Greetings from Kenya.... where did I leave off on Week 3's adventure? Oh, yes....

Monday, we got up at 5am and were on the road by 6. The sun hadn't come up yet as we bounced our way out of Nakuru and the children were bundled in their parkas. We had a full load - the speakers and keyboard and amp, the keyboard player/interpreter (Ken), Pastor Evance (finally getting to go home to his wife and 5 month old daughter after 3 weeks in Nakuru!), and Mary Njere, the school cook, who has family in Kitale.

The sun was rising behind us, on our right side as we headed out through the countryside. What's the scenery like in Kenya? Imagine starting out your trip in a dustbowl, like New Mexico, or even Oklahoma, and then you come around a corner and you're in the Georgia savannah, and then you climb a hill and the next thing you know, you're in the North Carolina mountains. All in the space of three hours. Lots of cornfields and forests and wide open spaces, all rimmed by mountains.  The red clay here makes Georgia red clay look pale pink in comparison.

We were making great time on our trip, and right around 9am we were cruising into a town called Eldame Rivine, for a quick rest stop and some chai and chipati (flat bread). Just as we pulled off the "highway" (and I use that term loosely for a reason!) the clutch went out. We managed to wend our way through the town to a mechanic Pastor George had used in the past. He set about working on the clutch and noticed that the radiator which I'd fixed on Saturday had two new leaks from the rocks in the road, so he started repairing that too. We spend a lovely morning and early afternoon in Eldame Rivine, wandering the streets, sitting by the post office and people watching and just entertaining ourselves until the car was ready at 2pm. Ken liked our time here so much he asked me to take his picture here to remind him of it!

Underway again, we soon discovered that we only had two gears and could go no more than 40 mph. Did I mention this was the West Kenya mountain country? Our total trip was 19 hours - and the joke at the conference became "it took us this long and we weren't walking"....(because there are people here who actually walk from Nakuru to Bungoma!)

We made it to the next big town, Eldoret by 6pm, with our radiator overheating. In search of coolant, we discovered we had sprung another leak. To understand fully why a radiator would constantly spring leaks, you have to understand Kenya roads. Lets put it this way...potholes are a national symbol here. And the paved road often ends unexpectedly and becomes packed red earth, with rain ravines and huge potholes. And there are these minibuses, called Matatus that run about 80 miles per hour and they have the right of way, which includes them swerving into your lane to avoid a pothole. There are no guard rails and people are walking or biking along the side of the road with loads of rice, water, sugercane, rolled up corragated tin and such, or they are herding their sheep, cows or goats.

So between the edges of the road crumbling in some places so that the two-lane highway is barely a lane wide, and all of the above, it's an interesting "highway" experience. Rocks are constantly being flung up under your car, so the radiator takes a beating. We began stopping every 90 minutes every time the radiator began to overheat, resting, cooling the engine and then refilling it with water and hitting the road again.

After careening over the edge a little too steeply one too many times, and having experienced one too many over-corrections, I calmly inquired, "so, Pastor George.. how long have you been driving?" "I've made this trip once before," he said, before proudly adding "I've been driving since March!" I immediately had a flashback to something I'd read in the East Kenya guidebook I'd bought "be sure to drive with experienced drivers, as Kenya's roads are notoriously bad." I commenced praying even more fervently at that point!

Leaving Eldorat, we had a beautiful sunset to guide us, which lit up the sky with oranges and yellows that stretched out across the horizon and disappeared behind the mountains.

By the time we arrived at Kitale to offload the amp, speakers, Pastor Evans and Mary the cook, it was nearly 10:30. By the time we got back under way, it was nearly 11:30. We arrived in Bungoma at 1:30, pulled up to the hotel gate and the watchman ambled over to see what we wanted. When we informed him we wanted three rooms, he explained that the hotel was full for the next two nights. By now we'd been on the road 19 hours, for a trip that should have taken 8 hours and my patience was stretched to the limit. I politely but pointedly turned to Pastor George and asked the question that was probably said in a tone that was a lot like the tone I use when I ask spiders that all important question: "Do you know Jesus? 'cause you're fixin' to meet him!"... My question was: |You mean to tell me you didn't call ahead and make reservations?" It was a tense moment but we got through it!

By now, in addition to the leaky radiator our reverse gear was acting up again, so it was all we could do to back out and get to another hotel that Pastor George had heard about. It was a lovely place, with cute cottages, called Westgate Inn. They advertised hot showers, which I was overjoyed about. After a short conversation in Swahili, they showed me to my room.

When I went to turn on the shower, I thought I was having trouble figuring out how to use it...turns out, they were having water problems - and there was no water in the room. I put my head against the wall and cried. I've never been so filthy in all my life. My white shirt was nearly black and I had to use my undershirt and hand sanitizer to at least get the grime off my hands and face before I faded under the covers (pulling the mosquito net around me first, of course!

Turns out that Pastor George's adventure was continuing. They didn't have enough other rooms left for what they needed, so he decided to head back into Bungoma town to the house his sister who lives in Nairobi keeps here. They got into her neighborhood, pulled up to the gate and the houseboy wasn't there so they couldn't unlock the gate. Turned out he was taking part in his "cut" ceremony! Pastor George, according to his daughter Irene, put his head down on the steering wheel and cried for a few minutes. With gears crunching and unhappy neighbors peering out of their curtains they managed to back down the drive and get to a gas station to buy some kerosene so they could travel the rest of the way to his mom's house in the country.

Tuesday was a day for sleeping in, then Pastor George and Ken picked me up and we went to tour the hospital site, along with Pastor George's brother Andrew (wearing a "choose peace" t-shirt.

We were greeted by the entire praise and worship team from the Bungoma church and got some great video and still shots. I spoke briefly with them, prayed with them and then did the hospital tour before driving to Pastor George's mom's house where I got to meet Pastor George's mom and two of his 3 remaining sisters, plus 14 youngsters (the children of his late sister and brother, as well as the other siblings' kids).

His mom is a sweetheart. Doesn't speak a word of English and speaks a different language than Swahili. Irene, George's oldest girl did her best to translate, but mostly we just hugged on each other and smiled and patted each other's cheek or hand. We had tea, walked around the compound, which consists of four concrete homes, a latrine, a grain storage silo (which was a five foot tall willow container) and a mud and twig "teenager house" which is where the new "men" will live. We travelled back to the hotel after eating a scrumptious stewed chicken dinner by the light of a hurricane lantern.

Wednesday morning we left Bungoma and travelled 3 hours to Kitale, where the Pastor's Conference is being held. We got to the conference around 11, but they were having sound problems, so we didn't start speaking until noon and finished up around 4pm. Had a late lunch and I crashed while everyone else went out to do an open air crusade. I could hear their speakers all the way in my room, two blocks away.

Today, got up and went to the conference and spoke again. We finished up at 2:30 and I came back and took a nap before lunch. They are still at the open air crusade this evening, and we'll probably have chai and chipati around 9pm again before I head off to bed.

Tomorrow we finish out the conference and then head back to Bungoma so we'll be on the road all day Saturday once we pick up Pastor George's kids. Lavender, his youngest girl (that's Charlie next to her in the van), called him yesterday and said "I don't care if you're not coming back until Saturday, but you need to bring Paula back here because we miss her."

It's always good to know you're missed! And you are missed, for sure!

Upendi ne Amani,

Paula