KK & Chris' Kenya Adventure

  The school has provided us furnished housing right on the campus. We walk about 250 yards to commute to work. Chris is relaxing in the living room. This is our bedroom. Our very efficient kitchen with a gas stove and electric refrigerator that keeps things very, very cold. We often have frozen milk. There is a microwave, toaster, and hotpot. We boil all of our drinking water just to be safe. The Kenyan teachers say this is the best and cleanest water in all of Kenya. Our bathroom is also very efficient. The shower head is an electric water heater with a special switch outside the door to turn it on or off. It heats the water very quickly and it's very hot, but the temperature is adjustable. The tile floor doesn't slope enough toward the drain so we purchased a squeegee to push the water to the drain after showering. The sink is tiny so we use the kitchen sink for just about everything. This is the front door to the building. There are 4 flats, 2 on the ground level and 2 on t...

  In January, we organized an excursion to hike Mount Satima, the 3rd highest peak in Kenya at 4001 meters (13,126 ft). The highest peak in Kenya, and second highest in Africa, is Mt. Kenya. Nyeri Town, where we are living, is between the two. On the map, Mt. Satima is in the northern quarter of Aberdare National Park, the darker green area to the left. It's a trail walk from the parking area to the top, but most of the time you are walking above 12,000 ft and any time you have to go up, it's difficult to breathe. We hired a driver with a 4-wheel drive van. Three teachers from the school and a friend of one came with us. The National Parks are so big that they have multiple entrances. We entered at one of the more remote gates because it got us closer to the trailhead. We were the only group at the gate but it took nearly 3 hours to get into the park. If you're not a Kenyan citizen, then you have to go through a web portal to pay your fee. Sometimes the portal works and oft...