mutatus, the maze, and our safari

yesterday getting back from town was such a crazy experience.

first of all, i wrote at some point about the roads and the driving here. and the taxi buses called mutatus. basically a mutatu is an old toyota minivan where someone has gone through and replaced all the normal seats with uncomfortable wirely ones. 12 of them. plus two in the front. that means that legally, these taxi minivans can carry 14 people.

but not really. yesterday, was a great example. we got in ready, waited as the car filled up with people. pretty soon the car was full, so you think that we're ready to go. but we wait a bit more. inside the cars the middle two rows have a little space in the middle of the bench seats, so poeple can walk to the back. but when the mutatus get really full, out come the boards, which go across the empty space and now you have two more seats. how efficeint of them. now we have 4 in each row. but we have to pick more poeple up...and then we have 5 in each row. with one boy sitting on some random lady's lap, and two other guys standing but since its a minivan there is really not enough room to stand in any way. so its more like a standing but leaning over at a 90 degree so that they are pretty much lying down on top of us. we ended up packing 25 poeple into that van. not kidding. i counted.

also, since we're white everyone's favorite activity while in the mutatu is to talk loudly in swahili about us. while staring. there was the funniest old man who literally did not take is eyes off of us for the entire trip. from the moment the door opened to the time the mutatu drove away from us at our stop, he was staring. and it was the kind of stare that, even when we looked his way, he would keep looking...it was so awkward, but really funny.

the other day eston, louisa, hamish, lauren and i went to the "mount kenya safari club." the safari club is the super expensive hotel nearby where local poeple can become members. we were not members. eston used his boss's expired membership card to get us in. we walked aroung these amazingly luch green lawns (which is so weird, because that is one thing you don't ever see: green grass) through a golf course, to this great hedge maze (yes just like in harry potter, or hpgof...oly you're a dork). anyway, the hedge maze looked easy but we got lost in it for about 2 hours. it was really hysterical.

on friday lauren and i are going on an 8 day safari up north to lake turkana. it will be amazing, i know it. louisa has been on the same trip and said it was fantastic. we are going to be driving thru the desert and seeing all these old tribes of poeple who still function the way they did hundreds of years ago... super cool.

we're going to school now. see if we can be any help there. we're doing some work in the library.

much love to all
sophiebess