Testing, Testing, Are You Alive?

We set the clock so we could test my stamina. There are things left undone. Shopping is the first priority. We left this for when we returned, to buy from the women's collective in support of it, plus not to have had to lug it around with us for four weeks. Now it is buy or regret it. Whatever hit me passed over. I was able to shower, get to breakfast, and wait for a taxi without feeling like I would keel over.

Since I was so sick yesterday, not one cigarette passed my lips prompting me to decide this morning to postpone my starting smoking again. I know others would say they are quitting or that is what I am attempting to do, but I am not. In my youth, my mother always called me a quitter and said I never finished anything I started. Although this was true, I did not have role models who did complete things other than the meals set before them. As I reached my 20s, this quitter label started wearing thin, so I made sure I completed things; some of those things were completions my mother wished I had quit. Going to beauty school was one of them. She hated having son who was a beautician or hairdresser as they were called back in the 70s. As it turned out the more I completed, the more I liked myself. Starting more ventures and completing them aided my self-esteem. So, now I cannot quit smoking, because I am not a quitter. What I am doing is postponing the starting date of when I will resume smoking again.

After placing a call to Solomon, the taxi driver who drove us from the railway station, we thought our good do-bee deed for the day was in place. Forty-five minutes later, Solomon called to say he could not find us. Well, impossible, we are the only two white people standing in the hot sun waiting for a taxi at this hotel. He was at the wrong hotel, so he would be delayed another twenty minutes. 

We waited an hour and a half, but no Solomon. The hotel receptionist Grace, said she would call us a reliable driver. John showed up. We wanted to go the David Sheldrick Foundation, but Mr. Map after consulting the map, insisted that since it is in the Nairobi Wildlife Reserve, we would have to pay $3o each to get in. I keep insisting that if this were true, the guidebook would have pointed it out. John's itinerary for us was to go to the Wildlife main office gate to ask about entrance, then go to the gate where the foundation is located and double check the visiting hours, then to the place where we want to shop. This little excursion is costing us 3,000 shillings (30 euros).

I was right, there is not charge to get into the Wildlife Reserve for the Foundation if you go to the correct gate. We did get to that gate, but at 11:30, so visiting hours were almost over. On our way to our shopping place, we stopped at a shop John wanted to show us. It was just as large, but nothing was presented well creating sensory overload. At our shop, I had wanted these beaded angels, but they were gone. I knew they would be, but I had hopes. We did find plenty of other things to buy finishing up our gift list.

John dropped us off downtown so we could stop at an ATM and Trattoria restaurant where I had the avocado milkshake. Today, we had lunch with our drinks. My chicken salad was delightful. Ron had gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce. Delish!

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