Lazy Day in Nairobi Town

Today was a quiet day. I went with Francis to take the Chreechs and
Seth to the airport for their 10am flight to the Masi Mara. I'm sure
for them it was an eventful day, but since I won't see them until
Saturday evening, I won't be able to relay anything about them in the
blog.

Francis had some errands to run I Nairobi, and since I was at leisure,
I tagged along. Made in the Streets, the ministry that Francis works
with, has been trying to get a container that was shipped from the US
cleared and delivered here to Kamulu since December. Apparently a
combination of Africa lack of concern about timeliness coupled with a
dock workers strike and mountains of paper work made it a very
difficult process. But today, Francis (who everyone calls Mbuvi) and
I slayed that dragon.

After a quick trip to Barclays, the bank of choice in eastern Africa,
we headed to the Kenyan Customs House near the airport in Nairobi. I
waited in the van for a couple of hours while Francis and his agents
battled the demons of bureaucracy. Then it was a trip across the
compound to the Kenyan port authority, where we waited, refused to
bribe, and finally cajoled a worker to load the container on a truck
for delivery. The container finally made it safely to Kamulu and the
MITS staff was enjoying their new small tractor and other donated
pieces of small machinery for the farm.

That blew most of the day until supper, when the WBS workers began
trickling in from the far reaches of Kenya. I got to meet most of
them before my mazunga legs finally gave out and here I sit. Tomorrow
Maureen and I hold meetings with them and I try my best to get to know
them and what they do. Should be interesting.