Last couple of days in Western Province

Another list - Mark's impressions of the last couple of days in Gambogi:

• Being prayed over, several times - lots of good wishes for our travels
• A great last night party - Luka and David came from Majengo with their cousins, Priscilla and (?)Presca(?) and we sang Kinyore songs, got taught Bunyore dancing, and had fun till late.
• Seeing Rose again - she came back to cook for the last day or so, so we had her fine cooking again as well as her warm and witty company.
• Naomy leading a farewell ceremony for us before the last night party - asking each of us to say what we'd loved about Kenya, and getting all the Kenyans to say what they'd miss about us - simple and moving
• Sitting with Paulo and talking about vegetables. I noticed I hadn't hung out with Paulo much in the last while, so I just sat with him on the last day for a bit, in the shade in the heat of the day. We don't share a language, so we sat quietly for a while - then Paulo figured out he had enough English, and me enough Kiswahili, that we could talk about vegetables. So we did. It was good.
• Meeting Josefta - see another post.
• Playing my guitar for the last time for a while (or for ever, if it gets smashed up in baggage handling!) - and using the video function on our camera to record some snatches of Kinyore songs.
• Amazing timing (1) Mrs Next Door had baby number four the night before we left (must have been our dancing and singing that brought it on), so we got to meet one more person at the end.
• Amazing timing (2) half-an-hour before we were due to leave for the train station, Luka rang to say our Christmas parcels (from Jo and Sasha) had arrived - we rushed up to Majengo, got the ticket for collecting them from Luka, Heather talked her way in to the Post Office (which had just closed) and we were able to celebrate a second Christmas on Kisumu train station
• Not-so-amazing timing: We had a lot of time for this celebration - the train left Kisumu six-and-a-half hours late. Mind you - we were glad it left at all (see photos below) and it got all the way to Nairobi without any worse problem than being freezing cold all night (a first this winter!). Great views of the Nairobi slums, which were huge, and prettier things too.

- Mark