Comrades

GOOD LUCK to my sis and her husband running comrades on sunday!!
As my dad always says 'You can win!!!'

Noffink

Nothing in particular to blog about. Life is busy busy busy but fun.
We are off to Germany on Wednesday for 2.5 weeks. Benedikt is doing the Trans Germany and I am going to be the preggie girlfriend supporting him. Its going to kill me to not be riding! The mtb race is 4 days long, 300kms and 7000m of climbing. It traverses the German Austrian border which is a very mountainous area-its going to be beautiful. Then we have about 10 days of sight seeing planned - we are going round in Benedikt's parents camper van! So I bet now you are all excited for my update once we are back! Just be patient :-)

I am working really hard these days. I have 4 web sites to finish before Cecil comes. 2 I haven't even started. And I only have about 4 weeks left to do them in. The last 2 weeks of my pregnancy I plan to do nothing except watch the Tour de France :-) Work is going very well though - its such easy money! And its SUCH a pleasure working for myself from home.

Its been raining raining raining raining here. And then raining some more. So its even more lush and green and pretty. Just the roads suffer badly - they can't even hold up in dry weather so these torrential rains are just a nightmare. Giant potholes spring up over night. In places the roads are just crumbling away. And even if 'they' were going to fix them, they can't - its just too wet. And when they do 'fix' them their favourite way of doing so is to fill the holes with rocks. I'm not lying I promise!
Needless to say the forest is EXTREMELY wet and muddy. Just the way Mahindi likes it. I still take her every day. There is a great network of dog walkers and we all meet there. So Mahindi has many many many friends. More than us! I cant wait to take Horse there - she will LOVE it. When we are back from Germany and she is 3 months old we will take her.
In between the raining its still SUPA hot. I have this built in oven so I really feel it. But there is no sign of winter yet. Although winter here is hardly cold. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the climate here. Its perfect.

Exercise wise I'm going strong. Lots of hard yoga. Gym 3 times a week - I run on the treadmill and often do 5kms :-) I cycle once a week. And walk in the forest every day for an hour. So I'm not feeling too lazy... I feel really good actually. When I run nothing hurts and I feel I can run forever. I do get some funny looks at the gym. And people often come and tell me how fit or strong I am. I think its all a bit freaky - a 7 month pregnant women pushing weights at the gym! But I think after Germany, when I'll be 33 weeks I may have to slow down a bit. Lets see how I feel.

Our social life is still great. We are busy every weekend with friends and dinners and things to do. The ex pat community is really strong here. Like this weekend we had dinner with 10 cycling buddies on Friday night, then went for a lovely home cooked Ethiopian meal on Saturday with about 12 others. Then on Sunday we went for dinner with 2 Koreans! I even went on a girls night last week. Thats not quite the same without a glass of red wine or 10 though.

So check ya all in 3 weeks time!



PS. If you are think you are tired of seeing dog photos.... just wait till the baby comes!

Lame ass classes

Actually they weren't lame ass at all. The Lamaze classes we attended ALL weekend were super informative and fun. We learnt so much about the birth that its a lot less scary now. I am quite confident that I will be fine. I am also more determined than ever to have natural birth without drugs.
The exercises we did though were lame. I am SO far beyond them!! The breathing will come in handy I know... but the rest....wow, if only they knew what I get up to still! Speaking of which, I managed to squeeze in a mtb race on Sunday morning. I rode with 2 friends and we had an absolute ball. It was just SO SO SO muddy that we had to push our bikes for like 50% of the route. I won of course. Although I was the only one in the 7 month pregnant category :-)))

The Lamaze instructor, Lilian, is also a midwife and doula. So we asked her to be the doula at our birth. Benedikt and I both agree that while we are here in Kenya and services like that are relatively cheap, and so available, that its worth using them. A doula is something new to me... but I've heard how helpful they are and how much easier the whole ordeal is if you have one. They just keep you totally informed too. So I think I'm gonna have an easy time popping Cecil out!
It was also a fun group of people on the course with us. Many laughs were had. And many many personal details discussed! The boys were all taught how to change nappies too so no excuse Benedikt!
Actually I'm pretty sure Benedikt is going to be such a hands on dad that he will do everything! Just like in other areas of our lives, he always does more than his share, so I'm not worried about doing all the work. Which is a nice thought.
We also learnt just how tough the first 4-6 weeks are going to be!!! I am never going to get to sleep man!! Between feeds you have like 3 hours but you've still gotta burp the baby and change it and sort out the bottles and express milk etc etc!! I am DREADING that part of this adventure. I love my sleep too much.
Thank goodness mummy, daddy and sister are coming to help me :-)

Baby issues

So I am now 28 weeks pregnant. And entering the 3rd and final trimester. 12 weeks to go! I so want this dratted pregnancy thing to be over but at the same time I don’t want a screaming brat keeping me awake all night. But I do have a strong suspicion that our little angel will sleep through the night from day 1 :-)

So we have gathered loads of baby stuff already. Without even trying. In true Wielopolski style we have managed to get a whole horde of freebies!

We have so far:
A cot (bought second hand from a cycling buddy)
A travel cot (ditto)
A gate for the top of the stairs (ditto)
A high chair (know its a bit early but its a nice one, bought from same buddy)
A baby changer (we’ve been introduced to this really good carpenter who made it for us. Its just a chest of drawers with a removable changing layer on top so we can use it afterwards)
A play mat thingie with squeaky and shiny corners etc. And it has rods that bend over it and have cool dangling toys. (Given to us by Benedikt’s boss’s wife)
A baby bath. That works for them when they are little and when they get a bit bigger (ditto)
A bath chair thingie for when its above 1 year or so (I guess) (also from Carien)
A bottle steriliser (ditto)
Lots of cool colourful toys and rattles and a cot dangly light thingie (ditto)
LOADS of cute mini clothes – like 20 t shirts, 10 shorts, 5 baby grows etc etc. So awesome! (all from an SA friend here)
A winnie the pooh nappy bag. Hence the theme idea. (Also from Debbie)
A pram and a carry cot thingie and a car seat (All from Vicky. Bless)
A baby jogger (from Daniel and Catherine. They don’t know they’ve given it to us yet)
A seat for the back of a bike plus a cute little helmet (ditto)
A moses basket (which is still coming from Sabine)

Sjoe we have a lot already. And thats all without even trying. Well, the baby changer we went out and ordered etc. But the rest of the stuff just landed on us.

We went to ze German embassy on Thursday morning to sign that Benedikt is Cecil’s real dad and to start the ball rolling with registering him. Trust ze Germans to be so efficient. Apparently just 2 weeks after the birth he will be an official German Citizen. I still have to investigate the whole South African thing, but we’ve been told he can have dual Nationality so it shouldn’t to be too much a mission.

The dude at the Deutsche Botschaft was SO formal and straight faced it just made us want to giggle the whole time. The longest part of our appointment was going through my mixed up nationality. According to my birth certificate I was born in Gwelo, Rhodesia. Neither of which exist anymore. So after establishing that it was Gweru, Zimbabwe and that I don’t hold a Zimbabwean passport we moved on to SA. Where I do have an ID and a passport. Also confusing. Then I have my British Passport to boot. And a polish surname. He made quite sure I didn’t have a polish citizenship floating around too. Or Scottish (My Gran was Scottish). Because the thing is all these different countries have different laws and regulations when it comes to sharing custody of a child and registering a child in a different nationality. But seeing as we’re having Cecil in Kenya all current laws of Kenya apply. Its just when we move on from here the hassles may start depending on which country we move to. So we have a few issues like custody of the child to address. Basically in Kenya joint custody is assumed. But should we move to Iran, God forbid, then the kid is Benedikts. If we move to Germany then the kid is mine. So ja, if we got married then this wouldn’t be an issue at all. But I’m not exactly a fan of marriage and Benedikt is not welcoming the pressure so I don’t think that’s gonna happen soon!

So what we still need to do:
But some baby goodies next month in germany
Decorate the babys room. I’m thinking winne the pooh. Or hippos. But thats as far as I’ve got. Need to action this theme thing. Oh how I wish I was creative!
Decide on name
Go to SA and British Embassy to see if we can get Cecil some more nationalities!
Go to Lamaze classes. Benedikt cant wait for these
Have our 3D scan... thats in 2 weeks time. Then we get a REAL good look at Cecil
Survive the birth. I cant wait. NOT.
As Leanne puts it, once they’re in there is no nice way of getting them out.

Road Rage!

So I have just come back from a ride with the wags - it was fun! We did a whopping 25kms. I must say its really cool just to ride... not to have a race to train for and not to ride for fitness (of which I have almost none left). And its REALLY cool to have female company instead of being the only girl!
So now I wait for Benedikt to get back from his 125km ride :-)

And its time to moan some more about the roads here and the drivers on them. I love the fact that I have a 10000000 wide audience to vent too :-)
These are my main issues:

- There are NO road signs anywhere. Ever. There are street signs in the fancy suburbs but thats it. No highway signs, no suburb signs, no town signs, no speed limit signs, no warning whatsoever of speed bumps (and there are MANY giant bumps) and no give way/stop signs/yields etc. And there are no traffic lights. Well there are some random sets, but they get ignored. So you get to a junction and there is just mayhem. Every car just pushes in until he gets through.

- All the main roads are single lanes (one lane each way). So you ALWAYS get stuck behind a battered old truck moving at 10kms per hour, emitting such huge amounts of exhaust fumes you can barely see or breathe. Its always very dangerous to overtake as its hilly round here and the corners are overgrown with bush and trees. But that doesnt stop Nairobeans from overtaking boy. Its a national sport here. The goal is to see how many cars you can overtake on a hill where you cant see whats coming, or with a blind corner coming up, and you should only marginally drive a little faster than the beaten up truck. And you should ALWAYS overtake. Never ever sit behind a slow car. Are you mad?! If there is a car coming from the other direction its their job to move over into the mud on the side. I cant tell you how many times we go around a corner and there is a car or matatu coming for us head on. Its a normal part of driving here.
Oh yes, and even if their is an island in the middle of the road, no worries, just sit on the wrong side of that while you overtake and wait for a spot where you can ramp over it again.

- I'd reckon at least 50% of cars and trucks here have no brake lights. Its unbelievable. Petrol tankers and police cars are my worst. Yip - police cars whose brake lights dont work. Its shocking! But oh so normal. And its a real problem with matatus as they just pull over whenever they like, from a main road, and you have no warning, suddenly they are at a complete stop right front of you. But its the worst when there are speed bumps as you just dont see the cars slowing down. And you certainly dont know there is a speed bump coming up.

- Potholes. Well, should I say CRATERS. It is raining SO so so much these days which is great for my veggie garden and for Bayer as they sell more crop sprays etc, but wow the roads deteriorate fast. And they have been badly repaired so many times, its just a mess on top of a mess. And overnight a small hole can turn into a crater. This doesnt slow the cars down though, they just swerve into the oncoming traffic. Its their job to move over remember.
Just yesterday we were in Benedikt's big prado and we literally fell into a hole in the road. It must have been about 1m deep!

- Another thing about the roads is that they are just plain strips of (bad) tar. No planning goes into them it appears, there is no design or standard. There are very few white/yellow lines and there are hardly any shoulder lanes or pavements. There is no widening in the corners. 90% of the corners are off camber. And the erosion on the sides of the roads is so great that often there is a half meter drop to your left. And you are on this narrow strip of potholed road with cars overtaking willy nilly and swerving into your side. Its hair raising man! Especially when cars cut corners. There is just ZERO room on the road for you. You really have to slow down when another oncoming car is in the corner already as there is often no space for both of you to pass.

-Then another thing that is peculiar is the drivers dont switch on their lights in the evening. I think they think its bad for the car? You can flash them and hoot but they dont react. I dont know what that is about AT ALL. They certainly must work as flashing ones lights is the most common way of communicating on the roads. So driving at night here is real scary. Besides from their being no street lights, many many craters to avoid and dodgy corners to be careful in, you also cannot see half the cars from the front. Or when they brake!!

- Now this is Benedikts worst by far: the drivers SLOW down on all the downhills. They brake and brake and brake all the way down the hill. Sometimes to like 20kms per hour! Its crazy and infuriating! I think they think they are going to lose control of their cars if they let them roll down?? So this only makes the uphills even slower of course. Its maddening actually!

- Another weird thing here are the presidential entourages. I doubt its even presidential... any arb dude in government probably gets these special escorts. They have like 5 motorbikes followed by like 10 fancy black cars: some SUVS some bentleys and sometimes even a limo. And they take up the ENTIRE road. Often there are police at all the intersections on their journey that shut down the intersection so that the parade can pass. (which causes a massive backup of course) They drive really fast and totally intimidate everyone with all the flashing lights and beeping and bullish driving. And its probably just Kibaki's wife nipping off to have her hair done.

I will make it my mission this week to take some photos of the potholes and the dodgy roads. Cos as my sister said you only really believe it when you see it!