Big ‘wasp’ to big hand!

A lesson I inadvertently learnt at church last Sunday is that it’s best not to swat the ‘fly’ that you think is buzzing round your head until you’ve actually verified its identity. The ‘fly’ in this case turned out to be either a wasp or hornet - I never did see it. Kenyan wasps and hornets look pretty nasty – and I can certainly confirm that it feels pretty nasty to be on the receiving end of a sting! Whilst I didn’t see it, other senses sprang into action: I was immediately very aware of a sharp and painful sensation in the fourth finger of my right hand. Thankfully, I was able to remove my ring before the swelling began. Amazingly this had receded in time for the concert that I was playing in with Nairobi Orchestra that afternoon, but came back with a vengeance as the concert ended. By the next morning, my entire hand was red, swollen, itchy, blistered..... and painful. Doing anything with it, let alone play the flute part of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite as I had the previous afternoon, was out of the question. Cellulitis had somehow set in – I guess that beastly bug hadn’t cleaned its stinger recently!! It’s perhaps a bit grisly to have a photo of my poor hand here (with the left one to show the contrast) but I figure that I’ve previously featured a very dirty foot, so why not this?! I’m very thankful to report that with the help of prayer, a cocktail of antihistamine, antibiotics and hydrocortisone cream, plus resting it as much as possible, the swelling is gradually starting to go down – and I can actually type this without too much discomfort!

How did we get here?!

Last Monday was Madaraka Day, a national holiday in Kenya to commemorate the attainment 46 years ago of internal self-rule. A friend, Annemieke, and I chose to get out of the city for the day. En route, I drove past Nyayo Stadium where various public ceremonies are held during the year,the celebration of Madaraka being one of them. I passed many buses parked alongside the road with various uniformed military and public service personnel going this way and that. I’m sure they were very orderly in the stadium, but outside was a different matter for some of them at least. A few looked decidedly dishevelled, jackets only partly done up; some were talking on mobile phones; guns were carried very casually. Not exactly a picture of military precision.

Anyway, back to the day out. We started out with the intention of driving from Ngong town to Suswa volcano. Almost as soon as we left Ngong, we hit dirt road and seemed to be in a different country altogether with a vast openness, and sweeping views across the Rift Valley. Looking back, the knuckle of Ngong Hills stood out very clearly. Our guidebook was written 18 years ago. It’s normally pretty accurate, but things do change – particularly the condition of dirt roads. Having navigated our way around some shallow gullies in the road, we came to one that was about 5 feet deep. Whilst we could possibly have got around it, it didn’t bode well for what lay ahead. So, instead we had lunch in the semishade of a whistling thorn tree, enjoying the absolute absence of any manmade sounds, and then turned back. By this time, the sky behind us was black with the threat of an oncoming storm. Having seen the gullies in the road, I didn’t fancy being caught out there in a downpour. We had a choice of 3 routes: Go back the way we’d come; Go another way that I’d done the previous year (and which I’d heard since was washed away in parts); or try something new which would bring us out on the Magadi Road. Being adventurous souls, we opted for the latter.

It was great, taking us a different way, and in parts along rocky roads down into the Valley. After driving for a while though, we realised that we’d completely missed wherever it was that we were meant to go, as we’d gone way further than the guidebook was indicating that we should have - and no tarmac road in sight! At one T-junction, children were clammering for biscuits (we had none) or a ride in the car (they evidently had never been taught not to accept a lift from strangers!). We asked for directions for the road to Magadi , and were pointed off leftwards. This road had some vicious bumps over drainage pipes (an indication of what the rains could do). The occasional habitation brought some comfort, whilst signs of electricity caused great excitement! At one point, we were trying to follow some electricity pylons, the logic being that they probably ran parallel to the road – if they did (other than the one we were on), we didn’t see it! We wound up eventually in something that resembled a mud river bed rather than a road, though were encouraged to see tyre tracks. When the river bed became scrub, the tracks ran out……. At this point, two Maasai very handily came on the scene. We asked for the road to Nairobi, figuring that as that was where we actually wanted to go, it would be more useful – after all, we didn’t want to wind up in Magadi as it’s about 100km from Nairobi! They indicated that they were going to Mai Mahiu so could direct us there. At this point, we were flummoxed. Mai Mahiu is a town in completely the opposition direction to the one we had thought that we were going in. How on earth had we wound up there? We had to laugh, especially as the mountain that we’d commented on as ‘looking like Mount Longonot’ was indeed that very volcano that stands out in the view of the Rift Valley from the escarpment on the Nairobi-Naivasha road. The Maasai guided us very adeptly along barely discernable tracks, knowing which would be the best for the vehicle. How we’d have got home without them , I don’t know. It was certainly quite a trip out. Not sure I could retrace our steps, but I do want to find out where on earth we went wrong!

Feeding Frenzy

I seem to be mentioning birds quite a bit, especially since I started feeding them. They are quite fascinating though – even my househelp has started commenting on them. Great entertainment value with their antics, colours and song (they seem to enjoy my fluting too!). It has to be said though that they are very messy eaters. Millet, bread, rice, sugar water etc seems to get scattered everywhere in the midst of the feeding frenzy, giving my plants and balcony a speckled look. I think even downstairs gets a share!

An Unexpected Visitor

A bird in a tree outside? No, this little fella (a female Red-billed firefinch, I think – the ornithologists out there can correct me on that) had somehow flown into my flat and was sitting in the ficus in my living room on Friday evening, seemingly feeling very comfortable there – not at all keen to fly outside into the dark night. After a bit of persuasion, and moving the pot so that the branch he was on was actually sticking out of the balcony door, he eventually left. Thankfully, not too many deposits were left behind!

Dust, dust and more dust!

A friend, Jill, suggested I post this photograph of my foot on my blog. Not quite the sort of photograph I’d normally post of myself (or even have taken!). Despite being a very fine foot (not sure Teva would use it for advertising though!), it really is very, very dirty! It is an indication of just how dry and dusty it is here at the moment. Jill, another friend, MaryAnne, and I were away last weekend at a small lake next to Lake Naivasha. We had a great time relaxing and enjoying the plentiful wildlife that was right on our doorstep – hippo, gazelle, dikdik, impala, zebra, hartebeest, giraffe, bright pink flamingo, and many, many other species of birds. One of the striking things over the weekend was the number of dust devils that we saw, one of which was particularly dense and wide. I wouldn’t have liked to have been in its path. The other striking memory is of the amount of smoke, and sometimes flames, that we could see from bush fires. Everywhere is so, so dry. On our final morning we went in search of the main lake, and after walking for an hour or so along paths thick with dust (some of which was following in the wake of a herd of cattle being led to drink), eventually found it. Hence, the dirty foot (the other one was equally so!). Thankfully, the rains seem to have started now, though it’s going to take a lot of rain to provide all the water that’s desperately needed in this dry, dusty and parched land.

Bony Bovines

Most of the year, but particularly during the hot dry season, it’s fairly normal in Nairobi to come across herds of cattle being led along or across the road by Masai herdsmen. We often have herds in the plot of land outside our office window, the jingling of cowbells indicating their arrival. The cattle are brought towards the city in search of pasture as the land becomes increasingly dry, and the grass brown (the rains are due the end of this month). This morning was no exception. I was driving to work from Karen, having overnighted with friends after home group, and took the ring road. (A word of explanation here – it will be the ring road one day. At the moment, it’s a very dusty (especially at this time of year), bumpy and narrow murram track, but it provides a good route for me to get to work, as it bypasses some of the worst traffic hold-ups. It can itself be a bottleneck however, particularly in the rains when it becomes a quagmire, or when something slightly too wide comes the other way! This time of year, clouds of dust (which can be seen from afar) signal the approach of another vehicle. A number of vehicles had their headlights on this morning in an attempt to be slightly more visible.) Immediately after turning onto the ring road, the route ahead of me was blocked by a mass of bony bovine backsides! However, it wasn’t long before the 2 Masai steered them off the road so that I could continue on my dusty way.

Sunbirds on the balcony

A friend recently gave me a sunbird feeder. It’s a relatively simple design, with an upturned bottle in a metal wire ‘nest’, the open end of the bottle resting in a small pyrex dish. The physics of why all the water doesn’t run out is quite something. All to do with equal and opposite forces, or at least that’s what I’ve concluded in my attempts to dredge up my A-level physics! Initially I included some red food colouring in the sugar solution in order to attract the birds. It took them a week or so to figure out that this hanging object that had appeared on my balcony was something good. The downside was sticky patches over my balcony and plants, where the sweet syrup had either been splashed, or alternatively where a mob of sunbirds had upset the balance on the suspended bottle. (I initially thought I had an infestation of some sort, until I realised what it actually was!) By the time I came back from Togo, the bottle was empty. Since then, I’ve refilled a couple of times, though now I use a glucose solution which is clear. It is delightful to watch the birds, such as the variable sunbird in the photo, come and feed.