Kenya!!!

Oh man... so much has happened since I last wrote. I feel like I can write an essay about each of the past 3 days, but I will try to give you the abridged version.

Day 1 -- Wed becomes Thurdsay
So the flight from JFK to Dubai was actually pretty awesome. Emirates airline is great, I highly recommend it. Even though it was 13 hours, I didn't sleep at all and wasn't tired. Each seat has a TV console with a long list of New movies and TV shows to watch for free. You can just pick whatever you want. So I watched 5 movies on the way over! I was too entertained to sleep. I saw The Young Victoria, Up in the Air, both Twilight movies, and Fame. When you get on the plane they hand out hot towels and then recollect them before you even take off. They also pass out little cases with socks, a travel toothbrush, and a facemask for sleeping. We got dinner, a snack and breakfast on the flight. I wasn't even tired and we arrived at Dubai at 8am their time the next day.

Day 2 -- Thursday
Then we flew from Dubai to Nairobi. This flight was only 5 hours. The TV screens this time didn't let you pick movies, but they had several channels with movies playing that you could turn to. So I saw How to Train your Dragon and the end of Extraordinary Measures. We landed in Nairobu around 3pm. We went through the line to buy Visas and then down to get our bags. One of the girls in the group ended up having to gate check one of her carry-ons at JFK and it didn't seem to make it to Nairobi. So we had to wait around for awhile while she filled out a lost bag report. Then there was a van that took us to ICIPE --(some research center for Insect Physiology) in Nairobi. It is a whole compound with a guest center with pretty nice bedrooms. We didn't actually get there until 7pm though, because Nairobi traffic is terrible!!! You would think in the capital city the roads would be better... but everything seemed in a perpetual state of construction or disrepair. Some parts of the road were concrete but most were dirt and there were no lanes on the road. So whenever the road narrowed cars were just cutting each other off left and right and trying to merge with no organization. It took us I think 2 hours to get to ICIPE... I don't know exactly how far away it is from the airport, but not that far.
When we finally got to ICIPE we had dinner, then I showered (which felt awesome after all the plane rides), and checked my email. They had wireless in the lobby. The shower had hot water, but when you pulled the knob up for the water to come out of the shower head (which was not on a holder just laying in the tub), only half of the water came through... and only the cold half. At this point I was finally getting tired for the first time in over 24 hours, so I went to bed at around 9pm Kenya time. So it was nice to just already be on Kenya time and not have any jet lag to worry about. It was also nice to be able to lay flat to sleep for the first time in over 24 hours.

Day 3 -- Friday
We woke up at ICIPE and had breakfast. Two cars were supposed to pick us up at 8am to drive us to Ol Pejeta (the Conservancy where I and one other girl Lisa are staying) and Mpala (where everyone else is staying). Ol Pej and Mpala are about an hour apart but both are ~4 hours from Nairobi. So we were supposed to get there in time for lunch and shopping in Nanyuki, the closes town. Well, it seems things never go as planned and you should just expect delays and problems.
First, the cars didn't actually come until 9am. One nice suprise though was that Blair and Stephanie, two of Dr. Rubensteins grad students came along to greet us. Blair is also staying at Ol Pejeta. She has been here since April 2 and is staying til July 2. We got on the road, but shortly into our drive, one of the cars started having brake problems. Apparently, Blair told us, this same car had problems on their drive down to Nairobi the day before. It was over-heating and they had to wait over 2 hours for it to be fixed and they didn't get to Nairobi until late. Well we waited almost three hours while they worked on it again. We just ate lunch where we were because the car wasn't ready until 1pm. At this point we were starting to worry that we wouldn't get to Nanyuki in time to shop before things closed at 5pm. But we did make it just in time. I bought a cell phone to use if my car gets stuck or something goes wrong since I will be driving around the bush by myself for most of my research. Which brings me to my next point... the car they have for me is a stick shift and the steering wheel is on the right because they drive on the left side of the road here. I stressed out a bit, but I am confident I will master it and be ok. Blair is going to give me a driving lesson/refresher in the morning. I also bought a modem for my computer (which I am using right now) that you just plug in to the USB port on your phone and it runs the internet off one of the cell phone providers. You can just buy more minutes to add to the cell phone or MB to add to the modem.

After shopping we finally made it to Ol Pejeta around 7pm. A much longer day than originally planned. But on the way in I have already seen baboons, zebra, buffalo, gazelles, and a lion! Oh, and there is an elephant outside of my hut right now!!! There is supposed to be an electric fence around the huts to keep the elephants out, but I guess there is one blind elephant that just comes right up. They can be really dangerous, so we just need to know when he is here and pay attention.
That's probably enough updating right now. I will try to write more, and hopefully post some pics, tomorrow.