Eid-El-Fitri

Well, we're not sure what to say about how long it has taken us to update our blog - we've been working pretty hard and pretty non-stop lately. We finally have a long weekend, longer than any we've experienced in our careers to this point. It is the end of Ramadan, a holiday known as Eid-el-Fitri and because of that, we have 5 days off in a row.

So with that, we figured there was no excuse but to update our blog with some of the recent things that have been going on over here. I think it is safe to say that Kara and I are pretty used to Lagos now. We find ourselves much less in a hazy reality and more in an acute state of awareness when we go out now. It's amazing what kinds of things we are noticing now that we are past the whole culture shock deal. We have noticed that the stores carry some awesome candy that we never noticed last year. We've also been able to do things that we didn't do last year, like a take a boat out to the harbor right before entering the Atlantic Ocean. That was quite the experience and on a number of occasions, we thought we might not make it out alive!! Don't panic, it was just a small boat and big waves. We also just had Nigerian Culture Day a few weeks back, and we'll have pictures uploaded as soon as we get copies of them for ourselves from our friends the Rainbolts and Teagues.

I have uploaded a few of the sounds we are used to hearing around here for you guys to listen to. I highly recommend putting on a decent pair of headphones before listening to get the full stereo effect. Before I get into the Lagos sounds, I want you to hear this storm I recorded in Cinque Terre in the middle of the night. The thunder isn't as spectacular as it gets in Lagos, but I have yet to capture the Lagos thunder in its fullest splendor.

Because Ramadan was going on for the last month, I decided to go out and record the mosque. I'm still working on trying to embed the sounds into the site, but until I figure that out, here is the link. This recording was taken at about 9:45 at night, and it proceeded to go until well past 11:00 PM that same night. I walked around out in the playfield, so if you hear the audio shift from ear to ear, it's because I was moving. Also, on a side note, while out recording this, I saw my very first firefly! I didn't know we had them here, so I ran back in and got Kara to come check them out with me, and we ended up finding a whole slew of them in the corner of the field. It was pretty awesome. Here is another recording I took of one of the dances at Nigerian Culture Day, it's called the Atilogwu (At-ee-low-goo) Dance. I was backstage when they started the dance so that's why they sound so close and then kind of fade out. It's the same story with this dance as well, the Igba Ndieze (ee-bahn-deez-ee), here's a snippet of it. You'll hear people screaming in the background, that's because there were these guys doing flips and crazy acrobatic stuff on stage, it was getting the little kids all riled up! Finally, there's this clip of when I was wandering around during the actual event and ran into a group of drummers. That little sound recorder that Kara got me for my birthday last year is pretty amazing huh?

Anyway, like I said before, we will upload some recent pictures when we get them on to our computer. Until then, we'll talk to you soon!

Emeka Okafor? At AISL?

On Friday, we got a surprise visit from Emeka Okafor, NBA's Rookie of the Year in 2004 and the second overall pick in the 2004 draft by the Charlotte Bobcats. His family is from Nigeria and he was visiting while spreading the word on his One Million African Lives Initiative - basically a clean-blood awareness campaign that he is the spokesperson for. His full name happens to be the same name the Igbo people gave me over here, Chukwuemeka - meaning "God did well." When I told him that, I think he thought I was messing around until I showed him I knew what it meant. Then he asked how in the world I got that name and I had to tell him the Igbo folks named me that. I think he was pretty surprised that a white guy could have an Igbo name, let alone, the same as his. I think I have more Nigerian adaptations of my name than he; my Nigerian friends call me Chooks, A-Mex, and Emeka (pronounced Eh-Meh-kuh).

He spent about 30 minutes at AISL's lunchtime playing hoops with the students and of course signing autographs for the students. I would venture to say 95% of the kids didn't know who he was but figured that a 6'10" man walking around AISL had to be famous for one reason or another.

On a separate note, Mr. Shearer was given a jersey by Mr. Okafor, and he gave it to me for helping him with being able to listen to his son Matt's football games online. It turned out that they had technical difficulties this Saturday with the radio feed, so it didn't work out. Needless to say, I couldn't do anything about it, but still feel pretty bad that he didn't get to hear Matt's 9 tackles broadcast over the air. Hopefully this next week it works out better, or I'll be needing to give that jersey back!

Anyway, Emeka Okafor was so humble and gracious with the students. Very nice, down to earth guy. He finished school at UCONN in 3 years and graduated with a 3.76 (he was a lot more specific than newspapers get listing him at a 3.8) after majoring in Finance. Anyway, thought I would add him to the list of famous people we've met while traveling the world!

That's what 1 foot taller than me looks like.

The Big Blog Post is Coming!

I know all of you have been waiting patiently for our "everything we did this summer" post, but that's going to take a little while longer. We start classes tomorrow, so here's some pictures of Italy to tide you over!

(A picture of one of the villages in Cinque Terre, Italy)

(Another one of the five villages)

(A picture of a third village!)

(This lady was talking to her cat in Vernazza, the last of the 4 villages on our hike)

(Thundering waves would hit these rocks. A lot like the Oregon Coast, but the water was more blue.)

(Just one of the reasons Cinque Terre was our favorite stop in Italy.)

(Foundation in stone. Matthew 7:25)

(Like I said before, thunderous waves)

(World Travelers!)

(Our gondola ride under the Ponte Rialto - Rialto Bridge in Venice.)

(The only bridge still standing in Florence after WWII is the Ponte Vecchio. It was built in the 1200's).

(This is the view from the Ponte Vecchio in Florence)

(Back to the Cinque Terre shots. This is the city we stayed in, Monterosso).

(The view the morning we went on our hike. See all the salt in the air?)

(Finally, this is the view from our airplane as we crossed over the Sahara. We were at 38,000 feet and you could see the Sahara's sand being kicked up into the atmosphere all the way to where we were in elevation.)

Frolick in the Water with Kingston Maurie

A few months back, we posted a bunch of pictures of Kingston Maurie playing in the snow at Kara's parent's place. What would a documentary of Kingston be without some pictures of what he does best...fetching the ball by any means necessary!

We found last year that King loves the water and so on our last trip to Blue Lake (or Bwue Wake as Kingston puts it), we turned him loose on his Petsmart tennis ball. Enjoy the pictures!

A little disappointed that the ball was still within "non-swimming" distance.

There we go...swimming at last!


Just waiting for the ball to be "frohn"...or thrown as we say. King has a lisp of sorts.

Bwuh bupduh bwuh bupduh bwuh bupduh

King goes full steam into the water splashing like crazy.

"I got my eye on you."


Make sure you're outta the way when he gets out of the water!

Once again...CLEAR!
King poses before going in for round 21 of fetch.
And of course...he refused to go back in until I got a picture of "his good side."

The Heart of Summer

Hey everybody...at least those who haven't lost faith that we'd be updating our blog. We're back in the States and running around like mad trying to see as many people as possible before heading back to Lagos on August 3rd.

Our whirlwind summer has come with a few typical "Don't travel with the Slater's" stories. In case you haven't heard, we're not the luckiest of people when it comes to traveling. On this installment, you'll hear how our trip from Mykonos to Seattle took over 52 hours and included a lightning strike on our plane, an all-nighter in Munich, and a "involuntary bumping" by KLM in Amsterdam, a trip to Toronto, ending with an awesome arrival in Seattle.

Some of the highlights of the summer so far include:

• A great surprise birthday party at Kara's parent's place with tons of surprise guests including my parents, the Tammans, Brokaw, and Andrea Parker.
• Kara got to hang out with Jenn for an evening in Seattle.
• Daniel, Heinz, and Tim's birthday party at Daniel's place.
• A 2 night, 3 day vacation in San Francisco.
• Jelly Belly Flops!
• Night Tour of Alcatraz
• A "training" seminar in Lake Tahoe during the big fire.
• An awesome 4th of July in Vancouver, WA with the Wrights, Haberlin's, the Wright's pastor Ken, and Kara's Aunt and Uncle Dick and Mary.
• Jet-skiing and hanging out with the Handley Family, the Slater Family, and all the cousins that fall under those families.

That's just a brief list, we still have plenty of more things coming down the pike in the 3 weeks we have left at home.

I've taken a BUNCH of pictures and will be uploading those over the next several days so stay tuned!

Fun for you Google Earthers out there

I've been wanting to post some of the GPS coordinates logged over the last several months, actually, I'm only putting the coordinates from Italy and Kenya on for now. We'll share the rest of our coordinates later (i.e. Bryan doesn't have enough time to copy and paste each individual coordinate right now with Finals and stuff to get ready for.)

So here they are. On some of the coordinates in Pompeii, I had accuracy readings of +/- 8 ft, so pretty accurate coordinates so to speak.

On a side note, I'm not sure why I didn't get any coordinates from the Maasai...I could have sworn I made some waypoints.
March 21st
Pantheon - N41 53 57.0 E12 28 35.7
Trevi Fountain - N41 54 03.1 E12 28 59.6
Spanish Steps - N41 54 21.1 E12 28 58.0

March 22nd
Roman Forum - N41 53 32.9 E12 29 01.0
St. Peters Basillica - N41 54 11.1 E12 27 25.5
Basillica Entry - N41 54 07.6 E12 27 17.6
Great Gelatto Spot- N41 53 21.0 E12 28 11.2

March 23rd - This day was cool, from the top of Vesuvius, we could see down to Pompeii. On Google Earth, enter the coordinates exactly how you see them below, and then go from Top of Vesuvius down to the "Inside the Ampitheater" location. You can see the trail we were on when I marked our location on the GPS. If you zoom out, you can see that the current mountain is just a small part of what used to be the entire mountain. Shane...do you see what I mean when I said "This thing is huge?"

Pompeii Tombs - N40 44 58.2 E14 29 41.6
Pompeii Entry - N40 44 58.2 E14 29 36.5
Ampitheater – 80 BC - N40 45 05.8 E14 29 38.4
Inside the Ampitheater - N40 45 05.2 E14 29 42.6
Fugitive Garden - N40 44 58.5 E14 29 33.9
Main Street - N40 45 05.1 E14 29 28.8
Roman Bath - N40 44 58.9 E14 29 16.2
Mt. Vesuvius - N40 49 09.4 E14 25 27.8
Top of Vesuvius 2861 ft - N40 49 07.6 E14 25 32.5

March 24th
Pisa - N43 43 23.5 E10 23 47.3

March 26th
San Croce Church - N43 46 06.8 E11 15 43.0

March 27th
View of Florence - N43 45 47.5 E11 15 52.9

April 7th
Equator - N0 00 00.0 E37 04 12.6

April 8th
Isiolo - N0 19 56.0 E37 34 32.1
Samburu - N0 34 34.4 E37 30 02.1
Wasonyro - N0 33 50.8 E37 31 54.6

April 9th - The Great Rift Valley location on Google Earth is pretty cool...you can definitely see the sheer cliff just north of the location marked on the GPS. Driving down (and back up) both sides of the valley was quite nerve-wracking as it seemed the only people besides us on the road were really huge semi-trucks. African semi-trucks have very bad brakes...just a little scary! The high point was a village we drove through and just outside the village, we stopped to go to the bathroom...I think that's the highest spot I've ever taken a pit stop at! If you zoom out from that location, you'll see Lake Nakuru on the map.
Maunorauk - S0 37 54.4 E35 59 56.5
High Point – 9472 feet - S0 39 03.3 E35 58 54.5
Milunne - N0 01 31.3 E36 24 29.7
Thomson Falls - N0 02 38.5 E36 22 09.7
Great Rift Valley (Spot the pic was taken from) - N0 00 41.3 E36 15 51.4
Subukia - N0 00 01.4 E36 13 53.4

April 11th
Maasai Mara - Sarova Mara Tented Camp - S1 31 48.97 E 35 19 6.52

Hope you enjoyed!

Our Fearless Boss

Last Sunday, Kara and I thought it would be enjoyable to get off of the compound and go watch the Jr. High Band play at a local venue called Muson Center over on one of the islands across from VI. However, because our driver only works Tuesday through Saturday, we needed a ride. We put out an APB earlier that morning and got a response from the band director who told us we could ride with the kids and her at 3:00 (the concert didn't start till 5). As Sunday is one of our more coveted days off, we figured we would take her up on the offer only as a last resort if nobody else offered. A few minutes after she responded, we got a response from our boss, Mr. Shearer.

"If you want a ride, be in the garage at 4:30." No problem, this will be nice to get an extra hour and a half of planning and relaxation in before leaving. So we get down to the garage at 4:30 and Tom is in the driver's seat, ready to roll in his super nice SUV. It's a Sunday, the traffic won't be too bad, plus he's been doing this for awhile and he has experience (When we get home, we'll have to tell you about his first stay over here 10 years ago with his family and his little "excursion" to the Embassy with a Nigerian police officer holding on for dear life in the passenger seat.)

So we hop in the car and had a nice ride to Muson. As we arrived at the center, Mr. Shearer decided he wanted to park next to the AIS buses instead of the regular parking lot, so he dipped into a space in between two buses. As he pulled into the space, he accidentally cut off an Okada driver. This angered the okada driver, and so he pulled up next to Tom's window. He was all fired up about something, and so Tom looked at him, and slammed his hand up against the window with a particular finger extended (It doesn't mean too much here I guess) but anyway, the Okada guy started saying, "Fa me? Fa me?" I was trying to figure out if he was speaking Yoruba, Igbo, or if he had a hard time translating the gesture. So I'm thinking, what the heck is Tom doing?!?! So he opens his door, the okada guy is semi-smiling now, and he says something and all I hear from the other side of the truck is "Shuuutuuup." in a very casual, matter-of-fact fashion from Tom. It was hillarious. So anyway, before we know it, there's another okada guy coming up to see what's going on, and then about 20 AISL workers (they came along in the bus to help unload all of the instruments and set up the stage) come rushing out to basically make sure these okada guys didn't get cute. Tom just kept walking and we ended up in Muson smiling away.

So the concert was amazing. We left at about 6:15 or so. It was supposed to be a quick trip over Fallamo bridge and we'd be home. Nope. Of course not. Tom went the wrong way outta the place, and before we knew it, we were headed to Lagos Island (Not recommended by the American Embassy.) Of course we weren't worried though, we're with Mr. Shearer...he's gotta know what he's doing. About a minute later we're on an offramp surrounded by yellow buses filled with Nigerians wondering why there's 3 Oyibos on "this side of the tracks" so to speak. But, that's okay, we're not worried, we're with Mr. Shearer...he's gotta know wh- "Where the heck are we?" he blurted out, completely interrupting my reassuring thoughts (Maybe that wasn't his exact quote, but we're trying to stay kid-friendly here.) Okay, so much for Mr. Shearer knows what he's doing. So we drive around for a bit, trying to find a building we recognize. We go the wrong way down a couple of one way roads, get honked at by Okada's with car horns attached to them, drive right through the middle of a wedding, go into downtown Lagos Island only to find a city block resembling the downtown area in the movie, "War of the Worlds"...you know the part where the thing comes outta the ground and tears up all the pavement...just like that. So the road was closed due to damage, and we had to turn around and head back...Mr. Shearer found his way back to Muson and we ended up on the right freeway back to V.I., laughing about Mr. Shearer's ability to find our way home. I think he was more concerned about how mad Lori was going to be if he made them late to dinner that evening dilly-dallying around Lagos Island with the Slaters. It was quite the adventure and we weren't stressed out at all thanks to Mr. Shearer's calm demeanor even while not knowing where the heck he was going.

We got back home safely, in time for some dinner...and it wasn't even dark yet! All on a Sunday evening. Anyway, just a little story to file away in our "Crazy things that happened in Lagos" drawer. Hope you enjoyed!

Another Day in Lagos

We know, we know… you haven’t heard from us in a little while. Relative to Bryan’s last blog, that’s a good thing! Other than the busyness of school, things have been quite low key here. BUT, to sate your curiosity, here are some of the goings-on of Bryan and Kara in Lagos during May 2007:

o Kara has her green belt in Shotokan karate!!! Bryan has been a little nicer lately : )
o Only three weeks left in school, then off to Greece before we head home
o We made plans to visit a chocolate factory (Kara’s dream since watching “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” all too often throughout her childhood), Alcatraz at night (Bryan decided that) AND the Jelly Belly Factory before heading up to Lake Tahoe for our IB training
o We just got done watching Season 5 of “24”… in less than a week and now Bryan has a bunch of Jack Bower-isms. I’m sure you’ll hear more about those in the near future
o The terrestrial (land) crabs continue to fascinate Kara
o We have “secret connections” to get stuff over to us from the states. The most recent American products, unavailable in Lagos, brought to us by a student were red vines, Butterfinger bars and crystal light.
o We will be having a day off from school due to the Nigerian national holiday of "Democracy Day" on May 29. A nice little bit of irony for us all

We’re doing well and are so excited to see many of you over our summer break!!! Take care and stay tuned…

Over the Hill Post (Post #40!)

Gosh, you guys are spoiled! 40 posts and still going. We're pretty proud of ourselves for making it this far. I think the support and interest from all of our friends and family is what makes us want to write more! So how about celebrate our 40th with a story; an adventure of sorts involving three amigos from Tacoma on a quest to witness history in the making.

It all started in the flat. I figured, "It's a beautiful day out there today, why not go out and see what this election hub-bub is all about." So I made a phone call to David to see what his thoughts were on the proposed endeavor. "Yeah, sounds like fun, when do you want to go?" He responded. I said, "Let me get a hold of Joseph and I'll call you back." I made the phone call and Joseph was over at the gym working out. So I ran over there and asked him, and he dropped what he was doing and ran up to his flat to grab his camera. It wasn't there, so we had to run to his classroom before leaving. The front gate was padlocked, so as David and I were chatting, waiting for Joseph to come down from his classroom we were strategizing where to make our exit of the compound. "Hey ladies?" Mr. Shearer called from the main office. "Hey boss." I responded. He called us in to chit chat. We talked for awhile...about various things. We told him our plans to take pictures, and he said that he wasn't bailing us out if we got in trouble. Thinking he was all talk, we decided to go out anyway. He told us to grab one of the MoPol guys on our way out. So we made our way out the front gate, MoPol dudes said they couldn't come with us because they weren't allowed to "leave their post." We took this as a typical work-ethic, or lack thereof statement, common to where we live. So off we went, northbound towards 1004.

As we walked north, we commented on how peaceful this place can be when the government declares a no-movement day. It was rather nice. We asked a couple of the neighbors where the nearest polling station was and made our way that direction. As we arrived, we asked if we could take some pictures, they said no. Joseph then asked if he could look at the ballots, and they allowed him to. They were nice, and we had a decent conversation with them regarding voter turnout.

After that, we headed back out to 1004. From there, we continued north to the Lekki Expressway (which is usually jammed packed with cars. We got out to the road, and there was nothing...no cars...no people...no "go slow" vendors trying to sell us anything from meat-filled twinkies to cell phone numbers. It was amazing. I took a couple shots. First shot is looking West. You'll see the North Face of 1004. The second shot is looking east down the expressway. Keep in mind, this road is usually jammed packed with cars, three lanes wide (even though it's only a 2 lane road.)

We turned back after I posed like a traffic cop in the median (Mr. Rainbolt will have to put that on his blog if you want to see the picture). I took a shot of the "security wall" outside of the North-side of 1004. Nice huh? Just a bunch of broken glass bottles tossed into the concrete while it was still drying (I wonder who gets to break all the bottles before they put them in the concrete. That'd be a fun job for about a day.)

As we walked back, I took a shot of one of the "posted" laws. Clearly...no urinating. Laws like this are clearly posted so that everybody knows not to violate them. This concept of posted laws will come in handy later in the story.

So we continued south...back towards the compound. Joseph says, hey, let's go down and check out the polling station at 1004 (literally right across the street from our compound). As we're walking towards the station, Joseph says, "Hey, if you take a shot right now, you might be able to see the ballot boxes." So Rainbolt and I both pull up the cameras and pop off a couple rounds (figuratively speaking of course).

As we approached, I couldn't help but notice how many ballots were stuffed into the box. Not to be obvious, I thought, why not just snap a shot from the chest(click). . . Nobody noticed...cool. Let me take one more, just for insurance(click).... Immediately...one of the police officers jumps up..."Give me your camera" he says as he pulls it over my head rather forcefully. I then react. He says, "You took snap. I saw you take snap." I immediately go into defensive mode, "What!?!? What are you talking about?? No I didn't." Oh man...big mistake Slater. Nice work I'm thinking...why did you tell him you didn't take a picture. Now if they check it, they'll see I did take a picture and then I'll end up in Bar Beach Jail (Again...another story for Rainbolt to tell. If David's parents are reading this, do not panic, David has never been to jail...that I know of at least). So the guy is mad...and he's not giving my camera back. I'm thinking...okay, don't panic...no wahala. The cop thinks my camera is a video camera and he wants the film. He says he's going to hold on to the camera until they can check the film. (I tried to explain to him that it wasn't a film camera. He ignored me which ended up being a good thing in the end. (When he gave me my camera back, he told me to take the film out, I showed him the SD Card and the other cops said, "see...there's no film." But I'm jumping ahead.) So I try telling him..."hey, no wahala"...he's having nothing of it. I said, "I didn't know it was against the rules to take pictures." They say, "How do you know it isn't posted." I'm like..."give me a break, I didn't urinate on a wall" (I told you it was coming up again.) The guy repeats himself, "How do you know it isn't posted?" I'm like, "Because I just walked up to this polling station and would have noticed a "posted law" had there been one stating taking pictures outside is illegal. He ignored me. I then said that it's not against the law to take pictures outside or of polling places in the United States and he proceeded to continue to argue with me. Apparently, he thinks the laws in Nigeria are the same as in the United States as he defensively stated, "It is against the law in the United States to take pictures of polling places." Last time I checked, taking a picture of a voting booth is not against the law as I've seen plenty of pictures of people walking out of voting booths with their "I Voted stickers" proudly stuck on their shirt. As many of you readers (Mom) know, I'm usually not one to back down from an argument...however a lady at the polling booth was sticking up for us, claiming the officer was mistreating us. It was one of those, "thanks for the support but seriously, you're making things worse" moments. This got him even more riled up. She told him we were reporters and at that point, we realized arguing with either of these people wasn't worth it. I looked at David, who looked like he wanted to run, and shrugged my shoulders. Other police officers were minding their own business, clearly they figured this cop was digging himself into a hole. Teague ran off to get our MoPol, which of course, was quite the task. David and I sit there, wondering what the heck to do (David, is of course, still contemplating running at this point. If my camera wasn't in this cops hands, I woulda been gone long ago.) I asked where Joseph was about 20 times. David told me where he was...20 times. I finally figure...well...we're not going to get ourselves outta this...guess it's time to call Tom (this was a last resort. For the record, I said, "let's call the embassy first." It's kind of the same as getting in trouble at school. Some students would rather have us call the police than their parents...same concept.)

So Mr. Shearer shows up, first words out of his mouth, "I'm not even going to say 'I told you so'." Yup, I get it, can we get outta here. 3 minutes later, we're walking, camera in hand. The guy is a master, my idol. I will be like Mr. Shearer one day, just not today. I'm taking notes while he's taking names...that kinda thing. He's the man. Enough said, got my camera back, and I'm not even going to post the close up pics I got of the ballot boxes...that's tempting the Nigerian government. On a side note, Mr. Shearer dared me to snap a picture of the cops and run as we were walking away. Rainbolt would have been game, but he said he wasn't down cuz he'd be the slowest one of the three...we laughed and walked into the compound. I did have thoughts of breaking out my 500mm lens and taking a picture from behind the wall just to spite these guys...but I thought...why tempt the Nigerian government!

(The photo above is the one Mr. Rainbolt and I took right after Joseph recommended we take a couple pictures before getting close. You can see the polling station just ahead on the right.)

The Road to Storybook Land

Panoramic shot of the Great Rift Valley

The first word that comes to mind with our trip to Kenya is “A-MAZ-ING”!!! It was just like falling into a National Geographic magazine… and just as surreal! Our arrival in Nairobi was flawless and going through customs was extremely fast and simple. As we walked outside of the airport we were pleased to breath the fresh, cool morning air that felt like a welcome stranger. After we met up with Mom and Dad Haberlin we headed northward to Samburu. For those of you who have been to Disney’s Animal Kingdom and been on the Safari ride, you have experienced a ride much closer to reality than you might imagine. Remember those crazy, almost impossible-looking craters in the path of the land rover? Our whole trip was filled with those craters of various shapes and sizes and not once did we get stuck, thanks to the agile driving skills of our fantastic guide Muhammad. So after about six hours of being completely stressed out by the road conditions, we arrived in our favorite safari spot…

Samburu
As we were driving to our lodge we passed lush, green foliage, a rare zebra, giraffes, elephants, some beautiful, brightly colored birds and plenty of other elusive creatures hiding behind the bush. Once we arrived at our tent lodge, we were amazed by how nice these so-called “tents” were. There was a full bathroom with two sinks, a shower and a real, flushing toilet. The beds had headboards that were wired with lighting and an overhead fan. The most primitive part about our tent was that whenever we left we had to make sure the zippers were completely closed and knotted, then covered at the base of the entry area with the welcome mat and a coffee table so the local monkeys wouldn’t get in and steal our luggage! (While we didn’t have any of our personal belongings jacked by some very curious George’s at this time, you will hear a story about a monkey later on.)
On our first game drive, we had the most amazing encounter of the whole trip. We saw the most elusive and gorgeous African animal, the leopard. Let me rephrase that, we actually saw TWO! We were fortunate enough to follow the first one for close to an hour, watching her lap up water from a puddle, hide amidst the grasses of the savannah and pose for literally hundreds of pictures. The rest of our time at Samburu was almost as spectacular as we saw lions, gazelles, more birds, elephants, giraffes and a multitude of other animals.
Now for the monkey story. On our last morning at Samburu, we went for yet another spectacular game drive and came back for breakfast. I had a tomato and cheese omelet made at the buffet bar. When I came back to the table, I set my plate down and as I was walking around my chair to sit… a monkey swooped down, stole my omelet and took off!!! No kidding!! As funny as that is, it gets even better. When the sneaky monkey landed on the table, he looked right at Bryan and as he was mockingly gazing at him, grabbed the food then took off. After the monkey obtained its little treat, it sat up in a nook of the ceiling watching us as it munched on its breakfast and I went back to the buffet bar to get another omelet made. Once we were fully nourished, we were on our way to…

Lake Nakuru
Yes, we saw thousands of pink flamingoes. However, I am convinced that the more common bird to this area was one called the mose-squee-toe. There were millions!!! And yes, they bite! Needless to say, we didn’t spend as much time outside as we would have liked. Aside from the mose-squee-toes (this is the proper native pronunciation of the Lake Nakuru bird) and flamingoes we were able to see water buffalo, white rhinos, gazelles, and other species of zebras and giraffes. We also saw the most beautiful sunset of the whole trip on our drive back from the evening game drive. After our one-day stay at the lake, we were off to the notorious…

Maasai Mara
This was what I was expecting to see throughout our safari. Grassland that spanned out for miles and didn’t look like it could possibly hold hundreds of creatures of all sizes. More elephants, giraffes, lions, cheetahs, wildebeests, a hyena, more lions, topi and even more elephants.
We also had the opportunity to visit a Maasai tribe, who welcomed us with a dance from the men, a competition among them to see who could jump the highest, followed by a song from the women. We were taken into a hut that was made out of cow and elephant dung. It had a central area used as the kitchen, which was surrounded by three bedrooms with makeshift beds. A wall in the hut separated that living area from another area that was dedicated to the goats and cows for a sleeping area, so the predators such as lions and cheetahs couldn’t kill them at night. We ended our visit in their “market”, buying some colorful beaded jewelry and supporting their very small economy.

Nairobi
Our last days were spent in Nairobi. One of the highlights there was “Carnivore”, a restaurant where, would you believe, they served lots of meat. Every few minutes, waiters would come around with a huge skewer of some roasted animal and cut off a fresh slice onto your plate, giving recommendations for sauces to try with each. The meats ranged from plain yet tasty turkey and beef to the more obscure ostrich meatballs and crocodile meat. After the parents left, we enjoyed watching a little bit of cable and shopping at the Saturday Maasai market where we scored some very reasonably priced Kenyan trinkets. And on Sunday we sadly departed back to Lagos, having thousand of memories and pictures to sort through.


So, what’s the moral of this story? Go on a safari and savor every moment just as we did!!! Hope you enjoyed our stories and pictures!

Oh...and don't forget

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Safari Shmafari

Put your arms straight out to each side of your body. Stretch them out as far as possible. Look to the left hand…look to your right…that’s about how much we loved our Spring Break this year (yeah…THAT much!) It was amazing. Kara and I were trying to remember what we did last year for Spring Break...still working on that one and if you happen to remember for us, please remind me by sending an email to bslatercwu@hotmail.com

Alright, on to this year’s Spring Break. Close your eyes (don’t really, because then you won’t be able to read this.) I want you to envision Lions, Cheetahs, Leopards, Elephants, Giraffe(? Plural ?), Gazelles, Black Rhinos, White Rhinos, Zebras, Ostriches, Flamingos, Eagles, Cranes, Vultures and a zillion other different types of birds, Hippos, Crocodiles, Hyenas, Topy, Waterbuck, Jackals, Water Buffalos, and an assortment of beautiful landscapes. No…you’re not in Disney World’s Animal Kingdom (although they do an awesome job of replicating what an actual safari is similar to). You are in Kenya with Bryan, Kara, John and Pam (Kara’s parents) in the Sanburu region, Lake Nkuru, and the infamous Maasai Mara.

We left on Friday the 6th of April on a red-eye flight to Nairobi, Kenya (Site of Bin-Laden’s first attack on America when he bombed the US Embassy.) When we arrived, we met John and Pam (who arrived a day earlier) in the lounge of the beautiful Sarova Stanley Hotel, built at the turn of the 20th century. We ate a quick breakfast and headed off to the Sanburu Game Reserve just North of Nairobi.

Along the way (approximately a 5 hour drive or so), we passed the Equator and saw the Coriolis Effect up close and personal. It was pretty cool. As we moved 20 meters or so away from the equator North to South, the water drained clockwise to counterclockwise. It was pretty impressive. Right on the equator, the water drained straight down. Both John and I had our GPS devices out and it was a few feet off, but not too bad to say the least.

We finally reached Sanburu. I don’t want to go into too much detail about the animals as Pam will be doing a presentation on the animals we saw and I don’t want to steal her thunder. I will, however, post her notes online when we get a copy of them after they return from the remainder of their “Spring Break” (Retirement must be awesome) in Switzerland.

You do need to know, before I go any further, about the “Big 5”. The “Big 5” are the 5 animals that take some people several safari’s to see: The Lion, Leopard (the hardest of the Big 5 to find), the Elephant, Water Buffalo, and Rhinoceros. After our 5 hour drive to Sanburu and our first game drive that evening, we had the hardest of the Big 5 checked off of our list after seeing not one, but TWO separate Leopards.

On a side note, the 200mm-500mm lens Kara and I got over Christmas Break was AMAZING!

Our tour guide, Mohamad was awesome having been a safari guide for over 18 years. We rode around in a van that had a pop-up top so that we could see 360 degrees and take pictures from any angle we needed to.

Sanburu was amazing, for Kara and I, our favorite spot of the entire trip. The landscape reminded us of an area very similar to Wenatchee without the Evergreen forest. Dry, rolling hills, lots of trees, just not the evergreens we’re used to. We stayed for 2 nights there and then headed off to Lake Nkuru to see thousands of Pink Flamingos. On our second day in Sanburu, we were driving along, minding our own business checking out some Gazelle when all of a sudden, every single Gazelle’s head shot up, ears at attention. They heard something we didn’t. So our guide told us something was coming. We waited and sure enough, two female lions come sauntering around the corner. We were in a perfect spot as we could see the lions and the Gazelle, but the Lions nor the gazelle could see each other. When the lions came into sight of the gazelle, they shot off and escaped. The lions just kept on walking, almost disinterested in the small creatures. (On another side-note, we didn’t see anything get eaten or even hunted, that’s for the next safari).

Lake Nkuru was pretty cool…Flamingo’s stink and Rhino’s are huge. That’s about it for that stop. The animals were very easy to spot, so there wasn’t really any sort of challenge…kind of like Animal Kingdom in Disney World. The thing we liked so much about Sanburu was the hunt (so to speak). Animals blended in with the surrounding vegetation so well, so when you found animals, it was like “YEAH!!! FOUND ONE!” We had a game drive where we literally joined a pack of elephants…that was one of the more scarier moments as the elephants were roughly 3 times the size of our van in both size and weight. The lumbered by glancing over at us. A few of the males were duking it out for male dominance so that was fun to watch; so long as we didn’t get stuck in between them.

There I go getting off track, please forgive me if I do that a few times. The elephant story was actually from Sanburu.

After Lake Nkuru, we headed off to the Maasai Mara…famous for the 7th Natural Wonder of the World, the Great Migration of the Wildebeests in July as they move North from the Serengeti Plain in Tanzania. We saw a few Wildebeest but not enough to classify as a “Great Migration.” In the Maasai Mara, we saw a lot of Lions, Zebras, Thomson Gazelle, and Elephants. We also saw the leftover carcass from a Leopard’s kill hanging from a tree, horns and all! Pretty cool huh? We missed a pretty cool event on our last day that we found out about from some friends me met from Vancouver, Canada. They saw a lioness get attacked by 11 Hyena’s. She was fighting them off when all of a sudden, 3 or 4 of her sisters came to her aid and jumped in the fight. Gangfights don’t just happen in Tacoma apparently. We later found out that often times, Lions will kill Hyena’s and not even eat them…just kill them to kill them. We also found out, when we visited the Maasai tribe that there is a fear triangle. The Maasai have domesticated dogs to help warn them of predators. Here’s how the triangle works: The domestic dog fears the Cheetah. The Cheetah fears the Hyena (don’t ask me why because I don’t know.) The Hyena fears the domestic dog (once again, don’t ask). Thought that was interesting enough to write…learn something new everyday.

Anyway, we stayed in the Mara for 2 nights, and enjoyed the sights. We saw 3 cheetah brothers just after they killed a gazelle. They were sooooo fat. When we left, we drove 5 hours or so back to Nairobi to stay in our suite (Yeah…how awesome was that. We had 2 bathrooms, 2 tv’s, a living room area, huge bed, and tons of closets and we didn’t even have to ask for it! Luck of the draw I guess.)

We’ll definitely be going on another safari…it was too good to only do once. We’d like to tell everybody that if you’ve never been on one, it’s the trip of a lifetime. Truly life-changing and awe-inspiring. It gives you hope for the big cats (as the Discovery channel often portrays them nearing extinction). They are doing just fine and are well protected by the Kenyan authorities. Kara will be doing a blog later to fill in some of the gaps that I left out and once again, we’ll be posting Pam’s journal on here when we get a copy of it! Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them!

P.S. The pictures are in no particular order. If you want higher resolution copies of the pictures, you'll have to catch us on skype so we can transfer them to you or send us an email and we'll upload the pics. We're looking forward to hanging out with a particular family in Vancouver this summer and enlarging some of these on the new Hewlett Packard Canvas printer (the wedding picture is amazing John, thanks so much for that!) Talk to you all soon!