Bowling, farewelling, racing and meeting the hood

We went to a 10 pin bowling fundraiser on friday evening. There were about 100000 yanks there... but it was seriously fun! We did meet a really cool kiwi girl who we will definitely see more of. Our bowling team of 12 did not exactly come away with any prizes.... but we had lots of laughs (and LOTS of wine) while tossing them balls down the lanes.
We had an early start on Saturday and took our neighbour for his first ride here in Kenya. He used to cycle loads so we are determined to get him back into it. We did an easy 30kms in the coffee farms nearby. Roland loved it!

Then we headed off to Kinjah's for the day. It was a kind of a farewell for Caterina, a really cool german girl, who has finished her stint here and was returning to deutschland. Caterina is our age and is an environmentalist and a biker, we REALLY got on well with her these last 2.5 months and will miss her. We spent the day in a forest, having an awesome picnic that Kinjah and his crew laid out for us. He has made a really awesome, twisty single track circuit through the forest where he takes his boys for some speedwork training - we tried it out a couple of times.

On Sunday we raced in the Ngong 50km that is held every year. It was really well organised, and well participated and well sponsored. All VERY impressive to us as we've realised how that level of organisation rarely happens here. It did start like an hour late though... but thats to be expected. Kenyan time is quite a joke.
Benedikt came 7th in the mens race... he rode REALLY well! His average heart rate for the race was 169!
I wasnt feeling too great and it felt like I rode like a tortoise... but apparently I wasnt so bad as I won the ladies race.
So between us we came home with 12000 kenyan shillings of prize money! Not bad huh!
Guess we will be doing ALL the races here :-)

On Sunday afternoon we headed off to our landlords house for a luncheon they put on especially for us. I had been asking for a get together so we could meet all the other residents in our 'compound' (SUCH an amercian word) so Lauren very kindly hosted one. There are 11 houses in total... and most of the tenants were present, and so it was good to meet everyone. There is a real mixture of people here (this country is THE place for mixtures after all), all different nationalities married to each other. I guess Benedikt and I are no exception.

So it was a real busy weekend. We left Mahindi alone alot. But she survived. And its REALLY cool to come home to an excited doggie.

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