Friends, Family and my desire to see China

Vernon playing tourist in Nairobi

For the rest of our 2 weeks in Nairobi, I was working on getting my visas while Vernon tugged along with me and played tourist.   The first embassy I went to was China.   They rejected my application claiming that I was applying for the visa too early (the application says that I can apply for a 6 month visa which would cover the time I would be there. When I pointed this out, I was conveniently told that they no longer issue 6 month visas).   I decided to apply for a passport renewal since I only had 3 pages left (quite a colorful passport I have!).   This process was pretty stressful to say the least, because I was racing against time.   However, God blessed me to get a new passport in the nick of time.   With the new passport I went back to the China embassy and this time they claimed that my application was incomplete because I did not have a detailed travel plan describing all that I would be doing in China.  Gracious! I refuse to give up.   Next, I went to the Cyprus High Commission which had told me that getting a visa takes 15 days.   I went there by faith because I only had 5 days before we left Kenya.   More blessings, Cyprus issued my visa not in 15 days but in 1 day.   With 4 days left to go I went to the Turkish embassy.   All my paperwork was in order - I made sure of this after the Chinese fiasco.   However, they told me that my passport and visa wouldn’t be ready until Friday afternoon.   Problem is, we were leaving on Friday morning.   OK.  So now I’m thinking, we have to cancel our trip to turkey.   What a bummer!   I’ve dreamt of going to turkey for a while and had my list of things I wanted to do not to mention some shopping.  Oh well.  Check this out.  Just before I walked out of the embassy office, the lady tells me that because I’ll be coming from a Schengen State (EU), I can get my visa at the airport if I fly into turkey on Turkish Airlines.   What?? There’s hope for Turkey.   Yeah!!.   So now our trip can proceed – Cyprus, Greece, Turkey and onwards.   I’ll have to tackle China and Japan some other way.

The Nairobi City Market - Meat, vegetables, trinkets, souvenirs etc., can all be found here.

The city may not seem busy but it is buzzing.

As I waited for visa developments, we hung out with my sister and the lovely kids, my cousin and friends.  Vernon got a chance to meet some of the friends I went to high school with.  They are a colorful, lovely bunch.  We are fortunate that the entire class has been able to keep in touch. 


Hanging out with Cera, Naya (not shown) and Phoebe.

 

My lovely nieces Caile and Nav.

Hanging out with my sis, Shile and the kids at the mall.

At a coffee shop with my cousin, Winnie. We hang out till late at night.  Nairobi has millions of people so even at 9:30 pm when we were heading out we still had to maneuver through the people traffic.

We met for High Tea with hats and crumpets - Buckingham Palace style!

At the Tea

The lovely ladies and lovelier kids.

Joan didn't make it to Tea so we had our own hang time.

On the Wednesday before we left Kenya, Vernon, my mom and I travelled to Meru to visit my grandmother (my mother’s mom).   Meru is about 4 hours from Nairobi and is close to the Mt. Kenya National Park.   We left at 6 am on public transportation.   The ride to Meru so early in the morning was really nice.   The road passes through Thika town which has a huge pineapple plantation close to the highway.   It also passes Mwea town which is one of the three main rice producing areas in Kenya.   There were lots of rice paddies extending for miles and miles.  After passing these towns the terrain is very hilly and green with lots of Tea farms and tall trees lining the road.   We got to my grandmother’s farm hungry.  

On the road to cucu's (grandmother)

Me, grandmother (Mama Sabera) and my mom



Mama Sabera made Vernon a special porriage, just for him.



My uncle in the farm. They just finished harvesting wheat.





My grandmother on the cell! Come on!

Tea Farms.

She was so happy to see us.   Especially Vernon and I.   I haven’t seen my grandmother in at least 15 years and she obviously had never met Vernon, who in our culture is her “husband”.   A lot of great food was prepared for us.   We ate and talked with my uncles and aunt who were also there.   It was nice to see my grandmother still strong and feisty in her late eighties.   Vernon and I were given a tour of the farm and enjoyed the beautiful Meru landscape.   By the time we headed back to Nairobi, it was late, traffic had set in, we had a lot of luggage (we were sent back with mangoes, maize, beans and lentils) and the drive was therefore not as comfortable.   Either way, I was so happy to have seen my grandmother after many years and happy that she met Vernon.

 After a good night's rest we head out for Abuja, Nigeria.