Week 6

This was a quiet week for us. On Monday morning I texted the organizer of our class field trip to Mombasa to get some details. Having received no reply by shortly after noon, I phoned him only to be told the trip was not certain, as too few students had paid their student fees. In the evening I emailed the professor I co-teach that course with. She was surprised I had heard nothing and proceeded to tell me the trip was postponed to the next semester - so that means canceled for me. Too bad, but other things have gone well.

The picture below shows a typical market one can find in Eldoret and most of the villages we have passed through. In some cases there are concentrated markets, in many places people simply lay their wares down on the sidewalk or at the side of the road and hope people will buy. There are some malls that resemble what we have in North America but for the most part there are many very small, crowded shops. The majority of shops sell cards to top up your phone access.

For the second Wednesday in a row, Grace’s driver forgot her so she had to make some phone calls to get back to Eldoret from the main campus, 35 km out of town. She got home after six and since we were still without electricity from before noon, we went out for supper. When we left the restaurant, some cows entered the street just ahead of us. I said to Grace we should just follow the cows home – and we did. They went into a small gate about 150 feet before our gate.

Before we left for Africa, some of our friends indicated that we would not want to drive after dark. We never doubted them but we have found out just how true it is. Roads are not too wide and they are shared by pedestrians, cyclists, motorcycles, cows, sheep, goats, donkeys, etc. Usually these are dark and you cannot see them until you are almost upon them. Furthermore, there are many substantial speed bumps that you will regret crossing at more than 5 km/hr and frequent potholes - on some roads there are a multitude of potholes. Driving in Kenya (neither of us have ”driven” in Kenya) is truly an experience.

On Sundays we have been attending the AIC (Africa Inland Church) shown below. It is a huge church with services from 8:00 – 9:00 and 9:00 – 10:30 in English and a third service from 10:45 – 12:30 in Kiswahili. We attend the second service, which is quite full with about 4,000 people. We have seen up to a dozen “whites”. There is no time between the first two services and many people walk or take the matatus so that does not present a problem for traffic or “changing” congregations. The singing is only somewhat more animated than ours at Fort Garry but some prayers and some preachers are quite a bit more animated. They sing many of the same hymns and songs we are used to. The choir is also the worship team and usually consists of 20 – 24 members.