I was quite annoyed by the rains down in Aaaaa-frica

On Thursday, we visited the place Stefanie volunteered at for half a year: The Nest. To get there, we had to ride a Matatu from Nairobi to Limuru. It took a over an hour and the ride was not necessarily super comfortable, but we made it for just 50c per person.
Upon arriving in the town, it started raining. You should think you wouldn't need to bring an umbrella with you in Africa! We considered buying one in the local, tiny supermarket but it was $7 we could spend better. So we just stood under a roof and waited for it to pass.
To get from Limuru's centre to the Children's home, we hired piki-piki, motorbike taxis. Of course mine broke down halfway there on a lonely road and I had to awkwardly stand next to the biker while he was trying to fix it. Luckily another one came by and I just asked him to hop on. When I finally arrived at the nest, my friends had already called yet another piki-piki to go look for me. Well I only got temporarily lost on a lonly road in Kenya once for a few minutes, that's actually better than expected!
Since it had stopped raining, we decided to take a little walk through the outskirts of Limuru.

Those are tea plantations!

 

The entrance to the Nest

The kids were really excited about us taking pictures of them for some reason

Since it was Stefanie's last day at the nest, they organized a little goodbye party for her. As her friends, Susanne, Teresa and I as well as Stefanie's fellow volunteer Pauline were also invited. We even got our own table!

After speeches, many, many speaches, and lovely words of gratitude and goodbye, we, and of course the kids, got to eat cake. Then they showed us some very energetic traditional singing and dancing. It was a lot of fun!

After that, we hung out there and just talked and played with them for some time

Susanne with some of the kids

 

The classroom

On Friday we visited the other part of the project: the Halfway House and the baby village. Since the Nest is focussed on children whose mothers are in jail, it's important to reunite them in a safe, controlled environment once the mothers are released. The babies were quite adorable, but still enforced the fact that I'm not really fond of them. Don't get me wrong, the kids in Limuru were alright, but the babies were just.. laying around screaming or sleeping and I was scared to break them if I touched them. Babies are way too much pressure. At least the older kids can walk.
On our way back to the hotel, we visited a Maasai Market at a mall. I bought some really cool stuff: A Kalaha-game, some elephant-print pants and adorable small stone elephants. It's all relatively cheap there if you know how to barter.
When we got home, we had to pack and organise our luggage and go to bed early, because in the morning we would get picked up for our Safari! Spoiler alert, it was awesome!

Africa! Kenya believe it?

Since being in Austria for longer than a few months gets quite dull for Fernweh-plagued soules like myself, I started planning my next major journey while still in New Zealand. Now I'm back home yet again and just hope it won't be for too long.
The main reason to travel to Kenya was that a friend of mine, Stefanie, volunteered at children's home for half a year and two other friends and myself would visit her at the end of her stay and fly home together.
We had to get up early for our morning flight, the good thing about that was that the airport wasn't very busy and we didn't have to line up long for bag drop or security. For our short flight from Vienna to Zürich, we were lucky enough to sit in the exit row.

Look at all that legroom!

 

The 8 hour flight to Zürich was not that comfortable, unfortunately. Still, time passes relativly quickly thanks to the in-flight entertainment. I watched tons of movies, amongst others Doctor Strange, which was okay yet a bit underwhelming, and a weird British TV show about the great fire of London. There was an entire Robert Redford Section for some reason. The best one I watched, well, started watching, was Genious, a movie about Thomas Wolfe. Unfortunately, I didn't finish it before the flight was over and regretted not starting it earlier. It's a great movie, I'd definately recomment it!
After finally landing in Nairobi, we had a beautiful reunion with Steffi whom we hadn't seen in a long long time and took a taxi to the hotel. It took forever, jam after jam - A first glimpse of the vastly unregulated Nairobi traffic.
We had an amazing apartment in the hotel and made some tropical fruit salad. Gosh, I miss these Mangos, and the Avocados... A dream!! The most delicious fruit salad ever!

We spent the first few days in and around Nairobi. Firstly, we explored the city a bit and took a downtown-bound Matatu. Matatus are the best public transportation Nairobi has to offer. They are basically busses, crammed, outdated busses that could fall apart any minute during the bumpy ride on these rough rodes. It's definately not the most touristic way to get around. Still, it's worth the experience and cheap. We walked around and looked at the shops and street vendors for a bit and then rode another Matatu to the Toi Market where I bought a really cute dress for $3. And that's a lot there! Susi got one for 50 cent! Again, this was a very anti-touristic experience. Toi Market really isn't the best area of Nairobi, you wouldn't want to be there at night. We also had lunch there, Bhaji, basically potatoes with spices, and some delicious fruit juice with avocado.

Inside the market. It's all just a bit of wood, currogated iron, and plastic sheets 

For dinner, we wanted to make roast vegetables with rice and guacamole, so we went to the Sarit Centre, a mall close to our hotel for food. They also have a store that sells European-style bread which is always nice. Seriously, that sweet white soft cake you call bread is an atrocity

A feast (of carbs)

We definately deserved that meal after being on out feet for nine hours!

The next day we got up at 8, quite early for us, especially since that's 6 in Austria, to visit the Elephant Orphanage. If a young elephant too young to survive on its own is found abandoned, they will take care of it and bottle feed it. The mothers rarely die of natural causes, usually they are killed by poachers. I'm glad they get another chance. Those babies are totally adorable!!

A hungry baby!

They. Are. Cuddling!! How cute!

Look at those tiny tusks!

They have such funny legs1

He's a big boy and can hold his bottle on his own!

That's like sucking on their thumbs for elephants!

Then we went to the Giraffe Centre. 

A baby!

And that was our first two days in Kenya, and there are many more to come!

New Year's Sledging Stroll