Horse

So this is Horse.
She is an 8 week old Rhodesian Ridgeback and is the newest member of our household. She is a typical puppy: cocky, confident and naughty.
But she is just TOOOOOO cute. We cant decide who was cuter as a puppy between her and Mahindi. Horse makes these funny grumbling sounds when you tickle her or pick her up and when she sleeps which are just adorable! And as you can see she has the cutest little body with strong legs already. Her dad is the size of a horse, hence the name... but also just cos we found it SUCH a funny name.
Horse and Mahindi seem to be getting on well... if biting and scuffling with each other constantly counts as getting on. Horse is already becoming the leader the two... although Mahindi is such a pleaser and follower that its not surprising. Horse has already explored the garden more than Mahindi ever has. Horse has even done a roof tour. (It was very worrying to find her there after I lost her for 10mins)
Horse sleeps outside now, as of last night. Its SO warm here still and they have a cute wooden house which we've made nice and cosy. They seem to like it in there.

So it seems like our goal has been achieved: find a friend for Mahindi to play with while we play with our baby :-)

Kenyan Wedding and our birthdays

So last friday Benedikt and I went to a cycling friend of ours' wedding. Alex is Ugandan and Ruth is Kenyan. We got there at 11:20 as it started at 11am and we knew it would run late.... well, it only got started at 12:30! We were sitting/standing in the blazing sun until 2:30pm which is when the ceremony bit finished! Not good for this grumpy pregnant fairy :-)
The vows were all pretty standard and pleasant. But they had 3 priests!! All going off on their own tangent and speaking nonsense. The churches here do tend to be a bit evangelical. Apparently the louder the speaker is into the microphone, the more religious he is :-)

Then lunch was served which consisted of some interesting dishes. And chapati of course. Then we waited a further 2 and a half hours for the bride and groom to finish their photos and stuff... but they had a very impressive arrival. They headed up a 30 minute dancing train! People were really getting down! And this was all without alcohol, we were quite surprised that none was served.
We sat at one of 2 Mazungu tables and the entertainer dude who had a unique violin type instrument made sure we were welcomed in all his songs - he was quite funny in his leopard get up.
All in all it was a pleasant day out... albeit a very interesting one!


It was also our birthday week last week. Mine was on Wednesday and Benedikts on Friday. We each took each for dinner and were nice to each other for a change.
But our main celebration was on Saturday night when we had a dress up party. People had to come as a German or a South African and if they chose neither then cycling get up! Funnily enough we had lotsa non cyclists who didnt mind prancing around in cycling gear.
Benedikt and I were busy all day making typical german and south african food which turned out really yummy. We had the party at the sundowner deck which is a communal lapa type thing in our compound. Really cool people came, everyone dressed up and it was a fun evening. Although everyone except our die hard neighbour faded before 12... kids and cycling mean early nights! So I guess Benedikt and I are never going to see past 12pm from August onwards ;-(

Easter Break

So we went to Diani for the Easter weekend with good friends of ours, Mike and Sabine and their 2 kids. Diani is just south of Mombasa. It was our first time heading in that direction. We flew there which was great as the drive can be a real drag - there is a ferry to cross at Mombasa which I think on average takes like 3 hours to use! Good ol Africa.
Mahindi endured her first flight too, no problem - we were way more stressed about it than she was. She is such a cool dog - just so relaxed all the time! And she had an awesome beach holiday yet again. In the pool 5000 times a day and she had another puppy to play with for the 4 days. She has been sleeping ever since!
Mike and Sabine have an awesome house there, right on the beach on the quiet side of Diani. And RIGHT NEXT door to a Kite surfing center which Benedikt made a beeline for and immediately booked himself on a course. I was very jealous...I wanna learn to kite surf too! Benedikt has promised to look after Cecil when we go to the beach in December or Jan and let me do the course then... so lets see if that works out :-)

I had such a super duper weekend. Just totally doing NOTHING. Being pregnant means I feel zero guilt about not going for a run or not being active like I used to be! The most movement I made was swimming away from Mahindi in the pool. Benedikt and Mike went cycling every morning for a couple of hours. I would sleep in and then have an hour long massage followed by a dip in the pool and a long yummy breakfast. Bliss!

One of Benedikt's school friends (and ex girlfriend!) happened to be staying about 500m up the beach from us which was a big coincidink. So we met up with her and her boyfriend one afternoon which was cool.

On Easter Sunday we had 2 other families around for the day. There were 12 adults and 6 kids so it was a hectic day! And I was the easter bunny!