Arrival!

Well after about 48 hours I’ve arrived in Shinyalu Kenya! It was quite a trip.
First stop was London for a twelve hour layover. I accomplished much, tea
with the queen and a quick address to parliament….. wait I think that may have
been Obama’s schedule.
I did get to see the British Museum and wander around the Soho district
(kind of the arts district of London) for a while. The British Museum is like
Denver or Chicago’s art museum…. Just on steroids.

Once in Nairobi I pretty easily met some of the people I’m working with and they
directed me to the bus station to pick up a bus. It was a ten hour trip but I got to
meet some interesting people. The bus trip would have been quicker but we were
transporting desks and a motorcycles on the top of our bus…. And it takes a hell of a
long time to lower a motorcycle off of the top of a bus when you have rope and crappy
ladders to work with.
I was the only mzungu (white person) on the bus and I think all the passengers thought
I was crazy. We stopped for food in the town of Nakuru and while there it started
raining. As everyone else ran for shelter there I was standing and enjoying something
that seldom happens in Denver. Of course the downside of standing out and enjoying the
rain is that you are completely drenched!

I am now living in the town of Shinyalu Kenya. It consists of a small town center and
many surrounding farms. Despite its small size it has become famous due to the death
of a member of parliament who grew up here. There has been funeral celebrations the
last few days including bull fights, dancing, speeches, etc. all going into the wee
hours of the morning.

The work I do ranges from teaching reading skills to primary school students to working
in the garden area to playing football (not the American variety) at an orphanage. The
people I work with are a Quaker based group the house volunteers. It is very nice,
there is occasionally electricity and running water (kind of).

I’m not sure how easily I will be able to load pictures on this blog due to the
slowness of the internet but we’ll see….. I am using my camera this time though and
have taken some pictures (although none during the bus ride across Kenya…. It didn’t
seem like a good idea to pull out a digital camera on a cheap bus packed full of people).