Briana's Travels

On Sunday, we left for an overnight trip to Olorgesailie . This is a prehistoric site in southern Kenya where I helped run the excavations and camp for 6 years, from 2004-2010. I was really excited to see many of the Kenyan excavators again, some of whom I haven't seen for many years, as well as for Toby to have his first experience at a real archaeological site - and sleeping in a tent! We (me, Toby, and Ella) first took a taxi to a place called The Hub in Karen, a suburb of Nairobi. The Hub's tag line "more than a mall" is a very appropriate description. There's a place inside the mall similar to a Chuck E. Cheese that was pretty amazing to see. Toby thoroughly enjoyed it! In between the playing, we had a delicious brunch. This is basically Kenya's version of Chuck E. Cheese This was kind of like an electronic whack-a-mole game Toby was really good at this car racing game - he kept winning free games! There were kid-sized motorized ca...

Week 2 was much like Week 1, focused on working in the museum during the week. This post will basically be photos with captions. Next week will be much more varied as it will include an overnight trip to an archaeological field site, a trip to a part of Kenya I've never been to (Baringo) where I'll be helping to facilitate a workshop for Kenyan high school biology teachers on evolution, and then finally - next Sunday - to the field site in central Kenya (Laikipia) where we'll be for the rest of our time in Kenya! Toby marveling at all of the trays of fossils I've studied so far -  everything on the left side of this photo is basically the project I'm working on Contemplating a toy car with an elephant mandible and skull nearby... as one does Toby with a human family tree display Toby likes using my calipers to measure things Toby using my hand lens to look for marks on a fossil Jen showing Toby something on her phone during our lunch ...

We had a productive, tiring, and really fun weekend! We spent Saturday basically doing errands. We basically walked across downtown Nairobi in the morning to go to a repair shop to try to fix a wireless modem (no luck), and we spent the afternoon at one of the local malls (the Sarit Center) getting a new wireless modem, going grocery shopping, etc. A view of a Nairobi street from a pedestrian bridge We walked by a large market downtown Someone has opinions about mangoes, which we eat most nights for dessert Sunday was the fun day. First we went to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Elephant Orphanage , where we got to pet baby elephants! I have been so excited to do this with Toby. We happened to be right near where the elephants walk to get to where they are fed bottles of milk and tree branches, so Toby got to touch one little one when it was walking in, and most of the group of 10 slightly older ones when they were done eating and left to forage in the bush for ...