This is the result .....
... three more histories about this region to add to my dozens of others at home ! Still, three books for KSh 1000, isn't bad .... about £7 UK.
Next to the Nakumatt arcade to search for a suitable birthday card .... what sort do you get for a (retired) RC priest ? Couldn't find anything at all that wasn't glittery or gushing, and then remembered I have brought some HATW calendars with me ... one of those will do !!
I spotted an ATM machine in the arcade with two hefty ladies outside armed with AK47's guarding it, and decided to take out some more money while it looked safe. As a lone woman, I'm very wary of taking out large sums of money from an ATM when I'm by myself, but the two ladies reassured me. I've paid for my first weeks stay here, and am trying to get together enough for the next weeks ... which is tricky as the machines only allow a relatively small amount to be withdraw at any one time. Its 12,100 to stay here for a week, which is very cheap. (About £12 per day, full board).
Then to the Kisumu Hotel for a cuppa before I walked home; this is where in the late 1960's we used to be able to get a seven course lunch for Sh 7.50 .... at a time when the exchange rate was Sh 17 to the £1. The good old days ! The hotel is now part of the University of Maseno (in Kisumu !) but there is a small cafe on the ground floor. I see the old colonial style British Council library building is now being built over and dwarfed by new build wrapping round it to add to the university campus. It was a jolly good library; we used to take out loads of books and LP records.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And some more safari pictures ...
... we briefly crossed over into the Serengeti in Tanzania; this is the boundary post, but no border post or fence. So I stood in Tanzania to take this picture ! Animals know no boundaries and wander at will back and forth.
(Sorry, poor photo) - this is the secretary bird we watched catch and eat a snake; they are named for the Victorian secretaries who used to carry a bunch of quill pens tucked over their ears, and this fellows head feathers are visible drooping down his neck.
Zebras (of which there must have been literally millions in the Mara) often stand like this, head to tail, so that the tail of one flicks the flies off the others face.
More about the birthday party when it has happened !
Later:-
So we went in two cars; the three fathers from here, myself, a Ugandan lady and Elvis, who is not the King reincarnated, but a young priest from Cameroon who is staying here and working locally for a while. Kiboko Bay is along the lake shore from here, and the water hyacinth has been cleared so that the water laps at the shore, and there are trees around with weavers nests; and plenty of other birds that live around the shore .... fish eagles, hadada, egrets and so on. There was a storm brewing up to the south, and we watched the sun go down over the lake as the black clouds and lightning increased and the wind got up. By that time we had had our drinks and 'nibbles' which were chicken wings grilled in some sort of thick black honey, delicious ! Then back here for supper, where there was a new arrival ... a German man with an English wife born in Zambia and brought up in Botswana, now living in Norway but previously here in Kisumu ! Their children are tri-lingual.
And did I get those reports started ? W-e-l-l ....... tomorrow !!
No comments:
Post a Comment