6 years later.... the April rains

I have been blogging off-and-on since 2005, and kept a fairly consistent record of my time living in Kenya from 2005-2007.  I've been going through some of these old entries and thought it might be fun to share some of the more interesting posts.  It's really fun looking back on this time in my life.  My husband was then my boyfriend, we shared an apartment in Nairobi, we were 21 and 24 years old, working on our Bachelor's degrees... silly kids, really.  Enjoy a little snapshot into life abroad (and forgive the writing... I was 21, after all):

 

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April 12, 2007

 

Finals have come and almost gone... Spanish went exceptionally well, as did law, history was okay... statistics later, but I could care less... so, life is good! I doubt I'll be on the Dean's list again, but that's okay. Poor Kunle had three finals in a row last night... that's 6 straight hours of writing O_o

 

The rains have started! Like, for real this time. Last night was incredible, it was raining so hard that nothing outside was visible; wind, thunder, lightning, the whole shabang! And me being the stupid Californian wanted to sit out on the balcony and watch it, until Kunle dragged me in and explained the dangers of lightning. To illustrate his point, lightning then proceeded to strike our neighbor's wall:

 

It was crazy! We happened to be looking that way at the time, it was like *flash* *boom* no wall! No one was hurt thankfully, and all the goats survived :) So that scared us shitless (especially since our building is much taller, and of course lacks a lightning rod. Genius). We watched from inside... until massive winds started driving in the rain and flooding the apartment (we are very ghetto... our clothesline on the balcony broke, so to fix it we wired the door to the railing, and tied the clothesline to the door... so the door is permanently open).  Kunle decked himself out in rubber and snuck out to unwire the door, though he jumped back inside every time we heard thunder. It was fun! I'm not used to this extreme weather stuff!

 

Not so fun: we had six hours of reading ahead of us, and the power was out. Kenya has reinforced a very important lesson on procrastination: never do it. Inevitably, if you wait until the night before something is due, the electricity will crap out, rendering the computer useless, and trying to read by candlelight sucks. But I thought this was pretty (it may be too dark to make out, but that's Kunle in the background trying to study):

 

Oh, and he now wears glasses. Cute, huh?:

 

Let's see, what else of note... Friday Kunle and I went to town, wandered around and pub-hopped until the wee hours. Saturday.... nothing. Sunday, Easter... we cooked and cleaned, I took a walk and got lost for 2 hours in the rural wilderness behind the apartment (Kunle kept calling: "Where are you??" "I'm on a dirt road... there are trees... and cows..." "That's everywhere!" "I know!!"). That night Henry and Kunle's friend Camille came by, we made dinner and talked for a while. Monday I felt like death, we both had head colds (though I must say, I get sick much less now. Maybe a pseudo-cold every 2 months or so, and it only lasts about a day.) Anita came over, she was sick also, so we all watched Ben Hur and swapped germs:

 

 

Mmm... oh, and Stephen the security guard came up for dinner the other night. We boozed it up and listened to grandfatherly tales about all 9 of his children and 20 million grandkids. (And yes he is as short as he looks... I'm a full head taller):

 

So that's what I've been doing. I'm petrified that this holiday away from school is going to be painfully boring, because we're far too broke to do anything beyond grocery shopping. Though, our birthdays are coming up in a week or so, I insist we do something... probably head out for dinner somewhere. It's nice that we're four days apart, get it all over with at once :) 

 

And I will leave you once again with a breathtaking Kenyan sunset:

 

Love to you all. 

 

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