This is a note from Nairobi, Kenya, where Jay and I are attending the Association of International Schools in Africa conference this week. I am presenting a workshop about writing on Wednesday afternoon, so wish me luck!
After the conference, we are heading off on safari to Lake Nakuru (where there are mostly birds including flamingos!) and then to Massai Mara (where there are the big 5 and a very famous wildebeest migration). We are super excited.
The weather in Nairobi currently is a little cool (in the 70s Fahrenheit) and drizzly. We are told that in a week or so the “real rains” will come and the farmers will rejoice. All this from Cosmos, the taxi driver who took us from the airport. He chatted us up because we were stuck in awful traffic and we think he was trying to distract us from the fact that we were inches from being crushed by big rigs at several points.
Here is a picture of Jay on the beautiful campus of the American International School of Kenya, where our conference is being hosted.
For those of you education geeks out there, we are fortunate to get to work with the great Jay McTighe of Wiggins and McTighe who wrote Understanding by Design. He is quite engaging and the ideas are solid. It’s a fabulous time!
Not only are we fortunate to be in Kenya, we also had the chance to visit Cape Town a week or so ago to get ready for our Classroom Without Walls trip, which is under works for November. Cape Town is AWESOME! Here are some incredible pictures, but we won’t put up all the best because we’re going with students in November and then meeting my mom, Jerry, and Jayann there in December, so we’ll have lots to post.
The most important thing you need to know about Cape Town is that to get there from Maseru requires driving 15 hours through the Great Karoo, which is a big desert. The good news is that there are several places to stop, and we ended up finding the “Valley of Desloation” near Graff-Reinet (don’t ask me how to pronounce that). It had amazing scenery. Here are some pictures.
Once in Cape Town, we were awe-inspired by the beautiful coastline. The convergence of the Indian and Atlantic oceans happens at the tip of the Cape of Good Hope, and the Indian side has warm, wavy water that is perfect for surfing. Here is a picture:
Unfortunately, the Indian side of the cape, a piece of water called False Bay is also one of the world’s shark capitals. They have shark-watchers sitting on the hillsides and they are in charge of helping determine what types of flags should be shown on the beaches. Here is the key to the shark flags.
When we were there, there had just been a shark attack, and this was the flag being flown on all Indian Ocean beaches in the area:
Cape Town also has fabulous museums, a wonderful shopping area, and a walkable city with great public transportation options. We are so excited for the next two trips there.
Oh Yeah! And we ate crocodile! Crocodile tastes like chicken, but has the consistency of fish. It also has crooked, cartilage-like bones. It was an interesting meal. We are going to the restaurant called Carnivore here in Kenya, so we will eat many more exotic foods, and we'll give you the update after we go.
Okay, that’s all for now. We’re off to our sessions for the day. Write and tell us how you are! We miss you! We’ll post pictures from the safari when we return (let’s hope for some big cats!!)
~Sarah
