke up to watch the sunrise
together, which is amazing over this part of the world … we also have
it on digital photo and movie J. After a quick swim, we walked to Plot
15 to talk with Sara Engel about rentals in Watamu
(http://www.discoverwatamu.com), and they are pretty gorgeous places.
Though we weren't interested for the long term, and she really had
nothing for more than a few weeks), we will definitely keep them in
mind for a getaway weekend or if people come to visit (hint, hint).
Prices start around 6000 Ksh for a house to rent, and many have house
staff that can cook and clean for you! Despite not having anything for
our immediate concerns, she gave us a few leads that we are following
up.

We left and caught a boda boda (bicycle with a padded seat on the
back) up to the Bio-Ken Snake Farm. The boda boda guys are
hit-or-miss, and we had a guy who was quite pushy in trying to
overcharge wazungu … we usually try to avoid him, but today he was at
the right place. The snake farm is 700 KSh per person, which is a lot
for here, but it is for a great cause. The farm produces anti-venom
for the Watamu-Malindi region as a service to the less wealthy
inhabitants (anti-venom costs about 4000 KSh per vial and may require
up to 3 vials for a single victim). It was fascinating, and our guide
Joseph was quite knowledgeable and has a great sense of humor. We saw
a black mamba (really it's silver, but the rumor is that the inside of
its mouth is coal black and hence the name), green mamba, a puff
adder, and several other kinds of indigenous snakes. The mambas can be
identified by their big "smiley" mouth … the better to eat you with,
and the puff adder is short, fat, camouflaged as leaves, and does not
like to move but at least makes a loud Darth Vader huffing sound if
you get too close. The mambas and the puff adder are very poisonous,
but then again you would have to avoid medical attention for at least
12 hours to be in any serious danger. We also saw some very long
pythons; Joseph told us that before the establishment of the national
parks, many people who shared the same home ranges as the pythons
would be constricted and eaten by 5m+ pythons.

We caught a boda boda to Watamu and then a matatu to Timboni. We
stopped at the Bits and Bites Café for chapati na maharagwe, passion
fruit juice, and an order of chips (French fries … which were quite
good). We bought some button-up short sleeve shirts for Scott, a
little Tupperware container for lunches, and a couple of shirts for
Monica.

We took a matatu and boda boda back to Plot 28 and worked on
downloading and labeling our digital photos of monkeys. Hopefully, we
will soon have some nice info sheets on each of the monkeys in the
groups we've been following. We ended with a 5:30 swim and watched the
beach boys harass the two new wazungu girls at Mwamba. After dinner we
studied a bit of Swahili and then went to sleep.

Note: I have decided to include a "Swahili phrase of the day" in each
blog entry so here goes: Tutonona baadaye (See you later)