Tom says I have to post to the blog. We have had a lovely time decompressing here in Nairobi, and are much indebted to our wonderful hosts, Michael and Viviane Chung. It’s true there are enormous horniblls in the tree outside our window, right here in this crazy, mixed-up city. It’s rather incongruous. While there are other astonishing birds flying around Nairobi (three kinds of ibis, Marabou storks, irridescent sunbirds), we seem to be blessed with the Hornbill Tree–a mixed blessing for sure, as Claire says they are shockingly loud. I’m surprised by how green and sort of jungly Nairobi is, a city of contradictions. Gray air, green trees, kind people, rough streets (you don’t really walk anywhere), a casual sensibility twined with ridiculous beaurocracy. So much fun to take it all in. In our threesome, I seem to be the only one that loved visiting Karen Blixen’s (Isak Dinesen) house (not unexpected), about an hour out of town. Claire took one look at the leopard and lion skin rugs (complete with bared teeth), and proclaimed “These people are mean–I hate them!” And she left. The house is very simple and pretty, and the setting at the foot of the Ngong hills is gorgeous–so I got to indulge my little woman-author-in-post-Victorian-Kenya fantasies before a nice, long, jet-lagged nap. We’re packing up this morning before catching a small plane to Mombasa and the Colobus Trust–we’re looking forward to getting out of the city. Thank you everyone for all the warm wishes.

(Hi, it’s Claire..) Right now ,as I write, I look out the window and see many different kinds of birds. My favorite is the trumpeter hornbill. They has a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge bill and come swoopind down landing in the trees all the time. They also make a loud honking noise(it sounds like they’re laughing). ” Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” they say. Today we are leaving Nairobi and going to a place where we work with Colobus monkeys. I love it here, but now it is time to go on another adventure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a quick post, thanks for all of your comments which we are enjoying and make us feel connected. Today was a mellow “recover from jetlag” day with a morning at the Nairobi National Museum and an afternoon just chilling in the apartment, followed by a fabulous Lebanese dinner out with our hosts.

Wednesday we fly to Mombasa and drive the the Colobus Trust to begin our volunteer stint there; we’ll do our best to keep posting frequently.

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.

Originally uploaded by furtwangl

(From Claire): Getting licked by a giraffe is quite an experience! You have a piece of giraffe food in your lips and the giraffe grabs it with its tongue and eats it! Slobbery, but fun.

The flight here was SO long, it seemed as though it would never end. But here we are, having so much fun! We’ve already been to the giraffe center, and walked through some beautiful woods. We saw some very interesting birds! One was blue and shiny orange (Ly sez: Africa Paradise Flycatcher). I love it here!

I’m at Nairobi airport - Spotted them in at the baggage carousel! Yay!

Hello from Nairobi, where I traveled uneventfully from Addis this morning. Lyanda and Claire are enjoying an afternoon somewhere in the environs of Heathrow Airport, and we are about 31 hours from rendez vous.

The joys of travel serendipity have already begun - I was in the immigration line at Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi when I heard “Tom Furtwangler?” and turned to find my friend Dr Michael Chung and his wife and son, returning from a week long conference in Uganda. He’s a UW researcher who lives here, and one thing led to another and I here I am at their place, we’ll stay in their guest bedroom for the next few days, enjoy their company, and save a few bucks. Not only that, but another old friend from I-TECH, Emily B, happens to be in Nairobi this weekend, and we’ll have dinner tonight. (And just to complete the small world theme, Steve Gloyd and James Pfeiffer of HAI, who happened to be on my plane from Seattle to Amsterdam, happened to be on Emily’s plane today from Kampala to Nairobi… The reason for all this Kampala traffic was the big PEPFAR meeting last week, so these intersections aren’t all that strange, but it is still a little surprising to run into people you know so far from home).

Theoretically I just configured my phone to post by SMS, so the next post should be a text message with our local mobile phone number (I bought a SIM card at the airport). Feel free to text us, but remember we are 10 hours ahead of Seattle.