Finding Our Rhythm in Nanyuki

Slowly, we are finding our rhythm here in Nanyuki.

The mornings begin gently. Charles, who looks after the house and clearly loves cooking, spoils us every day with fresh pancakes.

“The family always loves pancakes,” he told us with a smile. “So I make them every day.”

And honestly, none of us are complaining.

After breakfast, we settle into a little homeschooling. There is not much work left before we return to Europe in a few weeks, so the days feel lighter now. More drawing, more crafts, and more time simply being together.

One afternoon, while we were preparing a fruit plate for lunch, Julius suddenly decided to balance a pineapple on his head, currently his favourite fruit.

Naturally, everyone else had to try as well.

We laughed so much that even Charles stood there smiling and shaking his head at us.

Then, almost like clockwork, the animals begin to appear outside the windows around lunchtime.

Zebras wander through the garden. Gazelles and antelopes graze nearby. Warthogs stroll past with complete confidence, as if they own the place.

And slowly, the children are becoming little experts.

They now proudly distinguish between different zebra species, gazelles, and antelopes.

The zebras continue to fascinate us most of all. Today, while carefully observing them, Assunta suddenly announced with great confidence:

“Now it’s completely obvious which zebra is which!”

She explained that the Grevy’s zebra has thinner stripes and a white belly, while the “normal” zebra has much broader stripes wrapping all the way around.

Today, one of the warthogs came especially close to the house, and we could clearly see its rough mane hanging down along its back.

Polyxena looked at it, smiled, and said:

“It’s like the mane of a horse.”

And she was absolutely right.

In the afternoons, we walked to the clubhouse, where there is a swimming pool filled with wonderfully cool water. While we swim, or warm ourselves in the sun afterwards, wildlife continues moving quietly beyond the stone terrace. Sometimes conversations simply fade away as another animal passes by.

It still feels slightly unreal.

During our walks through the estate, we often find ourselves surprisingly close to the animals. Experiencing them on foot feels completely different from simply driving past in a car. Everything suddenly feels quieter, slower, and somehow more real.

And as we walk, we have also started noticing the small hidden world around us, beneath our feet, in the bushes, and fluttering quietly through the trees.

We watched a dung beetle rolling its perfectly round ball across the path. We discovered strange insects we had never seen before. And then Polyxena suddenly pointed at what looked like an ordinary stick lying on the ground.

Except the stick moved.

A stick insect.

At first, we could hardly believe it. Julius, completely fascinated, carefully picked up another branch so the insect could climb onto it while we observed it more closely.

Seeing these creatures in the wild somehow makes them feel even more extraordinary.

One thing we learned quickly here: never underestimate the rain.

Almost every afternoon, the sky darkens without warning, the air suddenly shifts, and you can feel the rain approaching long before it arrives. The last few days, we always made it home just in time before the downpour began.

And then come the evenings, quiet and slow.

We play games together, try out new ones whose rules we are still trying to understand, laugh a lot, and slowly wind down after the day.

We are so grateful to be here.

For the quiet rhythm of these days.

For the wildlife just outside our windows.