Carnivores Restaurant

Thursday 3rd was a great day. A visit from Rob’s parents and an afternoon in the Masaai market with Fiona was a good way to start. We had a great time bargaining for prices and some of us bought a little too much that day. Unfortunately I did not buy anything that day but it was nice to spend time with all the YAVs.

Afterward we all went to wait for the taxi that was going to take us to dinner. Minutes went by and then hours. Finally the taxi got there, but we found that it was only one car when we had asked for a van to take all 7 of us. So, instead of waiting for another taxi to get there we did it the Kenyan way and all pilled into the back of the car. It was a great bounding experience and we had plenty of time for bounding on the way to the restaurant, which was like a 30-minute drive.

In the end all was mostly forgotten after we got to the restaurant. Carnivores is a buffet style restaurant that caters to meat lovers. With a variety of different meats that include beef, pork, lamb, crocodile, ostrich, chicken, among others it’s hard to keep track of what you are eating at any given time. I ate way too much that night and tried some very interesting things.

One of the more interesting parts of the restaurant experience was seeing three cats that would walk around in between the tables. They didn’t really do much more than just walk around as if you were not there. It’s also important to note here that the cats that I saw were all fat. You could just tell that they were well fed.

Another cool thing about that night at Carnivores was that there were about 3 or 4 different people who were celebrating their birthdays. This means that the staff would come out and sing happy birthday 4 different times. So we did a lot of clapping because when you are satiated that is pretty much all that you can do.

Museum

A few weeks ago some of the YAVs and I went to visit the Nairobi National Museum. After taking two different matatus from our apartment and walking a little ways we arrived at your destination. We had wanted to go to the museum in the morning but unbeknownst to use the weather had decided that it was going to rain that day; and rain it did. We had to wait until the rain lighted up before agreeing that we were still going to make it to the museum. In the end we reasoned that if we had to be indoors that today than we should spend that time in the museum where there is lots to look at and learn.

The combined ticket for the Museum and the Snake House was only 600 shilling (around $7). We started with the indoor tour of museum, which included a Bird’s of East Africa exhibit, Hall of Mammals, Cradle of Humankind, cultural and historical exhibits, and modern art from local artist. I enjoyed looking at all the bird exhibit because of the vast diversity and subtle differences between each family. It took us a good 3 hours to venture into all the rooms and see everything.

The snack house was located in another building that was open to the air. The snakes were kept in glass cages with a heat lamp. However, in the middle of the courtyard there were grass and a few small trees all box in by a cement wall. Visitors were able to look down and observer turtles and small garden snacks walking around and perching in the trees. I am very glad that I got to do this with a few other YAVs because my mother would not want to visit this part of the museum at all.

On the way back we got caught in the rain again but we soon found a matatu that took us home. Still trying to get a hang of the different matatu numbers and what rout each of them take. I am sure that by the end of the year I will have a better grasp on such things.