Monday - Tuesday, June 24-25, 2017

Monday, June 26, 2017

We’ve had a whirlwind of a weekend that has culminated (so far) with us sitting in the KLM Lounge in Amsterdam.  We’ve got some time to kill, so I’m writing this in Word, then I’ll cut and paste it into the blog when we get to Kenya.  When I opened the blog page here, there are apparently some rules regarding cookies and the EU.  When I say “rules” I mean “laws.”  Now, I have no idea if this blog page leaves cookies on your system.  Seriously, not a clue.  Half the time I’m not even sure if anyone reads this thing, so why would I be thinking about cookies?  Great, now I’m hungry.

We changed a lot about this trip, starting with the route.
We (Andrea, Karen and I) met Katie and Kevin in Boston.  We got there late on Friday, and they got there even later… shortly before midnight.  We had Town Spa pizza (seriously, it’s phenomenal) for lunch on Saturday, then met up with Father Willy for the Red Sox game that night.  Father Willy has an incredibly impressive resume with the Congregation of the Holy Cross, and is currently the president of Holy Cross Family Ministries.  He’s kind of a big deal, but you wouldn’t know it.  Andrea’s known him since her days at Stonehill College, and I’ve known him since I knew I was going to marry Andrea.  He was the priest that married us.  He celebrated sacraments with each of our children.  He then renewed our vows at the Wedding Church in Cana (he asked us to come with him on a pilgrimage to Israel).  We speak with him regularly, and he continues to be a constant presence in our lives.  Okay, I think I went off the rails there a little bit.  Oh yeah, I we were in Boston…

So this time, rather than flying to Dubai, we picked up a Delta flight from Boston to Nariobi, via Amsterdam.  If you’re curious, Kevin drove our come home for us and we’ll catch one more connection on the way back when we return in July.  So far it’s been a huge improvement… The flight to Dubai is 12 hours, and the flight to Amsterdam is 6 ½.  It’s a rather easy decision.  The only downside to this flight was that the earlier connection was already booked so we’re “stuck” in Amsterdam for 7 hours.  Now that doesn’t sound like a bad deal, but it’s 5am, which explains why both Andrea and Karen are asleep next to me while I type.  I’m actually glad they’re getting the rest – it does a body good.

You may know that we’ve moved from the Nyanza Province and gone south into the Rift Valley.  We’re still as far away from Somalia as we can be; and actually moving even further from Sudan.  We’ve visited Masai Mara several times for safaris, but this time we’re going there for projects.  I won’t give too much away, but the Sekenani Birthing Center is one of our main focuses for this trip.  Shortly after we had finished the clinic in Maseno, Vivian Cunningham suggested that we look at Masai Mara and consider a birthing center.  For background purposes, I’ll tell you that Vivian is among the faculty at the Wegmans School of Nursing at St. John Fisher College (WSON will be much easier to type).  We worked with WSON years ago to bring Junior and Senior nursing students to Kenya.  It was a wonderful experience for these young men and women, but after the second year, violence in eastern Kenya put a stop to the trips.  I’m delighted to say that last month, those tripped resumed once more.  Again, I’m digressing, but it’s all part of the story.  It that “down period,” some of the faculty went back to Kenya on their own.  That’s where Vivian (and Karen Parker) saw an opportunity for us to help.  That seed was planted a couple years ago, and has finally taken root.  These are the pictures of the work that has been done in the days prior to the beginning of this latest trip.  More will follow.

 

Tuesday was a travel day.  We landed in Nairobi on schedule at 9:45pm and sailed through customs.  I’ve never flown into this wing of Jomo Kenyatta Airport before, but I really hope I will from now on.  It was newly built (a long time coming since the fire), and it’s air-conditioned.  It’s almost has that “new car smell,” assuming your car is from Kenya.  Our luggage was slow coming out, but eventually it made it.  We ended up carrying 7 bags totaling somewhere around 400 lbs.  Yikes, that’s heavy.  Even though the majority of bags had rollers, we still got carts.  Yes, “carts,” as in plural.  The next step was getting past customs.  Normally, it’s very uneventful.  This was not one of those times.  “Do you have anything to declare?” the woman asked kindly.  I explained what we had and what we were doing – it’s rather difficult saying that we brought 7 bags but they’re all our clothing.  Did you know that the Kenyan government taxes all donations coming into the country?  Yeah, they do.  Did you know that the going rate is 49% of the dollar value of the items?  Neither did I.  $75 later, we were walking with Isaac to his car.  He was with a friend whom we would later learn was the owner of the car that Isaac was driving us in for the duration of the trip.  I would learn even later that OD (or Odie, I’m not sure which, but I’m fairly certain they’ve never heard of Garfield) didn’t really know how to drive.  Regardless, he accompanied us to Karen where we checked in to the Royale Hotel in Karen.  Yes, “Karen” is one of the most affluent cities in Nairobi.  It’s difficult to tell during the night drive, but it will be quite  obvious when we begin our drive to Narok tomorrow morning.  First, dinner.  Those of you paying attention are saying, “Wait a second!  You landed at 9:45, went through immigration and customs, then drove to Karen and had dinner? It must have been 1:00 in the morning?”  Yes and no.  We did all those things, but it was only 11:30pm.  But you were close.  It was 1am when we finally went to our room for the night.  This is a great hotel when you compare it to the places we were staying 10 years ago, but I’d have fallen asleep on the ground if someone offered…  Freakishly similar to my state of mind right now.  It’s already Wednesday night, and I’m trying to play catch-up and I’ve already fallen asleep in my chair twice.  I will forge ahead.

Dinner was chicken, chipati, chips (French Fries) and tomato and onion salad. It was delicious, but the food only increased my exhaustion.  The conversation, however, continued to be engaging.  Isaac and OD told stories about how they were caned as children, who was worse (parents or teachers), and all thr mischief they got into.  OD is an amiable fellow.  He’s very demonstrative when he speaks and his accent is much thicker than Isaac.  You add in the sound effects he makes in place of words and he reminded me of Samuel (“my height” mentioned in many previous blogs) from Maseno.  It was nice to have a piece of him present since his passing.  It made me smile.

We headed upstairs and fell into bed.  Literally.  

Tuesday started later than usual.  Breakfast at 8:30, then we began our two our drive to Narok.  OD joined us for both.  We were in a Toyota mini van with 7 bags, 3 back packs and 5 people.  Karen had to sit in the middle to accommodate space for OD who’s amiable-ness was wearing thin.  Because the town was named “Karen,” he was anxious to point out everything named Karen to Karen.   “Kahren, you have a university.”  “Kahren, look theyah… you have a hospeetall.”  Kahren… I am so very jealous, you have a shoppeeng sentah.”  I just kept thinking, “serenity now, serenity now.”  I can’t tell you what Andrea and Karen were thinking… just in case children are reading this.

We arrived in Narok and went straight to Isaac’s home.  The kids were still in school, so we sat with Leah, Isaac’s wife, who had prepared lunch.  Yup, OD hung tuff.

We removed the presents that we brought for Leah and the children in the hopes of making room in the van.  No such luck.  It involved bringing every single bag in, removing a couple items, and returning the all to the van.  It was already 3 when we left to check in to the hotel.  The roads are incredibly dusty.  It’s pretty clear that there hasn’t been much rain.  Actually, there hasn’t been any rain.  From what Isaac says, though, it has not stopped the migration, rather, it has sped it up for some reason.  We plan on watching wildebeest cross the mara river into the jaws of waiting aligators.  Not an easy promise from Isaac, but he always seems to come through.

I’ll finish the day’s story by beginning with dinner at Isaac’s house on Tuesday… but you’ll have to wait until later.  I’ve got to run out with Isaac to get some Kenyan Shillings.

Ta ta for now.

Adam