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

Put your pin on our guestmap on the right. Tell us where you're from. So far, we only have two posts, one from us, and one from Brett and Jana in France. C'mon guys, get your head in the game!

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Hey everybody! I've been working hard lately to find a way to allow parents to subscribe to our classroom websites (http://swift.aislagos.com/teachers/bslater/index.php and http://swift.aislagos.com/teachers/kslater/index.php). In the process, I found a really cool mailing list tool that can be completely managed by me and Kara so you don't have to worry about your email accounts having junk mail sent to them. It's safe, I promise!!

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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!