Day Eleven

I woke up at 6 am to the start of another beautiful day in Kenya! We bid good-bye to the portion of the group that went onto a three day safari. I saw the Masai Mara Game Reserve on my last trip to Kenya so I opted to layover in London on my way home, others chose to go straight home. On the way to Nairobi we stopped at 'the top of the world' to take one last look at the Great Rift Valley before saying goodbye.

Our afternoon was spent at the Westgate Shopping mall which had the most amazingly clean flush toilets, frozen yogurt, and wireless internet. I was able to pick up souvenir t-shirts from One Way and browse the Banana Box but my excitement was for shopping really peaked when we wandered to the space between Peponi and Lower Kabete Road and were transported to that place where shopkeepers appear out of the shadows to summon, 'Sister, come to my shop' and where it is not uncommon for merchants of one shop to follow you with an arm full of their wares into another shop to sell you their products.

I had a list in mind of a few items I wanted to take home and I kept the basic conversion in mind: 1,000 shillings is about $12.00, armed with a little bit of money in each of the pockets of my cargo pants I set out to set see just how many items I could get on the list.

I paid about 1,000 shillings for a floor length skirt in green, brick red and black-the skirt isn't the most striking item I have worn, but there are large pieces of well over a yard of fabric that will be the beginning of a very beautiful quilt.

And another 1,000 shillings for a set of 11 hand carved ebony Africa animals that I will put in my grand-babies toy box so that I may teach them about elephants, lions, and giraffe. The African 'mom' doll with a little baby on her back also came home with me, but by far the hardest thing to find was baby clothes, I would have paid several pocketful of money if I could have found some. I also bought several baskets, handbags, and bracelets for myself and the the numerous women in my family.

As we drove thorough Nairobi to the airport we slowed down for traffic and I had a man reach into the matatu and grab for anything I had sitting on my lap. Unfortunately for him, in the past Scott and more recently Alex had taught me how travel as an American women in a foreign country. My visa was in my pocket, my bags were on the floor, my camera put away and the only thing the man got from me was a smack on the hand.

We boarded the plane at 10 pm for an eight hour flight to Heathow of which I spent the first three hours taking the braids out of my hair, saying goodbye to a vacation is never enjoyable but my reasoning was that eventually I would want to wash my hair.