Dang, these nine months really flew by haven’t they? It feels a little bit like it snuck up on me, only because we really squeezed in a bunch there at the end. The last month was so busy, partly because of Kilimanjaro taking up a full week, partly because I wanted not to leave anything unfinished at work and partly because we wanted to do all the Kenya things we didn’t get to do in the eight months prior. I handed everything over at work perfectly gift wrapped,

and the last two weekends were full of fun activities.

The penultimate weekend we went on our last safari with a couple of Bill’s colleagues and their friends to Ol Pajeta, a rhino conservancy. We got to pet a rhino and see more animals. And in true safari lodge nature, we stuffed our faces with the delicious all you can eat buffet. #classic

The very last weekend was probably my favorite weekend of all the weekends I spent in Nairobi. It started on Friday. I knew that Angaza, Bill’s amazing company, was planning a surprise going away happy hour for him. Around 3pm I get a panic call from one of his coworkers that he is not leaving the office even though everyone but the engineers have left, and there is a taxi waiting to take him to the secret party location. He eventually was convinced to leave and showed up to his surprise party where his colleagues showered him with praise, gifts, food, drinks, and a wonderful and thoughtful video. The secret party location was in fact very close to my yoga studio, so after a double session (I had aggressively signed up for a 10-class pack knowing I would have limited time and had to double up on a few days to go to all the classes I had paid for) I show up at the perfect time: the dance party had just started.

Saturday morning consisted of sleeping in after Bill’s surprise party and after-party. That ended up being a good decision because it turned into a very long day. Bill had told me earlier in the week that we would be going to his coworker Jane’s house for lunch with some of their other colleagues who are parents and wouldn’t be able to make it to our going away party that evening. Very believable. As I am getting ready, Bill mentions that Jane is a little bit fancier than most of his other colleagues and was informed that it is customary to wear white to these luncheons, some tradition leftover from British colonialism. Sure. I didn’t think twice about it. Bill calls the Taxify taxi around 11am and we are on our way. I don’t know where Jane lives, but after we had been in the cab for about 15 minutes, Bill sends a WhatsApp on his phone, and when I casually turn to look at him, he turns his phone away from me. Suspicious. It was right about now that Bill told the driver to turn in to a driveway. The driveway where my friend Yaara lives. “Whoa, Jane lives here too? This is where Yaara lives!” Bill doesn’t really say anything other than something along the lines of “oh yeah, I guess so”. More suspicious. In the 2 minutes it takes the taxi to drive up into the building complex and for us to walk to the house, a whole series of events replays before my eyes: last night at Bill’s party when I said to Jane “see you tomorrow” she said “yes see you at the race” (which was on Sunday, the day after tomorrow, not Saturday, tomorrow). Then Bill told me to wear white. Then he didn’t let me see his phone. Then we turned in to Yaara’s building. Now we were in Yaara’s house. Now I am surrounded by my Nairobi lady friends. Now they are putting a crown of roses on my head. Now they are saying “Welcome to your surprise bridal shower!” Now I have tears streaming down my face. Now I am so surprised and so happy!

Before we kicked Bill out – ladies only! – there is a projector set up for a surprise video. Turns out, Bill had emailed lots of my lady friends and family – who live all over the States and the world – who couldn’t be in Nairobi for my bridal shower and had complied their video messages for me into a beautiful and thoughtful video. I cried the whole time watching it. It was so incredibly special, and I felt so loved and so happy. The video was amazing because my friends and family were able to express their thoughts and personalities, and I felt like they were there with me! And Bill did a super job editing it – I don’t know how he did it without me noticing over the past couple of weeks. It was a wonderful surprise, and I am SO thankful to my wonderful friends and family who took the time to send in a video and say some really nice things about me #youknowwhoyouareandiloveyou. After the video we drink, eat (Yaara is an excellent chef), and play some games. Turns out Bill and I are very in sync – I answered all the questions he answered the same! Good thing we are getting married.

After more food and drinks and games, we head out to Village Market mall to a restaurant owned by my CEO/Yaara’s boyfriend for more drinks and food. And Bill was there too! We are now cutting it close to our going away party at J’s planned for 7pm, so we quickly go home with Monica (remember, our neighbor who took us in for the last month) to drop off our stuff (I had brought clothes for yoga because I thought I was only going to an early lunch) and change into our party outfits. We hang out at J’s till about 11:30pm and lots of friends rolled through! Moses, one of the frisbee team leaders, brought a Nairobi Ultimate disc and sharpies to have everyone sign it. It was so nice and thoughtful! We drink, eat delicious pizza, dance a little, and enjoy ourselves. I think everyone had a great night! We called it early because the next morning was the Nairobi Marathon and we signed up to run … … the 10K. Not the full marathon! I’m not crazy! Bill’s company was running, so we already had our numbers and jerseys, and all we had to do was show up at the start line at 7:30am. My goal for this 10K, which by the way was longer than any distance in a row with no rest I have ever run, was to run the whole time with no walking. In one ultimate game or two I probably run about that much, but it is in different directions and different speeds, and there is always some sort of game stoppage aka opportunity for rest. This would be the longest I would be continuously running at a (hopefully) continuous pace for a predetermined distance. If you have ever run one of these “fun runs”, you know that the serious runners go in the front because it turns out that for most of the run we were just dodging and running around people who were walking or going slowly. That actually helped keep my mind focused away from the fact that I don’t really enjoy running because we were in a real life video game bobbing and weaving around obstacles. Also I had told myself that now that I climbed Kilimanjaro I have to be able to run a 10K without stopping. Bill was so wonderful because he ran with me the whole time – I would have for sure walked if I was by myself. And guess what?! Goal accomplished! I ran the whole time!! After the run, which had so many U-turns that I kept thinking we were on the home stretch when we weren’t (I should have known better because I had studied the route map before the race), we meet up in the Central Park of Nairobi, Uhuru Park, to music and celebrating, and to get our participation medals. It was really cool to be running around the downtown of Nairobi, which is colloquially referred to as Town or CBD (Central Business District), because normally it is just so busy and chaotic with car, bus, motorcycle, and foot traffic, and now it was bizarrely empty of those things – like that eerie scene in Vanilla Sky when Tom Cruise is by himself in Times Square – other than the very organized chaos of the 10K runners. After about an hour hanging out with the Angaza crew, we head to the Alchemist for a delicious brunch, then head home for a super quick nap before our very last Nairobi frisbee team practice.

Monday and Tuesday were super busy days at work as I wrapped stuff up. Wednesday was our very last day with our flight scheduled for 11pm. We spend the morning packing, and I go to my very last yoga class. Great news! I used up all 10 classes! I am now super strong and my arms will look good and not flabby in a wedding dress. #phew Our last lunch in Nairobi was at La Salumeria, the restaurant just around the corner from us where months prior we had been mugged at gunpoint. Much different during the light of day, but just as delicious. It felt good to eat there in an ‘overcoming’ sense. We finished packing, weighed our suitcases and moved things from bag to bag trying to get under, or close to, the weight limits. We were worried about having to pay for heavy luggage, but it turned out to not be an issue. #phew The only hiccup that day was at the airport. At JKIA (Jomo Kenyatta International Airport), every person and car entering the airport has to get screened before entering the vicinity of the airport. So all cars go through a security gate while every passenger has to get out of the car and walk through a metal detector. Cars and passengers meet up again on the other side. The actual airport is about a one minute drive from this initial security checkpoint. After the checkpoint, there is a gate where all cars grab a time-stamped parking ticket to pay on the way out. Well, at this gate, there are guards/rent-a-cops, and one of them had the audacity to pull us over because we weren’t wearing our seat belts, which we didn’t put back on after the security stop 10 seconds behind us. I. Was. Livid. Good thing I lived in NYC long enough to lean in to confrontation. The calm Taxify driver informed us what the cop just said in Swahili, so I roll the back window down to speak to the officer. I very sternly and angrily tell him how ridiculous this is, and that I want to speak to his manager. He tells me to get out of the car to go speak to him in the office, to which I say “hapana (no) tell him to come here”. The cop refuses to go get him. “What’s your name” I say. He won’t tell me. Fine. I then tell him that I am absolutely not giving him any money so he might as well not waste his time on us and pull over another car that doesn’t know better. And he – knowing that it is illegal on government property to ask for bribes – says very quickly and angrily in Swahili that he never asked for a bribe. I asked the driver what he said, as I understood the words “pay” and “money” and the driver said the cop was making it clear that HE didn’t ask for a bribe, that I merely suggested it. I then told the cop that I have lived in Kenya long enough to know what he wants, and he isn’t getting that from us. Besides, look in the car: the entire trunk and backseat, minus where I was sitting, was full of our luggage and we were clearly leaving for a long time, so we had gotten rid of all our cash. He then mutters something about mzungus, calls me rude and then lets us go. We were hours early for our flight, so I was ready to fight even longer but I was nevertheless relived. Bill, my very polite Midwestern fiancé, was glad that I was there to handle the situation.

After we dropped our bags and got inside the terminal, we walk over to the restaurant that I had built. The manager came over to us to ask if we were enjoying our food and I told him we were, and that I was part of the design team who built this place. He then called the owner, and she and I talked on the phone a bit, and then we got our meal and our drinks free! That was a nice touch that I really appreciated. We should have ordered another shot. 😉

Our flight had a layover in Frankfurt, and going from Kenya to Germany was a total 180. Everything was so clean and organized and systematized, even the security checkpoint bins had their own conveyor belt to return it from one side to the other. They are so organized that when we checked in for our flight in Kenya, the exact gate number in Frankfurt was printed on the ticket and that was the actual gate number for our next flight! Having been to the Nairobi airport a lot, to build that restaurant, the security process was different every time I went based on who was operating the checkpoint.

The flight was great too. I watched so many movies I have been wanting to see but never got around to. I highly recommend Ocean’s 8. Anne Hathaway was so good in that. Actually, everyone was so good in that. We finally make it to Brussels – oh did I mention we were doing a mini 4 night vacation in Brussels and there will be a separate blog post to look forward to all about the beer and chocolate and peeing fountains – on Thursday morning, and it hits me that our nine months in Nairobi have come to a close. I know we will be back, partly because of Bill’s job, and party because we like it there. But those future trips will be more like nine days. I think about things I will miss, like the DELICIOUS fresh fruits we had at lunch every day, the cheap and delicious fresh veggie pack we had for dinner every night, my job and colleagues and the vibe and hustle of working at an amazing startup on fun projects, my 30-60 minute taxi commute to work where I binged a bunch of podcasts at 2x speed, the great restaurants, knowing the owners at many of those great restaurants, the amazing outdoor adventures of the country, and our friends. I think nine months was the right amount of time to live abroad. After about six months we really felt like locals and knew what was up, and one year would have been waaaaaay too long to be away from home and family. Nine proved to be a nice amount of time but I was very ready to come back. Upon landing at JFK and walking through passport control, it was the greatest feeling in the world when the customs agent loudly slammed the entry stamped in my passport, and, in her thick New York Spanish accent, which is my favorite accent to listen to, looked at me and said “Welcome home”.