I Only Stay In The Nicest Places

I Only Stay in the Nicest Places

For sometime now, I have promised more information about what I do exactly in Kenya. Some have wanted to know how it all got started, but that's for another time. I thought it was time to talk about the good stuff of Kenya, the amazing people, the children and also a bit about what it's like for me over there.

A few years ago the former chairman of the board suggested that I keep a journal, and so on each trip I recount my adventures. This is helpful for several reasons. One it keeps me from going nuts being alone for such long periods of time, and two it now can keep you informed of one woman's adventures trying to save a small part of the planet. The following comes from my latest trip in August of 2007.

15 August 2007
Nairobi, Kenya
The morning breaks cold and dreary. My room overlooks the highway and the matatus and trucks growl by emitting foul smelling exhaust. There are no emission controls here in Nairobi. I arrived very late on 13 August. As usual nothing is easy here. We were just about to land in Nairobi when we were diverted to Dar Es Salaam. Airport in Nairobi was closed because of a crash. So I got to spend 6 hours in Tanzania with a group of upset tourists. I am so used to it by now, that I’m not even fazed by an extra 8 hours onto my 24 hour trip. Or at least I thought so until I got to the Hotel and collapsed for an entire 24 hours.

My phone had expired as well (yeah of course it had) so I needed a new sim card and to call all my contacts here and give them the number. Big Francis is dead. No one wants to tell me how. John and Little Francis say everything is safe here in Kenya and I guess it’s what it has always been. John and Francis are Kikuyu and so there is tribal pride in saying all is well. I know there's tribal stuff going on in Mt. Elgon which is only 60 miles from our site. And the Mungiki were splashed all over the paper a couple of months ago. They even killed some of Kibaki's family, but then the police stormed one of the slums and summarily shot a lot of them. Little Francis will be my driver in Nambale. He will drive to Kisumu and then drive me for the 6 days I will be there. I love little Francis, we have become fast friends over the past couple years. He has had tinted glass put in his car and really fixed it up so it will be fine. But I always feel that little tug that tells me that they don’t want me to know everything. I am the muzungu ergo the outsider.

I spoke to Charles (our liaison officer) as well yesterday. He seems enthusiastic about the plans for the schools, but I realized if we don’t have some leader on the ground in Nambale to help encourage the people, they are not very well motivated. Perhaps it is my poor spirits right now, or my newfound skepticism, but I shall be most curious to see what progress if any they have made towards plans for making the program work. I shall also be asking for all the receipts, not just the ones for One Village, but I want to see what the schools themselves have spent for feeding the children. I should have thought about that earlier, but I just got so busy with our paperwork stateside, I forgot about this. Ah well, the joys of working in Africa.



Ok, I just have to laugh. I just got off the phone with Charles. I told him that I would need to see allthe receipts from the schools including what the parents had been contributing and he will take care of that. He said he thought that that would be a good idea. I also discussed with him that I had a driver from Nairobi which was expensive and that we could feed more children if we got someone from Nambale. In typical,” I’m not gonna tell you the whole truth fashion”, Charles assured me that it was a good idea for me to have a trusted person so that I would be “well taken care of”, which I translate as someone I know who will protect me. Gosh trying to figure out all the subtleties of this is exhausting. I later found out there are no cars to speak of in Nambale and everyone gets around on foot or boda-bodas (bicycles) which is really dicey now because of the rains and flooding.

Ah the end of another zany day in Kenya. Solomon (the new driver since Francis is busy racing to Kisumu) drove like a formula 1 driver though the continuous Nairobi traffic and smog to get me to the airport today.The trip to Kisumu was rather uneventful, which given my past history with this airport, is a blessing. When I landed it was wonderful to see Daniel’s smiling face and also Francis. We burbled along the pothole infested road till we got to a good spot and then it was pretty fair sailing. The guys were talking in the front about the dangers in Kericho and that no one travels that road at night alone. Gosh I was glad to have both my men in the car because it was dark. We traveled along until we were almost at Busia when I called Charles who informed me that we didn’t have rooms at the Blue York, they were full. Ok, I asked Charles to book these rooms 3 months ago and I spoke to him only an hour ago and there was no mention of no rooms. We were being re-directed to a fascinating place called Farmview, a bigger dump than either the Walimu or the Widda. Trust me I’m glad Francis is on one side of me and Daniel on the other. It is creepy and filthy.

The guys were hungry so we went to the kitchen at 9:30P and the games got really good. We ordered fish, and ten minutes later the waiter came and said it would take too long would we like chicken.The men translated that as they had no fish but didn't want to tell us. It's funny to watch the politesse here and how we can laugh at it. The guys really wanted fish, but though on the menu, not to be had. The men had chicken I had eggs and it still took 35 minutes. However I was able to glean a lot of information about Busia which is the largest town near Nambale. We had looked into helping with another project being built here but the info I got while waiting for a couple of eggs was worth the price of admission. (Well, sort of the place was really gross).
Daniel explained that no one would come to a retreat here because it is a border town and folks are just drifting through, it is not a destination. And it is butt ugly. And drinking or the lack thereof is not really a draw since both men observed that only drunks need a place to drink, regular people wouldn’t go to such places.

The bathroom here is caught in photos. I’m glad K and her mother didn’t see it.She was supposed to come on this trip, but I thought it would be too dangerous.
Night y’all

1