Dad's trip to Kenya

Hey guys so I asked my Dad to write blog of his trip like Erica did when she visited. I like do this because things I take to granted this days are thing others have not seen. I have put a few comments in where it is will say (John:…..) Well I will just let you read it and stop talking making it any bigger since this has to be the longest blog post in 2 years!!






As per John's request following is a blog of the trip that I took to Kenya to see him. I arrived on Tuesday, September 16, 2010 and left on Monday, September 27, 2010. As you will see John did a wonderful job of arranging everything. On this trip, I put my entire safety and well being in his hands. He exceeded my expectations. John seems to enjoy the people there and I see that he has their respect not only for being a Peace Corps volunteer, but for being who he is. Before I get into the trip, I would like to talk about some incites that I got of him and from him while I was there. I was really impressed on how much he had learned about fish farming. He has also helped build some large farms for the fish to be produced in. There is a lot to growing fish the right way. He told me that the biggest thing that the people don't seem to get is that they need to feed the fish well when they are young and growing. Many times they wait until the fish are older. When they are approaching maturity, it is too late to make them grow much. John also expressed to me that it is frustrating to him on how the Kenyans try to do too many things. The attention to detail then gets lost. Where if they concentrated their efforts and attention to one thing (such as fish farming) they could excel in that.

He is also involved in an Eco-tourism project. There is a breathtaking hill (term is used loosely, more like a small mountain) that you will hear about in my blog that John took me to. He has helped clear paths for this, build benches, and is working on a brochure to promote it. My impression, it is a challenging trip up and worth the effort. My only concern is for the safety and well being of the people going on this long hike. There is many opportunities to fall and break a leg or get seriously injured. If that would occur out in the middle of this walk, it would be very difficult to get the person somewhere for medical attention. Other than that, I only have positive things to say about it.
He is also working on a project with the library to get their books organized. He had me bring colored labels so they could categorize their books.
The other project he is working on I think is really cool. He is planning on making a painting of the world globe on the wall of one of the schools in his village. I can't wait to see pictures of it when it is done!

John lives a simple life there and seems to be at peace with it for the most part. There is no power lines in his village, the only people that have power have solar power. He did say however that they are getting regular power soon. Unfortunately he will most likely not be there to see it. He told me that there has been times that he has had more dead time than he would like to have. He has filled this time lately by going to help at the hospital that Erica worked at when she was there. At present, he really looks forward to fantasy football. Sound like he is doing well with it. I am indeed proud of him for his attitude and what he has accomplished.
　
Tuesday 9-16-10. All flights to Kenya were on time. On the flight from Chicago was asked by a man to trade seats so he could sit by his wife. He had a fire exit seat with lots of room, this was a no brainer.

Everything went smooth. Arrived in Amsterdam about 45 minutes early. Had a lot of time before my next flight to check out the airport. There was a lot of interesting shops . I also sampled a apple crisp and coffee which were very good. A woman came up to me asking where the gate for the Nairobi flight was. She was a black woman and wore what looked to be a nun’s habit. As I was directing her, I asked her if she was a nun. She responded "what’s a nun?". Later I found out in talking to John about it that she was a Muslim and that is their traditional dress. It is rather funny how the cigarettes I saw at the airports in Nairobi and Amsterdam said plainly in English "smoking will kill you". I guess they don’t have a surgeon general. On the trip from Amsterdam to Nairobi I also lucked out, no one sat in the middle seat. The person seated by me was a recent Bradley graduate. Going to do mission work in Nairobi. She said her sister graduated in 07. I asked John if he knew her, but he did not.
When I arrived at the airport in Nairobi it was very confusing. I asked one of the employees there what to do. She walked me across the airport and showed me where to go. While waiting for my bags, I texted John on a phone that I got from Erica to tell him I was there. A few minutes later he called me and welcomed me to Kenya. Getting my visa and through customs was very quick. The interesting thing about the visa was that they finger printed all 10 fingers (they re-checked them on one hand on the way out) with an electronic device. I just presented the form to customs, she looked at it for about 10 seconds and told me welcome to Kenya. I then went across the street to the street to the domestic terminal which was very small. We boarded on time but sat on the run way for about a half an hour with no explanation for the delay. I sat next to an African lawyer. He told me that many times they are delayed because they are waiting for someone important. Finally, we took off. When I got to the airport in Mombasa around midnight on the 14th (after traveling about 8,200 miles) I couldn’t wait to see John! I got to the closest spot I could where the bags were coming out and grabbed them as fast as I could and rushed to the exit. Once outside there was a cleared area of the parking lot that people were standing outside of. Pushing my cart, I ran across the parking lot to give John a big hug! I was finally there! John had arranged for a taxi driver to take us to the hotel. The ride to the hotel was driven very fast by the taxi driver swerving to avoid other vehicles, what worried me most was that I saw the gas gauge was on empty, hoping he would not have us stranded at night. Once we got to the hotel I gave John some things he had asked me to bring him and things from others. He said it was like Christmas for him. We stayed up talking until 2 am talking and then decided it was time to get some sleep. The hotel room was interesting to say the least. The lock to get into it was a small padlock in a hasp. Once inside the first thing I noticed were the giraffe curtains, very African looking. John said he was thrilled to have a room with a TV in it. The TV was mounted to the wall enclosed by a medal frame with a padlock on it 3 times the size of the one on the door to enter the room. There were 2 beds in the room, each had a mosquito net on it that hangs from the ceiling to make a tent over us. There were no screens on the windows and some of them couldn’t be closed. I noticed that the toilet had no seat on it. John said to get used to that as most Kenyan toilets don’t have them (at least this one was above floor level!). So no sitting in the bathroom and reading there.

Wednesday 9-15. I got to see part of Kenya. We went there by matatu, which you see many of in Kenya. It is a 14 passenger (sometimes made into 18 passenger) van with a conductor that hangs his head out of the window soliciting riders. It is an economical but crazy way to get around, very interesting. We went to an animal park in Mombasa. One of the first things I noticed that there was several monkeys running around all over the place. One of the main attractions was being able to feed the giraffes. They were behind a wall for safety because they can be prone to kicking. They bent their heads over the wall so you feed them what looked like large rabbit pellets. They ate out of your hand. Nothing like feeling of giraffe slobber on your hands! They have big tongs we got pictures and videos of this. Then two of the 3 giraffes did something totally discussing, of which I will not share you the details.(John: since my dad with not I will..one giraffe told a drink of the others pee while it was coming out!) John cracked me up saying he never saw that before and he exclaimed "There are some things you just don’t want to know!". The giraffe food was in a bin for people to grab. The monkeys kept coming up to it and grabbing as much as they could and stuffing it in their mouth. One had so much, that he couldn’t chew it before spitting most of it out because his month was too full to chew. Quite entertaining. We also saw huge turtles here that were over 100 years old and expected to live to be 250 to 300! Also there was this huge bird there with long legs that walked slowly. I wanted to take a picture but he kept walking away. Upon John’s arguing I followed him asking him to stop. To my surprise, he did! He posed for me while I took his picture. Unreal and funny. The foliage was neat there and we picked up a few neat things for Shreya at the gift shop. One being a book about a hippo there who developed a friendship with one of the big turtles. After that, we went back to the hotel. The trip had caught up with me and I crashed for about an hour before we had pizza for dinner and then attempted to watch a movie on John’s computer. We didn’t finish, we were both too tired. During the evening I heard some chanting on a blaring loud speaker on the street. I asked John what it was and he explained that it was a Muslim call to prayer for Ramadan. Pretty annoying, hard to ignore, and played several times with different messages in Arabic.

On Thursday 9-16. John took me to Fort Jesus. A very interesting place. It was built in 1593 by the Portuguese. When we arrived (it was within walking distance of where we stayed) there was police with semi automatic rifles all over the place. We were initially told we couldn’t see it because some dignitaries from parliament were visiting. Then we were told that we could enter in about an hour. So we went shopping in the area around the fort known as old town. There were many interesting shops with interesting people. I was impressed by John’s bargaining skills for a t-shirt. He told the guy the price he wanted to pay and the guy at the shop kept trying to go higher. So John told him he would look at different shops and if they didn’t do better he would come back. So the guy says to John which shirt do you want for 50 shillings above John’s price? John told him the one that is the price that I want to pay. The guy finally caved and gave John his price. He sure is a good negotiator! We both continued to shop and picked up a few interesting things. Then we went to Ft. Jesus. It was named this because it was built in the shape of a man, Jesus. We had a tour guide that gave us some very interesting history about it. Also while we were out John showed me a huge elephant tusk shaped arch that cars drive though, it was pretty cool. We then had dinner at an Indian buffet that John had eaten at before. It was different, but good. Though out the day we also took opportunities to have fresh mango and passion juice, very good! Though out those days we have also had a lot of time to talk and catch up of things. During the day I also got to sample their corn on the cob. It was very different from ours. They roasted it on open fires the texture and taste was very different. It was not sweet like our corn was, and it was slightly hard (It is the “white corn” rather than the “yellow corn” people eat in the U.S). I would explain it as being somewhere between our corn on the cob and corn nuts in texture. Butter not offered with it.

Friday 9-17 was go snorkeling day! It started with my first ride on a tuktuk which is basically a 3 wheeled economical taxi. It feels like and sounds like an over sized go cart. 2 wheels on back and 1 on the front. The tuktuk took us to a station for matatus where we would get one going to the beach. After about 40 min ride, he dropped us off by this group of small stores. John called our snorkeling guide and in a few minutes he came walking up to us. He took us to his office for supplies; it had 3 locks on the door. John connected with this guy through another guy that is a Peace Corps Volunteer. This was part of an Eco-tourism project. The guide said he would walk us to the beach and would take us the short way . It turned out to be about a 35 min walk. On our way, a young boy came racing down the path on his by cycle. We dodged him but a baby goat was not so lucky. He knocked the goat down, ran over the middle of him, and continued on his way. To our surprise, the goat got up cried (John: I never saw any tears) a bit and went on his way. We passed many houses and mud huts on the way. It was interesting . He guided us through the water to show us the good spots. There were many awesome fish and coral to look at. He was very friendly and knowledgeable; with his long dreadlocks I thought he looked more Jamaican than African to me. John and I proceeded to spend a little time on the beach after snorkeling and after getting sunburned we then took another matatu back to Mombasa. John showed me an area where there was a lot of sidewalk shops, but most of them were clothes. They were narrow ally ways where you had to constantly move out of the way to avoid being run over by vehicles coming through. John wound up bargaining his way to get some Indian spices to bring back to his village. From there we came back to the hotel showered up and had dinner.

Saturday 9-18. I also noticed the towels at the hotel in Mombasa were very course, like sand paper. As we were getting ready to leave the hotel my watch band broke. It was driving me nuts without it on my wrist. Also in Mombasa as it is so hot there, John showed me something that was a treat for him. There was an ATM in a small air conditioned room. He liked being in there and air conditioning is not common in Kenya. Another thing I found interesting was John pointed out that on TV, the news caster stands there and reads the news paper to you. We got our bags packed up to head out towards John’s village, Wongonyi. We took a tuktuk to the stage (this is central meeting place for buses, tuktuks, and matatus) where we would get transportation to Voi. When we got there, even before we could get out of the tuktuk, we were mobbed by a bunch of guys trying to sell us ride. They were like vultures. There was also a guy came up to me saying "let me have breakfast with you" another guy kinda pushed him out of the way telling me "don’t listen to him, he is crazy". John told them we were going to have breakfast 1st and that got rid of them. There was a bakery at the stage we got some breakfast there. We then caught a bus to Voi. John was impressed that they were playing American movies. He has not seen that before and said it was a one up on his fellow volunteer friends. After getting to Voi we brought our bags to a grocery store for storage as John was friends with the owner Jai, and Kenyan-Indian guy. He checked to see when the matatu was leaving for his village and they said 1:30 John felt confident we didn’t have to show up there until after that. Sure enough it left at 2:30. While waiting we went to the vegetable market which was a group of women in boxy like structures. Very interesting. I met a few of John’s friends there in Voi along with his boss also named John. It is a very friendly town. I also had my first Kenyan beer there. It was called "tusker" beer with their logo showing elephant tusks. John pointed out a guy in Voi talking on a cell phone. He told me, I can almost guarantee there is no one on other end of that phone, this guy is crazy. Seems to be a lot of crazy people there, perhaps it is due to the tusker beer (lol). While we were waiting for the matatu to leave Voi, a guy came up the window selling watches, sweet, I bought a cheep one for around $3.00 US. I now had time back on my wrist! The matatu finally left stage point. They stopped for gas. Then a man went fill a tire with air. It looked bad I could see the air gauge and it was at 20. They filled tire to 60. As we started to climb the tire sounded really bad. Then it blew. Fortunately we were going slow enough at the time and the driver did not loose control. They had a jack but had problems with it. Then a car came by and they used his. Still problems finally everyone pushed on the side of the van and they were able to get up and change the tire. John has said he lives on a hill. You climb for about 12 miles to get to his village. I would call it more of a mountain. On the matatu John noticed a guy with a patch on his shirt that said "Proud Home Depot stock holder" I asked him if he knew what Home Depot was, and he had no idea. I told him that I work for the company, and he seemed unimpressed. The ride up was extremely is rough. It’s a hard to describe how much we got bounced and swayed around. I had to position my head carefully as the ride was causing me to bang it on the metal parts of the vehicle to go 24 miles takes 1.5 hours because of the road. I guess I can describe the ride like a very rough roller coaster like when you are being jerked around the curves. We finally made it to Wongonyi. I met a few people after we arrived they were very friendly and welcoming asking, " is this really your father?" Because John had brought a PCVs (Peace Corps volunteers) that were older than me to visit. In the evening we when to John’s friend Joseck’s house and played 500 with him and his wife. John told me that there is one building for bathing which called the "bathroom" and another for going to the toilet called the choo. John's choo consisted of an outhouse with a rectangular hole in the floor that opened to a deep pit down below. There would be no sitting there and enjoying my bathroom reader! As we were playing cards, I said that I need to go to the bathroom and Joseck said, "well I guess we should call it a night then." I didn’t get it until John stepped in and told him I wasn’t looking for a bath, just had to go number 1 (as they call it here for short). John communicates very well with people in his village and I can see the love they have for him. I am very proud of him.

Sunday 9-19. John started the day by taking me for a 2 hour hike. The locals greeted you weather you knew them or not, it was considered rude not to greet people. John did comment that many times that he felt somewhat annoyed by the kids. They are taught to say to a white person (called mzungu in Swahili) "How are you?" many times they would say this and run off laughing or know not know what to say if we asked them the same question. We also encountered a lot of lizards in Kenya, there was actually one in John's house of which he said it was not uncommon. He took me to see a waterfall and a place considered the locals to be setting to respect of those who have lived before us. There were actual human skulls there along with a few food offerings. The terrain traveled to there was very rough and to get there was really rough and steep. I fell a few times, but fortunately I did not hurt myself then we came back and went to the local church service. It was an Anglican church. Service started at 11:00 and got out at 2:15. They had different choirs perform 1st was a group of young kids, following by a woman's group and men's. The music was very enjoyable the people harmonized very well. They also all sung together for the service. After the choirs were done performing, they had a vegetable auction. John explained that this is part of every Sunday’s service to raise money for the church. After that, about a one hour sermon was given by a very loud enthusiastic woman of the village. Unfortunately everything was in Tatia, the local language. I don't know what she said, but she sure was convicted about it! John tried to connect with a woman who he thought had baskets for me to buy, but when we got to her house, she didn't have them. We stayed a while and had tea and bread and then went back to John's place. There he showed me how to do laundry, by hand. John's washing machine consisted of his hands, soap and rinse tub. John has a guy (it is very uncommon for a man to do this but rather a woman) in the village does laundry for him, but he does not do under pants, we had to do those ourselves.
Now it is Sunday 9-19 late afternoon. Trying to journal while John goes to the store, but some kids have come by and walked into John’s house. I talked to them for a while , but wanted to get back to writing. I told them they had to go. They refused so I closed and locked the door. They kept knocking throwing rocks and dirt under the door. I went out to look and they were out of site. I then swept up and they came back and did it again. After that I planned to keep the door open. Then John and I both told them to go away. They are finally gone! John made a good dinner, soaking the vegetables in treated water for about a half hour to make sure that they were bacteria free. He did a good job, food was tasty and didn't upset my stomach. Good Kenya cook! After dinner, we went back over to Joseck's house to play more cards, by flash light again. John's village is like being in a constant power outage(John: hmm to have a power outage don’t you need power lines….?) I kept wanting to turn the lights on, but there weren't any to be had.

Monday 9-20. We are on the top of Chumbololo which is a very tall hill. I would consider it more like a mountain we can see for miles from up here. Getting there I would say was the most physically challenging thing that I have ever done. The view is breath taking. It’s been a long journey up, but worth it! We had to walk for about 6 hours to get here( John: Only because my dad is an old man it takes me much less). Along the way we encountered safari ants. They like to climb on you and bite you. Both of us got these on us which was quite unpleasant. This was part of a project John is working on. They have done some trail marking and path clearing. Along the way we saw some neat sites. I saw a fish farm. A secluded waterfall, and St Paula African Violets growing in the wild. One of the few places in the world you can see this flower. The African Violet spot was hard to get to, it was on a steep hill and John even fell twice. Weather was over cast today kept us from sunburn and over heating. It is just so peaceful up here. You can hear a few faint sounds of roosters and some hammering. John and I had lunch on the hill top, which consisted of bread, boiled eggs, cookies, and bananas. We will make our way back down soon. John says about 2 hours to the village. But that will depend on how fast I can go. The paths are very treacherous and I don’t dare not go too fast on them. My best friend on this journey has been a walking stick(John: I am hurt I was not the best friend…). I found on Sunday. It helps me keep my balance and footing, also to give me something to leverage when climbing steep inclines. I made it back to the village. My energy level started to drop on the way back. Perhaps lunch was not a good energizing combination. John brought along a pedometer and with it is approximating that we walk 12 to 13 miles. 23,420 steps was the count. But John started the count after we walked awhile. In Wongonyi I picked up some hand made souvenirs for family members. John is now making dinner again, veggies and rice. Pasta that he made last night was good. John’s friend has given me a name, Mwami meaning cousin. When we got back today the laundry was washed and hanging on the line. We proceeded to pack for Voi that night.

Tuesday 9-21. Today we traveled back to to Voi. The matatu took a bit of a different route than it did when we came up, plus we were in the front instead of the back, so the ride didn't seem so rough. The drivers seemed to have to have a good feel for the roads to be able to keep them from tipping over, make good time and not wreck the matatu. As we arrived, we checked into a hotel that John was well known at and welcome. He immediately negotiated a discount for us. It was a nice place, the cost was 800 shillings for the night which equated to about $10.00 US. And yes, in the shared facilities they had toilets with seats on them! What a bonus. I really liked the lobby, they had different animal drawings on the walls with bible versus written on them. The hotel also had hot water showers where the water was actually heated at the shower at the shower head by electricity. We did not have this at the hotel in Mombasa, although the water was not too cold. After checking in, John and I got haircuts, his was less than a dollar US and mine was probably close to a dollar because I had a shave too. The barber had to leave the shop to buy another blade for his shaver and tried to charge us more because of it, but John put his foot down with him and would not let him get away with this(John: My favorite poster in the barber shop says, ”Credit will only be given to those 70 or older with both parents present”) . Also, I noticed the butcher shops in town, they had sides of unrefrigerated beef in the windows with a bunch of flies around them. Not the place to have a juicy rare steak! We then went to John's boss's office. He was working on some projects where he was trying to get some video from his camera to a DVD disk. I brought cables from the US for this, but they didn't fit. We then went to animal park, saw elephants in distance and small animals called hedrix (not sure that is the exact spelling) they were fun to watch. He took a lot of pictures of them. There were also some very colorful lizards there. We enjoyed a buffet at the park which was a bit pricey by Kenya standards but very good. This was one place that I could eat the veggies. Usually, I had to refrain from them because they typically had bacteria on the skins which would have disagreed with my stomach. After we were done there we took a tuktuk ride back to Voi, it was very bumpy. In Voi I also met with John's friend Patrick. Bought hand made elephants made out of copper wire and metal beads. Some of the medal was from animal traps that poachers illegally had set up. We also talked about possibly importing these. They are made by people in rural areas, and though Patrick makes some money on them, it also helps support them.
In the evening, we had dinner with John’s friends at restaurant. Some of the music that they were playing was American music. We talked about cultural differences and I told some jokes. One of John's friends said that she works in Nairobi and the traffic to and from is really bad.(John: they REALLY love my dad’s jokes!”
Wednesday 9-22. We traveled to Loitokitok. The bus we took to get there was called the Secret Admirer. On it they played Kenyan and American music videos. People were coming on bus to sell water and food. They also offered their goods from outside of the bus windows, and also tried to sell to people in vehicles at the speed bumps as they slowed down for them. It was really crazy how the bus made many stops along the way and they kept putting stuff on the roof rack. A few times, passengers handed bicycles up to the guy up there, he would start securing them and then bang on the roof of the bus and the driver would start going while he was still up there. It was really strange to see this guy climb down a ladder from the top of the bus and get back in as we were going down the road. Along the way, we made a rest stop, there I saw a guy that had about a 4 foot wide carrier welded to the back of his motorcycle. That would not be street legal in the US. Many things were very different there. As we traveled, the stores had some very funny American names to them. As we approached Loitokiouk, we saw road building in process. Their soil looks to have a lot of red clay in it. It appeared they used this as a base and put cement over it. It was interesting to see that there were Chinese workers and engineers (along with Kenyan workers) building the roads.

One of the first things I noticed was how dry the town was. They had been going through a drought for about 2 months. Walking down the street was like walking in six inches of chocolate milk powder, you could see it poof up as you stepped in it. It was so dry, that even the vegetation was brown from the dust. We then went to the hotel. It was a comical scene, first the ladies there helped us carry our bags up stairs because those rooms had TV's in them. Then we were told that those rooms were more money because of the TV. So after seeing them, we decided to go to the lower level to save money. After seeing the beds down there, we figured that it would be better to spend the extra to go upstairs for a larger bed. So we brought the luggage up a 2nd time. After getting back up there, we were told that we could not share a room and that we had to have separate rooms. The upstairs was no longer a deal, so we wound up going back down to the lower level. The whole thing was pretty comical and the ladies at the hotel were gracious about it and saw the humor in it also. The toilets in the rooms were unlike any hotel I had ever been in. It was a flush toilet just like we have, but the upper edge of the toilet was level with the floor. Could you imagine people’s reaction to checking into a hotel in the US with that being the case? However, they did have a hot water shower in the room like the one in Voi where the water was heated in the shower head. We then took a walk around town and later meet Elijah and have dinner with him Elijah is the father of the family that first took John in when he first came to Kenya. He refers to him as "papa". He struck me as a very intelligent and interesting man who enjoys conversation. After dinner we just went back to the hotel and settled in for the night.

Thursday 9-23. Yesterday, we discussed going to Elijah's home to spend some time with his family. Elijah's wife Joyce was not around during the day as she had other business to attend to. He felt it would be better that we showed up when she was around to make dinner for us. According to John, it does not seem to be part of the culture for the man to cook. The timing seemed to get pushed out as to when we would go. So we just spent most of the day walking around Loitokitok. While we were there I purchased a Kenyan movie DVD, it seems to be in a different format than ours, my DVD player or computer didn't seem to want to recognize it. I will probably take it somewhere to see if I can get it converted. Sounds like it would be entertaining, John says the acting will be hokey, but will show the Kenyan setting well. We also saw one of John's friends with a shirt that said powder puff football on it, John asked him if he knew what that was. He said no and when John explained it was woman's football, the guy seemed somewhat surprised and embarrassed. While walking around we saw Joe who was to be our driver for tomorrow’s safari. He said he could give us a ride to Elijah's house as he just lived down the road from him. We were supposed to meet back up with him but could not find him when we expected to. Finally we connected with Elijah and Joe and went to Elijah's house. There we met his wife Joyce and their two children. They have their Kenyan names (which I do not recall) as well as American names. The daughter went by Michelle (after Michelle Obama) and her older brother was Ken. He showed us around his property and explained that they would be getting electricity soon. John said that when he lived with them that they had solar power, but it went bad and they didn't fix it. Elijah told us that he had several cattle that died in the drought. This is something that I didn't really understand because it sounds like the drought happens every year and he should have anticipated it. Why didn't he thin out his herd before it hit?(John: This last year it was a much bigger drought than most) We had dinner by lantern light, again, it felt similar to being in a power failure around here. Joyce served us and left the room, so it was just us guys eating the meal. John had explained before that when he was living with them, that is the way it was. He and Elijah would eat dinner first with the rest of the family someplace else, they would then eat after we were done. However this was just done for dinner, at lunch, everyone ate together. He said that he brought Erica to meet them once and she was included in dinner with Elijah, but again no other family members, it was just the three of them. It didn't seem that John quite knew why this was, I would guess it is tradition(John: I would say it is more out of respect for the older men/guests). During the evening, I went out to the bushes to go the bathroom, and stepped on a large hard thorn. It went through my shoe and into my foot. It really hurt, but fortunately it didn't get infected. We went to bed right after dinner as it was going to be an early morning.

Friday 9-24. This day was one of the major highlights of the trip. Elijah had made arrangements for us to go on a safari to Amboseli national park. One interesting fact that John had pointed out to me was that safari means to take a journey. So technically whenever you went from one place to another, you were on a safari. On our way to the park, we stopped for a view and to take pictures of Mt. Kilimanjaro, it has two peaks to it and it was a breathtaking site. The pictures of it do not began to do justice to what we saw. When we got to the park, there were elephants everywhere, as a matter of fact, I saw a documentary about Amboseli on the plane trip down and they said that there was about 1500 elephants there. We also saw herds of zebras, hyenas, gazelles, hippos, wildebeest, warthogs, giraffes and several kinds of birds there. The coolest thing was witnessing two lions on the hunt for wildebeest. One of them was crouched down in the grass waiting for them to walk close to her. The other one was on the other side of the road. Lions count on the element of surprise as they can not maintain a good running speed for long. As the wildebeest got close to the one lion, the other made it's way over ever so cautiously as not to scare the animals. We saw the chase take place but they were not successful. John took some really good pictures there. He put his digital camera up to the lens of the binoculars. Many people who have seen them ask me how we got so close to the animals. Bad day for the lions, good day for the wildebeest. Through out this safari, we were in a jeep that had a hatch on the roof so that we could stand up and get a good view. We then had lunch at the restaurant in the park, the food was excellent there, and as this was a tourist area, I was able to enjoy the salad there. For safety, they had the tomatoes peeled. During lunch I made a list of the creatures that we saw during out trip, in addition to those previously mentioned, we saw the following birds (mostly at Amboseli): Marabou Stork, Ginny Foul, King Fisher, Secretary Bird, Purple Heroin, African Jacana, Goosy Ibbis, Crown Eagle, Superb Starling, and Egyptian Geese. Other creatures seen were: Thompson Gazelle, Impala, Grand Gazelle, Water Buffaloes, Monkeys, Baboons, Camels, Chickens, Cows, Goats, Donkeys, Sheep, Snakes, several kinds of fish, and giant turtles. After lunch, we rested a bit and then went to go see Elijah's dad. He is blind and did not speak English, but when it was explained to him who we were, he was very welcoming. Father and son chatted for a while with brief acknowledgments of what each other was saying which I guess was equivalent to our "OK". It sounded very male typical and to the point. We also meet Elijah's brother's family and children there. In this particular tribe, the kids were taught as a sign of respect for the elders, that they stand in front of them and bow their head. To acknowledge them, the adult touch their head briefly. As we were leaving, Elijah explained that they too were being effected by the drought. They did not want the goats to reproduce in these conditions for fear that the mother or baby might not survive. They had birth control devices on them which were plastic flaps attached to the underside of their bellies, which kept them from getting too friendly with each other. From there, we went back to Elijah's home with our driver Joe making some stops on the way back to take care of some business. We again enjoyed visiting with John's Kenyan family and a very tasty dinner made by Joyce. They are a very loving and giving family. John was very fortunate to have been assigned to them through the Peace Corps. Joyce also gave John and I Masi (an Kenyan tribe name) blankets.

Saturday 9-25. This day was mainly taken up by travel. Our destination was a park called Hell's Gate. We traveled through Nairobi to get there. Traffic was heavy, and the city was more modern than the other areas that we had been in to up to this time. One thing that really struck me was some of the huge birds hanging out in the trees. I would estimate them to have weighed around 20 pounds judging by their size. I believe they may have been some kind of stork. The journey was interesting with many unique sights along the way. John had a travel guide book that he was using for information there. He found a camp ground near the park for us. We debated on camping in a tent or in one of the buildings that they had there. We decided on the building to find out that they didn't have any room there. It wound up costing just a little less than a hotel room by the time we paid for the rental of the tent and sleeping mats. They said that there would be a room opening up for the next night, so we reserved it. The staff set up our tent, it was fairly good size made out of canvas supported by wooden poles. Now our main concern was our luggage, we didn't want to leave it unsecured in the tent. They had a bar area at the park that was very modern looking. It had a lot of open space to it and was decorated in a very interesting way, kind of a safari theme. We talked to the people there and they agreed to let us put our stuff in their supply storage room. The camp ground was very lush. It was by a lake that they said you could see hippos in the evening. After settling in we went into the near by town to have dinner and got some wood for a camp fire. While I was getting the fire started, John noticed a woman on the peer at the lake. She seemed to be observing something, John was curious to see what she was looking at, so he went over there. He struck up a conversation with her to find out that she was an artist and photographer. She traveled Africa making paintings and pictures, she was able to sell them for enough money to support herself and had been doing this for about 25 years. I believe that John said that she was from Canada. She was living her dream. There were also monkeys in the park, some right by our tent. There were also some a slight distance away from our tent that were very unique. They looked like they had goatees. They had their own tree and the camp staff put food in it for them. We sat by the camp fire, had some drinks and talked. It was a very enjoyable evening. Little did we know at that time that this would be the last night that we would spend together on my trip to Kenya.(John: Daunt Dun…!)

Sunday 9-26. We got up early in the morning to head to Hell's Gate park. John had arranged for some bicycles for us through the people at the camp ground. We rode into town which was perhaps ¾ of a mile away and had breakfast. We had our bikes right outside of the door, I was very concerned about them being taken so kept a good eye on them from our table. They had a TV at the restaurant and they played Kenyan music videos. They mainly showed people dancing in small groups, all shots were taken outside, many of them by the sea. It was neat to hear and see this. After breakfast, we headed to Hell's Gate. When we got there I noticed that the seat on my bike was loose. A guy there had some wrenches and tightened it. He also pointed out the bar supporting the seat was bent. He recommended that John ride it instead of me. He agreed. The guy asked for a little money for tea after he helped me(John: chi or tea in English can often refer to a bid as well) . This was a common Kenyan way, many people will try to be helpful to you and look for some money in return. We saw thisa lot at the stage areas were guys offered to carry our bags as a way of making money. As went along, the bike seat got worse, so we decided to take a chance and straighten it out. Fortunately it was solid and we were able to fix it. The roads were very uneven with some solid points to them and a lot of loose sand and dirt. Our first neat site was some bluffs that were really interesting looking. We rode to a large hill that had some caves in it. It was very steep and uneven, John climbed to the top but I only went part of the way up. We then decided to go to a look out point. It was a steep climb to get there. As we rode our bikes around we saw many animals. We saw zebras, gazelles, giraffe and other large animals. For the most part they ran away when they saw us coming. It was neat to watch them in motion, some of the animals had like a jumping stride motion as they moved. For the most part especially where there are lions, if an animal is not fast, it will most likely be eaten. We wound up walking our bikes up for a good amount of the way. As we were going up, I commented that the way some of the road looked might be a problem on the way down. John said, yea, I guess we will just need to be careful. When we were almost there, John advised me to go up to the look out point ahead of him while he took some pictures. I did so. We each had cell phones for communication in the event that we were separated. A few minutes later, I got a call from John telling me that he fell of his bike but was OK and would be with me in a little while. When he got to the lookout point, the right side of his face was totally black. He said that he had tried to take a video from the bike when he fell. Looking back on this, I wish I would have been with him at the time to talk him out of doing this(John:look back at this I wish I wouldn’t have been so dumb). The camera also got a lot of dirt in it and John had to scrape the sand out from around the lens, as it would not close. The view from the lookout point was good. We also had some lunch there. As John was not feeling good, we decided to head back to camp. We saw that it was all down hill and we agreed this was to be much easier than the trip up. Going up I was slower than John, but in going down, I many times got ahead of him. Many times I would stop to let him catch up to me to make sure he was OK. The slope down was pretty steep and we had to ride our brakes down so not to go too fast. I remember being concerned and worried about the speed that we were going and the rough terrain. Then it happened, as I was going into a patch of dirt and sand, I was breaking and probably had too much pressure on the front brake. Suddenly I went airborne over the handle bars crashing to the ground. Fortunately John was a safe enough distance behind me where he saw me go down but was able to stop his bike without incident. My first thought on hitting the ground was anger. Oh #$&@(John: I don’t allow words like #$&@ in my blog but I will make an exception because I know Dad was in a lot of pain) I thought to myself, this is really going to be a problem and mess everything up. I felt a shooting pain in my shoulder and rose to a sitting position trying to grasp how badly I was hurt. I told John that I feared that my shoulder was either dislocated or broken.(John: At this point there were 2 zebras on the side of the road watching probably thinking, ”What did that white guy think he was doing riding a bike down these roads, that was dumb, and now he is hurt” I point them out to Dad but he didn’t see much humor) At that time, he joked with me, and said "I guess that is a valid concern Dad, as you know what your track record is with me". He was referring to a few incidents where I had broken bones playing with him as a kid. As I sat there, a Swedish couple (Dawn, Thomas, and their two children) were going by in their land rover stopped to check on me. I told them what had happened, and they had me get into their car and took me to the gate of the park. They told the guys at the gate what happened to me while I sat in the car. They were busy and said they would get to him in a little while. In the mean while, John was left to get back to the gate by himself with both bikes. About the time they were ready to look at him, John got back to the gate. The guys there made a make shift sling for me. Dawn and Thomas told me that they were temporally living in Nairobi, which was about a two hour drive away, and they offered to bring me back home with them so I could get checked out at a Nairobi hospital. Because of the car seats for the kids and the amount of luggage we had, they did not have room for both John and I. So I decided to take them up on their offer as going back to Nairobi on matatu would have been extremely rough and painful at that point. They drove me back to the camp site to get my bags while John was left to get the bikes back to the camp site by himself. I really felt bad for him knowing he was not feeling too good. As we were heading out, Dawn pointed out to me that she saw John riding one bike and guiding the other along with him. I am very thankful that this did not cause him to fall again. (John: and let me tell you riding 2 bikes at the same time is not so easy but I guess I got used to it. Well..until I fell just getting into the campsite scrapping my arm real good) After while when I talked to John about this, he told me that many people were joking with him along the way asking him if he wanted to sell one of them. On the trip to Nairobi, dawn apologized every time she hit a bump. I told her that I was sure that even her worst driving could not began to match what I would be going though in a matatu. They explained to me that they were staying in Nairobi for a few months as they were in the process of adopting a Kenyan child. They also told me that the Swedish government was helping to pay for the adoption process. One of the things that I had heard along the prior to this is that in the Kenyan schools they beat the children in the lower grades (supposedly to build character and discipline). When Dawn told me that they were putting their first adapted 3 year child (Kenyan) in a Kenyan school to experience their culture, I asked her if she knew about the beatings. She said that she did and said they had actually checked out a Christian school on the internet that advertised that they employed corporal punishment. If sent there, they would have been beating this 3 year old child. They were able to find a school where beating was not allowed. John said that they are trying to change this in Kenya.

Dawn and Thomas's apartment was average by US standards, but luxurious by Kenyan standards. They had electricity, a refrigerator, stove, "normal" toilet facilities and hot and cold running water. I had not seen the likes of this since I landed in Kenya. The first thing that I wanted to do when I got there was take a shower. I was so filthy that the dirt that fell off of me and my clothes on the bathroom floor had to be swept up. It felt good to take a shower, but so painful to move around. After that Dawn gave me some dinner and helped me to arrange a taxi to the hospital. It was dark at that time and she didn't want to take me. She said that it is extremely dangerous for a white woman to be out at night there. I was told that this was one of the better hospitals in Kenya. I was able to use my credit card there to pay. They had you pay in stages, first to see the doctor, then for the x rays, then for a sling and then for the medication. The x rays showed that I had not broken or dislocated anything. I was so thankful for that news. The entire bill that I paid for all of this emergency treatment was $92.32 US. I then took a taxi back to Dawn and Thomas's place and called it a night. These people were so welcoming, I kept thanking them for what they had done for me, but they kept insisting that it was no big deal and that anyone would have come to my aid in the same way. I strongly disagree that many people would have gone to the lengths that they did. They even offered to let me stay a few days with them if it became necessary. I know that I will never be able to repay what they did for me! Throughout all of this John and I stayed in touch via cell phone calls and texting.

Monday 9-27. I got up in the morning after a fairly good nights sleep, had breakfast, and took a taxi into downtown Nairobi to meet up with John there. Although he was not staying there, he arranged with a hotel to store our bags for a while and let us use their lobby for a while. There John down loaded the pictures from his camera on my flash drive. We then went for some lunch, and then John brought me to a taxi that he had arranged for me to take me to the airport. Sadly, this was the end of my visit with him. He then caught a matatu to travel to a Peace Corps meeting a few hours outside of Nairobi. I found John to be a excellent tour guide and very good company throughout this trip. After I got back, I found out that John had a painful trip to his meeting, and thought that he might have broken a rib. A few days later, he was back in Nairobi getting checked out at the hospital, and fortunately, his ribs were only badly bruised with nothing broken. Indeed God was watching over both of us, although we got hurt, neither of us were seriously injured.

The trip back to the US went well, everything was on time. I just had to be persistent about having my arm in a sling and carrying a carryon bag with me, they kept wanting me to check it. I had the souvenirs in there and didn't want to have them taken. In Nairobi, even though when I checked in at the gate they said I would not receive assistance, another employee came to my aid and I got to board with help and with the first group of people. On other stops, I was also among the first to board. Kinda got to thinking, if someone really wanted to play the system for preferential treatment, all they would need is a sling. However, I am not planning on bringing it with me the next time I travel.