We had a few food questions so I am leaving this to auto-post while we safari. Almost everywhere we stayed in Kenya we were in homes or volunteer shared housing where a cook made dinner and sometimes lunch, and we were left on our own to make breakfast in the kitchen. Typically with a scary gas stove - I have no hair left on my knuckles from lighting them with matches.

For breakfast Claire eats local Kenyan cornflakes (with 3.3% milk!) and Lya and I usually have fried eggs and toast. With Africafe instant coffee. Claire eats PB&J for lunch. We are buying bread and PB&J for her along the way. They also have processed cheese slices here, so occasional cheese sandwiches. And TONS of fruit, it is mango season, and watermelon, and papaya, and Claire loves the sweet tiny bananas. And passionfruit. Etc.

One of the big coastal dishes is chapatis and beans, Claire eats that happily. Also pilao rice, which is tasty. Lentils are made here too, into a dal (both yellow and brown), and Claire eats that. And we’ve run across our share of pasta and pizza, in fact A Rocha served chapatis and beans last night, and pasta with red sauce today before we left.

Food on safari next week will be interesting, we bring a cook with us who cooks 3 meals a day. We’ll report back.

• Tom: Someone asked our coordinates. House is: Lat 3 deg 41. 063 min south by 39 deg 51.409 min east. #
• Tom: Center + clinic: 3 deg 41.642 s by 39 deg 50.707 east. Google sat photo is October 2003. #

• From Claire: I am going 2 school here this week. The school here is very different. #
• CEF: The school has blackboards not whiteboards, no glass in the windows just screens, and no electricity. #
• CEF: I like Holy Rosary better, but it is fun to go to school in a different place. #
• Here in the village we are having more fun than ever before!!! I miss everyone!!! #

Morning school meeting.

Originally uploaded by furtwangl

Lyanda: Hello dear friends! Our walk to Kilifi this morning was truly beautiful–a couple/few ultra-peaceful miles through the plantations to the road, then a matatu into the town, which Tom says reminds him of the old west. We walked through the rickety stalls and shops, and changed traveler’s checks in a bank that truly did seem like it could be robbed at any moment by Butch Cassidy, in slightly modified attire. This morning I was packing Claire’s lunch for school, and she said, “white bread and peanute butter for breakfast AND lunch again? We told her, “Mommy and Daddy are walking five miles to get you corn flakes and mangos, so you just better be grateful!” We’re like Pa Ingalls. Claire is doing so awesome–the more off the beaten path we get, the more she seems to love it, and just settles right in. Traveling with Tom is also a treat–he is so at-home and savvy about the sometimes-opaque logistics of east-african travel. Part of it is experience, of course, but part of it is a gift–a matter of heart, which I appreciate. We’ll pick up a few groceries here, then head back the path we came to Takaungu–I’ll pick up CLaire at school, while Tom does his video work. We are all tremendously well and happy. xo, L

Greetings from the little town of Kilifi. We are staying in Takaungu village, but today after dropping Claire at school in the village, Lyanda and I took the little village boat across the inlet, walked two and a half miles across a beautiful (if depressing from an ecological perspective) sisal plantation, down a long baobab tree-shaded lane, then caught a minibus into town in search of some internet, some cash, and some peanut butter from the store.
Life in Takaungu village this week is great. We are guests of the East African Center, a community development project founded by a Seattle woman, and now the site of multiple vibrant programs, and multiple American volunteers. I visited Takaungu village in 2002 when the program was just getting started, to make their first fundraising video. It’s great to be back, in many ways it’s just as I left it (slow pace, laid back village, simple poverty of most of the homesteads) and in many ways there have been big changes – The East African Center now runs a primary school, a clinic, and many other programs.

Claire really wanted to go to the school, and so she’s there (in “Standard Four”) today for a second day, sitting in the little tin-roof classroom with the other kids, enjoying the strict pattern of rote memorization and formality that is the hallmark of even progressive private Kenyan education. (Ask, “how are you, children?” and all the children jump to their feet and yell in unison “We are very fine teacher!”) The school is about half Muslim and half Christian, and the school girls were a little shy on Monday. As fascinated by Claire as she was by them, they were still hesitant to actually talk to her or engage her yesterday. But Claire was excited to go back today (even though the 45 minutes of incomprehensible daily Swahili class is “really boring”), and hopefully the girls are all warming up and finding things to giggle about.

Meanwhile Lyanda and I have mostly just wandered the village, soaking in the sights, greeting the folks we wander past, and jumping under leafy mango trees when the occasional torrential cloudburst threatens to soak us to the core. Mangos are in season here, big juicy ripe mangos practically dripping from every tree, and the corn is knee high, and the women seem to spend about half the day toting enormous jugs of water back and forth to their homes, balanced on top of their heads.

Today (after the 2.5 mile walk back) I’ll start helping the center with a little video project, and try to squeeze in a couple of Kiswahili classes with Mr Aziz the retired teacher they have engaged for the volunteers, but mostly it’s just a slow-paced week of village life. We don’t have e-mail in the village so I’m just posting text messages from my phone from there, but you can trust that we are comfortable and happy, and we’ll get back to the blog and upload more village pictures from Watamu this weekend.

Arrived Takaungu village safely. Limited internet but nice house + Claire’s excited to attend school here.