Back home to mud

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I have been back at Mt Kenya Academy since Friday afternoon. I spent the night in Nairobi after returning from safari. The hotel where I stayed was minimal, but clean and quiet. However the restaurant was like something out of Starwars, only with Earthlings.

There were all kinds of deals going down between people from all over! Much business of all kinds... a younger European woman and an older European man were both speaking English with different accents and talking about problems all over Africa and work being done. A white man was leaving with an African woman and his arm was around her (PDA's are not normal here). An Arab man with a laptop was running figures by two Africans with cell phones....they were dealing in something that came in kilos.

The next day, Simon took me around Nairobi a bit, showing me the main government buildings and helping me look for an Obama T-shirt. He then put me on an express matatu for Nyeri, and I took a taxi from there to the school. On the way from Nairobi, we passed the area where people had built on state property for years, along the highway, and had recently had their building bulldozed to make way for road expansion. Hundreds of people were going through the rubble, looking for things to save or scavenge. They had been given warnings, according to the paper and the people in the van with me.

On Saturday, Vicki and I took a matatu to Nanyuki, an hour north of the school, where we shopped.

Today, we took a long walk on the dirt roads through the coffee plantations near the school, and later visited with a teacher and her family.

It has been raining for the past three days, and the red sticky mud is everywhere!

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Photos

Vicki in front of the park in Nanyuki
This was once a beautiful Colonial town, we have heard.

Lumber and furniture shop in Nanyuki
Most furniture is made in these little shops.

View down towards the river from the school
We walked along the road, but it was too wet to take the path to the river today.