The traffic in Nairobi is so terrible that many people have made a business of it. You can buy magazines, newspapers, peanuts, cookies, sodas, toys, carvings, lamp shades, roses, paintings- just about everything. I’ve become pretty familiar with seeing such sales until yesterday. As I was traveling down a congested residential road there was a man holding a box of about 6 kittens.  The box was on its side so that you could see inside and the kittens were stacked on top of each other.  Only the one on top was moving. 

Sunday we went to lunch at a beautiful hotel in Westlands, called The Westhouse.  The restaurant is situated beneath the hotel with a large cascading patio overlooking a stream, trees, flowers and rock formations.  I ordered some beef with coconut rice and curried vegetables. About half way through my meal I had set my silverware down and was making light conversation when all of a sudden there was a loud WHOOSH! Something more than brushed by my right ear. The vase holding napkins was knocked over and by the time we looked in the right direction, the hawk who had tried to steal my beef was gone. He had grabbed the meat and somehow dropped it on the table in an unsuccessful hunting attempt. He flew around and returned to his perch directly overlooking our table.  I pushed my plate away just in time for him to come back through. Maybe the blindest hawk ever, missed a dead piece of prey twice. 

A couple weeks ago I took a matatu to Makutano. I got stuck in the front row of the back of the van.  There’s no leg room in any of the seats, but this one specifically had a bar that was digging into my shins just below my knees.  I bent my knees further to avoid it and lowered my legs under the seat. As we took off I started to doze off. Not even 15 minutes later there was a loud rustling and something moving in between my feet. Moving from semi-conscious to awake I jerked my knees up, rammed them on the bar, tried to resituate banged my shins and finally pulled me knees to my chest with my feet on the seat. All because of a bag of live chickens who had realized they were trapped under a seat.