March (Travel) Madness: Kenya

For Millie's 2nd birthday we were actually in Nairobi.  Earlier in the week, Roger joined a few of my Peace Corps buddies and one of his Peace Corps buddies to go climb Mt. Kenya - the highest peak in Kenya and the second highest in Africa at 16,000 ft.  You can see his pictures here.

Rather than be on our own in Arusha for her birthday, she and I drove up to Nairobi on Saturday to meet up with Roger and our friends when they descended on Sunday (Millie's actual birthday).  We arrived Saturday afternoon and passed the time visiting Nairobi's various commercial paradises - shopping malls!  One in particular, Westgate, has an AWESOME kids playing area with slides, bouncy castle and a ball pool so Millie really enjoyed herself in there.  We spent an hour there which bought me about 2 hours worth of pushing her around the mall (specifically, in a store called Nakumatt, our closest Target-alternative) in a shopping cart before the protests began.

After lunch and a nap, we headed to the American Embassy compound where we bought $50 worth of U.S. treats like Cheetos, Goldfish, Life Cereal and black beans (yes, they count as a treat because you can't find them anywhere in Arusha or Nairobi).  Many of these things, Millie was trying for the first time, like Honey Nut Cheerios (which she refers to as 'bumble bee' b/c the little bee on front) and Fig Newtons (which she calls 'yummy yummy sana' - 'sana' means 'very' in Swahili).  After blowing all our cash in the commissary, we went swimming in a heated pool which was really fun (yes, even though we're in Africa AND on the equator, Nairobi is about a mile high so even in the dead of summer ['member reversed seasons], the pools are usually too cold to swim in).

By the time we were done swimming, Roger was en route to the house we were staying at, so we rushed back to welcome him and the other smelly boys down from the mountain.  And of course no birthday is complete without cake which our hostess was so generous to provide.  Now, when you ask Millie how old she is, she says three.  But this is technically correct because in her world, the sequence of numbers is 'one, three, two!'