Airport Woes

'The lines, the forms, the people at the desks, the calling cards, the immigration officers, the looks on the street, the cold settling deep into my bones, the English Somalis classes at night, the distance I am from home.I know a few things to be true. I do not know where I am going, where I have come from is disappearing, I am unwelcome and my beauty is not beauty here'-Warsan Shire

It has come to my attention that I look real foreign to Somali immigration guys and maybe timid because how else do you explain the number of times they tell me to stand aside as they  finish checking travel documents for other passengers and then call me at-last to ask me crazy ass questions.I do my research before going anywhere on what immigration requirements are, therefore I always know the pre-requisites like if they need you to have a letter or they need you to have an amount of money and always I am prepared but alas I am mostly told to step aside and wait for everyone else to be cleared 'sad story of my life'.

The only place I travel to often is Somalia and it's for work,the thing with me is people will say hi in Somali and I will answer and they will chit-chat and my struggling Somali will give me away and they will ask my name and I will say Rahma. This is the conflicting piece of information to them my name is Rahma and I speak broken Somali (for now) because one of my top resolutions for the new year is to learn and speak fluent Somali.What brings the conflict is how can she be Rahma(a name so common amongst Somalis), speak such Somali and look so distinctively Kenyan because Somalis have this notion that they are Arabs :-D :-D,like seriously this people think they are not Africans!

Obviously I wear my Hijab so I am Muslim that is clear and maybe Somali,so to confirm if I am Somali the immigration guys will speak Somali to me and when they realise you are struggling then they start using words that are deep just to alienate you :-( and when I say I don't understand they always ask me to step aside,why me? what have I done to deserve this?. This I am used to, honestly I will be surprised if it didn't happen,like did I become prettier or did I start looking Somali.

So this guy today has the audacity to ask for my passport and it's a domestic flight(from one town in Somalia to another), for every single person he only checked the tickets,stamps them and keeps them,see I already knew this and kept my ticket safe so when it was my turn I handed him my ticket and expected no drama but boy didn't I know I was in for the biggest drama of the year. he looks at the ticket,then at me and goes like give me your passport and I make nothing of it because I have a valid entry visa but he doesn't stop and asks;'So what brings you here' and I say 'I work here' he keeps quite for a bit and then drops this line;

Immigration guy: 'You work in Somalia and yet you don't speak Somali?'

Up until this point I wasn't up for a fight or anything but when he said this,he irked me so bad and by bad I mean I forgot Mogadishu,Somali,Somalis think shooting people is nothing and just wanted to fight and tell him how he is the one that is over-stepping his mark.

Me: Excuse me?

The guy has no chills, he repeats himself.

I could have kept quite and let it be but I was just so angry because he had no grounds I had a valid visa and he insults my Somali and all the efforts I have put to learn and speak this language however broken mine is for now.

Me:What is wrong with you? pretending to check you computer yet we all know you have no record whats-over and what you want is money and you think I am scared of sleeping in this airport or you deporting me....................................... a crazy crazy rant.

A crazy crazy rant.That I regretted soon after and almost apologized but stopped myself because he was wrong I wasn't.

Word of advise to anyone who reads this and happens to travel to Somalia/plans to travel to Somalia.

1) Never speak out loud when you are angry or irked,it's ok to think anything you want but just don't say it.

2) Have your valid visa always and if by mistake the guy stamping visa on entry has the wrong dates like in my case instead of one month he stamped for two months,don't think you are lucky just have this corrected it might come back to bite you.

3)Young immigration guys are hell,so if ever you saw someone young-ish at the immigration desk,come prepared for their big egos and always be the bigger person.

4) Brush up on your Somali and speak the little you know like you own the language.

5)Confidence is major key,if you are not in the wrong you are not in the wrong but also remember that ego thing, deception will win this for you. Know you are right but massage the ego of that immigration person.

6)Whatever you do,do not fight or talk back because an hour at the airport can make you re-think the need for a rant when you actually do not know anybody who can get you out of a fix but if you do know someone put those guys in their place for all of us.

Also Somalis are the kindest of people,I should know this because I practically live here :-) :-), like it a lot and that Warsan quote I used it's because I really like her and it has the word immigration in it because we all know she is talking about the REAL thing and not this my drama.

Afghan House

Very Afghani if you ask me,look at the owner, he sure is representing his country,

'I gave Farid some money and he went out to get food. He returned with four sizzling skewers of kabob,fresh naan and a bowl of white rice. We sat on the bed and all but devoured the food. There was one thing that had not changed in Kabul after all: The kabob was as succulent and delicious as I remembered'-The Kite Runner

I am always looking for new experiences,not outrageous ones obviously but what's life without trying out new stuff, pretty boring if you ask me.I also find time and read for fun as often as I possibly could and I have  over time read all of Khaleid Hosseini's books and therefore in relation to the topic at hand- Afghani food, I would like to believe that I have 'first hand' information because  three books is no joke ☺☺.My brother and I had set out to go to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and then go to the Giraffe Centre after but we got lost so many times and by the time we found the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust it was past 12 PM and we all know that if you want to see the baby elephants/elephants at the DSWT you have to be there by 10.30 am because they allow visitors for only 1 hour that is between 11 am and 12 noon. To make our trip to this other side of the city worthwhile in addition to the Giraffe Center we decided go to the Hub as these two are in same neighbourhood.

The Hub

The artificial lake at the Hub

Lights :-) :-)

The amusement park at the Hub

I used to think how lame it is to go visit a mall,just for the sake of visiting a mall but the Hub changed my mind because now I might just start going to malls to explore them.

The Hub is so so beautiful and especially at night/early evening when the lights come on,it has an artificial lake, beautiful lush grounds,many shops, so many places to eat; all the cuisine journeys you want to take,they have your back! Indian,Italian,cakes,Middle-East and many others I am sure, all the good things in one place. Also if you have children all I am saying is find time and take them there and specifically to the amusement park and trust me this will be the only thing they will be talking about for the longest time.

The Chicken Biriyani

My  brother who is a certified Nairobi foodie based on the number of places he has eaten at and the comments he makes on food, If I didn't know him I would have thought he is a judge on some cooking competition.He had the chicken biriyani and thought that though good,it’s no where near the swahili chicken biriyani. I also think very few food items compare to the swahili biriyani. You know the way swahili biriyani has the rice and the stew that has boiled eggs in it,the Afghan one has no stew whatsoever and no egg,what's biriyani without these two.Swahili biriyani Oyee!!!!

The Bolanee.

Bolanee

Sauces to eat with the Bolanee.

I had the Bolanee which is naans stuffed with mixed spice potato and onions served with a tomato chutney mainly because I am not much of a meat eater,I really wanted to try the Mantu which is traditional beef dumplings but changed my mind because beef/any meat really isn't much of my thing.I later read reviews and saw that everyone thought they are the best on the menu.I liked the Bolanee,they were tasty and very Afghany ☺, how do I know? you ask; the only food story I clearly remember from Khaleid Hosseini's books is Nana teaching Mariam how to make bread/naans in A thousand splendid sun therefore any food that has these two qualifies to be very very Afghany.

Chances of a lot of us going to Afghanistan are very slim, what the Afghan house offers is a taste of the country through their food without you having to do any travel, would I recommend it,yes I would but I will say stay away from the rice dishes because really rice is rice and try something new ☺☺.

Kiss + Tell

Betty and her many fans.

I had a plan and everything of how I will kiss a giraffe or giraffes, take these killer pictures and write a post titled Kiss +Tell. I didn't know how difficult it is to actually kiss a giraffe and that said giraffes are celebrities, everyone wants to feed them and take pictures with/of them,so my plan clearly didn't take everything into consideration.But for future purpose I am now well aware and if  when I go back to the giraffe center again,I might just 'kiss' one.

The Giraffe centre is a non-profit making organization whose main objective is to raise the number of  the Rothschild giraffes that are endangered,in-addition to this the centre aims to provide conservation education to school children and all the education programs offered by the centre to children are free of charge :-) :-)

The Giraffe centre experience

Feeding the Giraffes

Me thinking-Gosh this is harder than I thought.....................

.................................and me knowing that Betty is very friendly.

Some of the Warthogs at the centre.

One of the biggest thing that you get is to see giraffes at really close range and to even feed them.

Maybe it's only me but Betty looks really thin or maybe giraffes are generally thin but maybe just maybe the management of Giraffe centre should reconsider having them and their feeding as an attraction because seriously those pellets are too small and they basically spend the whole day being fed pellets and maybe they don't get enough food, can you imagine going hungry in a place where there is a lot of food as the centre has a forest and trees are giraffes' food.Funny thing is there is this one poster that reads that each person should feed the giraffes one handful of pellets only as they are on a diet :-D :-D.

The Talk

What she is holding is a warthog's skull, it's brain space is so small hence it's very very very poor memory, like it could be running away from danger and 5 minutes later it forgets said danger and stops to graze, that bad!

Everyone knows about the big five right? but I am sure not many people know of the little five.Allow me to introduce them to you,they are; elephant shrew, buffalo weaver, leopard tortoise, ant lion and rhino beetle( I learnt this from the talk at the Centre)

I am not too sure,if they have organised talks each day or we just got lucky but this talk was really informative.The lady who gave the talk covered a lot of things during her talk like the different species of giraffes found in Kenya and the things that distinguish each kind from the other,why warthogs and giraffes are close friends in the wild,warthogs and their small brain problems, a lot of useful information but the highlight has to be that the females have hair on their small horns and the male ones are bald and this what distinguishes them, also that in the giraffe world as in all other worlds the female is king as she is the one responsible for looking for food,guiding the group when they are migrating and even fighting enemies.These females are doing us PROUD.

Conservation support

This picture was created by a student as an entry to one of the Center's conservation competitions.

Waste bins-Clearly they practice what they preach :-)

From the talk I also learnt that the centre is very keen on environmental conservation and hold competitions on conservation for school children and the winning school wins a trip to the Nairobi national park and sites around Nairobi to see pollution and it's negative impact first hand and that on Thursdays( I am not too sure if it's each Thursday or some specific ones) they allow school kids to get into the Centre for free and as if this is not enough they occasionally organize trainings for school teachers on issues around environmental conservation :-) :-).

The Nature Trail

The joys of seeing a water point.

The Natural trail is especially dope because it tells a story of how Nairobi,the whole of it was trees and truly a place of cool waters where Maasai pastoralists could bring their livestock when times were bad in Maasai-land(I joke) but it's so so pretty and each tree has a small board on it showing the name of the tree in English, it's scientific one and it's names in different Kenyan languages and what the tree can be used for.

If you are in Nairobi and have some free time and want to see giraffes and even touch them, then Giraffe centre is the place to visit.They charge 250 KES per person so I figure it's not too expensive either and totally worth it.

The Nairobi Railway Museum

Railway transport seems to be the future if the noise the electric rail in Ethiopia has created is anything to go by as railway transport is said to be efficient because it is not prone to delays that come with road travel as a result of traffic jams and is cheaper, yet us guys have a railway museum, yaani we have already gotten  ahead of the future and even archived it ☺☺.The construction of the Kenya-Uganda railway forms a big part of  Kenya's history- The man eaters of Tsavo anyone?? hoping this rings a bell, if not then you should definitely plan and go to the Nairobi Railway museum and you will learn/be reminded of the important role that the construction of the railway played in Kenya's history.

“It is not uncommon for a country to create a railway, but it is uncommon for a railway to create a country.”-Sir Charles Elliot,

When I first read this on one of the walls at the Railway Museum,I thought 'oh well,does it mean before the construction of the Railway there was no Kenya as a country',apparently there was no Kenya at-least not as we know it now.........................!!!!!!!!(alama ya duku duku na mshangao) because I was so defensive when I read this and spent time with Professor Google after to find out how true this is and she says 'Kuna ukweli kwa hiyo stori'.

One of the flagship projects of Kenya’s Vision 2030 is the standard gauge railway whose first phase is a railway that connects Nairobi to Mombasa in addition to reducing the amount of travel time and cost of travel hopefully the railway takes all those heavy tankers off the road and hence ensure roads are saved from damage and therefore no potholes and then the government will have an additional thing to brag about and most importantly to use to somehow justify the huge amounts spent on the construction of this new railway. Clearly we are not done with railways despite having a railway museum.

The Railway Museum is divided into three parts.

The Graffiti

A lot of the images I had seen before going to the railway museum were of the wall graffiti at the Railway Museum but you will surprised when you visit because I expected a lot of graffiti, but it’s just on the side fence as you get in,are they nice yes,but I think a lot of people sorely focus on them and make it seem that the railway museum is full of graffiti because I actually asked 'So where is the other graffiti?'

The Gallery

A bicycle that was used by the railway inspector,

A type-writer

A calculator

The plates and cups the Queen used when she took a train ride.

If history is your thing, then the gallery will make you really happy, there are pictures that explain the different stages of the construction of the railway and they even have this story of how a 25 year old Queen Elizabeth found about her father’s death when she was in Kenya and was made acting queen while she was in Kenya. Also on display are plates, cutlery and seats she used when she took a train ride,so how does a queen’s chair feel, you have to visit to find out :-)


The make-belief train station

Benches to sit on as you wait for 'your train.'

Train.

I honestly thought  the trains at the museum were built specifically for the museum in the same way people recreate stuff that are copies of the original to show you what the original looks like, but no, all the trains,train station benches,railway tracks and cabins are real and were once in use at-least this is what I found out although some looked too shiny to be artifacts.


A visit to the railway museum will take you down history lane to a time when trains had decks for passengers to see lions and other wildlife as they travel,the struggle that people under-went to construct it-a big number of the workers died :-( whilst constructing it and much more.If you love history then you should definitely visit, bonus point is you can actually recreate for yourself how an old train station felt like by sitting on the benches and then getting on a cabin to get a feel of how a train ride felt like despite the cabin not moving ha!

The Murumbi African Heritage Collection.

Taking a selfie with the man of the house.

'On our first date I took her to the art museum at the art institute,I was trying to impress her,to show her you know,I was a really culturally sensitive guy and it worked! Giving tips to the young men out there'-President Obama

Have you ever gone some place and you become so so impressed until the expression on your face gave you away,No? Not many times?? then you should definitely pay a visit to the Murumbi African heritage collection and best believe your jaw will drop.It's conveniently located in town next to Nyayo house(what is also known to me as 'ile place ya passport', because villagers will always be villagers I guess) so you can't miss it, but be sure to go when you have a lot of time because there is so much to see and read.

Joseph Murumbi was Kenya's second vice-president who was an AVID art collecter and thanks to him we now get to see and appreciate all these amazing pieces he collected and learn about different African communities.There is this story about the first piece of art that he bought when he was in exile in Morocco (I am not too sure about the country but I think it's Morocco) and the seller was so shocked that an African man at a time that was so colonial, I am sure Africans had no much rights was buying a piece of art that he gave him it to him for free ☺☺.

There is so much show-cased from all over Africa but what you'll notice is that he had a soft spot for Lamu and the Turkana because there is quite a number of items from Lamu and the Turkana. Each item displayed has a note explaining it,therefore a crash course in history and culture is what you'll get,which is pretty cool if you ask me.

African Currency

Just before we went to this exhibition we were having this discussion on how money is the root of all evil and the way we should go back to barter trade but what we couldn't agree on was what exactly we own or have that we could barter with,if in-deed this impossibility could happen.Then these art pieces to explain african currency happened in my life and suddenly I figured all the beads I somehow own (Hello Maasai market) can be currency :-) :-).

Jewellery!!!

When you look at this picture,do you think Turkana? I am guessing no but as I found out,the earrings and necklace that have leaf like features are worn but Turkana women.

Everything Gold

Gold coins

'Gold is extra-ordinary,for thousands of years people have desired it and sought it out.esteeming it the most precious of all metals.It is a prized possession in all countries,in all cultures and in all ages of history,nothing compares to Gold'-The explanation card next to all the Gold items displayed

Silver

I am thinking when someone is getting married,one of the things they might have to worry about is what necklace will I wear,or should I even wear a necklace but if you were Ethiopian Harrar you will have no such concerns because that huge neck-lace in this picture is a wedding necklace.


The executioner

This picture of the executioner that brought about a long long discussion on; why the person who made it ,made it,why Murumbi bought it and if the items at the heritage collection were sold who will buy it and why.To cut a long story short we agreed some white person(I know this makes us look really bad) will buy it and take it back to their home and say the way us guys are backward but seriously though what do you make of this executioner brass piece? See I am becoming artsy :-) :-) knowing it's a brass piece ha!,going to exhibitions has it's 'benefits'.

Wildlife

What's an art collection in Kenya without pictures of wildlife right?.In addition to show-casing Murumbi's art collection,other artists also show-case their work at the Murumbi African Heritage collection and these paintings and cars are by an artist called Richard Onyango.

When the founding fathers were young

Julius Nyerere!

I looked at this picture before reading the caption and thought it was Uhuru :-)

If you haven't been to the Murumbi African Heritage collection,what are you waiting for,it's 150 bob only per person and believe me,you will be a different person after visiting it.

Nairobi Whispers

Nairobi evenings.

'One hand in the air for the big city,street lights, big dreams all looking pretty. No place in the world that can compare. Put your lighters in the air, everybody say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-Jay-Z's Empire State of Mind.

Nairobi is our big city and the place a lot of people go to; to study, look for jobs,visit and hustle try get rich. I am told if you are street wise it's your city but if you are not, woe unto you. For me it is errand town, because each time I visit I have these lists of all kinds of things to eat,see and buy, also people give me lists each time, because when you live in villages, Nairobi becomes your 'New York'. 

What I realize though is me and this city can be friends on condition that either of these two things happen; Nairobi slows down a bit or I learn to be more Nairobi-ish, since the chances of the former happening are zero,it seems this villager might change her ways just a bit and turn into a 'city person'. But Nairobi is really a village, a Maasai one at that :-) so it can't be too hard.

What makes Nairobi,Nairobi?, a lot of things but for me and on this particular time.......................

Celeb Town

Most Kenyan big-names live in Nairobi (key word being most not all), and therefore because this is their home chances are you might see some of them doing their normal every day activities.On Monday afternoon last week in the CBD I saw Wanjira and Joe Miano going for lunch (I think) because it was around lunch time and it was near Lonhro house which is their office.I also saw Harith Salim near Nation centre and here is the thing Nairobians don't care or they have just seen too many celebrities to even take note.People are busy minding their business not caring one bit about these celebs.Not even a back-ward glance to say 'Did I just see that person!'

The Natural hair movement

The Shea Moisture products in Super-Cosmetics.

Nairobi is listed as a natural hair friendly city which is a really good thing because it says more and more women are now more comfortable with their God-given hair. What I noticed however is not a big number of women are rocking their natural hair and I think I know why people are falling off this bandwagon, have you seen the prices of products to take care natural hair!!!!!!!!. On my list of things to get was a considerable amount of  natural hair products but I went to Super cosmetics and ended up buying the same products I currently use.The Shea Moisture line of products and Jamaican black castor oil have such good reviews online that they were top of my to get list but a conditioner for KES 2300 and in that small bottle, wacha tu, my current one works just fine.

Music and Matatus

Dela and H_ART the band's Adabu video playing in a matatu

The number 9's and their music eish!!!, the drivers are the official DJs and everyone is made to listen to what they love, luckily they are mostly good songs and some even have videos,like I saw the Thitima video on a Matatu and thought interesting and on the Sunday Nation I saw an interview of the guys who did the song, meaning the song is new and quite a hit, so commutes can be useful I guess :-D :-D. It's not all good music though because I have had days I almost got off a matatu because crazy loud music that you don't care for can really get to you.

Strangers

Nairobians have some deep trust issues, Try talking to the person sitting next to you in a mat-95 % of the time they will give you cold stares and worse when someone who has a child sits next to you and you spend maybe a minute looking at their child, they will even change seats but the other 5% make up for the 95%, like there is this one time I set next to a drunk Raila supporter who kept calling Raila Baba and told me the craziest conspiracy theories being planned/employed by the government.

Style and Fashion.

I read some   a lot of fashion blogs, therefore although I am mostly in my buibui or dirac, my mind is a fully evolved fashion analyst and I look at people and think transparent tights and crop top, what?? you don't read any fashion blog and I see others who have read all the blogs and are killing it on the streets.

Nairobi has people with all kinds of style and by all I mean people who wear next to nothing when it's hot to people who have sweaters and boots on at the same time.

Fries,cakes and all the junk.

Point Zero :-) :-)

Nairobi I love because of the many many did I say many places to eat. There was this one time I decided I will give up eating fries and did for a while but one day I was walking in the town and all I could smell was fries and only fries and suddenly a magnetic pull was pulling me and I found myself seated with a plate of fries and my heart was doing a happy dance at 10 am in the morning.I am not alone though, I realized this because I actually saw people in a fries joint called Jambo fries at 4 am in the morning I am not one to judge but boy am I glad there are others who eat fries earlier in the day than me.

Changing rooms

A sign in a clothes shop(near the changing rooms)

I said I read Kenyan fashion blogs right? I am also Muslim so what they wear I mostly cannot wear but what is to stop me from going to a shop and trying out all the pencil skirts, short dresses and tops I know I will never buy.All I am saying is an afternoon spent trying on clothes you know you have no intention of buying can make one very very happy :-) :-)

People Watching.

So I have this bad habit of people watching(sometimes).My trip to super-cosmetics had a silver lining, I saw this mother and her daughter and they were both Naturalistas. I assume the girl is home for the holidays and therefore they were re-stocking on their products and they had the largest of each ORS product available, the deep conditioner,mayoinasse and leave in conditioner.They were infront of me at the till that's how I saw all this and also heard the mum telling her daughter who might have a serious hair regimen for a girl her age because she looked to be between 16-18 years.'Mum lazima u deep condition nywele weekly'. If Nairobians were friendlier I would have given this natural hair winning duo handshakes.

You know the way people say 'my local' meaning a place they normally frequent, in my people watching I saw this guy who has a true 'local 'judging by the way he sat with the hotel's 'chef' and they had a conversation that went like this:

Guy at his local: Kilonzo ni we ulipika hii kuku?

Kilonzo(the cook): Kwani unafikiria ni nani mwingine?

Guy at his local asks the girl who mans the cash-till who made the chicken and she says in a Swahili accent-'Ni Mama,Kilonzo kazi yake ni kuwasha jiko.

This is Nairobi for a villager who kinda likes it and spends very little time in it :-) :-) and each time learns/sees something new about it.

A thousand words

At the start of the year I made this resolution to write one post each week and I have tried to do this as much as I could but sometimes I just get real busy and the Noisy Villager takes a back-seat.'Busy' also means I didn’t do anything interesting but in the spirit of regular writing and sharing stuff here goes pages/accounts online that I have been loving.

If you read this blog sometimes or know me you know of my INSANE love for Sharon, Beyonce, and Warsan Shire. Seriously anytime I have free time I am mostly either watching Beyonce's videos on YT, Sharon on her blog,Our 2 cents, her YT channel and looking up Warsan news or poems.So let's not talk about these three because they will forever remain my constants, I LOVE them and so should you :-)

Instagram accounts I currently love.

Instagram because it's the social media site for sharing pictures because unlike Facebook and Twitter you cannot just post words on this site.I know everyone already knows this but just in-case someone didn't then now you know :-).Also because the title of this post is making reference to pictures being worth a thousand word so it will only be right to talk about accounts that mainly share pictures.

Khadija Farah

Some pictures from her account

Why I love her account: She has the most beautiful pictures and most importantly she is such a story teller and her captions are really nice stories,she is passionate about refugee issues in Kenya,elephant conservation and show-cases many beautiful sites in Kenya. Prepare to be bitten by the wanderlust bug after visiting her page.

Ben Omwaka

Some pictures from his account

Why I love his account:I first took note of his account when he was doing a daily photography challenge and used to post the most beautiful pictures for this daily challenge. I am not sure which challenge it was but I know he might have won because he is photography game is at 100%.The other thing I love about this account is the adventure him and his friends get to go to and share on here makes you want to part of his friends :-). Also I think it's a good account to visit to look for ideas of how to take pictures,key words being ' looking for ideas' and not stealing his style.Visit it and you will thank me :-)

The photography on WFP's twitter account.

WFP delivers food aid to either very insecure places for their staff or places they can't reach by any other means also famously known as air-drops :-)

Why I love this account: I know it technically isn't Instagram but the pictures here are the best,well according to me they are some of the best pictures I get to see. It's not below me to go this page just to look at old pictures and  re-read the stories there. So follow them maybe.

Poem Heaven

The happy start :-)

The sad ending :-( 

Why I love this account: Let me just say this I am a lover of quotes and spend time on Pintrest reading and pinning quotes so an account that is solely dedicated to quotes had to be here.Why I love this one the most, it has the corniest quotes ever!

Anita Gaitho

Anita!!!!!!!

Why I love her account: Anita just got a baby.............................stick with me there is a reason why her just having a baby is important,she also looks really nice.Now here is the thing in the past once you got a baby,you could let go,eat all the food you want and become a 'mama' but things have taken a turn for the worse people (ha ha ha-no guilt free cake eating ever!),girls are having babies and coming back looking better than they did pre-babies in the words of Beyonce-'strong enough to bear the children, then get back to business',what Beyonce forgot to say is 'and get back to business looking like you are coming back from some holiday and not having a baby'.

These are the 5 accounts I am really liking currently,I hope you like them or some of them or just one of them.Also let me know which ones you love/like.

Taking Stock 004

Always catching the sunset :-)

Making: plans and more plans,mostly travel plans :-).Both wishful and real ones.

Cooking: nothing now,but I have been cooking all these different kinds of pancakes from recipes I have gotten online and so far so good.

Drinking:more green tea,both hot and cold and I am so proud of myself because I am a tea with loads of milk and sugar kind of person and green tea sort of demands that you drink it without any milk or sugar and it was this huge struggle at first but now I am so used to it and even like it.

Reading:sadly I am reading no book currently but I just completed Khaleid Hosseini's The Kite Runner.He is such a good writer and if you are interested in Afghanistan's story you should definetly pick up one of his three books.

Wanting:to be done with all my reports and in good time so that those travel plans and all other plans I am making can happen.

Playing:more and more Kenyan songs mostly old ones though.

Wasting: time, always time.The internet is the enemy of time! because you go on Google to look up stuff and before you know it, three hours have passed and you don't even remember what you went to search for originally ( story of my life).

Sewing: Creating: all kinds of boards on Pinterest.

Wishing:that my computer could hear me talk and just filter through all my words and thoughts and do all the writing for me.

Enjoying:taking pictures :-).I have been watching YouTube videos on how to take good pictures and sometimes I take pictures and try practice some of those skills.I don't know about you but I feel like these pictures are bomb.com.

:-)

Desert Flowers.

Even camels get thirsty and when this happens they drink  A LOT  of water.

Women irrigating their farm and suddenly the water pressure in the pipe is too strong!

Liking:all the new cake places that are opening up in this town that I live in.

Loving:stories on the WFP Webpage.They write these stories focusing on the different parts of the world that they work in,telling the stories and hopes of the affected communities and obviously what they are doing and the impact they are having.

Hoping:that we win/excel at some major work event that is coming up.

Marvelling: at this thing called season(weather seasons) in a year for the most part I wasn't too keen on seasonality and it's importance to peoples' lives.I knew rains came,there were the cold months and the hot months but never thought much of it but I am becoming this person who increasingly wants it to be the rainy season and actively prays for rain.

Needing:to get new glasses because I have had mine for so long and they have grown old!

Smelling: nothing at all just a normal scentless day.

Wearing:always wearing a dirac

Following:this new you tube series-This Is It.It's tells the story of  a newly wed couple and how they are learning the ropes of marriage(at-least this is what I have gathered).

Noticing:more each day the important role that nature plays in peoples' lives and the importance of taking care of the environment,if you can,plant more trees people,they absorb carbon dioxide,emit oxygen and cause rain and if there is anything that has become really clear to me, it is the importance of rain.

Knowing:that God is the best of planners and if you don't have something yet and are always praying for it,it's probably for your own good because he knows things that you do not know and all his decisions are the best for you.

Thinking:I have to finish writing this blog-post real quick.

Feeling: pressed for time.

Bookmarking:I can't remember anything I bookmarked recently.

Opening:nothing currently,focusing on finishing this post.

Giggling:At Ambassador Amina's interview on Aljazeera.What!!!!!!! she has mastered the art of dodging difficult questions.I not only giggled I literally laughed out loud at 6.37 when she goes like 'that's so interesting' and 'I am sorree, I am sorree' when the interviewer asked about Rutto's case at the Hague and her lies on Jubilee achievements.