Nairobi , Kenya Part 2

Day two in Nairobi was still very surreal. I was in the Motherland, and everyone was really happy about it.  The hotel rooms are European influenced, and the bathrooms come equipped with long, semi-high walled bathtubs and bidets.
 
The hotel’s breakfast was unbelievable!!!!  With the exception of water (which all are advised to stick to drinking only the bottled water at all times), every juice from orange, pineapple, apple, etc., is freshly squeezed every morning. All the breakfast food is presented in a buffet style and it is all good. It was the first time I had spinach added to my omelet, and I repeated that each day after the first time. The food was phenomenal, and I’m not just saying that because we spent long hours in rehearsal. There are all types of restaurants in the hotel. They cater to the different types of people who could stop through. There is a Chinese, Italian and Indian restaurant.  You can also enjoy shopping in your choice of tourist souvenir shops on the first floor, near the main lobby. Also, there is a boutique and other specialty shops on the second floor of the public lobby area.

Food service is very different than in most American cities. Because you are about 8-9 hours ahead of what you’d normally be used to, the pace of the day is quite different. Everything is much more relaxed, but it is all well worth it when the food comes to your table.
 
Most of my time was spent in rehearsals in what is normally used for the hotel’s 5 Star Restaurant. We were fine tuning for the two days of singing we were scheduled to do before our pastor spoke. The air was really crisp. The temperature in Nairobi in late September, early October is much like Spring is in the U.S. The day’s highs come to about 70 degrees and the nights lows are from 55-60 degrees. It feels quite tropical. At night, you don’t really need the air conditioning. If your room is high enough for your liking, you can sleep with the windows open for the fresh, crisp air. The altitude is much higher in Nairobi than in Texas so I think we avoided nighttime humidity.  
 
On our first day of recording (the third day), we had breakfast in grand fashion and then were given the opportunity to get our make-up done by make-up artists, some of whom had worked on the movie “Hotel Rwanda.” Once that was finished, we all gathered for our bus rides to Uhuru Park, where we would record. The crowds could be seen walking to the park as we rode to the site. There were so many people. As we came through they bashfully waved. Once we started singing, we could see people climbing the trees and enjoying the music perched in the limbs with no fear.  (More to come.)