Ngong Hills Hiking

Ever since we got here, we’ve been wanting to go hiking in the Ngong Hills - the trail starts only 5 minutes up the road from our gate. But we’ve been discouraged with tales of wild animals and evil men to be encountered on that trail. However, we’d learned that there is a large group of Kenyans who hike the trail starting 7 to 7:30 am on Saturday and Sunday mornings and we were invited to join them. Strength in numbers and all that. So this morning the Humphreys and I got up early and headed for the trail about 7:20 am. When we got to the trailhead, there were no cars there. We thought maybe there was a parking area further along but after hiking a ways up the trail we had seen no one.

Moses and his youngest daughter

A Maasai man called out to us from his house, telling us what we’d heard before, about the scary animals and evil men. He strongly suggested we not go without a guide. We inquired what a guide cost (about $12) and how to get one. There was a telephone number posted he said we could call, but he also offered to guide us himself. So we took him up on his offer since he was already there and whoever was on the other end of the telephone was not. Turns out his name is Moses, he makes jewelry from recycled brass, and he consulted on a book about wildflowers and other flora and fauna of the area. An interesting guy. Sherry asked if he had a herd and he said a few animals. He was rebuilding after he lost all his herd in drought about 5 years ago. He has 3 children, two girls and a boy and a wife named Phyllis. Nice guy, lovely family.

Foggy landscape

It was a beautiful morning. When we started out it was sunny, but we could see clouds low over the hills to the west and as we hiked, we could tell they were coming our way. When it came, it lent an otherworldly air to the landscape. We were in and out of the clouds/fog for the rest of the hike. It had rained hard most of the night last night, and the trail was muddy, but along the ridges, most of the rain drains off, so it was not nearly as bad as lower areas. We hiked steadily uphill stopping briefly only twice to rest until we reached the summit of the prosaically named “Hill 4” by 9:30 am.  Hill 4 is the highest of the peaks at (according to Moses) 7896 ft. I took a photo in the direction of Nairobi from the top, but it was a joke - all the photo shows is fog.

The Humphreys and Pat at the summit of Hill 4

As for the animals, the only ones we saw were domestic ones. Moses said there were no lions, but there were chetahs, hyenas, cape buffalo, and leopards. Anyway enough to warrant some caution. We never did see the group we had hoped to join, either going up or coming back. Moses thought they were discouraged from coming out because there were a couple of viscous attacks by bad men last weekend.

The fog begins to lift

On the way back down, we encountered a large group of children and their adult guardians. The kids were from an orphanage I hadn’t heard of and they were planning to hike from Corner Baridi to the town of Ngong. We later learned that in getting to the summit of Hill 4 we were half way to Ngong already. The group of children were accompanied by men dressed in military fatigues and carrying serious weapons - automatic rifles! All Moses had was a large bladed farm implement stuffed in his belt.

Maasai cattle foreground, Kiserian background

The clouds began to lift, and we had a clear view of Kiserian down below. With the interplay of the clouds and light on the green landscape, it seemed indeed enchanted hiking.

Moses and his jewelry

We ended our hike at Moses house where he showed us his jewelry. His stuff was quite nice and we all bought some. He also had copies of the wildflower book in which he is mentioned as consultant that he signed and sold to us for 40% of the price in Nakamat or Tusky stores. It had turned out to be a pretty profitable day for Moses and we had a great time and made an interesting friend.

Another Day, Another Adventure

Gotta love it when warthogs have the right of way!

Friday was a somewhat slow day around Hekima for a change. We took the secondary girls who had to back to school Thursday. The rest of the girls wouldn’t return until Saturday. So Friday morning Rebecca from the Kenyan Board of Trustees came and picked me up for ‘coffee’ around 10:15 am. ‘Coffee’ turned out to be a whole day affair. First we stopped at the Nairobi National Park on Langatta Road for a 45 minute nature walk. The National Park is very large, but the nature walk is kinda like a very pleasant stroll through a natural habitat zoo with rhinos, baboons, chetahs, leopards, lions, monkeys, zebras (unusual ‘white’ ones!), cape buffalo, etc.

"White" zebras - new one to me!

My good friend, Rebecca

 It turns out that Rebecca, a Kenyan, a college professor and wife of a Presbyterian pastor, got her Master of Letters degree in Aberdeen, Scotland. And while living there all alone, she was befriended by many, charming person that she is. Among her friends were some who came and took her out for the day to drive about, see the sights, and stop at interesting places. She well remembers those kindnesses and returns the favor to folks like me who are working here in Kenya without a lot of chances to take a break. Rebecca, I should tell you, had major surgery in early March and today was the first time she’d driven a car since the surgery. What a sweetheart!

The Central Market

After leaving the National Park, we drove into the heart of Nairobi to check out the Central Market. It is a fairly typical mall (with the open air central food court, African style) except that the upper level is a canopied open-air crafts market, the largest in Kenya. Before we went to the market, we stopped for croissants and tea at the Amadeus coffee shop where we had a long congenial conversation. Then we moved on to the market where I bought a nativity created in a gourd with designs carved into the outside and two beautiful baskets. I got a pretty good deal because Rebecca did the bargaining for me. All in all, an exceptional way to spend the day with an exceptional friend.

The view out our windshield of the 2-lane road we were on

The real adventure started when we left the market at 3 pm. We both thought that would be plenty early to head back and avoid the heavy traffic and the rains. Wrong!!! Pretty quickly we got into the traffic which only got worse. For the most part, we kept moving, although very very slowly. By 5:45 pm we had only made it as far as Kamura between Rongai and Kiserian and the line of cars and trucks had come to a complete halt. Water was rushing in torrents along both sides of the road. The (usually dry) creek at the bottom of the hill had overflowed with runoff from the Ngong Hills and the cars couldn’t move across it without risking of being washed away.

View from inside the car

We started calling everyone we both knew to find out if there was a better way to get to Kiserian and thus Hekima Place, even if we had to backtrack quite a distance. Reports from everywhere around were that there wasn’t any better way to go as it seemed all area traffic was gridlocked by the water and that the best thing to do was sit tight and wait for the floodwater to recede. So we sat there in the car chatting until 8 pm before our line of cars finally started slowly moving. Even so, it was nerve wracking when we finally had our turn to drive across the bridge. Water was still surging over the roadbed and the car in front of us showed some sign of being washed to the left. Rebecca suggested I close my eyes and she’d tell me when we were out of it - but of course I didn’t, couldn’t. We both breathed a deep sigh of relief when her car cleared the worst of the water. Welcome to Kenya and it’s lack of infrastructure or anything resembling a sufficient water drainage system!

The girls eye their transport across the river

Sherry and Kinyua had their own experience with high water the previous evening when they took 3 girls to Excel to enroll there for the first time. On the road approaching the school, the bridge had washed out so the only way to get to the school was through the river, swollen with recent rains. They had to leave the Hekima vehicle on one side and drive across in a small Land Rover sent over by the school. The Land Rover was small enough that the girls and their things had to go across in separate trips. Sherry and Kinyua were required to accompany them to get them checked in. When the two of them tried to return to their Hekima vehicle, they got high-centered coming back across the river - stuck in the middle of the flood! Sherry tried to stay dry in the car while Kinyua and a number of other men rocked the SUV back and forth to get it off the rock. Sherry had visions of being swept away in the raging water! What a way to celebrate your birthday!

View from inside the car in the middle of the river

They didn’t get back to Hekima until 9 pm. That’s 9 pm on Sherry’s birthday! Dave and daughter Avril were worried sick when Sherry didn’t show up by dinnertime. And all the Hekima girls were disappointed because there was supposed to have been birthday cake and ice cream to after dinner.  Sherry finally got to celebrate her birthday and the girls got their cake and ice cream last night, but of course I missed it all because I was stranded by high water!

A Visit to the Giraffe Park, etc.

Yesterday was a very full day! It started out with several of the secondary girls heading off for their second school term of the year. The girl we sponsor, Maggi, is now back at her school, Excel. It was a fond farewell, as it’s not likely I’ll see her again before I return to the US - and Rick certainly won’t, since he leaves tonight.













We and the Humphreys took 12 of the younger girls to the Nairobi Giraffe Park, on the way dropping the secondary girls off in Karen so they could catch a matatu to their schools. The Giraffe Center is a reserve for giraffes where the animals are quite acclimated to people and are happy to get up close and personal with visitors as the staff doles out hands full of pelleted feed that the animals apparently find delectable. We and the girls had great fun offering the food on outstretched palms while the giraffes delicately transported the pellets into their mouths with their very long prehensile tongues!

After we had fed giraffes until the center wouldn’t give us any more feed, the girls enjoyed an engaging lecture (in Kiswahali, of which we didn’t understand one word except for ‘simba’ - remember Tarazan?) about the different giraffe sub-species, their distribution, life cycle, enemies, etc. Then they all got their faces painted. The fellow who did the face painting was marvelous, quite the artist, and had all 12 painted up in less than a half hour. Above is a picture of all the painted faces!





By then it was lunch time, so we took everyone for - guess what! - pizza! The pizza and soft drinks were a big hit. The girls drank so much pop I’m surprised we didn’t have to make at least one potty stop on the way back to Hekima!



Since Rick is leaving tonight, last night was his Hekima Place farewell celebration. The girls and mums made lovely speeches (even one of the 2 year-olds). There was cake and ice cream and a gift of a beautiful CD of African praise songs by the Hekima Place girls and the St. Louise choir (from Pittsburgh). Everyone seems really to have appreciated his presence, his hard work, and the example he has set as a wonderful husband and ‘papa’ to all the girls. Nobody is ready for him to leave, most especially not me!

What's for Supper?

Githeri

The menu around here is pretty basic. When you have 30 to 80 people to feed, it has to be. And when most of the staff is from the Kikuyu tribe, the food is strongly influenced by what Kikuyu’s like to eat, i.e., what they grew up with. Which means a LOT of githeri. What? You’ve never had githeri? Come volunteer at Hekima Place and that gap in your gastronomic education will be soon rectified! Githeri is basically a mixture of African corn and what appear to be kidney beans cooked until reasonably tender (not necessary to soak the dried beans beforehand, I am told). Sometimes it is dressed up a bit with boiled potatoes, sauteed diced tomatoes and chopped onions (I prefer). The corn they grow here is very different from table corn in the US. It is chewy, even when cooked for a long time with the beans, and not particularly sweet. It is more like hominy than anything else I can think of from home. I have actually developed quite a taste for githeri. Most of the ingredients come straight out of the shamba (garden).

One of the small ones polishing off the rice

And rice. A lot of rice. Rice is generally favored by the younger set around here - most seem to prefer it to githeri. It is often cooked with diced tomatoes from the shamba. Or it is served with greens or some other saucy side. Sometimes there are bits of meat cooked in.

Chiapati and green grams

A favorite of many western volunteers is green grams and chiapati. The green grams either are lentils or something very like lentils - I haven’t quite figured that one out yet. They are cooked in big pots with water much like the githeri. Chiapati is a wheat flour based flat bread cooked on a griddle. The dough is mixed up, divided into balls about 2 - 2 1/2 inches in diameter that are then rolled out into about an 8 - 10 inch circle and plopped on the heated griddle. Very tasty! Probably also very fattening, so I try to limit myself to eat just one. Nobody else seems that concerned, however. I really like the green grams, but you have to be careful to avoid the occasional lentil-sized pebbles that sneak in and can break your teeth if you are not careful.

Ugali and greens from the shamba

Yummy spaghetti!

Now another African culinary treasure most westerners barely (if at all!) tolerate is ugali. Ugali is a dish based on ground up dried African corn that is cooked with water in huge pots until very thick. It is sort of like very dense polenta, but without the flavor.  It works ok as long as it is served with something that exudes some reasonably flavorful liquid as a sop. That something is usually yummy cooked greens from the shamba. Sometimes the greens are even accompanied by bits of meat.



The week’s menu is rounded out with food all westerners would recognize and appreciate, spaghetti with meat sauce and chicken served with mashed potatoes. I won’t bother to describe those, except to say that the meat sauce is a little different, not being heavy on the tomatoes. Our African girls like it quite a lot. We also regularly have fresh fruit including mangoes, watermelon, oranges. The mangoes are WONDERFUL. If you chill them, the texture is like creamy ice cream and just as sweet!

Random Photos from Today

Father Jim is back from his work in Uganda. He phoned yesterday and offered to perform the worship service at Hekima Place this morning. All the girls dressed up for the service.

After lunch, Rick, the Humphreys and I went on a hike up into the hills. The vistas are beautiful from up above Hekima Place. But we were warned by a Maasai up there not to go too far. He said there were lions and Cape Buffalo up in the bush ahead and also ‘bad men’ who had been known to beat and rob hikers. We should only go further if we had an armed guide. I myself am somewhat inclined to be discouraged from proceeding when there is the slightest possibility that I may either be eaten by a lion, gored by a Cape Buffalo, or beaten by bad men. Apparently the rest were as well, because we didn’t go much farther before we turned around, not having seen any lions, buffalos or bad men. Only beautiful views.

One particularly nice view from up the hill was that of Hekima Place. It looks somewhat compressed, but lovely, none the less.

We returned to Hekima Place to rest on the porch and entertain the kids with our cameras and binoculars. The evening light was beautiful.