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Published: June 22nd 2007
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for tuning into out BLOG!
We have arrived in Kenya after an arduous journey - 8 hours flihgt from Edmonton to London, another 9 hours wait at Heathrow, then 8.5 hours to Nairobi. Cristelle had a shorter flight from Ottawa, but then had to wait about 12+ hours at Heathrow. We hadn't really arranged how to meet at Heathrow (why make a plan and spoil the adventure) so it took us about 5 hour s to find one another. But we did and then went for a nice little meal.
The first nig event for us came at the airport when Cristelle wnet to into the line up to get her boarding pass from Virgin Airlines. A group of Armenians returning to Los Angeles got bumped due to lousy service from security, British Airways and Virgin Airlines. You have never seen tension until you've sense a group of angry Armenians face off against "the bureaucracy"! Anyway, we got her boarding pass and away we went.
We landed in Nairobi at 6:05 AM and had no problems with customs. It took a little while for our baggage to come through, though. Then I had to get past the final "inspector". One of the pieces of luggage I had was a huge Sun Oven (an oven that captures the power of the sun to cook with) and it had been packed in a large box with addreses, fragile stickers, tons of tape, labels, etc, etc. It looked very big and important so I wasn't surprised when he stopped me.
"What's this?" he said
"A sun oven", I replied, not wanting to give more informain than I had to.
"What is that", he looked a confused.
"Well, it is sort of a cheap platic box, with a little tin on it, and a small glass plate. Nothing to fancy.", I neglected to include in my description the packages of chalk for the kids or the stickers.
"Hmmmmmmmmm, wait right here". He went over to a very short, chubby, menacing little CHIEF INSPECTOR, and called him over to have a look. I had now gathered the attention of the entire customs force and this small "general" was obviously called in on "special cases" that needed a snap decision.
"What's this?" , the Chief interrogated me.
"Well, it is sort of a cheap platic box, with a little tin on it, and a small glass plate. Nothing to fancy.", I repeated, hoping to divert any suspicion of VALUE for the package.
"What's it worth?" as he was sizing up the appearance of the box.
"What's it worth?'', I repeated in stalling while my mind raced thruogh a range of prices in my head that I thought would be believable.
"Not too much", I offered.
He asked again, How much is it worth?"
"Well, it's realy only worth about $50 US dollars", which is what it is TRULY worth (although not what I spent, which was $200 US). :-)
I then quickly added in that it was going to kids at an orphange (when all else fails, talk about orphans!)
Then he looked to the side label where I had put our name 'One Child's Village'.
"It is going to the billage?", he asked in a somewhat puzzled tone.
"YES, YES, the village, it's going to the village!" I responded, generating an enthusiams that I hoped would soften his analysis of the situation.
"Alright, you can go through."
I hesitated for a moment not fully realizing that he had just given me a pass without charging the standard 34% Kenyan duty. He waved me on and off I went.
WE WERE IN KENYA!!!
We first saw Charles and Puis waiting for us in the lobby. They greated us both with hugs and hand shakes and those huge Kenyan smiles. It was nice to meet Puis for the first time and he is a very nice person. You can fel the honesty just oozing from his pores. Charles was as happy as ever and we were too old friends meeting again after two years apart.
I then noticed a sign about 10 feet away with our name on it and there was Moraa. She did not recognize me at first so I had to go over to her at which time she broke out into huge smile as well and gave me a big hug.
We took a snap shot of everyone, gathered our bags and got into a van which took us to Lew and Lili's place.
They are wonderful people. Bright, intelligent, caring and very hospitable. Charles and Puis came with us and we all sat dow to the dining room table with smoe snacks they had prepared for us. As we started to chat we entered into a broad discussion about their work, our contracts, our mutual visions for the projects, and all sorts of related topics. There was instant agreement in almost every area and we really do have a wonderful rapport and common vision for the future. I don't think we could have chosen a better group to work with.
We met with Moraa later for an afternoon meal and had a similar discussion with her. She will be running for parliament in the December elections so we talked a lot about that as well.
After that, we had to go around and try to find a place to cash some traveller's checque. The banks wouldn't cash them without an acocunt, so we had to drive about to find a forex bureau. After that, Moraa dropped us off at Lew and Lili's again.
Wre turned in at about 6:0 pm, after having been awake almost non-stop for 48 hours (give or take a few short naps here and there) and we both slept for about 14 hours. It is now 8:00 AM in Nairobi, the morning of June 22, and I am just jumping into the shower before we head off to the Kawangware slum to see the school for the first time. This will be an incredible day and we will see hour the worst off in Africa live today. Stay tuned for our next report!!!
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Meryl Tihanyi
non-member comment
Thrilled you both arrived safely albeit exhausted! Look forward to hearing more as your trip progresses-