Kenya, Africa

"Jambo" from Nairobi, Kenya! 

(That's Swahili for hello, how are you...kind of like Ciao in Italian.)


I wish I could say I am alive and well, but I'm just going to say I'm alive! The malaria pills I was taking in Dubai made me terribly sick. My last memory of Dubai: throwing up on the curb in front of the airport!!  Yea - it was awful.  My poor taxi driver didn't know what to do with me...


I really don't even remember much of what else I did in Dubai - nothing crazy.  I started feeling really weird the day after I started taking those pills and it's been down hill since then.


My flight was pretty short, and I got in to Nairobi late last night.  Jomo Kenyatta International Airport  is small and pretty crappy - espeically for being the biggest and busiest airport in East Africa!  I didn't have a Visa for Kenya yet, so THANK GOODNESS they let me apply for one and approved me at Immigration.  They didn't ask for any vaccine records either - I would have been screwed if they did, haha!  I think it helped that it was so late at night, they just didn't care! ;) 


As soon as I walked out of customs I saw a guy holding a sign with my name on it, he took my bags, I followed him to an old rickity jeep and hopped in.  Sometimes I wonder if I should be hesitant of getting in cars with strange men in foreign countries at night, but so far so good, haha!  He took me to a little hotel in a very dark and quiet neighborhood, and as soon as I got out of the car, I walked straight in to the hotel bathroom in the lobby and threw up.  Again.  There was a VERY nice older black lady in there too, and she just kept rubbing my back and brushing my hair out of my face and saying, "Oh no, oh no, so sorry.  Sorry."  I don't think she knew a whole lot of English, but she was just so sweet!  I'm prettys ure if I was throwing up in New York City or LA, no one would do that!  They'd probably wrinkle up there nose and walk on by! 


Needless to say, I haven't kept any solid food down for going on 48 hours now -- and I leave for my safari in two hours! Thankfully, a nice British woman on the flight from Dubai to Nairobi (who comes to Kenya for vacation at least once a year) told me exactly what I was sick from and told me to stop taking the pills immediately and drink tons of water to flush them out of my system. She took them for 6 days and ended up in the hospital!  The malaria mosquitoes are mainly found near the coast, and I will be up far too high for them in the national parks, so I am NOT taking any more of those!


So far so good!! I am feeling a little better this morning and am getting VERY excited!! :)  Not sure if my phone will work "out in the sticks," but I'll try to send more of an update when I get back!


PS - Kenya is cool and the people here in Nairobi are so nice! Its a little poverty-stricken in areas, but overall is clean and very safe!! I just tell everyone I'm from Canada!! :)


-TK

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