Travel Day

Today we drove from Nakuru to Nairobi to meet Francis Mbuvi, who had just retuned from the US, at Java house.  He was a little late, but it was great to see the reunion of spouses, separated for the last 6 weeks.  After that we just did some shopping at Nakumat for the guest house and then we returned home to Kamulu.  

So this is not really a blog post, more like a status update.  Thanks for caring.

Londiani 30 May 2012

We slept well last night at the training center.  The widows brought us mandazi (Kenyan Pastry), bread and butter, and chai for breakfast and I covered the last minute details for next week with Thomas.  I think the medical team, and all who visit will really be impressed with what we are doing here.

The training center and Londiani orphanage are about 40miles apart as the crow flies, but it took us 3 hours to get there, that’s 13 miles an hour.  Today’s roads were the worst ones we have seen on this trip.  The road from Dirubi to Kericho is OK, but then there is the killer diversion again, 1 hour to go 5km.  The Londiani road has always been bad, but they are working on it now.  The Chinese road crew is building a really nice highway, but some of their detours are downright scary.  Check out the photos on Facebook (facebook.com/kwoministries) for some pics of the road and us crossing a Lego block bridge!

As we approached Londiani, we passed the Chysliot Feeding Station, but we did not have time to stop.  Richard Koech knew we would be passing by, so he had all his kids dressed in their Sunday best, run out to the road to greet us.  It wasn’t a fair trick, but we stopped by the side of the road and spoke to them for a few minutes. 

Londiani looked really good.  We spent some time with the nurse who will be joining all of us at the training center next week for some training with the American doctors.  They have a microscope at Londiani and can do malaria, typhoid, and some other tests on the spot.  Mauryn volunteered to do a malaria test for us so we could see the process.  Pretty neat.  They have made some good improvements to the kitchen there as well.  We met with the widows and loved on the kids.  It was a great visit.

We left there happy but tired and made our way back to Nakuru to stay at the Kunste.  We will go back to Nairobi in the morning and meet Francis Mbuvi, fresh back from the US, at the Java House for our weekly fix.  More tomorrow.

Training Institute

The Kenyan power company teased us last night with the power coming on and off.  This resulted in a cold shower and blogging by flashlight; very African.  This morning the power was on and we were on our way to the Training Institute.

 

In case you are behind, let me update you.  Last year we decided to do something about the orphans who were graduating from secondary school and leaving our orphanages.  We built the training institute across from our first orphanage at Dirubi to teach our kids life skills and trades to help them find employment and break the cycle of poverty in their families.

 

Now the center is open and we are using the location to host a medical clinic next week and training for all of our orphanage nurses from the American doctors who are coming.  We will have 14 mzungu (white people) here next week so I wanted to make sure that everything was ready to receive them.  I'm happy to report that everything is in hand and will be ready for our visitors next week.

 

Susie, Mauryn, and I are staying here tonight, though our generator hookup is not quite ready, hence the flashlights.  The guest houses will be fine for all of us.  The water is flowing, the toilets are flushing, and we may even have hot water in the showers. 

 

To make sure we had what was needed, we made a quick afternoon trip to Kisumu to the Nakumat City Mega store.  If you have read this blog before, you may remember my love for our Wal-Mart wannabe, Nakumat.  This store has a little bit of everything, like Wal-Mart, but not as big a selection.  There are dozens of Nakumat across Kenya, but the granddaddy of them all is the one in Kisumu.  You could put the Midland Wal-Mart and Sam's inside it!  We were just able to stay for a short time however, to buy a generator and some household items for the guest house. 

 

We took Thomas and his wife Sharon with us shopping.  It was fun to watch Sharon open up and flex her shopping muscles with Mauryn and Susie.  Thomas dropped a bomb on us by revealing that Sharon is pregnant again.  She's due in August, and they are hoping for a girl.  Great news!

 

Driving back, we just made it back to Dirubi before dark, after a brief rain shower.  This is the tail end of the rainy season here, so everything is gloriously green and slightly muddy.  The rain didn't cause us any problems today, though.  We were back in time to share evening devotional with the orphanage kids at Dirubi.  This has become my favorite time in Kenya.  The medical team will be blessed to share it with us next week.

 

Tomorrow we are on to Londiani, staying the night at the Kunste Hotel in Nakuru.  Then Thursday we are back to Nairobi to reunite Maureen with her traveling husband Francis Mbuvi, who has been in the US for the last six weeks.

Back to Kenya

 We arrived last night safe and sound with all of our bags.  In itself that is a small miracle.  The trip was hectic, with short layovers and very long security lines in London, but we made it.  Joel from Made in the Streets and Mauryn picked us up from the airport.  The drive to Kamulu at night has been my first view of Kenya every time I have travelled here.  This time it seemed very familiar.  Gone is the feeling of differentness; this is another home for me now.

This morning we got to spend a few minutes with Jay and Remy before they went to school, then we saw the Coulstons before we drove into Nairobi for a Nakumat run.  (Yes, I drove.  No one died.)  The new bypass highways around Nairobi make getting out of the city a lot quicker.  Even with the Village Market diversion, we were out of Nairobi faster than I have ever been.

We drove on to visit our fiends at the Kikitemo feeding station.  No longer internally displaced persons, they are now landowners and their generosity combined with yours has resulted in the construction of our newest feeding station.  The buildings are nearing completion, with some finishing work and the floor still needed in the Dining Hall, and the Kitchen is only waiting on the mortar to dry in the new stoves.  They are excellent stoves that will save us a lot of fuel cooking for the orphans and widows.  The new cho was just ready to use, and Susie got to be the very first one.  They used a kikoi (big scarf) for a door since the wooden ones were not on yet, but she was fine. 

The Kikitemo residents had relocated their structures to their new plots and were already busy clearing ground for planting.  The man from GEMA, a tribal organization, came by to see the progress.  He noticed our vehicle and just stopped in.  He helped the Kikitemos purchase this land and was happy to see so much progress.  When we met the first time he seemed a little skeptical that we would actually build what we said we would, but today he quipped, “You weren’t joking, where you?”  I told him we never joke about saving orphans and widows.

The drive out to Kericho was beautiful.  The rains are just ending, we got a little shower but not much, and the country is colored so many shades of green it’s hard to describe.  Coming from brown and dusty Midland, green looks awful good.  Susie got some amazing pics shooting from the window as we navigated the world’s longest detour, arriving at Kericho at sunset.

(Picassa Web Albums are messed up, again.  Go to either my or the KWO Facebook Page to see the pics.)

Tomorrow we go on to the training institute to make sure all is ready for our medical team next week.  If you are reading this guys, get ready for an amazing time.  This place is beautiful and there is much work to be done.