Trip to Kericho

Last Saturday we took a day trip to Kericho, a town about an hour-and-a-half away.  I really needed to go somewhere, anywhere, and it seemed like a good place to go.  So off we went, driving ourselves!  We currently have a car because another WGM family asked us to be responsible for their car while they're on HMA this year.  We didn't anticipate using it much, but it offers a lot of freedom and, as it turns out, costs about the same to drive ourselves as it does to hire a driver (if all 5 of us are going somewhere).  So we're getting acclimated to driving around Kenya, on the left side of the road.  It's been great!

Kericho is in the heart of tea country and it is beautiful.  The rolling hills are green and lush, and tea fields are everywhere.  Watching workers pick tea leaves in the fields is somehow picturesque.  Tea production is an important part of the economy in Kenya and it's encouraging to know that the tea industry is doing well.

One of the reasons we ventured to Kericho was to check out the Chagaik Arboretum.  It turned out to be a lovely place, like a small park.  It's just past town and is known to have troops of monkeys.  We had prepped the kids with the notion that we'd see colobus monkeys and vervet monkeys, but there was nary a monkey to be seen.  There were a lot of people making a lot of noise at the time, so perhaps that's why they weren't around.  It must be normal to see them, however, because there were even signs warning against hunting vervet monkeys.  Oh well.  Maybe next time!

We did, however, discover this tiny frog hopping through the grass.  Caleb and Kai were enthralled, and Caleb quickly named him Fall (not sure why).  This poor frog suffered at the hands of our children for about an hour before we put him by the river.  I hope a bird or other creature snatched him up quickly because he was very near death by the time Caleb was done "protecting him from predators."  Caleb said many many times on the ride home how much he missed his froggy friend Fall.

While Caleb played with the frog, Kai wasted no time finding a place to dig.  That boy is obsessed with dirt.  I mean, obsessed.  If it looks like there's no dirt to be found, I can guarantee he will find some anyway, and be willing to wander in order to find it.  I swear he's got a homing device for dirt.

Eli carried Asa around for a bit and garnered way too many stares and laughs.  We learned awhile ago that men simply DO NOT carry babies on their backs.  That's the woman's way to carry a baby.  So whenever we go places and Eli puts Asa on his back, we get stared and laughed at, and some people have even whipped out their phones to take a picture because they think it's so funny.  This particular time we were too annoyed to handle any more attention than usual, so after letting him crawl around in the grass for awhile I put Asa on my back instead.

Asa loves being outside and crawling around.  He does not like to be held when he's outside.  There's too much to explore and he squawks or screams when we pick him up.

Near the river were these giant bamboo shoots.  I'm not sure if they're native to Kenya or not, although I'm inclined to think not.  The arboretum had trees from around the world and they were even labeled!  (Signage is not one of Kenya's strong suits.)  So perhaps this bamboo was transplanted from somewhere else.  Regardless, it was fun to see real bamboo!

After the arboretum we headed back into town and ate lunch at a restaurant that had chicken nuggets on the menu.  Then we stopped at Nakumatt (which is sort of like a small Walmart) to get things like milk and butter and berries.  All in all, it was a great day.  We did have one puke episode in the car -we've discovered that Kai is capable of getting carsick - but otherwise it was a fun day of getting away from the hospital and exploring another part of Kenya.  We love to travel and explore, so it did our hearts good!  And since Kericho is so close, and since it has a place to buy things like milk and butter and berries, we'll probably be going back periodically in the future.