Kenya - Up To Sept 26th

Friday 20 Sept - off to Teen Ranch today with Sharon, Pete, Liz & Teri. Many trucks on the Mombassa Rd requiring a lot of overtaking moves. We had a quick lunch at Emali which was about halfway – the 5 of us ate for about $12 including a soft drink (soda) each. Then off to Kimana which was about 90 km down a very good Chinese-built road to Loitoktok. Teen Ranch Kenya is about 1km past Kimana and we found it just by a fluke. It was good to finally meet Bob Ockenden who had been there for about 2 weeks. Tony Piper, from Winmalee, has been a supporter for some time but this was his first trip to Africa. Amazingly, he knows my boss, Ken Pullen and has even attended the same church! We shared the tent accommodation.

Saturday 21 Sept – after breakfast, we shared a devotion & prayer and then got into the work, drilling 20mm holes in the concrete pylons to take threaded rod. (the Creans had gone off to Amboselli NP for the day). Then started drilling and plugging more 20mm holes for the wall baseplates. At 4pm we downed tools as Bob, Pete, James and Benard were off to Nairobi to collect the Scottish team the next morning. Pete was also returning home that evening although he had to spend all the next day in the airport! Tony and I headed off for a hot bucket shower and the Creans returned about 6pm, at which time, we had a dinner of leftovers and chatted around the fire.

Sunday 22 Sept – a day to remember! Bob sent us off to a church service as Tony had not experienced one. We were guests of course and duely seated on the stage. While the singing and dancing were great, the fact that it went for 3.5 hours was a bit much for us. We got back to camp about 2pm and met the Sottish team of Dan, Chris, Jenny, Heather, Sarah, Laura, Freya & Jen Ockenden. After they got settled in, we spent the afternoon at the pool at Amboselli Lodge, a very up-market resort that costs $350 per night! You can see a view of the pool here.

Monday 23 Sept - was a work day, the guys putting up the main trusses while the girls all varnished the 50-odd purlins and lower wall sheets.

See one of the main trusses going up here.

Tuesday 24 Sept - we headed off to one of the local schools to speak to the various classes and give the school gifts that the Scottish team had brought with them – the kids were very cute, well-behaved and quite advanced compared to Aust kids. We then visited a souvenir shop, the Masai livestock market and the weekly Kimana market which, as usual, had just about anything you could want.

Dan & Chris bought a goat which they named Megan – I'm not sure how long it will last after they leave! We all worked the rest of the day and were in bed by 9pm.

Wednesday 25 Sept – the Scots and Tony were off on a safari to Amboselli NP today, so I worked with Bob and the local guys till lunchtime. Patrick, my driver, was supposed to collect me at 12.00-12.30pm but didn't arrive till 2pm. This would make it impossible to meet with Angela Stevens, a young Aust missionary, at the agreed time of 4pm. I changed this to 5pm but in the end it didn't work out – there were such a large number of overladen, underpowered trucks on the Mombassa Rd that progress was very slow. In fact, we didn't get back to Sharon & Pete's till 6pm! I was supposed to stay at a hotel in town but Patrick wouldn't have had time to take me there and then return to collect Teri at 7.30pm. So I decided to take up Pete's offer of staying the night.

Thursday 26 Sept – Liz headed off to her volunteer job at a kindergarten and Sharon & Pete headed off to the farm they work at. I finally had time and internet to look at my emails before walking to the local shopping centre to meet Stella who was going to take me to see the Kibera Card Project. We met at Dorman's Coffee shop and had a chat and a coffee for 30 mins and then took two matatus to the edge of the Kibera slum. This is a great project where ladies from the slum are employed to make African cards for sale locally, as well as in Aust and the US. There are currently about 23 ladies employed. Two more matatu trips and I was back to back my bags and get out to the airport for my flight to Entebbe in Uganda. Unfortunately (or is it fortunately), the traffic was light so I had a 3 hour wait, but this allowed me to get my journal up-to-date and to prepare this blog post.