Hello South Africa!

So we have been here a week now and have settled in just dandily. I am surprised at how much I am enjoying being back home. Could it be the AMAZING roads and really civilized drivers? Or the cleanliness and orderliness of the suburbs and surrounds? Or the to-die-for-doll SHOPPING?! Or the fact that I will be seeing my sister every week and my Dad every day. And my mum every 2 months?! hmmmmmmm... or could it just be because its an amazing country with great weather and friendly people and its all just so familiar? And I'm not even scared like I thought I would be. The security aspect of things is not freaking me out at all, even with Nico in the car with us. Lets hope that I stay this relaxed and that nothing bad happens to us.

My sister kindly picked us up from the airport last Saturday after a not so pleasant, delayed flight (plus we had mild hangovers after a late night with Naoko and others). We did the handover with the estate agent at 2pm for our house that we are renting, had our dogs delivered from the kennels where they had been the previous 2 weeks at 3pm, went out and bought a bed at 4pm and went and picked up Benedikt's temporary car from his new company at 5pm. We also went to Woolworths food for some groceries - WOW!!!! That store is just amazing. Such beautiful fresh produce and really healhty ready made meals. We were like kids in there! My sister was really laughing at us. So we had a yummy picnic supper on plastic table and chairs. By 7pm (8pm kenyan time) we were shattered! And so was Nico which was a good job as we put him to sleep on the floor on a cushion, barricaded in with our suitcases! We had run out of time to buy him a cot that afternoon.
Sunday morning the 3 of us woke up at 4:45am!!!! It gets light here SO early and with no curtains or anything we were doomed. So we took the dogs and went to the playground and park 200m away and let them run wild. There is also a km long, wide green stretch of grass parallel to our road which is just perfect for the dogs to run on, so we walked down and up that and we were still back by 6am! So we went off and did some more shopping: a cot, some toys for Nico, some more groceries, various bits and pieces and some bedding.
In fact, thats what we did every day this week: SHOP! Nico is now very sick of being dragged around the shops, so its a good thing we think we have everything we need now. There were so many things to get, like water filters, iron and ironing board, glasses, mugs, cutlery, tupperware, a vacuum cleaner and cleaning stuff, toiletries and bath mats, chlorine for the pool.... etc etc!
So tomorrow we are RELAXING. Nico is now sleeping well again - we bought black out blinds for his room and my dad put them up for us - he is very handy to have around. Nico also knows his way around the house now which makes him happier and more independent, it helps that its all on one level.
I've been running every morning with the dogs which is a great way to get to know the suburb we are now in (we used to live on the other side of the highway) and its really nice round here. We are all very happy with the house and the area (Essexwold just near Bedfordview). Its very central.
Our air freight FINALLY arrived on Thursday after lots of problems and delays on the Kenyan side. It was very frustrating. So that meant Benedikt eventually got his road bike and he promptly built it all up and joined our old cycling group on Friday morning for a hard 90kms. I am SO jealous not to be riding with them! Its all our old buddies and they are a fun crowd. Plus the cycling is really hard and intense and just what we enjoy. But I am fat and unfit these days so would never be able to keep up! Doctors orders were to put on weight and back off from exercise to help me get pregnant again so I am trying it.... although I hate it!! I just want to be fit and in shape on fast on my bike again. BUT, I keep telling myself, its just another year or so (hopefully) and then the having babies thing will be over!
So I am just running every morning and doing some yoga. I will do some cycling with my sister now and then - we can have fun social rides!

Benedikt and I can't believe how many cyclists and runners we see here. The roads are full of them. Like this morning, during my 13km run I must have seen about 200 runners and about 100 cyclists!! CRAZY. I love how sports orientated South Africans are, its so motivating.

We went a saw my good friend Leanne on thursday morning and we met each other's little boys for the first time, its crazy that we had'nt seen each for 2.5 years. Its so nice to have old friends here... instead of trying to make new ones. It makes the move so easy... we just slot right back in. We went for dinner on Thursday night with our coconut friend, Sudheer and the conversation was so similar to before that it felt like we'd never even been gone!

Bye bye Kenya!

So we have 3 days left and those 3 days are going to be spent packing our stuff, including my PC. Most of our furniture is going straight to Zurich and then going into storage until we get there in approximately April. Then things like our bikes and car seats and curtains, clothes, bedding, toys, certain gadgets and toiletries are going air freight to SA. Then we pack the rest in our 5 million suitcases that we fly with.
Its been a real mission sorting what goes where and what is up for sale.
This last Friday we had our farewell party at the sundowner deck in our compound. We picked possibly the worst night ever weather wise as Nairobi had monsoon like rains from about 6pm till 9pm. The whole city was flooded! So about 20 people didnt make it. But the remaining 40 of us had a GREAT time. I'd made a great punch (of which I think I drank most of it) and we had the same caterer who did our wedding, so the food was excellent. He also took care of the bar and set up the cocktail tables etc. So we had very little to do. Plus the sundowner deck was cleaned for us before and after. My kinda party - zero effort! Benedikt and I said a little speech telling our special friends how much they meant to us - Hem & Paul, Sabine & Mike, Ashe & Kiran, Roland & Naoko and Debbie & Malcolm made the top 5. And how much Kenya had meant to us, it really has been a special time for us too. We did afterall have a baby here and we get married here! A lot of our friends had gotten together and made a really cool news bulletin type magazine with loads of photos of us and them and had all written something special inside it. Sabine presented it to us at the party along with an amazing present from Savannah Sun. Thanks guys, we love it!
On Saturday, after just 4 hours sleep, we had the German Business Association's Christmas lunch to go to. Benedikt has been on the committee and I've been doing their web site, so we were quite involved. It was a pleasant afternoon. Benedikt and I went to bed straight after putting Nico down at 7pm, we were exhausted!
On Sunday I had organised a farewell ride with a lot of our mountain biking buddies. We went for a short 1.5 hour ride as it was raining, then everyone stayed for brunch at the lovely restaurant in our compound (which had been totally flooded on the Friday night!). And on Sunday we had a garden sale of a lot of our cutlery and crockery. So a busy final weekend.

The farewells have started!

So our landlords held a compound farewell for us last Sunday which was lovely. There is a real mixture of people in the 13 houses in our beautiful compound: Spaniards, yanks, Canadians, pommies, Irish, Welsh, Austrians, Belgians, Swedish, Japs and South Africans. And what a lovely compound it is. Everyone wants to live here. Its so pretty and lush and centrally located and beautifully kept and our landlords (Lauren is American and Paul is a KC) are just so efficient and innovative, which is very rare for Kenya. Our house went within 5 days of us giving notice! And it was to our good friend, Eva, which is just fab as we can organise our move with her.
So Lauren put out an amazing spread and the champagne was flowing. We had given our baby monitor to the askari and asked him to call the main house if he hears crying, which he duly did 2.5 hours later! So I dashed home and fetched Nico... who then proceeded to feast. I love taking him to lunches out like that as he just eats SO well. I think its the novelty. Or my bad cooking.
On the Monday night, good friends of ours who own the Fairview hotel had us round for an exclusive night in the hotel's wine cellar. They can't make it to our farewell bash next Friday so it was great to spend one last FUN evening with them. Danny actually did the Sani2C in 2009 and my sister and I made a point of meeting him to ask about cycling in Kenya! He was so friendly then, just as he always is. There are GREAT people here.
Then on thursday my amazing yoga teacher, Oriane, (you can check our her site that I did for her here) organised a final yoga VEGAN brunch after our class on thursday which was really nice of her. Wow, I am going to miss her. We have become good friends. And I LOVE her Ashtanga yoga classes. I'm so committed. So will find a place in Jhb to do them too. I have bought myself a great Manduka mat and am fairly confident in the primary series now (Oriane even started me on the second series!) that I will do my own practice weekly too.
Benedikt is having a 'cool people' work farewell right night now... which is why I am updating my blog on Saturday night... well, that, and we've sold our TV already.
We are having a farewell dinner hosted by our neighbours on Monday night. Naoko, who is a crazy Japanese lady who I LOVE is cooking and she is amazing in the kitchen. And such great company. I will miss our BEST NEIGHBOURS EVER that's for sure.
Then on Wednesday its a German friend's fancy farewell dinner for us... and on Friday its our big farewell bash. And on that Sunday the 4th, we are having a farewell mountain bike ride followed by a breakfast which should be fun. Then we pack up our stuff in the days following that, and leave the following Saturday.
There is ALOT to do between now and then. I have a list of things to do stuck up next to me, 10 things per day for the next 13 days basically! There are sooooooooooooooooooo many details to take care of. Like finding new employment for our staff, getting Nico's yellow fever injection and SA temp passport done, getting my car ready to handover (its sold already),changing the registration of my iphone as we are selling it, co-coordinating the pick up of all our sold items, sorting out what goes straight to Zurich and what goes air freight to SA and what goes in our suit cases. Sorting out the dogs and our house in SA and in between everything I am putting quite a big web site live, wrapping up on many other web sites as I will be out of action for a week, and making sure I get paid all outstanding invoices before we close our Kenyan bank account!
We are also drinking all of our wine as we aren't taking it with us, which has been a real chore of course. So some things I'll miss about Kenya are:
Our fantastic nanny, Sara. She is always happy and Nico LOVES her and I love her too! She is really really really great at her job and goes the extra mile. My, how I'm going to miss her!
The Forest - I've been going there at least 4 times a week for the last 2.5 years. I know it so well and so do the dogs. Its truly beautiful! And only 4 mins away by car.
Our friends - we have made some FANTASTIC friends here. And its really sad to leave them. Although I think a lot of them are keen to visit us in Zurich!
The climate - Its so moderate here. Never too hot and never too cold. The rainy season is not that great though, which is where we are at right now. But at least all this rain keeps everything so green and lush.
Our house - its been an amazing place to live in. And our compound is just great. We will miss the space and the security and the beautiful setting, that's for sure.
Yoga - I think I may miss this the most actually. I really feel I've made progress in the 2 years I've been doing Ashtanga. Even though I was pregnant during a lot of that time. I am absolutely committed to Ashtanga though, so know I will carry on. But am pretty sure I will never have a teacher like Oriane!
Our social life - boy have we hobnobbed with some fancy folk! Ambassadors, the Vice president, the German Chancellor, Military Attaches, Top CEOS and some almost-royalty! But its not just the high society folk that have been amazing to meet, its the fact that we've met so many people from different countries all with different life stories. To me that has been a really interesting part of being here.


What I wont miss:
Benedikt's bad moods - he hasn't really enjoyed a lot of aspects of living in Kenya :) He is far too German for this place!
The roads and the traffic - they are HORRENDOUS. No one will really know what it's like without coming here.
The dust - this is one dirty place!
The inefficiency - Kenyan time is something Kenyans are proud of. They don't know how to rush! Nor follow rules, nor how to improve systems!
The badly treated animals - I don't think there's been one ride we've been on where we haven't seen at least 5 stray dogs, often pregnant bitches, and at least 2 or 3 dead dogs on the road. Yesterday we passed a dead donkey on the road. And on many an occasion we've seen people hitting their donkeys or kids throwing things at dogs. Or people manhandling puppies they are selling. It makes me ill. And sad. I really don't like humans. I always stop and say something to them (in my very broken swahili) but I'm not sure it helps
The lack of a good radio station - I've really missed keeping up with music and just listening to a good radio station during the day. This silence kills me. I can't wait for the awesome Gareth cliff and 5fm in SA!
Not being able to get what you need/want at the shops - its been a real pain I must say. And when you can get things here, there is NO variety and its darn expensive. So we always bought so much stuff back from Germany.

Wow, its going to be amazing to live in a first world country again! Not that the material side of things really bothers me.... but it does makes things easier with Nico. And I look forward to being around people who get things done and have manners!

The dogs have gone

Boohoo. I'm very concerned about them! They left at 10:30 this morning to catch a 4pm flight to Johannesburg. So its only a 4 hour flight but still.... if you add in all the transporting to and from the airport and the waiting around they do before and after the flights, it's like 12 hour journey. 12 hours in a kennel with no food and only a little water (So that they don't have waste)! And no familiar faces. And LOTS of scary noise. At least the sky kennels we got them are spacious and comfy and they are quite happy in them. We've made them sleep in them the last few weeks so that they are familiar with being in there.
They are going to doggie prison in Johannesburg for hopefully just 5 days. Its a maximum of 2 weeks quarantine when taking dogs to SA (from dodgy countries like kenya), just long enough for them to be tested for various things. So if the timing works as planned, they'll have their tests done on Wednesday and the results will come on friday. Then they can be released. Yay! Lets hope. Because quarantine doenst sound very nice at all.
I took them for their last run in the forest this morning. They will REALLY miss that. They run wild there and do at least double the distance I do with their darts here and there and monkey sprints and bird chases. Its the rainy season right now so the forest has been seriously muddy lately. Mahindi's favourite. Within 2 minutes of entering the forest she is brown. She rolls in all the puddles its so funny.
Horse is just the most athletic dog ever. She is beautiful to watch in the forest, I love it. She is elegant and effortless. And can run REALLY REALLY fast. Mahindi is like this low flying barrel chasing her hardest from behind after the same monkey. Thankfully they have never even gotten close to the monkeys. Or caught any of the little duikers or birds!
They have a serious bunch of canine friends there too which has really made them into lovely social dogs. I've never seen an ounce of aggression from either of them. Even when a new dog challenges them. Which is very reassuring for us, having a child and all. Nico loves to pull their ears, smack them and hang on their tails. And they just sit there as if nothing is happening. Horse licks Nico to death of course, but Nico is learning to shout 'ORSE' when she does.
We have been very lucky with the 2 dogs, apart from Horse's chewing of cars, and her early morning barking, they are both great. And they get on really well. We love them to death and would never consider leaving them behind.
We can't wait to see them in the snow in Switzerland! Horse is such a big baby when it comes to the cold, she is really going to hate it. Will have to get her a pink fleecy jacket, the big softy! Mahindi will probably go mad.
We first have to get through the few months in SA... I doubt I will find anything like the forests here. And if I do, it probably wont be safe to go there on my own. So I may have to run on the road with them which is going to be tricky. I have found this cool place though so we'll try and take them there now and then, its an hour away.
So its like an end of a chapter now that the dogs are off... our house is just not the same without them. Nico is really going to miss them these last 3 weeks as well. He LOVES LOVES LOVES them. He giggles whenever they do things and he can watch them for hours.

Samburu

So we took advantage of our last free weekend in Kenya and headed off to Samburu, a national reserve a bit more north of Kenya than where we're used to going. Its actually pretty much in the middle of the country. We stayed in a lodge in the neighbouring conservancy, Kalama, called Saruni, and it was beautiful. We'd been recommended the place by more than one set of friends and been told that a safari in Samburu is quite unlike Amboselli, Tsavo or the mara. We also hadn't been 'on safari' (everyone here calls it that, its so lame) at all this year... so it was time.

We are leaving Kenya!

Yip, thats right. Our time here in Kenya has come to an end! Its very sad. We've been here 2.5 years now and have really made some great friends and done some really special things.
Benedikt has accepted a new job with another German company - STAHLGRUBER / Rema Tip Top and he starts on the 1st of January next year. His first project is in South Africa, in Benoni of all places - where I went to school! So we will be living in Johannesburg for between 3 to 6 months while he completes the project.
Then on to Zurich, Switzerland, which will be our permanent base! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
The more I learn about the city, the more excited I get. Zurich looks AMAZING on all fronts.

We still have to find a place to stay in SA. We are looking in the area we used to live in - Bedfordview - as its central and nice and familiar to us. Its proving to be a bit tricky trying to find a place though as we need a furnished house with a garden for the dogs and its only for a few months.

We leave for SA on the 10th of December for christmas holiday and Nico and I wont come back to Kenya. Benedikt may have to come back for a few days to tie up things at work.

So we only have 4 weeks left!
The dogs leave here on the 21st as they have a 2 week quarantine period in SA. And our furniture and stuff will probably get packed up at the end of the month. Thats all going straight to Zurich.


So exciting times for us!

Zumbathon and Halloween

So Hem, Kiran and I did a 2 hour Zumbathon this weekend. I'd never done Zumba before and was a bit skeptical about it... but it was really loads of fun. Some instructors were way better than others, but the music was always really good and the vibe was very energetic. There were over a hundred ladies there, all dressed in pink as it was a breast cancer fundraiser, dancing in the mud! We've had monsoon like rain in the last week and the field was flooded. Bonus: I won a facial in the raffle! Worth 5000kshs - woohoo!

So on Saturday night we went to the Latin American Club Halloween party. It was an organsied event held at a BIG house and it was just awesome. Benedikt went as Dracula and I went as a witch. We were both Halloween party virgins so didnt realise how under dressed we'd be! Next time we will go ALL OUT. Although our nanny did tell us we looked very scary and that she would run a mile if she saw us at night!


And finally, guess who else was there? Mark Cavendish!
In his off season, clearly. But he has just won the world champ title so he's allowed a few extra french fries.