As you can see, we renewed our contracts as expected and are now well into our third year in Nairobi. If all goes as planned, we will be here next year as well, which will be a record for us...4 years in the same place! But as always, our plans are subject to change without notice (just like the prices of everything!).
Last year at Christmas time we had a wonderful visit with family both in NJ and Florida, which made the holiday season very special for us.
At Easter, friends from Saudi Arabia came to visit us, and we had a frantic week on safari to Masai Mara game reserve, staying at a tented camp along a slow moving river, somewhere on the Kenyan side of the Serengeti plains. The grasses were long from the spring rains, the game was plentiful, and the atmosphere was sheer Hemingway.
Then in the summer we headed back to Greece for another go at school and 5 weeks of unexcelled high living. With visiting friends, we took a cruise to Rhodes, Crete, Mykonos and Santorini, renting motorcycles, swimming in the cool waters of the Aegean Sea, trudging along cobblestoned streets, and sipping Greek wines at outdoor tavernas. We also traveled up to Meteora in central Greece where we marveled at 12th century monasteries perched on impossible cliffs rising from the arid plains. Quite breathtaking.
On the way to Greece, we stopped over for a few days in Egypt to see the pyramids. Very impressive and well worth the trip. The Great Pyramid in Giza (across the Nile from Cairo) covers 14 acres of land. What an awe inspiring experience it was to climb through a dark, dank tunnel right in the very heart of it.
After our sojourn in Egypt and Greece we flew to the good ole US of A and spent some time with our family in NJ. While there we took a trip with Sharon's father through some of the most beautiful countryside we have ever seen anywhere in the world--western Virginia and North Carolina, along Skyline Drive and through Great Smokey Mountains National Park. The views were absolutely breathtaking. The reason for our trip was to scout out the area with a view toward buying a bit of land. As it turned out, our mission was accomplished, and we purchased a 4 acre plot in Otto, NC--and adjoining Sharon's brother Gene's acreage. It's a great feeling to be landed gentry!!
We capped our summer off with a week in Paris, a first time for Sharon, and it proved to be a fitting end to a super summer. We stayed on the Left Bank, ate our way through the bistros and cafes of the Saint Germaine-St. Michel area and drank of the Parisian summer atmosphere, despite incredible hordes of tourists.
Returning to Nairobi, we thrust ourselves headlong into our jobs again, with Sharon planning the expansion of her library and Ken teaching Spanish, English and Journalism. We've gotten back into SCUBA diving here, and have accomplished and planned several trips to the coastal areas. At Christmas, we will go to South Africa for two weeks, will climb Mt. Kenya with porters and guides, and then finish off the month with a week at the coast in a rented cottage.
Life in Africa continues to be pleasant and eventful. We have moved into a larger house and now have a full time servant again to take care of us. Besides work, we enjoy the amenities of Nairobi with its excellent theater and restaurants. We have noticed that the prices are on the rise at a frantic pace, as in much of the world, and things that we could formerly enjoy have now become beyond our means. Hotels have gone up by 50% since we arrived, food is now more than in the States (although beef is still very, very reasonable), and gasoline prices are closing in on $3.00 per gallon. One wonders where it will end.
We still feel that living abroad is the only way to go while one is young. It has its frustrations, of course, and the general incompetence of Third World functionaries in government and business can drive one up the wall: Travel agents who can't read maps and have never traveled, telephones that never work, stores that are never open, etc...all make life...well...interesting.
That's it! Merry Christmas to all and many a happy New Year to come!!
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