Friday, May 27, 2016

Road Trip

Day 2 is in the books! We traveled  6+ hour today. While we consider a long drive boring and monotonous at home, it was anything but that here. We saw an accident on our journey today in which a large food truck carrying milk and rice had spilled its contents everywhere. The Kenyans were running and coming from all directions in order to snag even one bag of rice or milk. They were even jumping out of their own cars (which did not help the traffic speed up at all). There were even people running from the bushes and fields all to get some scraps of food.

We took a break during the drive at "The Curio" where we all bought hand craved wooden sculptures and cloth tapestries. We all had our chance at bargaining today; it was "sort of" fun. It was a beautiful shop and it really is incredible how talented the Kenyans are with these trades.

Our long ride today also brought many animal sightings: Lions and tigers and bears, Oh my! (Just kidding mom.) We saw baboons, zebras, many breeds of birds, donkeys, impalas, goats, dogs and many cows (tied up to trees like they were on leashes). The landscape was beautiful and the farther we got out of Nairobi, we saw smaller and shorter trees and the sand darkened to a beautiful red. Heidi warned us all MANY times to not roll in the red sand.

On the van quest across Kenya, we also observed many markets and schools.The markets were caddy-wompus and crooked. They all set up their own shops along the roads for beverages, baskets, wooden sculptures, sling shots, and many other goods. When traffic is slow, they come right to the car to try and sell to us. We were able to stop by one road-side stand and make a few locals incredibly happy with sales.

Our day finished visiting with  Sister Gen at the St. Joseph's Hospital and getting a tour. It's hard to describe what we saw in a few short sentences, but we can tell you how good and easy we Americans have it back home. There are wards based on gender, multiple patients to rooms and there is NO air conditioning anywhere! On this compound, there is also a home for the working sisters and a home for the sick and elderly sisters. Sister Gen was very excited to show us the new additions to the hospital including a "Major Theater" (operating room) and their shiny new ultrasound machine! They
also added a church and a morgue to their compound.

We've just enjoyed a family style meal and are currently listening to the staff sing while Julie and Naomi are planning on teaching us Africa dance. From all of us here in Kenya, Jambo!

Suzie and Katie
PS. We've been having some trouble with internet access so please don't be concerned if we don't post on a day or two :)





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