Nairobi

Africa, it's a country I had always dreamed of visiting. Boarding our flight, I could not believe I would be seeing and experiencing the place I had only ever dreamed of visiting. While the animals were even more fierce and the landscape even more spectacular than what I had seen on David Attenborough documentaries, it was the people of Kenya that made our visit so incredibly special.

Our first stop was Nairobi. While usually a simple stop-over on the way to the safari parks, we had the unique opportunity to stay with my uncle and his partner in Ngong Town. While geographically, Ngong is a short 20 minutes from Nairobi, it took at least one hour to get there with the frantic traffic.

Staying with my uncle and his partner, we were able to immerse ourselves in the everyday lives of their village. My uncle was the principal of the local school in Embulbul and, one afternoon, we were able to pop by for a visit. We were greeted by some of the school children when we arrived. I have never seen children so proud of their school and school work. As they showed us around, they told us about their faith, their upcoming examinations, and their lives in the village. One of the boys was so excited that we had visited that he asked if he could show us his new home. As we walked the streets towards his house, he told us how he had been awarded a scholarship to attend the school. We paused outside a small wooden door with a galvanised iron roof and open plumbing running down the street. He was so proud to give us the grand tour of the two-bedroom home where he lived with his three siblings and aunt. You could see the hope and excitement of his new life in his eyes. As we drove home, my uncle told us how the computers the school was recently gifted were stolen only a few nights early.

The following day, as my uncle's partner prepared to go to work, she invited us to stop by for the afternoon to help out in her shop. She owned a hardware store in the local market that predominantly made furniture. As we worked there for the afternoon, we talked to the local craftsmen and heard about their lives and work. Everyone seemed pretty excited to talk to the new kids on the block. They even gifted us with two local names!

During our time in the village, we visited the local shops, travelled on the local bus (which resembles more of a nightclub with flashing lights and loud music), visited the Karen Blixen house, tea plantations, and experienced our first safari park. Can you imagine a pride of lions looking out over the skyline of Nairobi? We called them the Nairobi police.

And so, the adventure of a lifetime had began…..