Different Lives

When I got to work this morning I asked a Kenyan colleague if I could use her computer to print something.  When I sat down, her web browser was on yahoo.com and the main story on the webpage was announcing a celebrity engagement and describing the 2 million dollar engagement ring.  This colleague of mine seeing this news probably makes around $200/month and that is considered a good wage, although nothing extravagant.  It felt so weird to see that story having just come in from the main road that is dotted by what are essentially shacks by American standards.  Man, we've got a crazy world where some people can afford such incredibly luxuries and others struggle to get by.  It is hard to comprehend and I'm still wrapping my head around the poverty here.

Yesterday the internet went down for the afternoon and most of the evening, the entire town ran out of petrol, and then the electricity went out.  I felt really isolated and it was a tough night.  Then I thought the town was on fire and had a brief moment of "What am I going to do?!?!  There is no gas in the cars!?!?", but it turns out the sunset just turns the sky bright orange enough to look like flame.  It was gorgeous once I knew it wasn't fire ;)

I'm Wired

Bungoma is obviously a poor place.  The buildings are run down and poverty is apparent.  But what’s amazing is that everyone has a cell phone.  And it’s just like the U.S. where everyone checks their phone every 5 minutes.  I got a cell phone from a stall in Nairobi airport immediately after I stepped off the plane.  For 40 USD I got a sweet Nokia (the ones that were very, very cool when I was in high school in the U.S.) and a decent amount of minutes.  To call the U.S. it is only about 0.02 cents a minute which is awesome.  And what’s even more amazing are the USB sticks you can buy that connect to wireless phone signals and the internet wherever you are.  Yesterday I was literally sitting in the middle of nowhere with chickens walking around and was online.  In Nairobi, Kisumu, and Bungoma I saw Safaricom (a huge phone provider) stands everywhere where you can load up on pre-paid minutes.

 It’s interesting to see a place that struggles with things we take for granted as basics in the U.S., like clean water, have this very modern technology.  But it is doing good.  People use phones to move money around in places where banking systems are undeveloped or receive information on crop prices so they can decide whether to sell their crop now or later.

Basically, the point of this post is a just a big hint to use your cell phone and call me because I already miss everyone J   

Safe and Sound (and tired)

After a 6 hour flight to London, an 8 hour flight to Nairobi, an 8 hour layover in Nairobi, a 1 hour flight to Kisumu, and a 2 hour drive, I am settled into Bungoma, Kenya.  I arrived at 10:00pm Sunday night and started work at 7:45am Monday morning.

The journey to Bungoma was LONG.  On the way to London I sat next to a nice older woman who I startled by bawling during takeoff after saying goodbye to Matt in the airport, and just being overwhelmed in general at what was ahead of me, and then conking out for a good 4 hours.  When I finally woke up she was very concerned.  We started talking and she told me about her 10 children.  10!  And how she lived in Guyana and her husband died when her children were young and she was left to raise them all alone.  Now they live all over the world and are engineers and chemists and she already has twenty-something grandchildren.  What a woman!

On the flight from London to Nairobi I sat next to an older Kenyan man named James who had grown up in Nairobi but now lives in San Diego.  He was very encouraging of what I was coming to Kenya to do and then started to share his story with me.  He married an American woman who couldn’t stop drinking, destroyed her liver, and died within 2 years of their wedding.  But before she died she asked him to promise to take care of her father who has alzheimers.  This man quit his job and now spends every day caring for his father-in-law.  I was very touched by his devotion but also so sad for him.  When we got off the plane he told me that God’s grace is good and would carry me through.

And then I was in Nairobi!  Visa granted and cell phone purchased, I had an 8 hour layover until my flight to Kisumu and was planning on staying in the airport but after being approached by 5 different random men offering to help me, and knowing I had a lot of money on me, I decided to just rent a hotel for the day.  So I took off in a car towards the hotel with a random man, a lot of money, and all my earthly possessions and immediately spotted a giraffe!  The random man was very sweet and pulled over so I could oohh and aahhh.   

When I arrived in Kisumu I got picked up by one of the people I will be working with.  We had dinner at a restaurant on Lake Victoria in Kisumu with some of his friends and I got to watch the sun set over the lake.  It was surreal.  I had my first Tusker and it turns out that I have several friends in common with my dinner mates, which is a good, comforting feeling.

After dinner, we drove for 2 hours, in the dark, to Bungoma, my new home for the summer.  The potholes are like meteor craters and people drive giant trucks and bikes at night with no lights.  At home, I am the person who checks twice that their seatbelt is securely fastened but it’s time to get used to a new reality.

More later.