Random thought, I've decided one of the weirdest things about driving in Africa is getting used to judging the width of the car from right to left instead of left to right. It's strange because you wouldn't think this would be a problem, but I really feel like I'm much less sure of my width here than in the US. Also not helping the problem are two facts, 1) I drive a different car each time I get the chance to drive, 2) the roads are insanely narrow.
Any way this past week has been quite eventful. I did make it to Nairobi on Friday as planned and spent the night in my old bedroom from high school days. It was bittersweet as I missed having the hundreds of posters and magazine clippings that used to line the walls.
After getting into town Friday I walked to a nearby mall to get passport pictures taken for my work permit and alien registration. While at the mall I popped into a computer store to see if they had any slide scanners. They had one that was about $50 more than I was really hoping to spend.
On Saturday morning I tried to call a few electronics stores in Nairobi to see if they had slide scanners. I got through to one of the three. They did have a scanner, but it was about $700! I was looking for more like $150 so I decided I'd pass on that.
My main plan for the day was to attend the Safari Sevens Rugby Tournament, an annual 3 day event. So I prepared to make my way there. There was no breakfast food in the house where I was staying and I needed to buy a few other small things so I first walked across the street to a grocery store and then made my way toward the tournament which was about a 30 minute walk down the street. I stopped about half way at my favorite coffee shop (Java House at Adams Arcade) and had a hearty breakfast so it would hold me until dinner. By the time I got to the tournament it was about 12:00, but I was just in time to see the Kenya A team take the field. I spent the rest of the afternoon with my cousin Heather Adkins watching the tournament.
In the evening I walked down to Robyn Moore's house where I would be staying for the rest of my time in Nairobi. "Aunt" Robyn had 2 other volunteer girls staying with her and the 4 of us would have a lot of fun through the next several days.
Finally after dinner a high school friend, Andrew Ruturi, picked me up and we went to another Java House to just chat and catch up. At 9:30 we were the last customers to leave the restaurant. Long day!
Sunday after church we (Robyn and volunteers Lindsay and Rachel) headed to the final day of the Rugby Tournament. The girls had never seen a rugby game before, so I got to pretend to be really smart and tell them everything I know about my favorite sport.
Monday I was met by Joel Kiathe who works with WGM helping with business such as work permits and other important, yet time consuming details. I had heard horror stories of waiting all day in long lines and trips from one office to another for this stamp or that piece of paper, so I was prepared for a long a tedious day. In fact, it moved right along and we were only there for 2 hours maximum which was a very pleasant surprise. I was actually back to Aunt Robyn's before lunch!
WIth my sudden extra time I tried again to call some electronics shops looking for scanners. I still had 2 that I hadn't heard from yet. I got one of them and was met with the quick reply that they simply didn't have slide-scanners. I had 4 different numbers for the other one, only one number connected and it turned out to be someone's private number. The lady was not interested in selling me a slide scanner. Having exhausted my knowledge of options I caught a ride with Aunt Robyn and picked up the one in the mall.
Tuesday morning I stayed at the house and worked some more on research for the Tenwek video while the ladies went to a few orphanages to check on the kids and to pick up 3 MORE volunteer girls. When they got back the house began to overflow with estrogen, but I think we all had fun anyway. :) We went to a nearby shopping center for a late lunch and then I did some grocery shopping for my return to Kericho. The girls and I had made plans to go see a movie after the shopping was done, but that fell through because the film was apparently NOT at the theatre yet.
So Plan B was made. We returned to Aunt Robyn's house for the rest of the afternoon and had tacos for dinner, then after dinner I took 5 girls out to the movies! I guess that's how you make up for not going on a date in a REALLY long time.
Wednesday I had breakfast with all the ladies before they ran off to visit some more orphanages. Once they were gone I just tried to work on more Tenwek research while I waited for my ride to Kericho to pick me up. I caught a ride with the Bishop of AGC. By evening I was back in my trailer at Kericho. Within a couple hours Michael, one of my friends from the Bible College, came over to greet me and invite me to join him and some others in leading chapel! Fortunately I wasn't given too much responsibility I was just asked to join them in singing a few special numbers. It was fun, but kind of a whirlwind turn from where I'd been the night before.
Thursday I was off to work in the Media office, I started gathering several massive collections of slides and kept going through the books that I'd been reading for research. Really not a whole lot to talk about there.
Friday was similar though rather than slides and reading I set up a video projector and VCR and looked at some old videos about Tenwek. So far the most interesting has been what was probably the first ever Kenya Field Video that WGM put out back in 1980 something. Dr. Tom Hermiz hosted an interesting trip throughout Kenya. I had a few good laughs at things like Aunt Robyn's short appearance. Don't worry I'm sure people will laugh at me some day too. (And several of you are asking "someday???")
Saturday I started to catch up with my unpacking and laundry, did some more Tenwek research and then walked to town for a few groceries. With the shopping all done I spent most of the afternoon at the church waiting for a promised goat roast.
Man that was a long update and it's really late coming. I'm sorry, the internet has been real flaky lately.
By the way, my Uncle in the US passed away Monday evening. Please pray for my Aunt, Elain Brady, and her family.
Until Saturday, God Bless,
Jonny
Friday, June 26, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
TRY something new
Thinking about this blog today I recognized how long it's been since I updated anything here. My problem is I keep waiting for moments of inspiration and not really coming up with anything.
I recognize that the main purpose of this blog should be to keep friends and family up to date on my life here in Africa. So I am proposing (to myself) a new philosophy. Rather than just writing about the rare random story I should start going for a post a week. We'll see if I can be faithful and pull this off, but I thought I should at least try for it. So each week I will look to the week ahead, where I'll be, what hope to accomplish, and any interesting events coming up. I also hope to look back and make note of the previous week, where I was and what I accomplished. Hopefully this new blogging perspective will bring about some interesting stories as well.
So to begin...
I feel like this time I really should jump back and mention the time i was recently able to spend with my cousins Tiffany and Samuel Thaler and our friend Mark Schieffla. Tiffany had been in Kenya since September 2008 as a volunteer working in Physical Therapy in Nairobi. Mark and Samuel came for about 2 weeks to visit. Actually no account of our time is complete with out my going back about 2 weeks now to Tiffany and Samuel meeting me in Kampala, Uganda. They took the 12-14 hour bus ride over to meet me and we all went white water rafting together on the Nile.
After rafting we returned to Nairobi by bus and met up with Mark. We all spent 2 days in Nairobi seeing places where Tiffany worked, visiting the baby elephants and the Giraffes near the national park and shopping. During this time we rented a vehicle and because I was the only one with a license it fell to me to be the driver! So I had my first experience driving in Nairobi, and with the exception of a few wrong turns it went pretty well.
Moving on from Nairobi we spent a few days in Maasai Land first at a mission station there and then in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve. At the Olderkesi Mission station we were privelaged to visit an actual Maasai village (not the touristy ones you find near the park) and were also treated to a night game drive using the spot light to try and find animals in the darkness.
After Maasai we returned to Nairobi for a night and last Friday (June 12) I said good-bye to the three of them and made my way to Tenwek Hospital. They were to fly out later that night.
I've been here at Tenwek for a week now mostly beginning to research my next video project. Tenwek Hospital is celebrating 50 years since the first full time doctor, Dr. Ernie Steury, came. My coworker, John Makibior, and I have been tasked to assemble a video that tells the story of Tenwek's early days and how far it's come since then. I am very excited about this project, but it is no small task. On Tuesday we had a meeting with the hospitals Executive Officer, Mr. Geoffery Langat, to discuss plans for the project. It was reassuring to see that he was looking for similar things to what we were thinking of.
On Wednesday morning Mr. Langat asked us to join the celebrations planning committee and present our thoughts to them. This meeting also went quite well.
I have spent the days since continuing to research and beginning an outline.
So what's in store for next week?
Today (Friday) I'm heading to Nairobi to hang out for the weekend and do some business at the beginning of next week. My work permit has been approved so I need to go and finalize that and apply for alien registration and a multiple entry permit so I don't have to pay every time I come into Kenya. I also plan to try and look for a slide scanner for AGC Media that we can use for this Tenwek project and for digitizing the large slide library at the office.
Until next week, God Bless.
I recognize that the main purpose of this blog should be to keep friends and family up to date on my life here in Africa. So I am proposing (to myself) a new philosophy. Rather than just writing about the rare random story I should start going for a post a week. We'll see if I can be faithful and pull this off, but I thought I should at least try for it. So each week I will look to the week ahead, where I'll be, what hope to accomplish, and any interesting events coming up. I also hope to look back and make note of the previous week, where I was and what I accomplished. Hopefully this new blogging perspective will bring about some interesting stories as well.
So to begin...
I feel like this time I really should jump back and mention the time i was recently able to spend with my cousins Tiffany and Samuel Thaler and our friend Mark Schieffla. Tiffany had been in Kenya since September 2008 as a volunteer working in Physical Therapy in Nairobi. Mark and Samuel came for about 2 weeks to visit. Actually no account of our time is complete with out my going back about 2 weeks now to Tiffany and Samuel meeting me in Kampala, Uganda. They took the 12-14 hour bus ride over to meet me and we all went white water rafting together on the Nile.
After rafting we returned to Nairobi by bus and met up with Mark. We all spent 2 days in Nairobi seeing places where Tiffany worked, visiting the baby elephants and the Giraffes near the national park and shopping. During this time we rented a vehicle and because I was the only one with a license it fell to me to be the driver! So I had my first experience driving in Nairobi, and with the exception of a few wrong turns it went pretty well.
Moving on from Nairobi we spent a few days in Maasai Land first at a mission station there and then in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve. At the Olderkesi Mission station we were privelaged to visit an actual Maasai village (not the touristy ones you find near the park) and were also treated to a night game drive using the spot light to try and find animals in the darkness.
After Maasai we returned to Nairobi for a night and last Friday (June 12) I said good-bye to the three of them and made my way to Tenwek Hospital. They were to fly out later that night.
I've been here at Tenwek for a week now mostly beginning to research my next video project. Tenwek Hospital is celebrating 50 years since the first full time doctor, Dr. Ernie Steury, came. My coworker, John Makibior, and I have been tasked to assemble a video that tells the story of Tenwek's early days and how far it's come since then. I am very excited about this project, but it is no small task. On Tuesday we had a meeting with the hospitals Executive Officer, Mr. Geoffery Langat, to discuss plans for the project. It was reassuring to see that he was looking for similar things to what we were thinking of.
On Wednesday morning Mr. Langat asked us to join the celebrations planning committee and present our thoughts to them. This meeting also went quite well.
I have spent the days since continuing to research and beginning an outline.
So what's in store for next week?
Today (Friday) I'm heading to Nairobi to hang out for the weekend and do some business at the beginning of next week. My work permit has been approved so I need to go and finalize that and apply for alien registration and a multiple entry permit so I don't have to pay every time I come into Kenya. I also plan to try and look for a slide scanner for AGC Media that we can use for this Tenwek project and for digitizing the large slide library at the office.
Until next week, God Bless.
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