Only 5 more days in Kenya. It’s kind of sad - it’s such an amazing place to be, but I am looking forward to getting home again. I’m definitely at least three times as busy trying to finish up everything I want to do. I’m also trying to slowly wind down, and I think I have things fairly under control. My bags have been a big worry. I’m only allowed two bags of 20 kilos each. With all this heavy glass I’m going to be taking home, I was worried that I would have to pay some horrendous fees. But I got a hold of a scale (it’s the hanging hook kind used to weigh fish, but this goes up to 50 kilos, which is a really big fish), and I started weighing my stuff. It turns out that the vast majority of my glass stuff weighs 20 kilos by itself, so with leaving a bunch of stuff here, I should be okay.

So this is also kind-of my last chance to post some pictures. This is a picture of the main driveway, looking up to the (NANA NaNa nana NaNa) Bat Gate. In front there are two of about four resident turkeys.

Walking up from the main house up this driveway and turning right we come to the place where I spend most of my time, the Dalles De Verre shop. This is also where the furnace is where I blow glass. It’s not really meant to be a glassblowing setup - it’s used mostly to make glass bricks. But we do have a glassblower’s bench and some rudimentary tools (some of which I made myself at the metal shop), and we get by.

Behind the furnace there are two small furnaces and one large furnace used for fusing and slumping glass. There’s also a big table there for preparation, and sitting at it is one of the mzees [respectable old man] that work here - his name is Philipo. The other shop where I spend my time is the stained glass and copper foil shop, but it’s basically just a bunch of tables and not really worth a picture.

I usually blow glass from 2 until 4:30 each afternoon, just before the glass bricks are made. After hours of standing in front of a 2,000 degree furnace, a swim in the pool is exactly what I need. The pool is amazing, completely mosaic-ed and adorned with many sculptures. It’s an infinity pool, and it overflows into the gorge (which you can’t really see in this picture). And during swimming I can look over the gorge to the plains across, and sometimes there are zebra and gazelle grazing in the evening light.

After a swim at around 6 we go on the walk. During the walk we feed all the animals, including pigs, camels, and ostriches. The last part of the walk takes us up to the plains surrounding Kitengela. And at about that time the sun is setting and most nights we get an amazing view of the clouds and the Ngong hills in the distance.

So, it’s about dinner time here. I don’t think I will have time to upload anymore pictures, but I may find time to write one last post. Time is running out!

This past week I spent driving down to the coast with Nani and Eric to a house they have in the small village of Watamu, just north of Mombassa. The drive takes about 12 hours, which includes the hour it takes to get from Kitengela to Nairobi, and the 1.5 hours it takes to get from Mombassa to Watamu. Mombassa is the main costal city of Kenya - it has a large port, and mostly it’s just a big city which isn’t very interesting to me.

Once we passed Mombassa, after being in the car for about 10 hours, we made our way up the coast and mostly drove through large fields of this plant (I forget it’s name, but it’s used for fibers), and intermixed in these large fields were baobab trees. They only really exist in this eastern part of Africa, and even here they are rare. I did not know they grew down here at the coast, and was very pleased to see them here. I think they are endangered, or possibly threatened or something. Since they are so fat, and because their wood is basically useless, they are pretty much left alone. Except for elephants, who maul them and grind their trunks on them, basically destroying even large baobabs. Their numbers are diminishing and new baobabs aren’t growing - and a tree like in this picture can take up to 100 years to reach this size. So it’s always good to see a bunch of them.

Watamu is a peninsula that has a small town on it, but nothing really exciting. There are a couple of beach resort type places, but a lot of the Watamu peninsula is preserved for turtle egg laying. There is a barrier reef which makes the surf on the beach perfect for these turtles. Nani and Eric’s house is about 300 yards from the beach, and even though they don’t specifically own a part of the beach itself, they can see it from the house, and the walk down is easy and there is basically nobody ever down on that portion of the beach.

The trail down is one of the neatest parts of the whole place. It’s basically a really long green hall of trees and plants, paved with a single trail of flat stones. It seems almost mystical. There are monkeys and lizards and all kinds of birds that live in this beach/forest zone.

The beach itself is soft white sand, and ranges from about 50 yards to 150 yards of sand down to the water, depending on the tide. The waves never get very big because of the reef, and the water is incredibly warm. The only beaches in the US that I’ve ever been to - even the warmer ones - don’t even come close to how warm this section of the Indian Ocean is. It’s right on the equator, so I guess it’s about as warm as the ocean can get.

Nani and Eric had to come down for a wedding, so we spent a total of 7 days there, 3 of which I was left alone. They have a housekeeper/cook who takes care of everything as if the place was a hotel, which was very nice. I swam every day, and I also brought a glass project to work on. I set up a small shop in a storage shed right in front of a window that overlooked the small forest, and beyond, the ocean. It wasn’t half bad. It was very good to relax after almost two months of frantic glasswork and life here at Kitengela.

Now I have only 1 and a half weeks to go, and I’m even more frantic than ever. Almost everything I have wanted to do has been done, and I’m finishing up the last few things in the next three days. I want the last week I’m here to be spent doing crazy stuff that doesn’t necessarily have to come home. I have definitely designed a lot of the things I’m bringing home with the airplane trip in mind, which takes some extra effort. It will be nice just to cut loose and have no expectations or worries about the pieces you’re making - I’ll just do whatever it is that comes to mind with no reservations. I’ll try to get in two more posts, and take you on tours of more of this wonderful place. It’s crunch time, though, so who knows if I’ll get to it. I’ll try.

So, things have settled down a bit. I’m back to my day-in day-out glasswork schedule, and it’s awesome. We are preparing to go to Watamu this Wednesday, so I’m trying to get to good stopping points in my various projects. A couple days ago I painted a really old rusted bicycle seat blue to be a stand for a 3D stained glass lampshade I’m making. Should be funky - and fit in here nicely. I’m also glassblowing every day, which is what I like best. The glass color has been a deep amber and/or green, not the best color in the world. I’m trying to make myself some small sets of cups, but this past week I’ve just been practicing and trying new things just because of the color. Today, for the first time, the glass color was a very deep blue, so I made three small cups. I’m also trying to make a wine decanter, which is very difficult because they are large and asymmetrical. Usually blown pieces have to be symmetrical so they can be spun and shaped, but the decanter has a flat bottom, almost as if it were a water jug resting on it’s belly. Once again I’m being lazy and not cementing my Dall table. It will happen sometime before Wednesday.

Last night Nani, Eric and I went to a exhibition of a very famous Nairobi artist at the Muthaiga Country Club. Muthaiga is most famous (at least to modern generations) as being the fancy-shmancy exclusive club in the movie “Out of Africa”. It was the most prestigious club in Kenya during the British colonial period, and has been ever since then. The artist was an old lady who did mostly water colors (very good ones), but also introduced the silk screening technique to Kenya almost 40 years ago. Today silk screening is used very often in the mass production of batiks (emphasis on the ‘i’) - a traditional painted cloth that usually depicts people, animals, or plants - and also happens to be very popular with the tourists. The artist’s name is Robin Anderson, and she and Nani have been old art friends forever. Nani bought one of her watercolors that was of Robin’s front courtyard to her house, which happens to feature a Dall piece she got from Nani (which is why Nani bought it). After that we had a great dinner out on the veranda - it was a nice warm evening. I had a Cajun beef fillet, which was very spicy, and afterwards a large desert cart came around and we all had almost as much desert as we had dinner. It was a pretty good evening. I had to wear a tie, but other than that it was good.

So, finally, I’ve uploaded some more pictures. I’m going to try to give you a quick tour of the main house - which is exceedingly difficult because the whole thing is surrounded by thick garden vegetation on the outside, and on the inside the rooms are oddly shaped and extremely cluttered. But these pictures, I think, will give you some idea of the main house.

Walking up from Wigl House, I have to pass through a garden with winding tiled walkways and more kinds of plants surrounding everywhere it’s incredible. The first picture is about as much of the main house as you can see from outside: a white wall and a red door that leads through a small room adjoining the kitchen.

Continuing up and past this door to the left we come to a small clearing where there is a large Dall table, and beyond it, another red door that leads straight into the kitchen. On nice days we bring food and plates outside and eat under the canopy (which is a lot of days). In this picture there is a small ceramic oven on the left, and you can just barely see the Dall table - in the middle of some chairs.

And, a tour through the courtyard would not be complete without Vluchie. He is an Egyptian vulture that was brought here as a chick 25 years ago as a part of a study. Egyptian vultures are one of only a few animals (and even fewer birds) that uses tools to accomplish tasks. Their main diet is ostrich eggs, and the shell of these massive eggs is usually about half a centimeter thick, and they use rocks and sticks to bash open the eggs. Now Vulchie just saunters around like an old man with his hands behind his back. He’s an incredibly friendly bird (mostly because everybody here feeds him scraps), and he’ll come up to you and you can pet his head. If he really likes you he’ll nip your feet and make little “Qualalllalala qualllalalala” noises as a sign of affection.

Anyway, walking forward from the table and opening up this red door we see into the kitchen. There is a sink and a small wood box with fine metal mesh in which fruit and cake and other food is kept away from the flies.

Walking inside, hanging a right, and then turning around we get another angle of the kitchen. There is a microwave and a counter (currently with some food on it with a green fly cover over it). Under the counter there is a small garbage can, the top of which there is a dish for compost and pig food. Just above the microwave you can see a kind of arch, this actually looks into the living room. Just to the left of the microwave and counter there is the door to the living room.

Walking to this door and turning around we see the other side of the kitchen - the purple cloth is over a small food preparation table (it’s also where I eat breakfast). Down and to the left you can see two chairs that are actually around the indoor dining table (which I’ve only used about 3 times). Down those steps there is also a door to the outside, and the oven.

Turning around and looking into the living room we see, possibly, the most cluttered living space I’ve even encountered. Couches are more often times covered with books that don’t fit on the incredible amount of bookshelves there are everywhere. On the right just under the curved lampshade is the laptop where I do all of my blogging and emailing. At the far end of the room there is a winding staircase, upstairs is Nani’s library. Underneath the staircase and also past that bead curtain on the left there is another whole room which is Eric’s office and library.

Walking over underneath the staircase and turning around we see view #2 of the living room. On the left what looks like a bookshelf is actually holding DVDs, and opens up to reveal the TV. The green table is the bar, and to the right of that is the brown door to the kitchen. This is also a very good picture showing how I have to duck through every door in the house, and even in the shop and other places. The door to the kitchen is only about 5.5 feet tall. I really don’t understand, but I’m used to it now - I just basically constantly duck everywhere I go.

Well, that’s only a sliver of everything there is to see here, but I think it’s a good indicator of how Nani and Eric live - very different indeed. Wednesday we’re off to Watamu, and I’ll have some good pictures of the coast when I get back (I don’t think they have internet down there, maybe in town but I’m not sure). It’s about dinnertime, so I’ve got to go.

I’m beginning to think that glasswork has almost taken a back seat to the excitement here - or maybe it’s just that lots of random stuff is going on. At any rate, I’m as busy as usual. I am still learning boatloads of new things in terms of glasswork. I’ve started a lampshade in a technique that can most easily be described as stained glass in 3D. It’s harder than stained glass - which is a challenge already. I’m slowly refining my glass painting skills - we have a large order for some saints and angels, about 5 windows - so I helped try to find some techniques for painting feathers on angel wings. Not a very easy thing to do. I have started a second Dalles De Verre table (I realize I always capitalize Dall - but I don’t really know why. Oh well) - it’s unfortunate, but I don’t think I’ll be able to bring home any Dall work because it is so large. This table is about four feet in diameter - much bigger than my last one. So far it’s turning out great. My glassblowing has also been progressing along quite nicely. I’m able to blow pieces that are quite large, starting with a glob of glass about the size of a football. These big pieces turn out to be vases that are about two feet tall, or maybe incredibly thick glasses or bowls. I’m also starting to make Christmas presents and random gifts like crazy, so I may not be able to show many pictures of some of my work.

Besides that, we’ve had a lot of other excitement, as I mentioned. A couple of weeks ago one of our Jack Russell Terriers got pregnant - or what seemed to be pregnant. We were confused because all of the 9 dogs that live here are female, except for one - and he’s a Rotweiler. We thought that there was no way that such a big dog could be the father, and we had lots of hilarious conversations trying to fathom how such a thing would work. Nani decided that it was a “sham pregnancy”, and I just thought it must be one of the local stray dogs that was the father. Finally the day came, and the mother gave birth to three rather large Rotweiler puppies. That was two days ago, and they are all doing fine (including the mother). We were, and still are, incredibly surprised. Nani has come to call them Jackweilers, even though they look 100% Rotweiler. The puppies make little squeaking noises like mice, and are funny to watch squirm around. They are also incredibly hard to photograph, because they are always bunched up and moving around in a little puppy ball.

About four days ago a film crew from London came by the house for a day to film an episode of “The Worlds Most Extreme Homes”, actually a television series on HGtv in the states. The spent most of their day filming all of the crazy structures here, including the kitchen, the pool, and a bunch of the bedrooms. They also did an entire segment of me glassblowing - which will probably just end up being a quick side-story type thing. They had to do it at night, because they wanted all of the natural daylight for the windows and rooms. They brought huge lamps and set them up around the kiln and the bench. They had a full sized TV camera, and a separate sound guy with a boom mic - they even put a small wireless mic on me. There was a big problem, though - at the end of the day we’ve used all of the glass for making Dall bricks, so the glass at the bottom of the kiln was very cruddy, and also very cold. Another guy who works here - Michael - was helping me, and even he (a glassblower of many many years) was having a hard time getting anything interesting out of the hot glass. I did manage to get one bowl sized thing ready, but they spent so much time talking about the next shot that I couldn’t keep it the right temperature - and it ultimately cracked. So, basically all of the shots they got were of me fake glassblowing, while talking to the little host girl of the show. There are 18 shows in this series, and they start January. So, if some time you see it on TV, and if for some reason there was some footage that was actually good enough to print, look for me being the worst fake glassblower ever to be on television. I may have to start watching the Home and Garden Network.

Last night was the last night of the Kenyan International Puppetry Festival. Nani decided that it was a good time to get people away from Kitengela, so about 10 people from the shop clambered into the back of our large Toyota Range Rover and drove to Nairobi. We saw a duo of Italian puppeteers put on an incredibly funny show. It was very Coyote/Roadrunner type humor with a princess, her boyfriend, the king and a guard (there was a crocodile at the end) - in a gibbering mix of Italian, English, and Swahili. The words only accompanied the actions - the physical humor basically spoke for itself and told the whole story. For puppets, it was pretty entertaining. Afterwards we all got back into the Range Rover and hit major traffic coming out of Nairobi. Everybody in the back with me was acting out their favorite parts of the show and laughing. I couldn’t catch everything they were talking about, but it was funny to see them imitating puppets. We stopped in Rongai (a small town on the main road where you turn onto the dirt road to drive to Kitengela) and had some dinner - French Fries and a soda. French Fries have a different connotation here, I guess - potatoes are a staple food, so a plate full of “chips” as they call them is considered a very simple meal.

Time is flying by. I think I must have hit my half way point by now. The last week of this month I will be going down to Nani and Eric’s house at the coast - in a small town called Watamu, north of Mombassa. Their house is amongst a forest and beach sanctuary, right on the ocean. I’m really excited. I will be able to bring some small glass projects to work on, which should be good - mostly relaxing I imagine. I keep saying that I’ll post more pictures - I really should. Anyway, that’s about it for now.

Well, this past weekend I was incredibly busy with many different activities. Saturday was the bridge opening party. The bridge across the gorge reached the other side a couple of days before Saturday - there is still some decoration to be done to it, but it was ready. Nani bought a sheep, two cases of beer, two cases of soda, and had lots of food made. About 30 people showed up, mostly neighbors and people who helped build it. The sheep was roasted over an open spit - and even though it was very skinny, it turned out very tasty. John Keene - an old Maasai that owns the land on the other side of the gorge - came and cut a big red ribbon to declare the bridge open. Nani took a bottle of champagne and broke it over one of the large, steel anchors. Many people hung around afterwards, and had more to eat and drink. I went back to work blowing glass.

That evening we went into Nairobi. Eric is the director of the Kenyan International Puppetry Festival, and it was opening night. The event was held at the National Theater, which wasn’t too different than a high school theater - kind of small and the seats were very old and creaky. The puppetry wasn’t that incredible, but there were people there from all over the world, including America, South Africa, and parts of Asia. I almost didn’t go because, after standing out in the sun all day and then blowing glass, I had a monster headache and was very tired. But I was glad I went in the end.

Sunday was supposed to be a relaxing day. There are still a bunch of people who work on Sunday, but there are also a lot of people who take the day off. I usually show up and maybe do one or two hours of work on Sunday. This Sunday, however, Nani had lots of people coming over. The Russian ambassador to Kenya is a good friend of Nani’s, and Russians (apparently) have a tradition of packing a large picnic lunch, including BBQ supplies, and driving out to the countryside for an afternoon of relaxing. Since these guys weren’t in Russia anymore, they thought it would be good to have their picnic destination be Kitengela Glass. There was about 25 of them, including lots of high-up Russian consulate people and their families. They arrived in six cars and basically did their own thing. Nani, though, had also invited the Swiss ambassador (another good friend) and his family to come have lunch. The Swiss ambassador was a little late, and by the time he arrived, the Russians had invited us down to try some of the food they had made. When the Swiss ambassador showed up, the Russians insisted that he join them as well - so basically it turned out to be a incredibly huge lunch with Russian, Swiss, and Kenyan food to go around. Not to mention the copious amounts of beer/vodka/scotch/wine that the Russians had with them as well. They drink Stoli (a Russian brand of vodka) like it was wine - and every ten minutes there was another toast to something-or-other. The food was amazing. The Russians cooked lamb and pork on large shish kebob skewers. The meat was marinated overnight in mayonnaise, garlic, onions and various other things - then while it was cooking they spread white wine on it. The flavor was incredible, and that is what I ended up eating the most of. I had lots of interesting conversations through the afternoon, including a conversation with a drunk Russian guy about how Russia was progressing as a country, some of it’s problems, how it compared to the US, and something about the KGB/CIA - as the conversation wore on I understood less and less. They were all very nice and very interested in what I thought of Kenya/Kitengela etc. By the time they all left it was getting dark, and we had basically been eating and drinking non-stop since noon. It was incredibly hectic, but a really good time. So much for a relaxing Sunday.

So, today I’m back to regular work. I hope to get a big chunk of glassblowing done thisafternoon. The weatherpeople said that it was supposed to start raining on the 15th (yesterday), but it didn’t. Today it’s really cloudy, so hopefully this rainy season will start - the land is very dry and dusty and needs some water. That’s about it for now. Maybe next post I’ll take you on a tour of the various shops where I work, or maybe show you some of the more interesting buildings around here.

I’ve just finished up a large round of projects. I’m constantly working on lots of things, but I feel like a few of my big projects are done. The main one is my Dall table. It wasn’t that large, I just was really lazy in getting it done. The table frame has finally been painted, so it’s ready to go into the gallery. I tried to get a good picture of it with the light behind it, but it’s been very cloudy and kind of hot here for the past few days. Anyway, this picture should give you a fairly good idea of what Dalles de Verre is. In the main driveway there is a huge structure that looks like a drive-in movie theater screen. It’s got to be about 40 feet tall. Nani is making a huge 4 meter tall monument for the Kenyan Ministry of culture, out of Dall de Verre. It’s going to be a huge map of Kenya, with the various provinces outlined in different colors, and cast glass faces of different tribe people scattered throughout. We’re going to project a map onto this huge screen so that we can start making small, individual Dall panels that will ultimately comprise the whole monument. Should be interesting, if only for it’s sheer size.

I’ve been doing lots of glassblowing as well, about every other day. I finally collected my pieces into one place to take pictures, and I realized they “have lots of character”. I need to work on getting the walls a little thinner, even though I quite like the look of really thick glass. And they need to be a bit more uniform - they are ununiform because I haven’t quite achieved the level of control needed yet. I’m almost there, so I feel like by the end of my stay here I’ll be pretty good.

Sand casting is one new thing that I started. As with most things, here in the wilds of Africa we do things a little differently. Here they mix sand with molasses, which forms a very fine and slightly sticky substance, almost like gritty brown sugar. It holds a shape very well. These pieces are shells, which turned out pretty well. You press whatever you want into this sand/sugar mixture, then blast it with a torch until the sugar burns, creating a hard semi-solid surface. Then you simply grab some hot glass and drop it into the mold. The glass was a really cool color the day we did this - sometimes the glass is very clear, or very dark - but I think this is a good color for how thick the pieces are. They really have some interesting swirls and innards.

Another main type of glasswork that I’ve started up is very much like stained glass - but instead of lead connecting the pieces together, it’s a copper foil that you then solder to other pieces. This is much harder than regular stained glass, but the advantage is you can make things in 3D. The most common application is lampshades, which you see everywhere. It’s a type of glassworking that you can do at home, so it’s very popular amongst crafty people (by that, I mean people who like crafts. I guess they could be crafty crafty as well.) This is a simple box that I made to learn the basic process. This glass is also painted with special glass paint (which is done on stained glass as well - mostly for fine detail like faces) - the paint is fired onto the glass and does not chip off. It actually fuses to the glass itself. It is incredibly fussy, and you need a steady hand and lots of time to take it slow. It reminds me a lot of that intricate pinstriping that you see on old cars.

I’ve also been doing some crazy stuff. I get these ideas, and talk to either the guys or Nani. Mostly I get strange looks - but everybody is very encouraging of my experiments. Yesterday I tried to embed a bottle cap inside a block of glass. Unfortunatelly, all the paint on the bottle cap burnt off (at 2,000 degrees? Really?) - I was hoping against all hope to get a really cool paperweight or something with a Tusker cap inside (Tusker is the local beer). I also tried to make a glass stamp out of wood, which I didn’t even get to try because the wood I was using didn’t hold together. We have brass glass stamps - where you lay a glob of hot glass on the table and press a brass stamp into it. We don’t have the facilities to cast brass (these stamps were made someplace else) - so I was thinking of ways to do it without metal. Wood may work for a couple of stamps, before the pattern completely burns away. I may try ceramic next. I’ve got a few more of these ideas (like attaching a Coca Cola bottle on the end of a blowpipe and blowing it up like a balloon) - to try before I leave.

Besides glasswork, there isn’t a ton going on (which is fine because glasswork takes a lot of time). This is a picture of Kasuku and I. Kasuku is an incredible African Greyparrot that has a tape-recorder like ability to record and play back anything she hears. It’s too bad, though, because she doesn’t talk when talked directly to. She only talks when there is basically nobody around. You’ll be walking around the courtyard during the day, then all of a sudden you’ll hear a crisp British accented voice saying something like “Now look here!” coming from the trees, and you’ll think you’re going crazy. Kasuku does voices, car engines, says “Hello?” when a cell phone rings, pants like a dog, and goes “creeeek BANG!” just like the front door. Plus every birdsong known for this part of the world. It’s quite amazing.

Also, currently we have a family of Aussies staying in the guest house. They are friends of Nani and Eric’s, and are looking to buy land in the area to start a school for poor children. We had a big dinner last night - lots of food and drink, which was fun. Much besides that, I haven’t really left Kitengela - which has been relaxing. Hopefully it will rain soon so that the gorge river starts flowing and then we can go out onto the recently-completed bridge and stand ten feet above the rushing rapids. They say it’s supposed to rain, but we’re still waiting.

On Monday I went into town to see Nani’s exhibition in Nairobi. She had selected a number of her works that had a bird theme, and was showing them at a beautiful outdoor garden. It was the last day, and I was helping tear it down and pack it up. Some of the pieces, like the 6 foot tall Dalles De Verre pieces, were incredibly heavy. On the way back we were talking about all the animals at Kitengela - and Nani asked if I had ridden one of the camels yet. I said I didn’t know they could be ridden (I know they can be in general, but not these ones). I put it on my ever-increasing list of things to do while I’m here. So, Tuesday morning around 10, Ali, the animal caretaker, comes up to me and says that my camel is ready to go. I was a bit confused, but I guess in the process of Nani running around hectically, and Ali not knowing the best English, “Matt would like to ride a camel sometime” turned into “Matt wants to ride a camel right now“. I was in the middle of finishing my first Dall table - but then again, one doesn’t just turn down a camel ride. The camel’s name is Ramadan - there are three, but Faruk is too old, and Ama isn’t trained to wear a saddle. It was quite interesting, as you may imagine. I wasn’t steering - I was being led around - but it was still fun even though I wasn’t the driver. We went about half a mile down the main road, cut into the savannah, and looped our way back to Kitengela. Getting on and getting off were the hardest parts - whilst standing up, the camel basically has to extend his back legs first (almost throwing you over the front of the saddle), but only about half way - then extends his front legs all the way, almost sending you off the back of the saddle. Finally, standing up fully on all four legs, are you finally level and not potentially slipping one way or the other. The saddle sits on the very top of the hump, so my head was about 12 feet off the ground. It made for some nice views of Kitengela, and Nairobi National Park off in the distance.

The building of the bridge across the gorge is moving along very quickly. I had a chance to run down and take some pictures. The metal grid planks (I don’t really know what else to call them) are about half way across, so I was able to walk out pretty far (not all the way across, though). You basically have an unobstructed view of everything directly below you, and it’s pretty wobbly, so the whole thing is kind of nerve racking. But it does offer great views of the gorge, so I’m excited. In this picture the guy in yellow isn’t even halfway across, if that gives you any kind of scale. It’s a bit hard to see because it is so open - but that’s what makes it so fun/nerveracking to walk on.

Today we had a visitor from the Culture Ministry of Kenya. They are commissioning Nani to make a giant Dalles de Verre piece in the shape of Kenya, four meters tall to go in the center of a roundabout in front of the national museum in Nairobi. The glass will be colored in the national colors of Kenya (red, green, black), plus some others - in the shapes of the individual provinces of Kenya. In addition to this, Nani is making plaster molds of a bunch of peoples’ faces. These face molds will then be used to make a plaster of Paris positive (copy of the original face), which will in tern be used to make a negative in special sand/plaster powder mixture that can withstand furnace temperatures. This face negative will be filled with glass, resulting in a glass replica of the original face. She’s going to include a male and a female face from each of the major native tribes of Kenya (Maasai and Kikuyu are the only two that I can remember), plus some Mzungus (white people). Since all of this face molding was going on, I had my face mold taken. It was quite interesting and irksome at the same time. I’m not claustrophobic or anything, but what happens is they place two straws up your nostrils, and cover your entire face with this special rubber casting material. I did have to keep rather calm and not freak out, because I could tell that I wasn’t breathing through my mouth or nose - just some phantom place four inches away from my nose. The guy in the picture is Josphat, the head of the stained glass department, and also, apparently, in charge of molding people’s faces. Very nice guy. You can also barely see the lovely shower cap I’ve got on, pluse the cardboard cutout to keep the excess plaster off the floor. And just barely one of the straws. This picture is right at the point when I’m not freaking out. Afterwards, my beard was somewhat of a problem - I had to cover it with Vaseline in order for it not to get cast into the material. I was able to pull off the mask without pulling out my whiskers, but I had a really hard time getting the Vaseline off my face. After a swim and a shower, I think it’s all gone - along with the random bits of plaster stuck in my eyelashes and my eyeballs themselves. It was worth it, though, to be able to get a glass version of my face. Nani may use my face for a Mzungu face in the monument. That would be cool.

I’m just rounding out finishing another batch of projects, so in my next post I’ll show off some of my Dall work, another stained glass piece, maybe a glass box, and some of the amazingly incredible glassblowing pieces I’ve managed to shackle together the last few days. That’s it for now. Dinner is almost ready - probably potatoes, and hopefully chapatti.

Baboons are like Raccoons are in the states. Except these are bigger, and roam around in packs, and steal your towel when you are trying to swim. Don’t worry, I chased them down and showed them who was the bigger primate. Baboons are everywhere - mostly they stay outside of the perimeter fence, but when they get inside they are promptly chased away by the 9 dogs that also live here. But the pool is outside the fence, and the Baboons like to hang around by the pool. Who wouldn’t? It’s a nice pool. Just past the pool is the gorge, and that side of the pool there is an infinity ledge (the water spills over the side) so that there are amazing views of the gorge and the savannah past it. I’ve started swimming every day after work. It’s nice, because the pool is not that cold, and especially coming straight from the hot and grimy shop, it’s a nice change. There is even a sauna, which was started today for the first time. Saunas are nice.

This past week has been pretty crazy. There is another person that lives at Kitengela (besides Nani and Eric), and his name is Dino. He is finishing up his PhD at Cambridge in biology - mostly insect and bird ecology (I don’t know exactly). Anyway, he gave a talk at a Rotary meeting in Nairobi (both Nani and Eric are Rotarians), and I went in to hear what he had to say. Because they had a biologist speaker, the Rotarians moved their meeting to the Kenyan Wildlife Service Members Club, in the middle of Nairobi National Park. It was beautiful, as you may imagine, and we got in for free (normally it’s like $40 to enter or something).

My projects are going along nicely. At about 3 every day I blow one or two pieces of glass, just before the Dalles De Verre guys make glass bricks. Today I blew two cups, both of which broke when I was putting them in the annealer [the annealer is a big furnace that slowly cools down over the course of many hours - if you leave a hot piece of glass in the open air it will cool down too fast and break]. That’s how it goes. Even if you create something perfectly there is always the chance that it won’t come off the punty [small piece of hot glass that holds your work on the end of the pole]. Why use parenthesis for defining strange glass terms [when you could use square brackets?]

Nani has given me a Dall project that will eventually be installed in the local area. There is a small town just about a mile outside of Kitengela Glass, and one of the main roads entering this town has a small guard hut and a barrier that raises and lowers. I don’t know why they need a security checkpoint there (it is only manned like half the time), but it has two windows. One window Nani made a Dalles De Verre piece for, but the other window is just a hole. I’m going to make a Dall window for the other side. Yay - an installation piece.

But that is only the first exciting part of that story. I needed to measure the window so that I could make the iron frame. That meant that I would have to take Michael (one of the drivers) and one of the trucks (there are three trucks and an old Landrover that are for general use) to drive over and get the measurements. I was feeling adventurous, so I asked Michael if I could drive. This is adventurous for the following reasons:

• I never really learned to drive a stick shift
• The last time I tried to drive a stick shift was about five years ago
• The roads outside of Kitengela are completely un-maintained dirt roller-coasters.
• Kenyans drive on the wrong side of the road - meaning the driver sits on the right hand side of the car, and shifts with their left hand.

Adventurous, no? I surprised myself - no jerky starts, although I did stall out when trying to stop a couple of times. It seems as if I learned to drive stick shift left handed without practicing at all - somehow.

Another big project that is currently underway is the bridge across the gorge. Nani has always wanted a bridge - for both artistic reasons and functional reasons. Currently one must walk about a half mile up the creek to find a suitable spot to cross the gorge, and then come back down again. The gorge, right by Kitengela, is about two hundred yards across and about a hundred yards deep. It’s quite amazing. Nani got some local engineers to embed a huge three meter reinforced concrete block into two sides of the gorge, with some two inch steel plates sticking out of them. From these steel plates they strung two - one inch steel cables all the way across the gorge. When I first got here, that was all they had. They then got a ton of big metal U pieces with hooks on the ends, and hooked them onto these steel cables. They are now in the process of laying down 9 foot heavy metal mesh plates down across the bottoms of these U pieces, ultimately spanning the whole gorge. I must take some pictures - it is quite an amazing thing to see. Definitely not for the heights-fearful.

That’s about all I can think of. Another photo expose is on it’s way. They take a long time to compile and upload because the internet here is so slow. But I’ve got to keep moving - there is so much here that just has to be seen in pictures. Keep sending me those emails - and don’t be insulted if I don’t email you back - like I said, internet time is not that handy.

Welcome to the official Wigl House Tour. Please keep your hands and children inside the vehicle - this is Africa, after all. Home of various animals that eat… uh, hands and children. Did you all familiarize yourself with the map? Well, here it is. Wigl house is strange and pictures alone may confuse you. The map may confuse you too, but the two in conjunction may paint a semi-coherent picture of where I live.

Well, here we go. Walking out of the back of the main house we find ourselves in a large courtyard/garden with lots of wonderous stuff (which I will get to at a later date). At the bottom of this garden are various houses and the perimeter fence - the former, Wigl house is one of, and the latter, Wigl house is a part of. Here is a shot walking down to Wigl house.

As we open the front door, we find ourselves in the small round living room.

To the right is my red couch, directly across from the front door is a large stained glass window (which is also a door into the garden), and to the left we see one of many shallow cone chairs of which there are four in Wigl House. The couch is the most comfortable seat in the house (the shallow cone chairs are kind of strange to sit in), so it is where I do most of my reading/writing/sitting. On the coffee table you can see two journals, a goblet (one of my first blown pieces here), a 1966 Peace Corps Teacher’s Guide to Swahili, a Swahili Dictionary, and some other random stuff.

Step inside please… yes - it is a pretty small place to fit everybody - okay - walking straight across the room to the window and turning around you’ll see this:

Couch to the left, coffee table - here on the right you can see another shallow cone chair and two shelves - most of that stuff is not mine, but rather, random glass stuff that was already here. On a dish on that shelf I keep some of the things I use everyday so I can grab them as I walk out the door - pen, glass cutter, keys and safety glasses. One of the best things about Wigl house is that the door cannot even be closed from the outside without the key, making it impossible for me to lock myself out.

Okay, shuffling around to our left and sitting on the couch we will get a nice view of the door to the bedroom.

Stainding up now - walking to the door to the bedroom - directly in front we have the nice green bottle shower room (it’s a whole dome made completely out of bottles), just to the left is a giant eye stained glass window. There is a large metal eyelid - shutter that can be raised and lowered from inside by means of a rope and pulley. To the right is the small bathroom.

Walking across the room with our backs to the shower, we can now see the bed - mosquito net and all.

The whole bedroom seems like an afterthought addition - the wall between the living room and the bedroom is curved downwards, and there is a whole useless triangle of space at the head of the bed because the living room is round. At the foot of the bed there is a sorry excuse for a shelving unit - completely usless. I have my large suitcase on a stool over there, and that’s where my clothes live. I figure if a random varmint gets into the room, having all my clothes sealed up isn’t such a bad thing.

So far, though, Wigl house has been very secure - not very many bugs at all, and definetly no animals. It is always about five degrees cooler inside, no matter what time of day it is - so during the day it is a nice place to be. The one strange thing, though, (and this applies to all of the buildings at Kitengela) is that all of the doorways are about 5′10″ tall. I am constantly ducking - and so is everybody else who lives here. I really don’t get it.

Well, that concludes the tour. Everyone check to see if you still have your hands and children. You may now exit the vehicle.

Time is flying by, mostly because I have been so busy. This week I have learned so much. I spent the first part of the week going over the basics of stained glass. The toughest part is being able to cut the glass to different shapes and sizes. This is done with a scoring tool, and very delicate breaking. The people who work here can do pieces of incredible size and complexity, including wavy lines and very thin areas. I have made three practice pieces, and by the third piece I finally felt like I was getting the hang of it. Because Kitengela is fully self sufficient, they cast and shape their own lead here. Lead is the metal used in between each individual piece of glass in stained glass. Fitting the glass pieces into the lead is, amazingly enough, called “Leading”. I ran into lots of trouble leading, most because I tried to cut my pieces to fit exactly, where you need to leave a small gap to allow for the lead in between each piece. Oh well, that’s learning. After you have fit all the pieces together with the lead in between, you must solder the pieces together, which is fairly simple. Then, as with most things, you must finish the whole piece by brushing putty into the gaps between the lead and the glass, polish the whole piece, and brush down the metal with a black, shoe-polish type stuff that makes the metal shiny and, well, black. I have included a picture of two of my pieces - the one on the right has just been soldered and is ready to be puttied and finished, the one on the left is completely finished.

I have been slightly introduced to Dalle De Verre, which I will probably be working on this upcoming week. Dal (for short) includes cutting large glass bricks down to a certain shape with a tungsten tipped hammer. I have re-named dal cutting “Three thousand ways to cut your hands that you never thought possible”. More on that later.

A normal day goes something like this: The workers are supposed to start at around 8am, which actually means they are working by 8:30. I have no exact time to be places, but I usually try to be up by 8, eat breakfast (which is always a piece of fresh fruit, usually papaya, a glass of fruit juice, a cup of Kenyan coffee, a cup of Kenyan tea, and maybe a fried egg or a bowl of cereal with fresh cows milk), and ready to work by 8:30. I have a very good relationship with the workers - they are all very friendly and very eager to teach me whatever they specialize in, and also very eager to teach me new Swahili words or phrases. I completely butcher the pronunciation the first couple of times, as you may imagine. If Nani is around and free, she shows me a few things, but mostly the head artisans have a standing order to teach me everything that they and their people do. A very nice guy named Josphat is in charge of stained glass, and Edwin is in charge of Dal. They have both been working here for about 15 years. Whenever they, or one of their 10ish workers are doing something I haven’t seen before, they come get me and have me watch/learn how to do whatever it is. In this manner I am slowly picking up lots of different aspects of everything.

Work continues until 1, which is lunch. I usually have lunch with Nani and Eric (Nani’s husband) - or if Nani is off someplace, I have lunch with the workers. Lots of potatoes and rice. Work resumes at 2ish, until 5ish when everybody goes home. There are 70 people that work at Kitengela, and about 30 people who live here. At 6:30 we gather up various greens and bread, and make a huge circuit around the whole compound to feed the amazing amount of animals. Two of the biggest pigs I’ve seen, 3 camels, 4 ostriches, 5 horses, 2 mules - the list goes on. All of the birds are fed in the morning. The last leg of the walk is up on the plains, and usually the sun is setting by then - which is an amazing thing to see. Usually a gaggle of local kids is following us around to help - plus Nani’s 9 dogs, of course. Dinner is at 8, and after that Nani and Eric usually sit down and watch BBC world news, or a DVD or something. I usually head to bed around 10. Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

Three days ago, right after work, I walked up to the local town with Josphat. It was about a mile away, and not very town-like by American standards. Very spread out. It was interesting, though, because Josphat took me to his house. He built it himself many years ago after saving up and buying the small plot of land (about 30 feet square by my reckoning). I met his wife and two small children, and we talked about how life differed in Kenya vs. the US (an exercise in tact, on my part - Josphat likes his life here but he expressed the fact that many Kenyans believe that if they move to the US their lives would be way better - and I tried to convince him that life was probably just as hard in both places. Different problems, but no harder or easier). After having some Kenyan tea (which is a sweet black tea with milk) and Chapati (which is a round, flat, sweet fried bread), I started to head home before it got too dark. I made it, but unfortunately during the half hour walk back across the open savannah, it began to pour rain. Needless to say I was soaked when I got back.

Well, that’s a lot of writing. I do get emails about once every two or three days, so drop me a line. Next time I think I will try to take some pictures of Wigl House (the place I am staying) and give you a tour of sorts. There is so much I’m leaving out but I think eventually I’ll hit everything. Besides that, all is well. Stomach is fine, I haven’t gotten sick yet, sleeping well etc etc. Last night I obtained photographic evidence of a rare 4 legged spider that lives in my bathroom. Pretty cool, huh?

Hello everybody

These first three days have been a whirlwind of activity. I arrived at the airport at around 6:30am, and met my driver, Michael, immediately. We left at 7 and it took about an hour to get to Kitengela. I was so happy to arrive (anything is better than airports/airplanes after 28 hours).

I have done so much that I must leave some of the details for later. The houses and buildings around here are absolutely amazing - like some strange cross between a Hobbit town and Alice in Wonderland. At night it reminds me of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland - vegitation that is out of control slowly invading tiled walkways and strange buildings.

I have my own little house, called Wigl House, towards the exterior of the whole complex. There is a fence that goes pretty much all around the living areas to keep out baboons, lions, and hyenas. One of my bedroom walls is a portion of this outer fence, and one of my windows looks out into the wilderness and into a gorge nearby. At some later time I will take a few pictures and give you a short tour of Wigl House. At another time I will take tons of pictures of the buildings, because they are very interesting.

Another main element here is the amazing amount of animals - 6 dogs, many cows, a parrot (who is right now calling my name - “Mah tew? Mah tew?” sometimes he even says “Calo fona” - she got all of this from when I introduced myself), 3 cammels, 7 geese (along with countless other birds)… and i’m sure this is only half of them. there is always some kind of animal following you around.

The food here is very good, and very different. I eat most meals with Nani and Eric, but sometimes I have lunch with the workers (which mostly consists of rice, potatoes, and a shreaded leafy stuff whose name litterally translates to “get you through the week”, it’s about as rib-stickin’ as salad can be).

What else? I’m sure there is tons more, but right now I must go. The internet here is cellular dial-up. I have access to it pretty much whenever, so i will be keeping you all updated as much as possible. That’s it for now. I’m off to finish my first stained glass piece (it’s a real beauty).

Well, since I really am that bored, I will spend some of my last pence and present to you an amazing list of things i’ve learned whilst stuck in terminal 4.

• English keyboards with the # key where the Enter key usually is - is very annoying#
• 10 minutes of internet time is WAY less than you think it is.
• Having a ‘Quiet Sitting Room’, seperate from the rest of the terminal and void of public address announcements, is THE MOST AWESOMEST THING EVER.#
• Reading in a reclined comfy chair is not a good way to stay awake.
• Walking up and down the same strech of terminal is a good way to stay awake: also - a good way to get strange looks.
• Asking random questions of british people is a great way to hear silly brittish accents.
• Having Starbucks coffee is pretty much exactly the same as it is in the US: also - a great way to stay awake.
• Putting up three 6foot tall glass walls in the middle of the terminal is not a good way to keep smoke contained within a designated smoking area.
• Spending 3 hours finding EVERY SINGLE BATHROOM will come in handy four hours down the road when you need a bathroom.
• Finding a freakishly cold room with chairs is a good way to stay awake.
• Avoid 10 hour layovers.

Well, if you haven’t guessed, I’ve managed to stay awake. My plane takes off at 8:00pm. After dinner on the plane, I can sleep, and arrive at 6:30am in Nairobi. Brilliant. 8 hour plane rides don’t usually sound appealing, but after 10 hours in an airport, it is.

That’s all for now.

So, I made it to Heathrow. I now have a lovely 10 hour layover until my flight to Nairobi. It actually isn’t that bad - my flight leaves at 8, so I board at 7 - so somehow 3 hours have already gone by. I think i’m going to be doing lots of walking up and down the concourse. Lots of reading. Maybe some eating. My life is very exciting.

The flight over was okay. The seats on Virgin Atlantic were smaller than I was expecting, but we had individual screens, which was cool. I was very excited because they had a huge list of movies that you could watch individually whenever you wanted - but that whole system crashed so they gave us a choice of either ‘Over the Hedge’ or ‘Failure to Launch’, which I watched. Fairly okay for being a romantic comedy. What’s even more awesome is my iPod crashed, and now it doesn’t recognize any of the songs. Awesome. Two months without music should be interesting.

That’s about it. I’ve got to hurry to my plane now - 7 hours will creep up on you.

What little you can do to prepare for two days of solid travel, I think I’ve done. What things that are best packed for living in Africa, I think I have. All the goodbyes have been said. There isn’t much to do now but to sit back in an incredibly comfy airplane seat and dine on exquisite airplane food. This is what Day 1 of my next two months looks like:

• 11:00am - Leave Salinas
• 1:00pm ish - Arrive at SFO
• 1:00pm to 4:00pm - Check in, Check Luggage, Go through Security.
• 4:15pm - board Virgin Atlantic flight #20 to Heathrow
• after 4:30pm - Lots of flying

Well, as always, moving is approximately 5.6 times harder than you imagine. Even if you imagine big, like we were doing. We somehow removed over half of our garbage before Saturday, and had to take the other half to the dump. At the dump they told us our garbage weighed 145 pounds. Sweet. Break it down now:

So, on Saturday evening, after saying goodbye, I drove my chuck-full little Element up to the city where I will be staying for this last week before I go. I figured working for an extra week was worth risking life and limb to drive around San Francisco twice daily. You can’t beat the view, though.

Horay AfricaBlog. This will be a place that people can check in on me while I spend two months in Kenya learning fine glass arts. I’ll be staying at Kitengela Glass, which is basically surrounded by Nairobi National Park, about an hours car ride on dirt roads from Nairobi. For more information on this amazing place, I suggest checking out their website, which contains many great pictures and other informative information.

Whenever I can access the interweb, I’ll try to catch everybody up on what I’ve been up to, and maybe even upload some of my pictures. This all depends on that access to the interweb that I mentioned earlier, though. I have been in constant email contact with the friendly people at Kitengela, so this is a good sign.

So, there you have it. I might post a couple of things before I leave, but this is your source for info while I am gone.