Busy busy!

So I'm just writing quickly as I am a busy lady.
German is going on in full swing once more. Joy. I am in a full class again (abt 25 students) and I am the only white face again, surprise surprise. Although there is a very nice Indonesian girl. A funny thing, the security guard checks everyone's bags when they walk in.... but they dont check mine?? I just breeze past them. Bonus.
I sit at a table with another Sarah (Zara-Zwei) and christine who is lovely. And Stephen who has a gelled hairstyle - v funny!
But German is as unpleasant as ever, the classes are just such a drag. It takes up almost 4 hours of my day (2 hour class, 45 min drive). EVERY DAY! But, I am making progress. Although my Afrikaans accent when speaking German doesn't go down very well. I only have like 5 months left. Only!
Its quite funny, because during the class we only speak German. No english allowed. So whenever I leave I am in German mode. So I say 'Danke' and 'Tschuss' and 'Bis Morgen' to the lads at the car park and they do look at me funny. Happy Car Park was closed down btw. So now I park in a much more civilised parking, where its not bumper to bumper. Its just like 1km away from the building unfortunately.
And uno its funny, I (or we?) take so much for granted. A lot of the students plan on going to Germany after learning the language. But like our lecturer pointed out today, they need to learn the European ways of living. Like for example, how to operate a washing machine. Or how to use a knife and fork. And how to separate their rubbish and why this is important!
After my german everyday I get home and work. I only get to work for about 4 hours at a go which is SO not enough. I have lots of web sites in the pipeline. And new sites I have to tell people I'll get to them in May!

So Benedikt played in a tennis tournament last Saturday. I went to watch like a good girlfriend. It was VERY entertaining. There were 9 people in the tournament, 2 kids, 3 ladies, 2 middle aged men, Benedikt and an old geezer! The old geezer turned out to be EVIL. He played the ladies and completely annihilated them, then played the kids and destroyed them too.... he wouldn't even concede one point! And he played all 7 games and made the poor little guys run all over the show and quiver in their socks. When Benedikt played the one kid he gave him a game just to boost his confidence and only played 5 games in total. No need to play all 7! So Anita, my new best friend, is the tennis captain. She was having none of this King John nonsense. So we match fixed and made Benedikt play John. Benedikt served gently at first and played softly with the dude.... until he realised the old guy meant business. Unfortunately by then he'd already given the guy a game or two. Then Benedikt started to play for real and the old guy would call his shots out when they clearly weren't!!! What a cheat! I cant believe that a person has made it through 65 odd years of life and still cheats?!
So Benedikt is now 2nd on the ladder at the club. But John will surely fall from his throne one of these days?!

Mahindi's forest walks have picked up some energy. It seems like every dog owner in the area is now determined to walk their dogs with us. Eva is coordinator thank goodness, not me! Today there were 7 dog owners and 11 dogs!!!! It was mayhem. Mahindi was in her element. She just LOVES the company. She is passed out dead at my feet right now.
She is going to be staying with Eva as from tonight, so she gets a little holiday too. We are off to the beach and then to Tsavo, a National Park. Sigh, I told you I was busy.
Loopy is joining us, YAY! She arrives this evening.

Tennis Star

When Mandy and Collin were here we played a little tennis at the Muthaiga Club as I mentioned in my last blog. Since becoming members of Muthaiga we have SO been killing the place, we were there 3 times over this last weekend!. Anyway, Mandy and I made a deal that we would both go for tennis lessons and have a big tennis-off when we see each other next. Which is in August by the way - yippeeee!! She is coming for a week, during the second week that my folks are here. Poor Benedikt will be inundated with my family. But please take note everyone... if you book now for later in the year on Kenyan Airways, tickets are just R4000 from SA to here! Thats basically 2 cape town trips. So why not skip cape town this year (twice) and come and visit us?
So I have been for four lessons already. Mandy has been for one. Ha ha! Who do you think is going to win in August?!!
I need about a zillion more lessons though... tennis does NOT come naturally to me. I don't get that whole follow through thing and I don't really like running around the court :-)
Benedikt used to play quite seriously so he is very keen to get back into things. He usually gets a sparring partner and either plays a set or two or they just hit to each other. He has even signed himself up for a Round Robin tournament next weekend. So lets see how the keen bee does in that!
What we both LOVE about playing at Muthaiga is that you get ball boys! And not just one, often 2 at a time. Its hilarious. And not just 2 or 3 balls, but a whole basket of balls is constantly topped up and kept near to you for convenience. Gotta love the whole colonial thang!
The courts are clay apparently. But they seem more like gravel if you ask me. Maybe thats what a clay court is? I just know I slip and slide all over the place while DIVING for shots. But after anyone has been playing on a court for a bit, it gets all messed up. So they manually pull a heavy roller thing up and down to hard pack the gravel/clay again. And then paint the lines on again with a contraption on wheels. What a mission!

And now for some bike porn. We very lovingly cleaned and scrubbed our bikes this weekend and adorned them with plaques! Look how fancy they are now:

Xmas, Amboseli, Mandy's bday, New Years and the rest

The day after we got back from Mt Kenya was Christmas eve, so time to get merry! We introduced Mandy to our local supermarkets and shopping centres... she was amazed at their good standard and couldn’t believe we’d asked her to bring so many supplies with her. I guess we were just spoilt for choice in SA and pined for all the things we couldn’t get here. Mandy and Collin had bought us marmite, protein bars, (affordable) wine, sushi equipment, an ipod, books, magazines... We even got them to bring us a set of Thule roof racks for the prado, poor overloaded travellers!
We went to Mike that afternoon to pick up his bike that we were borrowing for Collin and stayed for some Rosé and stollen. Then to Ashe and Kiran for sundowners, followed by a fun Christmas eve dinner at Mathaiga Club. So plenty of Christmas cheer was had by all! Mandy was on TOP form (and in her element being at the Muthaiga Club) and entertained our table of 12 all night. The best joke of the evening was when the topic of the full moon over new years was being discussed and Collin asked Mandy if she gets affected by the moon. She threw her head back and answered ‘NOooooooooooooooooooooooooo’!!
On Christmas day the four of us went for a really cool bike ride with Danny and Mike. Mandy and Collin were impressed by our never ending beautiful bike trails we have on our doorstep. Then it was present time!!! Yipppee! The best part of Christmas! We all got loads of stuff, our stockings were full and the tree was gift laden. For our Christmas dinner we did raclette with all the fine meat and cheese and various trimmings. It was a feast of note. That evening we watched Benedikt’s xmas dvd, Bruno, possibly not the best choice for a family day!
On the 26th we left for Amboseli, shocking Mandy and Collin with the ‘national highway’ mess as you leave Nairobi. Actually the entire journey shocked them.... have I mentioned how diabolical the roads are here?!! Kenya is just so stuck in the sixties...1963 to be exact. Thats when the country gained independence from the brits and all development ceased!
On arrival in Amboseli we saw lions, elephants, hyenas, warthogs, giraffes, hippos, buffalo, zebra and loads of different birds and that was all on our way to our accommodation. Which was a good thing because our accommodation was disappointing- it turned out to be simple (ugly)brick buildings which were basically cordoned off staff quarters. Oh well, we got out the whiskey and the wine and played poker and braaied up a storm. The following day we did an early morning game drive where again, we saw loads of animals. Even though it rained a little while we were there, Amboseli is still severely drought ravaged, and, like the last time we were there we saw plenty of carcasses. That side of it is quite depressing. But it didn’t stop our excellent game viewing and bird spotting mission... I think Mandy and Collins bird count went up by 15 or so? We also went to see a lady who runs the baboon research centre at Amboseli which was very interesting. She has been studying baboons for 30 years! On our third day there we went to Ol tukai, a supposedly 5 star lodge before leaving to come home. We had tea and coffee there, played some table tennis and sat by the pool for a couple of hours, totally making ourselves at home as only us Wielopolski’s can!
After Amboseli Mandy and Collin still had just under a week left, so we did all the Nairobi sights. We went for a really cool Ethipian dinner that evening at an authentic Ethiopian (would you believe) restaurant. We made a ton of sushi the next night with all of my new goodies which was very exciting. We had our neighbours round to share it with us, and it even past Naoko’s japenese stamp of approval!
On the 30th, Mandy’s birthday, we went on a Nature Kenya bird walk in the morning which was just brilliant. (Benedikt was glad he was working that day!) The lady who took it knew every bird, plant, insect and animal and all the bird calls... she made the walk so worthwhile. Again, Mandy and Collin raised their bird tally by about 20 birds. Which is ALOT. Then we went to the Karen Bixem (!) Restaurant for a divine lunch, followed by a visit to Karen Blixem’s house. This was a REAL highlight for Mandy. You will never meet a bigger ‘Out of Africa’ fan than her. She knows the movie backwards and says all the lines before Robert and Meryl do! She’s read lots of Karen’s books too and knows her history so well, I learnt a lot going there with her. Mandy was amazed at how the house looks just like it did in the movie. We took loads of photos of course and had a nice sit down in the beautiful expansive garden.
The next evening was New Years Eve. We had some friends around for a ‘party’ most of whom were (older) couples from our compound as many of our friends were away at the coast still. There were about 20 people in the end and it was a pretty tame evening really. Even with Mandy and Collins dodgy attempts at opening up the dance floor!
Next up was Magadi. A salt lake about 100kms away which has natural hot springs. It borders Lake Natron which is in Tanzania and the change in scenery on the drive down was very interesting. Mahindi battled a bit with the salty water but enjoyed chasing the birds down. Boz and Collin wallowed in the (very) hot bubbling pools.
In between of all this we played some excellent tennis and squash matches and chilled at the pool, all at Muthaiga Club. We definitely got value out of our new membership there! And Mandy and I of course stole the stage with our impressive tennis match, what a display of skill and professionalism. We also got some yoga done, more bike riding and some running in the forest which Mahindi loved of course.
On our last night we were invited to Naoko and Roland for Shabu Shabu. Another real highlight for everyone. Excellent company and excellent food – Shabu Shabu is a japenese style dinner where you all share a hot pot of water in the middle of the table and dip your food in to cook it. It’s a lot more glamorous and tasty than what it sounds! And of course Naoko’s trimmings and style always create a special experience.
On our last day I took Mandy and Collin to Kiambethu Tea Farm where drank tea (naturally) and had a tour of the farm and forest and listened to a very interesting Tea Talk.
Then they bloody left. And I cried.