"Mmm, who knew ostrich balls are so salty!"

LOL! The title of this post is a direct quote from Ms. Joanna from Tuesday night at Carnivore and i think i peed myself a little bit cuz i couldn't stop laughing. Hilarious!!

So, yes. We went to Carnivore on Tuesday with a group of other AUCC interns from Canada that were in the Nai-Bob for the night. What a wicked time! Carnivore is one of the more famous restaurants known in Kenya and is HEAVILY saturated with mzungus. Carnivore's famous because they used to serve all the game meat that your hungry little heart could think of, like zebra, gazelles, etc. But they're not allowed to anymore (understandable, i suppose) so they just have a different "exotic" meat every night. On Tuesday it was ostrich balls, on Friday it was crocodile (yes, i went twice in one week. i'll explain later!) So anyways, you pay 1700 shillings for all you can eat (around $23 CAD) and they bring this big pyramid thing that has all these sauces on it and a "Carnivore" flag at the top. The idea is that when everyone at your table is full, you take down the flag in defeat. So they start you off with soup (i have to say, i've had different soups a couple times here in Kenya and each time they've been deeelicious) and then they bring this big, hot plate and all these waiter dudes are running around with different meats stuck on traditional Masai swords. They stand the sword up on your plate and slice of chunks of meat for your. Yep. The entire evening pretty much consists of eating different types of meat. Both Joanna and i had skipped lunch in anticipation but still made a bit of a disappointing showing, but dear LORD did we stuff ourselves silly. There was different types of chicken, turkey, pork, beef, ribs, liver, sausages, and yes, salty ostrich meat balls (as in the meat is in the shape of a ball, not testicles...gross!) They also have their "specialty" drink which is called the Dawa (Dawa means "medicine" in Swahili. Get it? Witty!) So this Dawa is made from Vodka, sugar, lime, and some other stuff but i wasn't paying attention but when you taste it, it tasted like PURE alcohol. Joanna got the Dawa whilst i had a Tusker's, but we drank both before the meal started on an empty stomach, so needless to say the rest of the evening was quite enjoyable (see photos...) So! Carnivore is total tourist kitsch, full of rich mzungus on their way to a safari, but it's still so fun! The chaos is pretty funny, with guys running around everywhere holding swords with chunks of meat skewered on them...the picture with the big grill is where they grill all the meat on the swords. Unfortunately we took pictures at the end of the night when Carnivore was closing so it was out, but it's a pretty cool sight when it's all lit up and burning red with meat roasting on swords! 

So that was Tuesday! The only other worthwhile thing i did during the week was i went to Rongai to the youth center on Thursday. I've attached a couple photos of Rongai so you kiddies can have a bit of a better idea of what i'm talking about, and the one of the house is the actual youth center itself. The center is BY FAR the nicest of the three, and it has a VCT center inside. So anyways, one of the guys i work with thought that since there's no funding to have four day training sessions, we could just go to the youth centers once or twice a week to hold forums for an hour or two to share pretty much the same information. So that's what we did on Thursday. It was pretty neat, we talked about what leadership is, qualities of a leader, etc. The kids seemed to enjoy it and all agreed that they would want to do this on a weekly basis. 

It also started raining on Thursday and hasn't stopped since. Before it would rain for a few hours maybe once a week, but i guess rain season has started, ugh (October and November is when the "short" rain season happens. Everyone here is praying for rain cuz there's a HUGE drought and food prices are sky rocketing and lots of people are dying of starvation, especially in Northern Province, which is the poorest region of Kenya) So it started raining on Thursday when were in Rongai and it's rained every day since. It doesn't rain all day, just for a few hours at a time, but remember when i talked about how 2/3 of the way to work i walk on dirt roads? Well, now they're mud roads. Luckily i'd gotten me some rain gear before i left, but it's still pretty sucky. i attached a photo from Friday that i took out the window in the office, if you look at the puddles you can see how hard its raining...

So on Friday we went back to Carnivore. Joanna's sister was in town as she had just come back from safari with some other people. i went a little later as i had already eaten dinner at home and just joined for drinks (but in reality, no way can my finances handle two Carnivore trips in one week!). Joanna and myself then joined some other Kenyan friends and went dancing/drinking at a local bar. Very fun! On Saturday (yesterday) i was exhausted because i got home super late and forgot to turn off my alarm from the morning and woke up at 7:30. Half asleep, i joined Joanna and her sis in the city center where we went to the Masai market in the downtown area, then went for drinks, then went for dinner in the Hilton. Yep, the Hilton. We had a huuuge craving for pizza and the Hilton has one of few Italian restaurants in the center. So we went, cried a little about how expensive it was but sucked it up and had a wonderful evening. The pizza was huuuge so we got left overs to take home and i'm currently seriously considering having some 'za for breakfast.... (i attached a couple photos from Saturday. The one just of me is from the Thorn Tree, one of the fanciest shmansiest cafes in the city center and the other is of the three of us at dinner!) 

And now we're all caught up! I'm taking 'er easy today and don't have much planned for the day. Currently it's raining but if it stops, i'll probably make my way over to the market and to the mall to buy some groceries for the week and maybe FINALLY pick up that bathing suit i was talking about last week (i keep making plans to go buy it then i bail cuz i get lazy...) And that's about that! i'm thinking this week is gonna go by quickly because on Friday morning, Joanna and i are leaving on SAFARI!!!!!! AH!! i'm so excited!! We're leaving Friday morning, driving to the Masai Mara, which is the big safari park in south-eastern Kenya, right on the border of Tanzania (in fact, the Mara is the top portion of the Serengeti, which is in Tanzania). Were camping over the weekend and coming back Monday. Hoepfully we'll see some lions! We're paying out the wazoo for it, but hey, you only live once! And who knows when we're going to have this opportunity again! i'm thinking the next two months are gonna FLY as we're packing in as much as we can. We're hoping to go to Lake Naivasha for a weekend cuz that's where the hippos hang out, then some weekend in November, Joanna and i are gonna go to Mombassa to get our beach action on and then the last week in November/start of December, i'm going to Cape Town, South Africa for a week! How exciting is that?! Then i'm back in NBO for just long enough to buy some last minute souvenirs and Christmas presents and then i'm back home!! WOO!!

love love love love love!

ps.  i totally just ate pizza for breakfast....

pps. i JUST figured out that the pictures upload themselves backwards, so they're in backwards chronological order...i'd re-load them again but seeing as this sure isn't Roger's high-speed internet and it's taking FOREVER to load them in the first place, bear with me!