How did Kenya get its name? Don't even try.

The Great Migration; Performance by Benson

And where do I begin on a day where so much made me so speechless. When in doubt, “begin at the beginning, and go on until you reach the end, then stop.”

After a wonderful breakfast of fried eggs, bacon and all the fixings, we met our guide, David, who would be taking us on safari, and loaded our bags in the van. He is native to Nairobi, a city of 3.8 million in a country of 38 million. The drive out of the city was much easier than the drive into the city last night, and after 45 minutes or so, we were in the countryside. I sat in the front seat with David and, despite my wish to keep up a conversation with him, I became stunned by the people - hundreds of men just sitting by the side of the road; hundreds of men walking along the side of the road, or pushing a bicycle laden with most anything (an auto tire, charcoal bricquets, whatever), or riding along on a bicycle, or stopped by the side o;f the road trying to fix the bicycle; and the women, women carrying huge loads of firewood, or goods on their backs, or digging in the fields, or dressed to the nines carrying a suitcase. And the homes - homes built with roofs of corrugated steel (is it steel?), with rust all over, the same color of the earth of the path or way leading to the home. No electricity; no plumbing; their garbage collection was to dig a hole by the side of the road and then throw their garbage in it and cover it back up. And we passed scores of schools, grade schools, high schools, colleges, teacher schools, and many, many Christian churches, all tiny. Our road turned from a 4-lane divided highway, to a 2-lane road, and finally to a one-lane road into our Serena Lodge at Mount Kenya. But it was never a 2 or 4-lane road because that is not counting the two lanes outside the road, the lanes used by those walking; usually wide enough for just one person, and some wide enough for 3 or 4 to walk abreast, but always there until we reached the Mt. Kenya National Park access road - no pedestrians are allowed in here. The wildebeests have a huge migration and what I saw today made me think of that. It’s a tough place to live for these people, and you tack on the drought they’re having and the horrendous financial situation (no one is coming to visit), and it is almost disastrous.

After lunch at our lodge (check it out on the Internet), a log cabin type structure overlooking a mud pond where a lot of buffalo were sitting around and hopefully later elephants, we signed up for the nature walk through the forest, led by Benson, a 25-30ish Kenyan. He was most demonstrative in his presentations, enunciating each syllable and speaking slowly but accenting syllables and pronouncing words in a different manner so you had to concentrate to get the information he was seeking to impart. It was like going to a play starring Benson. Among other things I learned that Kenya got its name from Mt. Kenya, the highest mountain in Kenya. And the mountain got its name from Swaheli “Kii nyaa”, meaning “place where the ostrich lay” because the top of Mt. Kenya has dark rocks with the glacier, making it look like the Somali ostrich which is supposed to be black and white. The British anglicized the name to Kenya, pronouncing it “Keenya” and then when Kenya became independent, its first president was Jomo Kenyatta so the pronunciation changed to conform to the pronunciation of his name. And I also learned that Mau Mau (as in the Mau Mau rebellion from 1952-1958) consisted of abbreviations of Swaheli words - the first MAU being “whites go back to Europe” and the second being “Kenyans obtain independence” or “Uhuru” (being the "U" in the second MAU) as we’ve learned from the movie of that name.

We’re off to dinner in a few minutes, and we will let them know in writing what animals we wish to see and they will knock on our door in the night if that animal appears. Sounds good to me - I’d like to see a leopard, and they bait a platform on a tall post just in front of and slightly below our balcony. Bring it on.

PS By the way, being the excited animal watcher I am, I took a picture of this “teal” (Bay’s word) iguana or lizard on the lawn just below us, three stories down. I had never seen one, and grabbed my camera and took a picture of it, while calling Bay. She put her binoculars on it - it was a piece of wood or bark. I guess I better not quit my day job - I’m no threat to Benson.

Love, Nat, Dad, DB, Matt and Bwana

PPS Tomorrow we leave at 9 AM for a 6-hour drive down dusty, bumpy roads but we’ll stay there at Samburu for two nights which will be nice.

PPPS And they are so worried that we will be cold up here at 7200 feet elevation, they put a hot water bottle in my bed and gave me an electric blanket. And Mt. Kenya? Haven't seen it yet due to the clouds.