Lyanda and Claire arrived safely last night and our adventures began this morning with giraffe licks, though even before that I had spent a wonderful Sunday breakfasting with a video producer colleague and then somewhat spontaneously joining her in preparing and distributing food to some folks in need at a small, poor church and school (long story, but a great experience on many levels).

Then catching up with my old colleague Emily at garden party, which was great. And finally, at 8:30, off with a sweet taxi driver named Boniface (who we kept today), to get Lyanda and Claire at the airport. Waiting there, the minutes slowly ticking by as the arrivals board showed the flight “arrived,” but no sign of its passengers in the baggage area (visible through glass if I elbowed my way through the hotel drivers holding name signs), and then finally, there they were! An unmistakable pair in there, headed for the baggage carousel. So, partly to pass the time while they were so close and yet still off behind glass and customs, waiting for their luggage, I suddenly remembered I could create an amazingly powerful demonstration of how wired the word is, and post to the blog from my cell phone, alerting all and sundry to their safe arrival.

After fitful sleep, today: In addition to the giraffe feeding (which was, indeed, a truly awesome experience), we spent the rest of this morning wandering the trails in the small forest sanctuary the giraffe center maintains across the street (which is seemingly almost never visited by the tourists, but teeming with bird life), and then visited the Karen Blixen House museum nearby, to have a taste of old Kenya complete with leopard skin rug (which promptly caused Claire to flee for the gardens in appalled horror). “I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong hills…”

Later in the afternoon we chilled at the Chungs’ apartment and sat on their fourth floor deck watching hornbills, ibis, pied crows, kites, and assorted other avifauna in the Jacaranda trees around the building. Yeah, hornbills. Seriously.

Tomorrow, the national museum, then we take our leave of the Chungs and head for 9 days at the Colobus Trust on the coast. We’ll try to post more photos from Nairobi onto our Flickr.com account before we go.

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