On the Loose So, Here I go!! I will add updates frequently with pic's so you can all live vicariously through me!! and join me whenever possible- Love and Peace to you all, I will miss you, hoping to be back soon with a whole new life!!

Dec 1
Today we went shopping in Karen, Kenya.  I needed to get another piece of luggage as I have run out of room!!!  I also found a travel book on Seychelles dor a mere 2950 ks,around $40 us....so I check out and then they take me to the service desk, and I am asked to take a seat, than they are filling out paperwork...so I ask..and apparently I won a gift card for 2000 ks!!! so I had to have my picture taken for their holiday poster and had to go back into the store and spend another 2000 shilling!!

Next we went to Kazuri Beads.  A fabulous place started by a british woman that employs single mothers.  They have 350 women working there right now, they are picked up at home in the morning and returned in the evenings, some of the women there have been there since it first opened.  We were able to tour the factory and see the different processes and stages to make the beads and the jewelry, all of it done by hand, their work is very detailed and they start from black earth to make the beads, it was amazing!  Kazuri means small and beautiful in Swahili.

We finally finished shopping, our driver James thought we would never come...and we went to lunch at a lovely outdoor restaurant where everyone except me tried and loved the Zanzibar soup, which I tried and wished I had ordered!!  We shopped again after at the shops...too many to count in this house with winding halls and shops in every room, opened by DR Richard Leakey in 1991.

On to the giraffe center where we enjoyed the company of Laura, Daisy and other Rothschild giraffes up close and personal, hand feeding then giraffe candy.  Their huge toungue, really long and scratchy would wrap around your hand, they love the candy and you had to watch out for headbutts if they saw you pick some up!!!  We had a nice little lecture and got to handgout and get hugs from the giraffes and see wart hogs up close and personal.

On to Nyumbani.  An aids orpahnage started by Fr D'agastino SJ a jesuit priest, who died unexpectedly last year during a surgery, I was disappointed as I would have loved to meet him.  He recieved an honorary doctorate of humanities from LeMoyne College last year!! among many others, he did amazing work for the children orphaned by aids.  He lobbied the drug companies to provide free antiretrovirals for the children after they were loosing so many and the new drugs became available.  The facility is beautiful and they children from 17 months up to teens, all are in school and they are taught to live on their own and get jobs as they grow older.  Four new buildings were built last year where the older kids stay, they have kitchens and lounges and rooms upstairs.  We met Jane Jane a child Marcia has seen on both her visits and bonded with, she is 15 now and she last saw Marcia when she was 4, she is doing well and wants to be a lawyer.  We visited the grave sites of the children lost on the back of the property, Marcia had known a few of the children who had passed away, most of the children are healthy and doing well now, great to see happy healthy kids out playing and being kids, a great organization!!

Back to the convent for a last bottle of South African wine and some packing. A great last day in Kenya.