Going dark

One week to go and I have made an important, and positive decision to leave my mobile phone (and my Blackberry) behind. It will be the longest we have ever been apart, but with a 15Kg luggage limit and probably zero signal on the open plains of East Africa, it seemed a pointless waste of weight allowance, space and cost as well as being yet one more thing to keep safe.

8 days to go

I have now started reading 'West with the Night' by Beryl Markham. A book which very poetically provides an insight into colonial Africa as lived by one of the very first female aviators in the early 1900s. Beryl flew back and fourth over the Masai and Serengetti for a large part of her adult life and for a wide range of reasons; delivering medical supplies, searching for missing people, or stranded planes, hunting, transporting passengers, delivering spare vehicle parts etc. In a land and a time where landing strips were marked with oil-soaked rags set alight inside tin cans and the sight of a motor car always turned heads, every flight was a mini-adventure.
I managed to collect my Malarone tablets today too, along with some one-a-day anti-histamine and a new mosquito-bite electric-clicker (a marvellous invention and saved both mine and Ant's sanity on many occasions whilst travelling in the van). I think I am now well and truly ready to take on those African mossies.

13 days to go - amazon delivery

Dad and Janet gave me some Kenyan Shillings today and some US dollars that they hadn't used on their last trip to Kenya, which is fantastic as not only does it tick another thing off my list (which always brings a smile to the face of an avid list-ticker like me), but it saves me the commission charge too. I am not expecting to spend much of it as the trip fee I have already paid includes everything apart from my entry VISA and food at the airport on the return journey, (even alcohol is included!!! - are the Kenyans mad??).
I then got home to find not only the two second-hand books I have been waiting for, but Series 4 of the Big Cat Week on DVD too. Very happy bunny, that's my weekend sorted.
Also making minor progress on obtaining the anti-malarial prescription - Malarone. I at least have the piece of paper from the doctor now, which cost me £8 and is half covered in black ink due to a fault with the surgery printer which has rendered it almost illegible, so fingers crossed the chemist accepts it otherwise it's back to square one again. I have made a few phone calls and chosen Lloyds pharmacy in Haywards Heath to collect it as they will charge me only £50 as opposed to £74 which was the quote I was given by the Cowfold surgery! Online would have been even cheaper, but I just don't want to risk the postal system delaying their arrival.

2 weeks to go!

Having read both the books I bought for the trip already, I recently ordered a few more (don't you just love Amazon's secondhand bookshop). When I got home from work last night there was "Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna" waiting for me. Excellent. I finished 'Tick Bite Fever' on Tuesday night which is the story of a white man growing up in 1970's Kenya, so I was eager to get started on this new book which is the story of a lad called Joseph who also grew up in 1970's Kenya, the difference being that Joseph is a Maasai warrior (Lemasolai is his Maasai name) and the book tells about his life roaming the open plains with his cattle and his family. I devoured it in 2 hours flat! What an incredible guy and what incredible people the Maasai are. Cattle are their life and cow's milk and blood their staple diet. Of the hundreds of cattle in their herd, the Maasai can identify each and every cow by name and family. The book gave a great insight into their world, their culture, beliefs and values. The one that stood out the most was that of the 'pinching man'. Every Maasai village has one and it's the person that naughtly or disrespectful children are sent to. A man they fear from a very young age, a man who is permitted to pinch as hard or as many times as befits the crime to teach young Maasai the lessons they need to learn. According to Lemasolai, no Maasai ever forgets their first session with the pinching man!

Happy New Year!

16 days to go and I still need to collect my anti-malarial prescription – going to suffer the VAT increase now as a result – oops.

I did a packing dummy-run at the weekend – camera bag was 8.5kgs and my suitcase was also 8.5kgs - I really can’t see what else I can leave behind. I had only included what was on the basic kit-list as it was! Definitely not going to fit the laptop in either which is a real annoyance.

I have been following a couple of Masai blogs over the holidays too and it seems the weather in Kenya is currently hovering around 28degreesC and getting down to 13 at night which is pleasant. Lovely and sunny too for the next 10 days. I can’t wait to get out of the cold, the wet and the depressing darkness of Britain in January.