travelling upcountry 20 Feb

6 am Friday is an ungodly hour. I know pilots are used to hours like this, but let’s face it. I am not a morning person. So when I had to be out the door 10 minutes before 6 to meet Rosemary at 6, I was not entirely thrilled. Especially since Rosemary didn’t show up until at least 6:30. African time versus Mzungu time, I guess. So Angie and I were looking forward to a nice relaxed car ride.

When Rosemary pulled up, I realized something that had escaped her mind when talking about the trip. Her daughter, Betty, would be joining us. So instead of 3 people plus driver, we are up to 4 people plus driver in a little Nissan. Did I mention that the trunk was already full of stuff? Angie’s bag fit, but mine did not, as well as another bag we had to take out for some reason. A little fuzzy on those details, as it was 6:30 in the morning and I was trying to calculate how much space I would actually have in the back of the little car for however long the journey would be.

So the bags went in the car with us, and we folded ourselves in. Rosemary told me that the roads have improved significantly, and a journey that used to take 10-11 hours would be down to 6 or 7. I dozed in and out of sleep for the next two hours while we went from Nairobi to Nakuru. We stopped for tea in Nakuru around 9:30. I was perfectly content without stopping, but if Rosemary says stop, we stop.

From Nakuru we went to Kisumu. We passed through Molo, where a fuel truck tipped over a few weeks before. The Kenyans did not heed the warnings of petrol being dangerous, and hundreds of people rushed in for free gas. An explosion killed over 100 people. Next we went through Kechiro, the tea plantation land. I could definitely live there. Rolling hills, covered in green, cool air, reminded me of the northwest. After tea land, we descended through sugar cane land before hitting the rice fields.

In Kisumu, we stopped at a big Nakumatt for, well, I am not entirely sure. Angie and I took the opportunity to buy a little water for the rest of the journey, as well as a few snacks, as it was well past lunch time. This was around 2 in the afternoon.

From there, we continued west. All I knew is that we were headed to the general vicinity of Lake Victoria, and Uganda. About 25 km from the Ugandan border, and 2 hours later, we turned off the main road. The road we turned onto was, well, an adventure. Half the time I was waiting for a lion to come out of the bushes and pounce on our car. The other half the time, my mind was drawing up images of primitive tribal villages, and hoping human sacrifice wasn’t terribly common anymore. A few thoughts of getting stuck came up, but I tried not to dwell on the 4 wheel drive that we didn’t have.

After a half hour of bumping along the awful road, we came into Port Victoria, Kenya. Then we passed through, into the real village. We turned off the dirt road into a bit of a field, which was sort of a driveway. The car pulled up to a house and stopped around 5 pm. If you have been keeping up with time, that means it was about a 10 hour trip, considering we didn’t leave until 7 am. That is African time for you!

valentines day weekend

I used to hate valentines day. Somewhere between the mass produced greeting cards, saturated fat, and pink, I find myself really questioning the point of this holiday. But I had a really good valentines day this year. I don’t think it had anything to do with being halfway around the world, or the lifepoint guys buying me a rose. I think it had everything to do with a group of kids I got to visit.

I went to Feed the Children’s Abandoned Babies Center (ABC) in the Daghoretti area of Nairobi. The first thing we did was meet with Sanje (not spelled right, but that’s how it is said) who is the director of the center. She explained how the whole center works, and how much it costs to fund the center.

For the first 6 months that the kids are there, extensive research is done to see if they can find the family, and if the family is capable of taking care of the kid. They do everything they can to get the kid to a family. But that is not always possible, hence the center. Many of the kids are disabled, so it is understandable that the parents don’t have the means to take care of them.

We walked into the first cottage, where all the babies who don’t walk yet stay. Talk about heart breaking. They are all so cute, have done nothing wrong, and yet mommy and daddy aren’t around. We were told not to pick any of the babies up for two reasons: we wouldn’t be able to put them down, and it would be abandonment all over again for the kids. I sat down and a few babies held onto my finger… then Sanje told us it was time to go. I almost refused to leave. That was the hardest part of the entire thing.

We went through the rest of the center, stopping to see a performance by some of the older kids. A lot of the kids stay at the center during the week, but go home on the weekends. These kids stayed the whole weekend just to perform for us. They have been to Italy to raise funds for a new cottage. They want to go to America to see Obama. I hope they do, they are incredible, and there message is powerful.

Shadrach, a kid who can’t walk, stands up and hobbles around while he narrates a story. (he has a POWERFUL voice) The moral of their presentation comes from an old African saying: it takes a village to raise a child. So the presentation talks about the global community. And if that global community is sitting around watching TV, who is raising the children? I can tell you the message, but nothing is as powerful as 30 kids, some disabled, singing about where life has left them.

Feed the children also has a food distribution center on that compound, so we visited the warehouse where they load the trucks. Three of the kids were hanging out with us as the workers educated us on the process. One girl, named Fortune, is in desperate need of a kidney at age 8. One kidney is completely shut down, and the other is barely working. Transplant is not available for her in Kenya, but she could go to Europe or somewhere where she could get the necessary surgery if someone would fund it. Please pray for her. It really broke my heart to see such a beautiful young girl who needs that help.

We headed back downtown to check out a market before going to the hotel to get ready for dinner. That market was quite an experience… but that is a story for another time. We went out for a very good Italian Valentines day dinner. I spent the night with Katie B, and we went on Safari at Lake Nakuru on Sunday. Saw lots of Aminals… water buffalo, zebras, gazelles, impalas, warthogs, pelicans, flamingos, hyenas, baboons, rhinos, a lion, a couple giraffes, and a bunch others. Then we went to Lake Navasha for a short boat ride to see hippos. Kind of scary… but at least our boat had a motor!! Our guide informed us that the hippos usually go after fisherman who are in boats that don’t have motors, cause they can’t get away as fast.

Quite the weekend!!

people

here is a link to the album of some of the people I have been working and hanging out with! http://picasaweb.google.com/wind.rider.05/AfricaPeople02?authkey=z5yOO_Hszg0#

also a few more in the old album!

Mama Rosemary explained to me the novelties of crosswalks. To someone who is used to playing frogger in the streets of Nairobi, I can see how incredible it is that cars will stop at a simple push of a button. Because of the Lifepoint people being here this weekend, I wont be going to the orphanage till next weekend.

I am excited to see the team from Lifepoint. I will be spending tomorrow and Sunday with them. It will be amazing to see familiar faces. They go home Sunday night.

This week I spent most of my time working on the project plane. Last week, I helped take apart the landing gear of the DC-3, and worked on stripping the paint out to get ready for painting it. It was a good experience, but after a day and a half of paint stripper, I had enough. It wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t burn about 2 seconds after it hit skin. Anything that peels paint after 5 minutes surely can’t be healthy to touch.

I finally felt like I really got my feet under me this week. I had just been hanging on the past several weeks, just trying to keep track of which way is up. Now I feel like I have established myself, even though I am still a new mechanic.

I helped load a caravan this week. Well, mostly stood there and watched while the guys threw around the heavy things. The big things were solar panels, huge batteries, and refrigerators. It makes sense that the fridge needs power to run, but I really didn’t put all the pieces together until I started talking to the guy who was taking the cargo to its remote destination. He was talking about his buddy that is a solar engineer, then he started talking about the clinics. The remote clinics can get the medication they need to treat AIDS problems, but they can’t store it, because they don’t have any way to refrigerate it. It really reminded me of how much good aviation is doing in these remote areas of the world.

4 February

“How do you find Kenya?” Chris asked.
“I like it here,” I answered honestly.
“But you come from the land of opportunity!” He protested, implying that Kenya didn’t have much to offer an American. America may be considered the land of opportunity, but there is more to the world than a single country can offer. Besides, that country is not so opportune when my friends with a 4 year bachelors degree cannot find a job because of the economical situation. Later they were asking if I planned to come back to Kenya after I graduate from University. I told them I hope to, but it will be a long time.

I think I proved myself to them yesterday. We are doing major maintenance on the DC-3. And by major, I mean that we are completely disassembling the landing gear. I don’t know what all we are going to be doing to this plane, but that is what we were working on yesterday. I broke 900 in. lbs of torque, taking a bolt off. They were quite impressed that I could do that.

The ladies retreat last weekend was fun, but I didn’t really know anyone there, so I spent a lot of time off reading on my own. I met someone from Independence, OR. And Jan Smith, one of the Missionaries in Residence at LeTourneau from my freshman and sophomore year, was there! She and her husband are back in Africa as the AIM executive directors of the Eastern region, living in Nairobi. It was SO good to see a familiar face, and to talk to her about everything that has happened at LeTourneau since their departure. I want to go to the coast before I leave, and she would love to go with me. Let the plotting begin… :)

Monday I was working on the project plane. Two 206s, circa 1980s, were purchased and disassembled in the states. The first one is reassembled, and has been flying this week. The second one still has a long ways to go. I got to do some riveting on it before we started making cargo tie downs out of stainless steel. I enjoy working with aluminum. Most of aircraft structures are aluminum, and it is really easy to work with. Not so with stainless steel. It is difficult to cut, easy to burn, really hard to drill, especially when in the vicinity of aluminum, and generally difficult to work with. So we fought our way through those. I was going to continue on them yesterday morning, but they pulled me off to work on the DC-3.

For lunch we went to the bucket lady. I honestly don’t think I will be eating there again. I had to stop working around 3:45 because I did not feel well. I was not able to eat dinner, and almost threw up several times last night. I didn’t ever lose it, but I really thought I was going to. I did not go to work today because of it.

I got adopted by a Kenyan Mama. She works the reception desk, and she is Mama to most of the ladies that work there. She is the type who is praying for Mr. Right for Beth and Grace, and after they find there Mr. Right, then Michelle. Since I am her newest born, I will be the last to be married off. Michelle was her youngest, and she got all the chocolate from Mama. So when Mama informed Michelle that I would be getting all the chocolate, Michelle expressed great sorrow over her loss.

Mama works with an HIV/aides orphanage. 150 kids who have lost their parents to aides. I am going to go out with her one weekend to meet the kids and spend some time with them. So those of you who wanted to adopt a kid, I am sure I will find plenty for you :) Don’t worry, I will take lots of pictures!

Ok… back to homework!!