AFRICA: KAZURI BEAD FACTORY AND CARNIVORE RESTAURANT, NAIROBI

During our trip, one of the women in our group was talking to other tourists at one of our lodges, and she they told her about a bead factory that was located close to the Karen Blixen estate. The day before we got back to Nairobi, she convinced the Powers-That-Be to take the entire tour group there, all 35 of us.

The Kazuri Bead Factory is actually located in what used to be part of the Karen Blixen Estate. The founder, Lady Susan Wood, was born in Kenya in 1918 to a British missionary couple and was educated in England. She eventually married a doctor, and the young couple returned to Kenya in 1947 to start a coffee plantation on the Blixen estate. (As a result of the Depression and falling coffee prices, Karen had sold the property in 1931 and gone home to her native Denmark, never returning to her beloved Africa.)

Susan Wood was quite the woman. She got the plantation going, raised her four children, wrote several books, and helped her husband set up the East Africa Flying Doctor Service, which later expanded to become the African Medical Research Foundation. On top of all that, she worked tirelessly for equality for Africans, especially for African women. In 1975 Susan set up a small business making ceramic beads in a shed in her garden. After hiring two Kenyan women to help her, she began to see the desperate need for employment opportunities for disadvantaged women, and the Kazuri Bead Factory was born. Kazuri is the Swahili word for "small and beautiful." 

Today that factory has expanded to become a manufacturing enterprise of several small buildings and employs anywhere from 200 to 350 women (depending on which website you consult) who are single mothers, widows, and those with special needs. The Kazuri guide told us that the women work 5 1/2 days a week and are paid the equivalent of about $5.00/day, which according to this source is about minimum wage for a basic worker in Kenya. Other sources on the internet say that the women are paid three times the average wage, which makes me wonder if women are generally paid substantially less than men. Women, especially uneducated mothers, have a difficult time finding jobs in Kenya, so getting a job at this factory must be highly desirable, not just for the wages, but because the workers are also provided with free health care in the Kazuri clinic, child care, and credit and savings plans. Kazuri is a member of the World Fair Trade Organization, which is devoted to creating opportunities for disadvantaged producers and workers.

Our tour began in the Clay Processing Area. The beads are made with clay from the Mount Kenya area:

Our guide, a soft-spoken, articulate Kenyan man, explained the clay-making process, which includes squeezing the water out with this mechanical press:

AFRICA: KAREN BLIXEN'S ESTATE AND WOMEN'S MEMOIRS

When we started planning this trip a year ago, one of the places I was really excited to visit was the estate of author Karen Blixen in Nairobi. Blixen, who also wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen, is the author of the memoir Out of Africa, a book most of us probably wouldn't have heard of if not for the beautiful movie of the same name. 

Christhopher Ondaatje, the author of Hemingway in Africa: The Last Safari, wrote ". . . for anyone who longs to relive African sights, sounds and smells, [Out of Africa] is the film to watch and watch again; the next-best thing to being in the bush." 

I read the book right before our trip, and Bob and I watched the movie, which reminded me how much I love the combination of Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. (It won seven Academy Awards in 1984, including the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Score, and Best Cinematography.) In addition, the soundtrack has long been my favorite of the many scores composed by John Barry. I think I got the CD for Christmas the year the movie came out, and I've since listened to it hundreds of times.

By the time we finally got to the Karen Blixen Museum, the setting of the movie had become part of our lives-- the awe and unpredictability of the vast landscapes, the wondrous variety of living things, the enigmatic natives--and as we drove up to the house, I could almost picture Karen sitting on the front porch, patiently sipping her English tea and scanning the sky for Denys's biplane.

Did Karen Blixen's Kikuyu servants trim the bushes in front of her house into topiary masterpieces?
I think not.

AFRICA: GIRAFFE CENTRE OF NAIROBI

During our return drive to Hotel Intercontinental from Nairobi National Park, then from there to our next destination, we enjoyed a few of the sights of Nairobi, a city of over three million people. 

The growing population doesn't stop Marabou storks from nesting in the trees lining the city streets. These birds can have wingspans of up to 20 feet, among the largest of the world's birds:

They reminded us of the beautiful white storks we saw nesting in Strasbourg, France, a few years before:

Strasbourg 2012

How does the stork fold up those enormous condor-like wings to fit its body?

Photo by E. Tooke

In flight, the Marabou stork is a strange combination of a beautiful ballerina and a hunch-shouldered undertaker:

Photo by E. Tooke

NAIROBI NATIONAL PARK, KENYA

My husband isn't one to let a single minute go to waste when we are traveling, and when he learned that our tour company was going to let us sleep in on our last day in Kenya, he made alternate plans. As long as there were more possibilities, he wasn't ready to be done safari-ing.

For a small fee, our driver Steven was willing to take us on a private safari tour of the Nairobi National Park. Honestly, I was tired and just about safari-ed out, but it was hard to pass up this unique opportunity.

Steven's well-worn copy of Collins Guide to African Wildlife in its customary spot on the dashboard.

Kenya is the only country in the world that has a national park inside a city: the Nairobi National Park, located only four miles from the city center. The park was created in 1946 and was, amazingly, the very first national park established in Kenya. Even Serengeti National Park, what I consider to be the granddaddy of them all, wasn't established until 1951.

At about 45 square miles, or 28,963 acres, NNP isn't very large in comparison to massive parks like the Serengeti (which is 5,700 square miles or 3,648,000 acres), but that's still a pretty big chunk of land to carve out of a city. By way of comparison, Griffith Park in Los Angeles is 1/7 the size at 4,217 acres, and New York's Central Park is only 778 acres. The largest zoo I've been to, the San Diego Zoo, is only 99 acres. Nairobi National Park is still plenty big.

As one would expect, this park is well-protected with electric fences to keep the animals in. I can only imagine what havoc a few stampeding rhinos or prowling lions could wreak on the Nairobi city center. The fence on one side of the park actually runs along the road that leads to the airport. Only three sides of NNP, however, are fenced. The border of the fourth side is the Mbagathi River, which means the park is open to the southern plains, allowing for animal migration. Before the population explosion in Nairobi (which had 11,000 people in 1906, about 100,000 in 1946 when the park was established, and 3,000,000 people now), there was a huge herbivore migration--supposedly as big as the Serengeti annual migration--between Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya that went right through this area. Now a much smaller number of animals comes during the dry season to take advantage of the man-made watering holes, but the migration ends in the park.

Nairobi National Park is one of Africa's most successful rhino sanctuaries; unfortunately, the rhino above and the one below are the only ones we saw:

AFRICA: FROM NAIROBI TO KENYA MOUNTAIN LODGE

According to the Kenya Wildlife Service, about 8% of Kenya's land is protected for wildlife conservation. With a total land mass of 224,080 square miles (about the size of Texas), that means approximately 18,000 square miles are game preserves. Kenya has 23 national parks (complete protection where the only activities are research and tourism) and 28 national reserves (some human activity allowed, such as fishing or wood collection). Conservation areas are a separate subdivision and can include both parks and reserves.

Our trip included the following national parks and reserves:

Mount Kenya National Reserve (Kenya)

Buffalo Springs National Reserve (Kenya)

Shaba National Reserve (Kenya)

Lake Nakuru National Park (Kenya)

Masai Mara National Reserve (Kenya)

Serengeti National Park (Tanzania)

Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area (Tanzania)

Nairobi National Park (Kenya)

Our route is shown below. We began in Nairobi and traveled counterclockwise until we arrived back in Nairobi.

Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, was founded by the British in 1899 as a rail depot on the way to Mombasa, but it grew quickly and was named the capital in 1907. With a population today of over three million, it is the largest city in East Africa and 14th largest city in Africa. Unfortunately, I didn't get very many pictures of Nairobi on that first day, but here is one of a roundabout near our hotel:

The slogan  is a bit awkward, don't you think? I get "Better" and "Simple" as single
word goals, but what is "Life"? With no periods, it still doesn't make sense.
"A better, simpler life" or even "better simple life" with no periods make a little more sense.

Our driver Steven told us a few interesting things about his country:

Kenya is still part of the British Commonwealth and recognizes the queen as the head of
     that commonwealth.
Unemployment in Kenya is 40%.
83% of Kenya is Christian and 11% is Muslim.
Del Monte owns the pineapple fields around Nairobi.
The most common meat eaten by Kenyans is goat. (We like goat, but unfortunately, we
     did not see goat on the menu anywhere we ate. I guess they keep the good stuff for
     the natives.)
School kids have only three or four weeks of vacation, and those weeks off are in April,
     August, and December.
Kenya has two official languages: English and Swahili.

AFRICA: LOS ANGELES TO NAIROBI, KENYA

In May 2014 we embarked on a true adventure, a safari trip to Kenya and Tanzania, followed by a few days in Ghana.

The trip had what I think is a very unique origin. My husband is a partner in a law firm comprising five male attorneys. Five years ago, on the 15th anniversary of the formation of their firm, they planned a trip to Peru to celebrate, and they brought their wives along. We had so much fun that we decided to do it again to celebrate their 20th anniversary, but what trip could top Machu Picchu? Why, an African safari, of course!

Here we are in the firm parking lot, minus one couple we still had to pick up on our way to LAX.

It's pretty amazing to find five attorneys who not only actually enjoy each other's company, but who have wives who also like each other. A sixth couple, clients of the law firm, expressed an interest in going on a safari, and they were invited to come along. They were a wonderful addition.

We booked our African safari through Fun for Less Tours, a company Bob and I had previously traveled with to Russia and Scandinavia. (The posts on that trip begin here.) We had been so impressed with the quality of that tour that we felt confident about booking another one with them. (Note: We have already booked a third trip through Fun for Less for next year.) Our safari had a total of 35 travelers plus a married couple serving as the tour coordinators.

We met up with our traveling companions in the firm parking lot at 8:00 AM and were transported to LAX by airport shuttles. We arrived in plenty of time to check in and have breakfast.

We flew KLM Airlines to Nairobi via Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, a great place to spend an hour:

From Amsterdam we had a direct flight to Nairobi.