Our First 24 Hours in Kenya

Yesterday our journey to Kenya finally began.

In the morning I have to admit I felt quite tense. My mind was full of questions:

Will we make the flight? Will everything be on time? Will we catch the connecting flight? Will the luggage be too heavy? Will something go wrong along the way?

But once we had checked in our bags, arrived at the gate on time, and the plane to Frankfurt took off exactly as scheduled, we all started to relax.

There were also some lovely little moments with the kids. While boarding, Polyxena gently touched the outside of the airplane and said, “It feels nice and cold.” After all the rushing around at the airport we were feeling quite hot and sweaty, so that simple observation somehow felt perfect.

The flights went smoothly, and the children absolutely loved the “television babysitter” on the plane, eight hours of non-stop entertainment! By the time we landed they were, of course, completely exhausted.

Getting through passport control took a while, and then our luggage was scanned again with another long queue. It was hot and we were very tired by that point, so we were incredibly relieved when we finally made it through and found the driver that our dear friend had organised for us.

The driver was very friendly and knew exactly where we needed to go, which made everything much easier after such a long journey.

Around midnight we finally arrived at the beautiful home of my friend’s mother. She had very kindly prepared a lovely little cottage for us, and from the very first moment she made us feel completely welcome and at home. Her generosity and kindness after such a long journey meant so much to us. We immediately felt incredibly grateful and relieved to have arrived safely.

Julius fell asleep straight away. I quickly sorted out the luggage and soon fell into bed as well.

We slept wonderfully and woke up feeling safe, happy, and grateful to be here in Kenya.

The weather was perfect — warm but not hot. Even though it has been raining much more than usual lately, it felt just right to us.

In the morning we woke up in this lovely place and had a wonderful breakfast. During breakfast we spotted a monkey, which we found absolutely amazing! Our host quickly explained, however, that monkeys can actually be quite a nuisance and that we must always keep the cottage doors closed, otherwise they might come inside and cause quite a bit of chaos. Still, we couldn’t help but find the moment rather magical.

There is also a sweet little puppy here that the kids immediately fell in love with. In the morning we even helped feed two land turtles, and there are beautiful birds everywhere making the most unusual sounds.

Later in the morning our host kindly drove us into town so we could organise our Safaricom SIM cards and set up M-Pesa, the mobile banking system that people use here, a bit like Twint in Switzerland. We were touched by how generously she is looking after us and helping us settle in.

The rest of the day we spent quietly at our hosts’ home, simply enjoying being here and recovering from the journey. The children loved the beautiful swimming pool, and we were all happy to have a calm day.

In the evening we had a lovely dinner together with some friends of our host’s family. After such a long and full day, we all fell into bed feeling grateful, blessed, and excited for the days ahead.

We already have many plans for the coming days.

So stay tuned for the next post.