Kenya summing up

In answer to Rachael's comment question - here are our three (each) favourite things about visiting Kenya, and our most surprising thing (each) - you have to decide for yourselves who picked what!

Favourites (no particular order!)

• Seeing Lani
• Choosing, bring home and getting to know two very sweet puppies
• Spending time with Naomy, including thinking about her NGO lots with her
• Chapattis
• Seeing Anne after so long
• Dengu (mung bean stew with garlic - good with chappatis!)
• Getting to know Rebecca
• Our 1000km trip to Watamu - the sea, the night-club, laughing together ...
• Learning some Kiswahili
• The Swan cyber-cafe!
• Seeing animals - including the leopard
• Living in rural Kenya with the Wanyore

Most surprising things

• Chips everywhere - not french fries, but real proper chips. And ketchup.
• How visible disability was. Lots of disabled people, getting around as best they could, no wheelchairs or other help with getting places.
• How small Nairobi seemed for a capital city.
• How invisible/shameful HIV/AIDS is - although it was talked about as a big issue, we didn't meet one person who admitted they or any family-member was HIV positive or had died of AIDS: and the only person we read about in the newspapers (in two months) was Nelson Mandela's son.

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

Kwaheri Kenya

So, kwaheri Kenya. We're off after our longest stay in any one place of the whole Big Trip, probably our most intimate connection with rural everyday life in the developing world, and possibly the most useful bit of work (outside of parenting!) that H and I will do all year ...

The thought of hitting the road again is mainly a tiring one - but once we get to our Bangkok hotel we should be able to relax and enjoy hot running water and the "cleanest hotel swimming pool in Thailand." We've still a pile of things to do before we go, and coming back from Kisumu today I felt the slow unclenching of the stomach that accompanies the end of pressured workdays - for the first time in a good number of months. Not the 'work' isn't good to do - today we:

• Met with Josefta, Naomy's key ally in her plans to organise and unite African disabled women, who is Secretary General of United Disabled Persons of Kenya, and of Women Challenged to Challenge (though not yet of the UN), and is a formidable, attractive, very sharp woman.
• Pursued funding leads for Naomy's fledgling organisation, which we've helped her goal-set, proposal-write, action-plan and budget forin the last few weeks. Matatu business plans are shelved, by the way (I couldn't get the balance sheet to look nearly healthy enough to balance the fairly high risk of crashing and writing the thing off), and we're much happier lending Naomy three months' seed money for NGO-starting - we think she's got a very good shot at attracting funding, especially with Josefta's help
• Wrestled with not-quite-what's-needed technology to get as many photos as poss in a form Lani can take home with her, while keeping enough of the more recent ones with us to be able to post them to this blog from Bangkok.
• Read the first bits of feedback on our ideas for a bid for a five-year jobshare, and talked more about that.
• Enjoyed the comments on this blog (tee-hee, JK and Ron)
• Booked Rebecca an English test, and pursued her application to Coventry University
• Shopped for fruit, groceries and stationery
• Talked with Rosa about which bits of maths she wants to look at next
• Tried to figure out how to help Melissa (and us) cope with her ants-in-the-pants-ness she gets before big changes.

- Mark

And a last few more photos ...

OK, so that wasn't the final installment from Africa - here are just a few more photos that I didn't put up before:

"At home" photos

And here, as a final African installment, are a mixed bag of photos from our "home from home" in Gambogi:

Other local trips

Here are photos of a few other local trips - including going to collect water, visiting the nearby equator sign, and an abortive visit to the "Rock House" - which used to be an important local history place before the guy who lived there died ...

Visiting Aquinata

The day after academic day at Kaimosi, we visited an old friend from Naomy's schooldays up in Kakamega. Aquinata was a very welcoming Teso (from the border of Uganda and Kenya) with a lovely big house and a five acre shamba (farm).

- Mark

Kimosi Girls High School Photos

In early January, before Lani arrived, Anne went back to Kimosi Girls Boarding School: here she is ready to go. Our girls were fairly amazed by the huge dormitories, the menu (maize, beans and medicinal paraffin for lunch - six days a week), and the limit of five chappattis in your luggage when you arrive back at the start of term!

The Saturday before we left for Nairobi, we (Naomy, Rebecca, Susan and the Coventry crew) visited for 'Academic Day', to sit through three hours of speeches in order to get to see Anne for a while.