Being Taira..........On Exploring Ngong

Saturday:
Went to the house where the kids sleep to share the last of my suitcase treats. It was great. We played checkers and danced. The girls are great dancers and showed me some very cool moves. They loved the balloons and were thrilled to make them pop. The boys especially loved the water balloon toss......everyone wanted to get Moshila wet but he can really catch and throw so while he stayed dry they were soaked! Even the kids who have been on the shy side would reach out to hold my hand or sit next to me. They loved the simple toys I had brought and the girls were all told how "smart" they looked in their plastic necklaces. Cards were a big hit as they have little in the way of entertainment so this is a real treat for them. And I brought cookies too! I also gave them the big atlas I had been carting about. We sat and looked at where they lived and where I lived. Moshila was especially thrilled that I had brought it as he would love to travel the world. They hardly noticed as I left, they were too busy playing and reading to notice me.......which was really nice.

Sunday:
Today I took the 10 year old neighbour girl, BoBo, to her first movie.......that's right she has never stepped foot into a movie theater. Although she told me she has seen such a thing on TV. With her parents approval we hopped on bus and travel to Junction, about 20 minutes from Ngong. We saw Horton Hears A Who. She was impressed with the size of the theater, thinking it looked much smaller on TV. The popcorn and soda were one of her favorite parts of the movie experience. I wasn't sure if she would be able to follow the story but she laughed at the funny parts and was on the edge of her seat when impending doom looked certain. After the movie I took her for one more thing she had never experienced..........Pizza!!! She didn't object and when she tried her first bite she smiled approvingly. She even had a second piece.....pretty amazing after all the movie treats. We took the rest home to her parents and for Stanley and Grace to try; all of whom had never had "this thing" before either! The weren't as sold on it as BoBo so I don't think they will be ordering out any time soon!

Monday:
Today Moshila took me on a hike to see some properties they would like to purchase if they had the funds. Right now they rent a house but it is their dream to have a permanent place for the children to grow up at. The hike was a bit of an effort as it was an up hill climb for a few kilometers. But the vein at the top was pretty amazing. We past by one of the very large green house operations that supply flowers for a good part of Europe. It covered a whole hill side! One of the properties is owned by a childhood friend of Moshilas. He invited us in and served us fresh coconut he had just brought back from Mombossa to sell at the market in Ngong. It was really good. As we headed back Moshila pointed out various plants they would eat for certain ailments.....I found this very interesting. He also let me know about watching out for snakes that like some of the fruits that hang along the fences and hillsides. We even came along a snake.....a very poisonous one but it was dead on the road. Not really sad about that! We walked into Matasia, a small town, to catch a matatu but one look at me and the price doubled so with our "we are not going to be ripped off" attitude we decided to show them and we walked back to Ngong. All totaled we did about 8k (with hills, don't forget)! Needless to say bed looked really good that night.