Natural Blue Light Shows

At the beach this year I went swimming at night. It was about 9 O'clock and the water was so black except for the edge of foam where the waves lapped against the shore. We went swimming because the phosphorescence was in the water. These are tiny algae that glow when you move in the water.

I floated there in the black with one of the cousins, looking up at the far lights of the stars, and the nearer lights of the welcoming houses on the beach. It was an experience that brought me into an acute awareness of my body as well as a wish to use every part of it. With each swish under the water my skin was alight with a ghostly blue shimmer. My legs kicked and the colour flowed down my leg and off my toes. My fingers twinkled like I was making magic.

Just a few weeks later Emma and I were in Windhoek. The air there was very dry. Each night at about 3am the air chilled. When I moved a blanket over Emma her crib lit up with eerie blue sparks jumping off the blanket and rebounding around her.

Emma update, long over-due!

So much has happened and so much has grown in our lives. We are now settled into Nanyuki after plenty of travel, lots of wonderful time with family and friends, and for Keir, a trip around France and Spain.

Emma is occupied with watching, as she calls it, a movie. It's about a Bear in a big blue house who teaches his wee companions to use the potty. I love it because she is inevitably thrilled about using the potty during or after a viewing.

It is just impossible to explain how grown she is, how she is a personality and smart and thoughtful and working everything out but then also so small and so tiny and you remember that she has only been in the world for two years.

She has started school! She goes three days a week for two and half hours each morning. It's really not long but just long enough as we come home and she heads straight to bed! We started off with me staying with her and then leaving for longer and longer periods at a time. Now she is so confident and knows the routines of her classroom. Her favourite of all is painting where she is quick to cover her hands and feet in paint and use her whole body as a paintbrush. Each Thursday they wear their swimsuits and have water play, which is so much fun with all the kids in and out of the tubs and in and out of the sand pit.

She has 5 other children who are in class with her, some days there are only two of them and some days all the children come in. You can tell how many by how ragged the teachers look. Hehe.

She is also slowly working on the potty training. We are still in the stages of familiarising her with the idea and she luuurves to sit and read on the potty. She also (like any good quinn girl) likes to run around with no diaper, which makes her Daddy very anxious and we had to get rid of the lounge carpet in case of accidents.

She is still incredibly cuddly and lovely and every moment with her is fun and special and active. But we really do have to keep her brain working or she gets bored and then the frustrated two year old comes out and it is NOT pretty!

poop of all kinds

Emma has started to talk about things that have happened weeks ago and her memory is quite exacting. We must talk about the entire incident once she has remembered it, repeating the most salient points multiple times.

One example of this is from a visit we made to a farm with Grandma and Dad. At the farm we watched a sheep having his tummy sheared to keep him clean until his whole body was ready to be sheared. Now every time we see a sheep or sing Baa Baa Black Sheep we must go over how the "Teep's" "tummy" was "cup" (cut) and keeps him "keen" (clean).

THEN last week Daddy took her to the zoo. There they saw a panda. The panda ambled over to where Em and Daddy had their noses pressed to the glass and took a spectacular poop. Apparently panda's poop is bright pink, and somewhere between the consistency of cow pats and dog poop, as K named it: panda pate! Upon observing the panda vent his bowels Emma cried heartily. Since then, we discussed at length how "pana's poop" on the "gound" and how "I cried" when that happened.

The panda pooping on the ground has also sparked discussion of where everyone else poops. Mommy and Daddy poop in the "toilo" and Emma poops in the toilo and the diaper. This conversation happens almost always in public places and very loudly. On one particular incident where K was taking her into the bathroom with him, she said at the top of her voice: "Daddo poop toilo?"

Upon your return

I have paused in my umpacking from our epic trip to the states. Paused partly to have a cup of tea and partly to take stock of life.

This morning we have had multiple power cuts and there are extremely suspicious spiders all over the house that have met the wrong end of my slipper. We had a terrible sleeping night last night as Emma adjusts to another house and another bed. Also my internet is soooooo slooooow.

BUT! The sun is shining into the house, I boiled the kettle for tea between power outs and Em and I have already had a romp in the garden. Last year was tough in some ways but looking at pictures now I remember the really amazing ways it was good.

I find myself anticipating with some excitement what is to come this year. But as with all things in Kenya I am also glad that it is only for a year and this too will end.

I'll leave you with some of the pics from the year:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emma update

Man is she cute! Below are things that are cute that she did in a cute way:

On the metro today she pointed at a little boy and said loudly: "What is dat?" When I told her it was a boy she said: "Hiiii boi". UHOH!

When we arrived at the Grandparents' house and she was introduced to the cats she got right down on the floor in Utter Kharma's face and said: "Hiii Kiddy" about a hundred times 'til Atta got bored and left.

A few nights ago she found the clean cat bowls and took them to the bottom of the stairs. There she stood at the baby gate and called up to the cats who were hiding out on the second floor: "Ca-aaats, bllablllbib your Du-ude*".
*translation: Cats, come get your food.

She is insistent that she know where everyone in the house is at all times, so there is the endless question: "Ooh is Gampa, Gam'ma, Daddie, Cats?"

While we visited with a friend now known to us as 'Bina, Em found her Crocs and wore them around and around the house all week. A few days ago she woke up from her nap demanding 'Bina's Doos, So now we are sure that she does dream.

Months ago we decided to start instituting time out. Emma thought this was an excellent and hilarious game. She would engage in the naughty activity and then put herself in time out, telling herself sternly; "No! No!" K and I were laughing hysterically into the couch cushions. It's hard to be stern yourself in these moments.

There are hundreds more but now I can't remember them. Oh well... another post, another day.

Emma Update

Couldn't wait to share this. We have spent the week at the beach in North Carolina and Emma has loved every second. From all the attention from grandparents to digging in the sand with her cousin who is only two weeks older to playing in the waves with Mommy and Daddy.

Today was the last day at the beach and we had a slow start this morning as Emma woke at 3am and never really went back to sleep. So K and I were having breakfast while checking out mail and as we were almost done I casually said to K across the room: "Shall we head down to the beach?" Emma flung down her toy and barreled across the room shouting: "go, go, go, go BEACH!" It was adorable.

States side

Well we have successfully negotiated the very long trip across the pond. Amsterdam airport got massive thumbs up from us as a stopover. Not only do they have a play area with slides and "tree-houses" where Emma could stand and watch screaming, running, playing children with what can only be described as horror but they also have a quiet baby room. In this room there are curtained booths with cribs and cushioned couches for babies to take naps and parents to nap or check their email. This room also comes equipped with a microwave and actual baby baths with actual clean, hot, first world water. It was heaven.

K's Mom picked us up from the airport and we drove on the most fabulous roads. TARRED roads, roads with LINES and SIDEWALKS. Where people did not try to KILL YOU with their cars, motorbikes, bicycles or COWS.

Then this afternoon we went to pick up a few essentials at the grocery store and I made K walk up and down each aisle so that I could bask in the Americanness of things like individual size (as in for one meal) spices and 12 different kinds of M&M's.

Other wonderful things about the first world include not having to use drinking water to boil potatoes. But the BEST thing is being around my kitties again. Henry is giving me love right now and attempting to hijack the keyboard and Oleo is squeaking at everyone in the hope that someone will take pity on a poor starving cat. I have to leave ya'll now and go give them a group hug.

0;0'7"

We are still living in the southern hemisphere in our new little Nanyuki house. Which is a small fact that makes me as happy as all the other small facts about this house do.

Emma can run out of the house, out of the little gate and into a lovely lush garden. We spend a few hours each day playing outside with her balls or looking at crickets and grass and puddles and all kinds of good things.

The house has three bedrooms, one of which functions as K's office, a little dining room, excellent for playing Carcasonne and a large sunken lounge which opens onto the porch. The whole house has very quickly started to feel like home and I was surprised at how much less stressed I am here. I can leave my doors open and there is no Vervet to threaten Emma. She can run outside and no rabid hyena or curious leopard will steal her off the porch.

Also - and it seems like a small thing until you are without it for months - the shower is heavenly. Hot water, clean water and as much of it as you want. Emma's Grandma asked us if Emma liked bubble baths and we don't know as we have never had enough water to do a bubble bath!

So really, it turns out that I am a town mouse and not a country mouse as I have always thought myself to be.

 

Taking a shower is an amusing endeavor these days. The borehole pump is broken and we have river water in our taps. Initially this was fine, the water was the colour of weak tea and you still felt like you were clean when you got done. In the past couple of weeks it has bucketed down and the river has swelled.

Now the water is more like builders tea, with leaves in it. Apparently the trick is not to use conditioner. A lesson I did not learn. The conditioner binds the mud to your hair and you are instantly blessed with dreads.

Emma is a bathwater drinker so you can imagine our reticence to bathing her in the tea. So we have come up with an overly complex plan. We take rain water and boil it in a pot, then use a UV light on it and then filter it. Then we re-boil it to be warm enough for her to bath in. We use just two liters for each bath and put her in the pool donated by a friendly visiting Mom.

This lovely clean water is too good to resist so often I take a bath in it too. Initially I would try and sit in her pool with my legs hanging over the end and pretty much just my butt in the water. When that proved ineffectual except for having a clean bottom I decided to stand in the water and use an empty yoghurt tub to "shower". In this way I get relatively clean.

 

Miscellany

There have been some large grey Heron's hanging around the Center recently and we have been speculating as to what they could be doing here. It has not been that wet that there could be an over abundance of frogs. Well Emma and I saw the answer in technicolour and up close a few days ago.

The heron was stalking the large pile of stones that protects the cistern up from up our house and suddenly it speared into the long grass with its beak. It held a mouse dangling from by the tail and let it wriggle there for a while.

Emma and I watched in fascinated horror, and on my part a little queasiness as the heron swung the mouse around and got him head first inside his beak. At this point the mouse started squeaking in pain or fright and I wondered at the wisdom of letting Emma witness this. I was so transfixed though that I couldn't move. A few beak snaps later and the mouse was in the Heron's gizzard where we could watch it wiggling and turning trying to get out.

Then the final horror as the Heron swallowed and we watched the still wriggling mouse get pushed down the gullet swallow by swallow. Even now, remembering and writing this down I feel a little like throwing up. Poor mouse, lucky Heron.

Emma update

Emma is now at 106 words and adding new ones every day! Her favourite of the week is Pawpaw. She has a little board book of fruits and we think she just loves the word rather than the fruit. She is also using "another one" and loves to point out things where there is another one; another one car, another one shoe, another one pigeon.
We are most excited that she is starting to string words together. Her first "sentence" being; "Emma come Dadad" when she wanted to go to K's arms. She can also count to three and when there are many of a particular thing she says; " wa, doo, tee, hamammam" as she can't seem to remember four.

How to drive yourself crazy

You could either do it a-la Jane in Coupling and open the fridge again and again to make sure the light has gone off or you can take the route I took last night as laid out below.

Settle your daughter back to sleep in the middle of the night. Then lie awake in your bed staring at the mosquito net and listening to the roof. Imagine that each conk, thud and nnk is the sound of a large and hungry predatory leopard crossing the roof to eat your baby. Then imagine you hear a noise outside that sounds like a leopard jumping off the roof. Leap out of bed, fight the mosquito net and dash to the window to peer out into the dark fearfully. Stand there for a while slapping at the mozzies munching your adrenaline fueled flesh and try and make cat shapes out of the bushes. Then convince yourself they were just the usual roof noises and there are no shapes in the bushes. Go back to bed. Rinse, repeat.

If you like, you can add the following:
Lie awake in your bed composing this blog and diligently ignoring the noises on the roof which really do sound ominous this time.

It's just not cricket.

Yesterday we went into Nanyuki to sign our lease and then stayed in town for a fundraising day of cricket. The cricket was to happen at the Braeburn school and of course we turned up on time but everyone else was on Kenyan time. So we took ourselves off to a coffee shop to waste a little time.

When we went back it was so a lovely scene. I have always loved cricket watched live. The hushed conversations of the fans on the sides, the quiet consultations in the middle of the pitch by the players and the muted thwack and occasional thud of the ball and bat connecting always makes me feel calm inside. In this scene the grass was a brilliant green and the players slow moving white against it. Behind them, and ignored was the statuesque mountain, wreathed in clouds and looking down ominously on the field.

We had a lovely morning of meeting new people and catching up with old friends but I also realised that this year is going to be hard work. It is always hard work to make new friends and meet new people. The first task of which is to remember their names, which neither K nor I are any good at. Ironically though, we are really good at remembering people's dogs names!

What's Next?

This is a question our little family has been asking every year since we got married. Four countries and ten houses in ten years. Last year this question led us to Kenya and this year it has led to us staying in Kenya for another year.

We will be moving to Nanyuki which is the nearest town and K will commute into Mpala three days a week. The little house we have found is on the same street as the Police Commissioner, which I am told means that when we lose power, have potholes etc, it is not for long. The house is much smaller and darker than our incredible house at Mpala but has the bonus of constant electricity and (Hallelujah!!!) hot water in the taps. No more splishing and splashing in Emma's used two inches of slightly chilled bathwater. The house has a lovely garden and porch so we will still have an outdoors to enjoy and we always have the option of going into Mpala with Keir for a day to visit our dikdiks and hornbills.

Most excitingly we have found a little school for Emma to attend, it is the Braeburn Nanyuki. The school has a lovely campus, in the shadow of Mt. Kenya with ranch style individual classrooms organised around gardens of different kinds and plenty of outdoor space for the kids to play in. There is also a petting zoo complete with turkeys! She will go for four hours, three days a week and initially I will go with her. It is really more like a play group than formal schooling and they focus on helping the children with language and social skills.

Walking around the school and watching Emma watch the other children and realising that we will be separated from one another gave me a heart stopping feeling of sadness and excitement. She is going to have so much fun being around the other children and having stimulation other than that which I give her. It also signifies a change in our lives, one where K and I are no longer the most important people in her life. I now understand this feeling of time fleeting by you that I noticed all adults have but did not feel as a child. It is knowing how precious and notable every single second of your child's life is, and knowing you will not remember each one but that they will come and go so quickly and never again be found.

Emma update

She is so excited about using words. Her current favourite is cow, which means cow, car and cloud. You know which one she means by the sounds she makes to accompany it. She has also become a big fan of pretending to drive the car, so we spend happy hours sitting in the car (when it isn't too hot) with her driving and me reading my book and making sure she doesn't break anything permanent. When she wants to tell me we should go in the car she points to her foot, which means go and then says cow until I break down and take her.

My current favourite is "whoops" that she says as "aaps". She says it for all kinds of occasions. When she drops something accidentally, when you drop something or even when she purposely drops something.

She has also discovered "no". She says it in such a cute way. You ask if you can have kisses and she tilts her head, shakes her curls and says; "Nooooooooooo".

Have you decided?

So the day after the leopard peered into E's bedroom window the head of security told us a scary story. A few years ago, the neighbouring house had a dog. There was a leopard who broke the glass in a window to get to the dog. Naturally we then moved E's crib back into our bedroom so that now she is just a foot away from me.

We have been taking the screens out of the windows, locking the doors and cringing at every ping or pong the roof makes. It is not a healthy way to live! Other news that I cannot decide if it makes me feel worse or better; leopards hang out around the center a lot and have probably been around before when we didn't know it.

Ask yourself: are you predator, or prey?

It's 11:19, 41 minutes from midnight. My legs are shaking, I have the beginnings of an adreneline headache and I feel like my whole body is twitching.

Just 10 minutes ago, Emma stirred in her bed, then woke fully and cried for me. I got up to go to her and as I did there was a really loud thumpety thump on the roof. It sounded like something really heavy landing and then running across the roof to the other side of the house. I went in to Emma, picked her up and shushed her, then lay her down. During this time there were a few quieter thuds as whatever it was moved back to our side of the roof.

It's full moon so I went to the partially closed curtain to look out at the landscape washed into pale shadows. My heart stopped. Something moved underneath the window. I thought at first it was the monkey that has been plaguing us. Then it slunk under the window ledge, from one window to the other. A full grown leopard! Shoulders tall as the window sill, heavy, muscled, soft and quiet. It's head perfectly balanced between it's shoulders and it's long tail hanging loose and straight behind. I quickly stepped behind the closed curtain and the leopard stood up on the sill and peered and snuffed at the crack in the closed window.

For a heartbeat we stood as we were, with just window panes and curtains between us. Then it stepped down and moved back under the window and around the corner. I dashed next door to our room, whisper-yelled to K to get in the room with me. He woke in a panic and came in with me. I felt the need to close and lock the door and then explained to him what I had seen. He appeared disbelieving but claimed to believe me. We stood for a while at the window, looking out, exclaiming in hushed tones at one another when suddenly I saw the unmistakable white butt of the monkey. It was up the pathway from the house, having just descended from the water tower. It froze, looking over its shoulder at the house. We froze too.

We could see the shadow of the roof on the ground, and it undulated as something slipped noiselessly along it. Then the gutter gave it away with a groan and the monkey sped up the pathway and into the bush. The leopard ran along the rest of the house, lept off the roof and onto the water tank, then down in a one-two-three motion and was off up the path as fast as a slip of the tongue.

Oh! Another thud on the roof as I type! We are both locked into Emma's bedroom, thankfully there is another bed in here. K has managed to fall back to sleep and I can hear his breathing in tandem with Emma's coming from her crib but I do not think I will be able to sleep. I will be lying waiting for tell-tale creaks and thumps from above.

Hippo pools - not just hippos.

Our friends came out from the UK recently and we decided to stop at Hippo pools to see what could be seen on our way to visit the Ranch house. The pools kept us entranced for hours and we never made it to the Ranch house.

As we rounded the corner on the drive to the pools, we could see the opposite bank between the thorn trees. It looked like there were large, slightly purple rocks covering the bank and as we came all the way around the corner we couldn't believe our luck. 14 hippos were out sunning themselves. What awe inspiring creatures they are! Purplish black except under their chins and bellies where they are a startling pink. Their heads are no less than a third the size of their bodies and their yawns remind you of how deadly those yellowed arm-width teeth can be. We watched the hippos for a long time. The adults watching long after the children had completely lost interest. They put on a perfect show for us, not just lounging around but also having occasional farts, rumbles, and laughs and even one disturbance when a young one got up before nap time was over.

When the children became too restless we decided to walk over to the falls on the other side of the curve in the river and when we came back we were stopped in our tracks as a large bull elephant took our breath away. He was also on the opposite bank, thankfully and we were able to go and stand safely close to the car and watch him drink. We quickly realised he was accompanied by another chap who also came down to drink. We were amused with watching them for at least an hour, during which time Emma's new bff "drove" the car and Emma had a fat nap in the back of the car. At one point the first elephant just had an itch he had to scratch and hilariously rubbed his not-insubstantial backside vigorously back and forth against a fallen tree.

While the elephants were there a zebra and some impala just couldn't get up the nerve to come down to the water. A few large warthog had no such compunction and rooted around in the dirt behind the elephants. Once the elephants left we started to notice the birds around the pools. A stunning pied kingfisher was darting about and making dives. A yellow billed stork was fishing with dedicated skill until he caught one that was just too large to fit in his mouth, no matter which way he tossed it in the air and he eventually lost it.

Into this scene of tranquility came the most graceful beast in Africa. Five giraffe, hesitantly came down to the river and drank. Or, in some cases, tried to drink. One couldn't get himself down far enough to dip into the water from the bank. They were very cautious about coming down to the water and when you see how they have to prostrate themselves, legs wide open to get to the water you can see why it takes them so long to come to the river. And also why they leave so quickly if disturbed.

This was easily my most pleasant morning spent at Mpala and I was so lucky to share it with really good friends. The day was topped off by large afternoon naps and a Thunderstorm that turned our driveway and front yard into a river. Mpala bliss I call it.

Vanquished: a tale of the final battle

This was the final straw. A beautiful new bowl for my birthday, some ripening tropical fruit and a rat-faced, fluffy tailed, flea-infested fruit bowl violater. Spiro came into the house, he sampled and was chased out by my irate self. He then came back with his little buddies and the three of them had a partaay on my mangos.

I decided it was time, no more Mr. Nice Guy, no more tolerance. I borrowed traps, I baited them with the self same mangoes they had already destroyed and I set them just inside the door. Hah! Snap! Bang! Caught four of the little blighters.

Oh the pleasure I took in finding them new homes. One lovely spot down at the river, all the Fever tree they could climb. On the road to Nanyuki, just a few more kms and they could become town squirrels. Plus on the way to the tower where they could flick their tails at passing researchers.

What bliss, what heaven, what open windows and doors!

But lo, there is a fly in my ointmenteth! Now a Vervet, large, unafraid and aggressive with balls the colour of the Windhoek Swimming Pool has found my bowl, and the stash of Avos on top of the fridge. This time there will be no mercy, I will give no quarter. We have already set the traps. He has eluded them, but I have at least .2% more genetics than he does in my favour!

Emma update

We had visitors recently who have a two and half year old boy. Emma was so in love with him. She followed him around and stared, learning as much as she could from him. The biggest development being that now she understands how to use words to communicate. Her babbling has changed from just chatter to being directed, She really wants you to listen and understand.

The other day she climbed up in my lap, looked at me with sparkling eyes and a smile and said "more booze?" I KNOW she didn't mean alcohol so we spent a frustrating 20 mins trying to work out what booze means. I never did figure it out.

She also learned the sign for more, which is to bump your fingers together. She does this while saying more. She has also learned the word for cheese. So anyone who has watched Wallace and Gromit will have a lovely visual when I say that she bumps her hands together and says "more cheeeeese"

At last her canines are showing themselves so now only the last molars and we are done! Cannot wait for that pain to be over.

Her little two year old friend had lovely wellies and we went stomping through the mud and puddles with him. She loved it so much that she regularly requests puddles and we are looking for wellies for her.