Notes from Stephen, Wan, Kweilin, and Li

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Ewaso Ngiro, Narok, Kericho, Kisumu

I had a hot shower this morning! I ate a scone for breakfast. Mommy washed my clothes and I wrung them out and hanged them to dry.

We drove into Narok. Daddy visited a clinic with John, and Mommy and Jay and I went to a local market. We bought more Masai bead souvenirs: belts, bracelets, and baskets. We also bought a plastic tub, a knife, four pineapples, and sandals made of rubber tires ("giniara").

We drove many hours through Kericho to Kisumu. Kericho is a tea-plantation town like Nazareth. We stopped for gas but didn't spend the night.

We carried a couple hitchhikers for an hour. We stopped to buy roasted corn and a father asked us, "Will you please take my two children?" So we took his 14-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. Not a lot of other countries would trust strangers with their children.

When we hit Kisumu, I jumped out and rode in the back of the pickup to guard the bags. We were moving slowly through a crowded market and were worried that someone would snatch a bag as we passed.

We stayed at the Sunset Hotel, in a top-floor room with a beautiful view of Lake Victoria. Expensive--$65--but comfortable and beautiful.

We visited Jegatha and Raj, an Indian couple that has been working in Kenya for 20 years. We know them through the nuns of Nazareth. Raj is a tax accountant and Jegatha is the principal of a private school. Raj said that the Kenyans he works with are lazy. Analogy: "If I point out a cobweb, my coworker will clean that cobweb. If I point to another, he'll clean that one. Where I stop pointing, he stops cleaning." He said that Kenya is a beautiful country with great natural resources and has the potential to be "heaven on earth."

We saw on the news at Raj's house that more than 100,000 people died in the tsunami. Unbelievable.

Jegatha told us of her visit to Lake Turkana, a remote part of northern Kenya. The people who live there are half naked and use a barter system. Some missionaries (Indian sisters and Irish priests) run a local hospital. When a local needs a big surgery, he brings a camel. A small surgery brings a goat and a lesser visit brings firewood. The missionaries are careful not to tell a patient's family that he is sick or might die because the locals think death brings bad luck. If locals think someone is dying, they'll put him out in the forest to get eaten by hyenas so that he doesn't tarnish their house with death.

posted by Li at 11:25 AM