iPhone, iPhone, iPhone

The title probably won’t make any sense until the very end of the blog… Sorry that I haven’t Posted in a few days. Work has suddenly become more stressful as a major deadline I was up against have moved forward by a month. All of my creative juices have spilled into the writing of the audit manual I’ve been working on (clearly a very creative document indeed). I had seen a few older pictures that I felt were worth posting along with some newer ones. I’ve been meaning to speak about the nuances of being a white person in Kenya so if I have any energy by the end of this you may get a snippet about that also.
This crocodile looked very majestic when we were at Haler Park the other day. It wasn’t the biggest but I wouldn’t want to meet it in a dark alley, or um, in a… err, swimming pool.












I still can get over the giraffes that we saw at Haler the other week. It felt like the scene in Jurassic Park where they’re driving in the Jeeps and see the Brontosaurus and other dinosaurs around a lake. It just feels like two worlds colliding. I felt inherently like I didn’t belong in the situation. The giraffes seemed less concerned with our presence. They can be so shallow! Haha.
















This Picture also had a very Jurassic Park feel to it. I posted a picture of this Crowned Heron the other day. I don’t know if I posted any Hippo pictures. The hippos looked fake. The fat from their bodies rolled over their legs in a way that made them look very animatronic. We were told that they are the most dangerous animal in the park. Hippos are quite territorial and very short tempered I guess.





I tore my Only favorite pair of shorts getting off a matatu about a month ago. I wasn’t as bothered about having torn shorts as I would be in the states. It almost made me feel like I fit in a bit better. Karen (pictured) goes to church with us and works as a seamstress. She did a bang up job on the shorts, which are good as new (sort of). The Sewing machine she used was foot powered – Kenyans are super liberal and hippie like that… they are working hard to reduce their carbon foot print… just kidding – I figured out a few days later that the model she was using was a replica of a foot powered Singer Machine. Both looked really cool – Gold leafed trim on a black background. She refused payment but I gave her a few shillings anyway. After leaving the shop I realized I have no idea what the going rate is for their services, so I may have massively over or under paid her. I’m hoping the prior and not the a latter.




On Saturday we ventured to old town figuring we’d give it a second chance. We spent more time at fort Jesus this time. Above the fort there are these really odd trees. Some of the limbs head straight toward the ground and sprout into roots. Some like this one look very root-like prior to reaching the ground. They smell funny and look ugly hence the face. Grace really captured the moment on this one.
















The G-unit (Grace) insisted on being in front of the lens on this one so we enlisted the use of the timer on my camera to get a picture of us in front of the same tree that the roots were from in the subsequent photo. I would imagine that the stock of the tree keeps growing and growing. Grace … sorry eh Hem- The g-unit – said the tree looks like the Whomping Willow in the Harry potter movies. I think she was unhappy with my pose. What do you do right?




The fort has a really interesting design. According to the travel guide we have, it was designed so that you could never attack a wall of the fort without being a sitting duck for soldiers on another wall. Where I stand mas maybe a bit of an anomaly then. Notice my (now) holeless shorts.







Below the wall there was an abrupt drop and what seemed like a dry moat of sorts around the fort. A series of caves had been dug out of the corral stonewalls of the moat. “Unforch” they were gated off so you couldn’t explore back into them. The one behind me had a very “Pirates of the Caribbean” feel to it. I don’t know why that made me bust out a Derrick Zoolander look with a bit of the peoples eyebrow mixed in, but its rarely the wrong answer face-wise… except in family photos maybe.













Fort Jesus is a great example of how restoration isn’t really a well understood concept to people here. The outside of the fort looks nice, but on what could be considered the more picturesque portion of the fort two soccer goals have been placed right next to the fort. Its better than a baseball diamond, or football uprights – its soccer after all- but I’m guessing there is a dirt patch somewhere nearby that would have worked just as well. The ocean was really rough and stormy on Saturday. The swells looked big, but they never really turn into anything you can ride. It’s a bit of a tease.







This building sits in the middle of a square in old town. It overflowed with character. The different colors of paint, the uneven roof, I thought it was very cool – in an I am glad I don’t live there type of way.





Grace and I parted ways with Sam and Blair and headed to town after a brief tour through old town. There are some odd buildings in town. We were trying to decide if this building was looked more like Deconstructivism or Cubism If you click the link from Deconstructivism you can see an example of a building that looks a lot like it i guess.














Regardless of style it looks very Soviet I thought. Especially contrasted to the Cathedral in the lower sides of this shot.
















This is another little Eyesore treat from downtown Mombasa. The "TSS tower"is a different animal from each of its 90 million sides. From one end it looks like a bad rendition of the emerald city. On this side it looks more “Flash Gordon meets the Roman arch”-ish.









A decorated matatu. The name was extremely ironic I thought. It was meant to be a hip-hop reference of some kind, I’m sure but its probably more accurate as a description of the drivers tactics.











Saturday came to an end with a nice dinner with the (Mormon) missionaries. As opposed to the two that would usually come, we hosted four hungry elders. We had vegetarian spaghetti (a de facto menu selection), and an awesome fruit salad. The elders were from (right to left) Idaho Falls, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. It was fun to have them over and brought back good memories.

OK, that was a novel. In other news, according to Google analytics, I’ve had visitors to my blog from every continent on earth except Australia. I figure if the readership keeps growing I’ll break 500 unique visitors by the end of summer. I should put Paris Hilton and iPhone a bunch of times at the top of my blog to get more traffic from search engines. Or, maybe I’ll just keep the pictures coming. I hope you all have a great day.