Yesterday we made our first trip into Eldoret since arriving
in Kapsowar. We needed to go the Orange
store (our internet and phone provider) and Nakumatt to get groceries – you
never know when your next chance to go to Eldoret will be and we wanted to make
sure we had some baking supplies as we get ready for Christmas. There was a short-term doctor that was
leaving yesterday and had hired a driver to take her back to the airport. We decided this would be a good opportunity to
go with them and have them take our car as we needed to have the car inspected
for insurance purposes. We were
scheduled to leave at 8am. We arrived at
the hospital to meet our driver who also turns out to be the hospital ophthalmologist. Just
as we were about to go, we found out that a young boy had come in with a stick
in his eye and our driver was going to need to go to the OR to remove the
stick. About an hour later he came out
and we were ready to go. He said the boy
would be fine and would heal.
We left the hospital around 9:30 for Eldoret. We saw some monkeys alongside of the
road. This is the first time I have seen
wildlife that is not normally seen in the US.
The first part of the drive is a pretty drive as you drive through a
forest area. The roads are absolutely
horrible though. The first half of the
drive is all dirt road with rocks, pot holes, and huge ruts in the road. You cannot possibly drive much more than 25
MPH on these roads. The cars really
take a beating. I would say that the
very worst dirt road in the US is still far better than any of these
roads. You also have to just know where
you are going here. Not that there are
that many options of different roads to take to get from one place to another,
but none of the roads are labeled with signs, including in the major city of
Eldoret. There also doesn’t seem to be
any stop signs, stop lights, or traffic laws for that matter. Once you get closer to Eldoret the road is
paved and is not too bad but they have speed bumps all over the place, so again,
you can’t go that fast. The speed bumps
aren’t marked in any way which can lead to an interesting ride if you are not
paying attention. On our way to Eldoret
we found that one of the dirt roads near ITEN (pronounced E TEN – ITEN is the
town that all the Kenyan runners who win all the marathon races train) was
closed as they were doing “improvement” on the road. Our driver found a detour (not marked),
although it took us basically through some dirt trails that looked like we were
driving through some guy’s farm.
Eventually we made it back to the main road.
We finally arrived in Eldoret around noon. We went to the Orange store first. It is always a challenge trying to explain to
the locals what you want and then try to understand what they are telling you. I think we figured out what we needed
there. Our driver took our car to the
insurance company while we were at the Orange store and everything seemed to go
smoothly there. Praise God!
Next was Nakumatt.
Nakumatt is basically your Walmart only with a lot fewer choices. It is the one store that really carries
things that resemble anything from back home.
We try not to have to go to Eldoret anymore than we have too since it is
such a long and exhausting day to go there.
We are always having to check our surroundings as theft is a very common
crime here in Kenya. I am sure we are
quite the spectacle as we are shopping for hopefully a month’s worth of
groceries with 2 shopping carts full of groceries and other supplies for the
house. One strange thing they do not
carry is shredded cheese. They have a
lot of block cheese, but no shredded cheese, so we have to shred all of our
cheese. We pull up to the check-out lane
with our 2 carts and it takes 45 minutes to check-out. They scan all our groceries and box them all
up so we can attach them to the roof of our car if needed. We pay with American Express which never
works at the register. The guy first
tries to make the card work, then you have to take your card and passport over
to the service desk where they can actually do the transaction for you. Then you bring everything back to checkout
line, the guy enters information that the service desk gave him, and then we
are done!
It is now 4pm and time to head back to Kapsowar. This time it took almost 3 hours to return
due to the road being closed near ITEN and us getting lost on a detour through
some guy’s farm. I did learn something
from yesterday though. I need to take Excedrin
and maybe Dramamine when I go to Eldoret.
I had a splitting headache on the way back and was feeling sick most of
the way back. Luckily, I was able to
take some Excedrin as soon as I got home and was feeling better about an hour
later. The roads were so rough yesterday
that our car was making a noise by the time we got back like something was
loose. Hopefully it is nothing
major.
Other observances from our trip yesterday
-
Saturday’s in December are wedding days here in
Kenya. We probably passed 5 or 6 weddings
on the way to Eldoret. December is a
month when many of the locals have time off to spend with family so a lot of
weddings are scheduled for December. The
wedding party’s are all kind of the same.
They put ribbon and bows and balloons on their cars, and they drive in a
parade of a few cars to the church. Since
there are so many weddings in December, and so many people have time off in
December, we are told that September will be a very busy month for Kristen at the
hospital delivering babies.
-
When driving in the more rural parts between
Kapsowar and Eldoret (this statement makes me laugh because Kapsowar is about
as rural as you can find) you always see kids along the road. The kids love to yell out “mzungu” meaning “white
person” in Swahili whenever they see us as they don’t see white people very
often. The kids are friendly and just
want to wave hi or yell out “how are you?” which must be something they are
taught to say very early as most do not know very much English.
-
Many Kenyan’s ride “motatu’s” or “pikipiki’s.” Motatu’s are basically small minivans or
pickup trucks converted with a covered seating area in the back. These vehicles are jam packed. I seriously think there are close to 15
people that they jam in there and sometimes you will see people hanging off the
back bumper. This is a form of public transportation
here. The pickipicki’s are motorcycles
that are a form of taxi. It is not
uncommon to see 4 people sitting on the motorcycle. I also saw some large trucks that kind of
looked like what we would use a military vehicles to transport troops in back
in the States. These were another form
of public transportation with loads of people on them.
Sunday mornings are interesting
here as well. There is a church,
probably a mile away, that has a really good sound system. They like to start singing and preaching (but
mostly singing) at 5:30am every Sunday morning.
We can here them very clearly all the way at our house. Their service seems to go until sometime in
the afternoon with singing in Swahili most of the morning followed by hours of
preaching. Most African church services
are fairly long (can be 2 -3 hours), but this church is definitely the winner
for longest service. Is it bad that I
was praying for a power outage this morning to spare us the 5:30am wake up
call?
Kristen and I have not been
feeling very well this past week. We
seem to be trading off who feels better from one day to the next. Please pray that we can start feeling
better.
Wow! What a day!
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