last day in Kenya

5/3/07
Our last day in Kenya. We are ready to go home, I think, and none of us are looking forward to the trip...

We spent the morning doing last minute shopping at Baboo's - a friend of Stanley's who has a nice craft store. Lunch at Java House and a "Coke Light" (Kenya equivalent of Diet Coke). Frantic packing. It was funny, because I had had a cold coffee drink AND a Coke, and I was wired up. My friends were teasing me -- I couldn't find things and then I had to pack and unpack to find them. It was pretty OCD on my part I guess.

We had dinner at HEART and loaded up, then we were off to pick up Stanley and on to the airport. Stanley will be in Nairobi for a few more days. He tries to make more connections for Tumaini everytime he goes.

What can you say about a 32 hour trip home? 8.5 hours to Heathrow, 5 hr layover, 10.5 hrs to Cali. I felt wrecked. I will give kudos to Virgin Atlantic however. Very nice flight, good entertainment (lots of movies), they fed you every so often, and came around with water and juice at least once an hour which really helped with the dehydration that usually bothers me on the plane. About half way through the flight, I said to one of my friends, "Just shoot me now..." I did the reverse of the jetlag program going out. We slept a few hours from Nairobi to Heathrow, and then stayed awake until Los Angeles (with some difficulty). (Later note -- it actually worked pretty good. I was a little tired the first week, but did not nap at all. I still slept alright and did not wake up at all wierd hours).

At least when we got home, it was smooth sailing through customs and Ron (Laureen's husband) was soon there to pick us up in the new Pathway bus! It felt good to be riding on the right (literally) side of the road again. We were home by 6 p.m.

I was high for days and I still can't stop talking about the trip. Ask me a question and I can go on for hours. When we visited Texas, I talked about the trip for two hours the first time I met Laura's boyfriend Juan Pablo. He's a traveler, so he seemed to appreciate my enthusiasm -- thanks JP for your tolerance...

And thanks again to all those who have followed my journey and to those who contributed to my "special need" fund. Who knew it was going to be education for two very special young people? We were thinking goats when I went...God had different plans -- I was blessed to be an "instrument of his peace." My prayer always.

Amen.

last day of the Mara

5/2/07 - early!

Very early rising again, 6:30 a.m. and we were off - this time off to the border with Tanzania and the edge of the Serengeti Plain. The Masai Mara is the Kenyan continuation of this famous wildlife area. As we left the lodge, several Japanese tourists were getting ready to go on a balloon ride - we were told it was $300 per person!

We saw more beautiful animals this morning - my favorites, the giraffes in the sunrise light, two Secretary birds in the tops of the tree, and for a special treat, the "Helmeted Guinea Hen Jogging Club" out for their morning run. A group of about 10 of these large ground birds (like a large partridge) were running in front of the Land Cruiser and would not fly. Alex was following them pretty closely but they were not ABOUT to give up the road. You could see little puffs of dirt fly out from under their feet. Very cute. We also saw Maribou storks and a bat eared fox - a little guy with HUGE ears.

We ended up at the west gate of the park and a mile or so beyond was the border with Tanzania -- not a soul there, so we walked across for a minute and back again -- and of course took pictures.

Riding back, I couldn't get enough of the view all around us. I stood up the entire drive back - I just wanted to drink it in and remember everything. I was starting to become aware of the end of the trip approaching.

Breakfast, packing, and then a long wait for the plane. We said good bye to our friends, Joel and Ole Kuya, who again asked us to write to them. I asked Joel if he would like me to ask for a blessing on his family and he beamed and said yes, so I prayed for his little family's peace and continued health and welfare.

The trip back was uneventful and we were met by the rest of our group - after lunch in Nairobi, we returned to HEART. The afternoon was spent frantically repacking and weeding out items to give to Paul to take back for anyone who wanted them in Masii -- several of us had WAY too much stuff (myself included) and I sacrificed several items for the space I needed to pack.

In the evening we went to Carnivore, a restaurant that specializes in exotic meat in addition to regular barbeque-on-a-spit type items. The exotic meats for the evening were ostrich meat balls (very good) and crocodile. Now, some people I know have tried croc and liked it, but to me it tasted just like the smell from the bottom of a fish tank when you clean it out. Nasty. One bite, that was it.

And that was it for the day. I had had it. My stamina was definitely waning by this time. Three mornings in a row up at 5:30 a.m. didn't help either. The lights were out when we got back to HEART, so we all crashed early.