Week 4

This has been a very eventful week. Monday was a big day at Moi University – the launching of a natural dye. It was discovered (developed ? ? ) and patented by Dr. Richard Mibey, vice-chancellor. A patent in Kenya is relatively rare, so the University had a major celebration lasting from around 10:30 until about 4:00. The celebration included two choirs and a fashion show in which Rivatex, the University’s textile company, had made all clothes. Many of the clothes had been made with the dye. Kenya has a “weed” called Marigold, which has become the source of this dye. Some of the clothes modeled are in the following picture.

On Wednesday, the driver who took Grace to the main campus, 35 km out of town, forgot about her so she had to scramble to get a ride back, but eventually made it. On In the evening two Danish engineering students moved into the third bedroom in our home, making things a bit more crowded. Some good things are that they were playing the same games we played – rummy and yahtzee – so now we play with four people, making the games more interesting.

On Monday, Dean Sinclair, a visiting professor from Louisiana asked if we would be interested in travelling with him and his son, four making it safer, cheaper and better than two. We readily agreed. The Danish ladies also inquired about travelling to see more of Kenya so now there were six of us. Then on Friday, while making plans, five Swedish students were here to look at the one-room units just next to our home. The three female students had plans to go to Uganda for the weekend but the two male students were eager to join us. Then Moi’s International rep phoned to tell us he had booked a van for us and we had a tour arranged for Saturday.

Saturday - what an interesting day! We began with a tour of the Chemomi Tea Factory in the Nandi Hills south of Eldoret, watching the process from bringing in the leaves to packing the finished product into 68 – 77 kg bags for export. We also saw many tea fields with people picking tea leaves. The picture shows Grace and me standing in a tea field. We also toured Chemomoi’s wetland conservation project and travelled through the sugar cane growing region (the sugar cane was about 12 feet tall), going as far as Kisumu near Lake Victoria. One long stretch of road was the worst road I have ever seen. People in both directions travelled from shoulder to shoulder to minimize the roughness. Often ungraded shoulders were much smoother than the road. All of us had a wonderful day and saw a lot of Kenya.

The last picture is of a famous rock formation called Nandi Rock.