Let them eat cake

I breakfasted with Martin, from the Kenya office, also attending this workshop, who I first met in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya in 2006 when he was working there and I was doing the field research for my masters degree. It was a nice moment of paths crossing again.

A Kenyan public holiday was announced for today due to the recent death of a former President, and some other groups using the hotel as a venue brought more of a party atmosphere by doing raucous team-building exercises on the lawn. Our proposal-writing workshop continued unabated so we could reach the end of the day with a decent document. Doreen the appointed rapporteur was frantically typing up notes and capturing discussions.

There was enough sunlight left when we wrapped up for some of us to hotfoot it to Karagita Public Beach to check out the lake. Not a place of sandy shores or jauntily angled parasols, this is more of a clamouring fish market, with women trying to fry Nile perch for passersby, gigantic marabou storks picking over trash piles, eerily dead trees from flooding and hustlers hustling people to do boat rides on the lake. We succumbed to a deadpan hustler and had a short boat scoot on Lake Naivasha in the fading light, sidling up (dangerously close) to pods of hippos and seeing gangs of pelicans on the shore. Overall it was very serene.

Later I ate food at the hotel and a woman dining with her boyfriend was suddenly surprised by all of the kitchen staff bursting into a boisterous rendition of happy birthday. They presented her with a cake which she cut up and handed out to all fellow diners. Right place at the right time.