Trav's Travels: Kenyan 4th of July

4^th of July in Kenya

7-7-14

All the researchers got invited by the ranch manager to the ranch house for the 4^th of July. The main festivities were to be a tennis tournament and a frisbee tournament. The tennis tournament sort of fizzled out with not everyone showing, so we just hit the ball around for fun. The Frisbee tournament, however, did not fizzle out. There were 4 teams in it. We (Elisha, Eric the elder (Utah State PhD Student), Pat, Eric the younger (Princeton Undergrad), Laura (UC-Davis Vet Med Student, and Kya (Princeton) easily won our first game 7 to nil (Todd and Kirsten were our cheerleaders). In the championship game, our team—Al Shebaab and the Thorny Defenders—played the cocky Princeton undergrad team—The Dancing Dik-Diks. It was a close match, and I’d say we were the better team. We were up when this guy Taylor plowed me over. Plowing one over in Frisbee is not something that is allowed in the slightest, but this guy is a Princeton football player, so he probably didn’t really understand that rule. Normally I could probably withstand getting plowed over, but this guy is a nearly 300 pound lineman and my foot got caught up on another guy, so that my leg bent far away from my knee in a way it shouldn’t. I went to sit out for a bit and then re-joined the action, but my leg just didn’t quite feel so stable. I played for a bit more (getting run over once more by Taylor), but when I caught a pass and turned to throw and realized I just couldn’t plant and cut at all b/c I had no support, I had to call it quits. It was extremely hard to watch the game from the sidelines b/c I love Frisbee and I would have loved to beat a Princeton team, especially a cocky one, and I know we could have. The team played valiantly, but with me out, it gave them a sub and they subbed out their worse player (some gal who I don’t know), which meant that since we had 3 gals, 2 of them had to cover bigger, taller guys. Taylor continued his football mentality and hit Eric the younger where it counts and then ran over Elisha. Calm Elisha had some choice words for him after that, which made me smile and got Todd riled up. The games were to 7, win by 2. We were up 6 to 5 and had two attempts into the endzone. Both were dropped b/c of guys jumping over the backs of our girls, who at this point were a bit timid. When we realized the game may go on forever if it was win by 2, we just made it first to 8, and so they ended up winning.

The ranch house and property are beautiful with their nice huge lawns, sweeping views, flowers, and fancy little buildings. It looks just like you imagine a fancy British colonial ranch in Kenya…straight out of Out of Africa or any other movie with British in Africa you’ve seen. They made quite a spread of food for us as well…American food! We had hot dogs and hamburgers and French fries and even apple pie. At the end, the brought out a huge cake that they had decorated as the American flag. When they brought the cake out, Todd led the group in singing the National Anthem. They made the one British girl here take the first bite of cake as a "peace" offering. Interestingly, Kenya also won their independence from the British, so we have that in common.

Last night, being Todd’s last night, the lab went out for our last sundowner together. Todd also took me out in the field in the afternoon to have a “father-son talk” to tell me he was proud of me and that I was doing great and to just kind of shoot the breeze as I wouldn’t be seeing him for awhile.

7-08-14

Yesterday Kirsten, Laura, Elisha, and I drove to Nyeri (a town about an hour further past Nanyuki) in order to sort out some visa/permit stuff. On the way back we stopped at a nice little restaurant by the small Nanyuki airfield for some really good pizza