I recently acquired a camera with a fisheye lens, effectively pushing the field of view to a whopping 170 degrees! A very fun piece of equipment, it is changing the way I view the world. Considering I have exposed only one roll of film so far (yes, it runs on 35mm film!), I have much to learn about it’s capabilities. But to follow the constantly growing archive of funky perspectives, check out the new one80 page in my photo gallery!

This first roll of film was shot a couple weeks ago while I was traveling through some remote parts of northern Kenya. In one week we drove 1,700kms over some very rough terrain — from experiencing 40C/120F deserts one day to sub-freezing temps in the mountains on another — and it provided a very diverse medium to document.

As an example, here is one of the “one80″ photos:

This photograph was taken with the camera sitting on the ground, pointing directly upwards. I had to lay on the ground to snap the shutter as it doesn’t have a timer (you can see my head poking up on the far right). Three friends then proceeded to jump over me. The guy in the green shirt on the right is actually jumping over the middle of my back, so you can see the field of view is crazy! A good title for this photo would be: jumping under an acacia tree.

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Last weekend I drove down to Amboseli National Park that sits next to the Tanzanian border at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. It is a stunning place. As I pulled into the KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) campground, I asked the camp manager if there were any campsite available. He smiled wryly and told me that he hadn’t seen anybody in five days. Needless to say, I got the best spot there was under a giant acacia tree with a great view of Kili looming over the landscape.

I spent the next couple days at my leisure. The raining season has begun, so things are very green. There was a lot of wild game to be seen. Everywhere I looked there was something beautiful and interesting. You must check out the photos here.

I would fill you in on more details, but will have to let the pictures do that. It is late and I have to get up early tomorrow. I’m off to northern Kenya for a week with some colleagues to visit some of our existing programs as well as assess some new areas. I’ll be back in Nairobi at the end of next week. Til then…

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It is now April. This begins the tenth month since I moved to Kenya. This is ground-breaking. New waters are being plied. It is significant in that I have been nowhere longer than nine months in the last six years. Ten months. I must be putting down roots. If I can say so, I think I’m handling it quite well. But how much stock can one put into self-assessment?

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95 years ago Easter fell on 23 March. This year Easter will also occur on 23 March, the second time in the last 250 years! Although this makes 23 March a special day, Easter can actually occur earlier, though it is even less likely. The 22nd of March is actually the earliest day on which Easter occurs. The year 1818 was the last time it happened, and the next time will be in 2285, but that is in 277 years! The most common date for Easter is not in April, but rather March 31. Easter occurs on that day 24 times between 1753, the first year the Gregorian calendar was adopted, and 500 years from then, or 2252. The second most common is April 16 (23 times), and April 11.

More interesting reading here on how the moving date of Easter was corrected.

This year I’ll be spending Easter on an island off the coast of northern Kenya near the Somali border with a great group of friends. I hope you have a great Easter, too!

Happy Easter!

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Yesterday while sitting in my Arabic language class in Nairobi, the teacher was giving examples of simple sentence structures. He quickly wrote an example on the board and continued with the lesson. This was the sentence he chose:

ضرب المعلم ظالب

“The teacher beat a student.”

None of the students in my class responded; no laughing or glances at one another…maybe that is a normal example. Either way, I decided that I sure better have all my homework done in time and that I would avoid being late to class!

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Pictures of our ascent of Mt Kenya are now posted here. There are 101 photos. Check ‘em out!

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After nine days, David and I eventually had to come back down to earth. We had a thoroughly fantastic time up on Mt Kenya, trekking and climbing at high altitude, including the technical ascent of the 5,189m peak (Nelion). I’ll soon be posting pictures and some stories of our time on the mountain.

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Yes, the countdown to the big climb of Mount Kenya is almost here! David is enroute. At this moment he’s on a layover in NYC eating some salteñas with the big bro. In a few hours he continues the journey, arriving in Nairobi tomorrow night (ehem, with all his check bags, hopefully…our climbing gear!).  Then the adventure begins!

So two weekends ago, when I spent a couple days on the mountain, the weather was perfectly clear. Tonight I spent a couple of hours at the Mountain Club of Kenya (MCK…we meet every Tuesday night at the clubhouse at Wilson Airport) to glean any more information. Wellllll…some people were up on the mountain last weekend…snowed into a hut for four days! Yeah! So we will definitely be bringing our rock AND ice gear. This is gonna be great! While at the clubhouse tonight, I also got the key to one of the huts on the mountain that belongs to the MCK, in case we have to do some alternate routing.

For those familiar with the mountain, our game plan is to enter via the Sirimon route from the north. Day 3 will hopefully find us topping out on Point Lenana (the 3rd highest peak). From there, depending upon the weather, we will attempt the technical route up Nelion (2nd highest peak). Depending on the time and how we are feeling (the top of Nelion is 5,188m/17,016ft) we will spend the night directly below the summit of Nelion. Then we will traverse the icy Gate of the Mists, to summit the highest peak, Batian (5,199m/17,052ft).

If the mountain does not allow us an ascent of the twin peaks, there are a myriad of other choices for climbing and trekking, including the lakes, glaciers and other faces to climb. I’m planning to track this entire trip on my gps, which will provide a very interesting visual when we come back out.

The mountain beckons!

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I had a great weekend up on Mount Kenya. I left Nairobi before 6am and arrived at the trailhead by 9:30am. I experienced a mild setback because of a Mount Kenya park regulation that does not allow anyone to enter the park alone. It is a wise regulation based on common sense, but I came alone, so I had spent another 60-90 minutes looking for someone to accompany me on the mountain.

In a small town on the lower slopes of Mount Kenya I met a rastaman working at his bike shop. I figured he might be a good source of information. Njiru was his name, and as it turned out, he was actually a licensed porter (so at least I knew he had been on the mountain before). After explaining that I would be carrying my own pack, that I had my own food, that I would be doing my own cooking, that all I needed was for him to hike with me…and that we needed to start ASAP, he wholeheartedly joined me. However, this ordeal delayed my original plan, so I was unable to hike as far as I had wanted.

I was still able to spend two days on the mountain and gathered some good information for David’s and my upcoming expedition. I only made it to about 4,000m/13,000ft, but was still able to get a decent workout…and I realized that the pair of boots that I had planned to use for our trek gave me horrible blisters. So now I’ll be using a different pair of boots, and I’m hoping that my blisters will heal in the next eight days!

I took a few pictures, and you can see them in my fotoGallery. Unfortunately, throughout the entire weekend there was a smudge on my camera lens, and didn’t realize it until I was back in town…so nearly all of the pictures are a bit blurry in the lower center area.

In this photo: Batian and Nelion, the double-peak of Mt Kenya on the right in the clouds, just poking out above. Up there is where we’ll be next week!

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As zero headway seems to have been made with the Kenyan political situation, life in Nairobi attempts to go on. Businesses are open, traffic has once again filled the streets, but very little is necessary to trigger the tensions that still exist.

With our Kenya program office open again, I have backed away from direct involvement with our relief response, and have been trying to get back on top of the other facets of my job.

I’m looking forward to getting some rest over the weekend…or should I say change. I’m planning to leave Nairobi before dawn tomorrow morning and spend the next couple of days on Mount Kenya. David is still scheduled to arrive here in less than two weeks now, and then the real expedition will begin. But in the meantime, this weekend particularly, I want to spend time doing some high altitude training and scope out our route a little bit. I’m excited to shoulder my pack and be in cool mountain air.

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