Thanksgiving and the Boys

School ended at the start of last week. Once the term ends my school is empty so I like to find other things to do. I was happy to be able to attend Thanksgiving at a woman's condo in Nairobi with about 8 other volunteers. By the time that I arrived most of the cooking was already underway. Wanting to feel useful I offered to make the gravy. I was surprised when they handed me a package of gravy mix, but I quickly set it aside, pronouncing myself the gravy-king for the evening, as I tossed the package aside and made the gravy from scratch.

What am I thankful for? - I am thankful to the Mosiers and Rowes who taught me to cook. I am thankful for all of the teachers that I have had in my life.

After Thanksgiving we had a couple of days before we had to be in Nairobi again for our mid-service medical checkups. Wanting to get out of the city, Matt and I decided on Hell's Gate National Park as our destination. Two volunteers that we had not met before asked if they could come along with us, to which we over-enthusiastically said "YES!"

It was so nice to road-trip with the boys. Plans didn't work out as we planned, but none of us really cared. The hotel where we thought that we had bunks in the dorm room told us that they had been booked full for this night since a month ago, but it is okay, we could have slept in a tent if we had to. In the end we found a dorm room a couple of hotels down next to Lake Naivasha. It was raining, prohibiting us from hiking where we had wanted to, but that did not matter. We sat out on the porch to the dorm room and talked about some of the finer points of evolution and about the States. It turns out that one of the men was the president of the frisbee club in college and also did a lot of home brewing. Both being passions of mine in college.

When the rain stopped we went out to the lake and found a hippo, in the water, in its natural habitat, with no barrier keeping us apart. Luckily, he did not want to decrease the distance between us.

Then, the next day, we went to Hell's Gate National Park, the only park in Kenya (so I have been told), where you can walk or ride a bike through the park. We rented really unkempt mountain bikes from the park service, and spent the day riding up to groups of zebra, giraffe, and warthogs, scaring them off as we gave chase on our bikes.

In all, we rode close to 30 km on these mountain bikes, most of which had low-to-flat tires by mid-day. Towards the end of our circuit in the park we went to the park's main feature, called "the Gorge." It reminded me of one of the slot canyons entering the Grand Canyon, without the adjoining Grand Canyon.

There is no way that they would allow a tour like this one in the States. Our guide showed us how to over come each obstacle, sometimes showing us hand holds to use to skirt by pools of water on a small ledge. Other times wedging himself horizontally between the two cliff faces as he progressed toward and up over a ledge in the canyon.

I cannot imagine most tourists overcoming these obstacles, but it didn't matter for us - the boys. After two hours of canyoneering, and a day of riding bikes we mounted the matatu for the two hour journey back into Nairobi. Finishing off the night with a mango lassi and paneer from a deserted Indian restaurant.

Just us boys.

It really made me miss these interactions. Backpacking, road-tripping, and relaxing, just us boys, together, without another care in the world, a nice way to celebrate the end of a term and re-energize myself.