Kristen here. As Lynds said, I was pretty sick for a few days. I practically begged Michelle to start an IV on me. I even got to experience the clinic firsthand by being a patient there myself… including an examination by the "clinical officer", an education session and full lab work for malaria, typhoid and percella. To my mother's relief, I was completely negative for everything. And I feel fine now….knock on wood cause Michelle just unpacked our secret stash of IV start kit supplies.
Our friend Kevin is going to be in Kenya this weekend. What started out as a big joke about having a huge "SLUSON" reunion in a continent across the world, turned into something more realistic. It turns out, Kevin has a really nice priest friend that was more than willing to let us stay with him and there was an overnight bus to Nairobi that made traveling over there "easy". More on that later…
So this is traveling in Africa: You have to leave the clinic at mid-day… you walk to the village, get a boda boda, go to the Bududa corner where you jump in an over crowded matatu to Mbale. There, you spend way too long trying to grab snacks, get money out from the bank and check your email. All because nothing is actually "easy" in Africa. or efficient. Then, you get on a 5pm overnight bus to somewhere far away….except it doesn't leave until after 6pm (we have started placing bets on when things arrive or leave, etc. Price is right style. It entertains us for a while). The 3 mzungus were put in the very back of the bus which can be bumpy enough to leave serious butt bruises making us airborne multiple times on they bumpy dirt roads of Uganda. The bus travels rather slowly toward the border, making a stop at any point that a single person needs to pee and constantly unloading and loading random stuff that is being transported on the undercarriage of our bus… or in the aisle. And they sell too many tickets to how many seats there are which leaves someone standing up for the duration of the voyage (hours!!!) or cramming 7 people into the 5 seats we were sitting in. Awesome.
At the border, we unload the bus and get stamped out of Uganda. We then walk down this eerie street that is neither Kenya or Uganda. I can officially say I've been to "the middle of nowhere". We arrive at Kenya's customs office where they perceive to think we are scheming them because we said we wanted a transit visa. Sorry us Americans don't do the whole "visa" thing very often and we really don't know what we're doing. Doesn't transit just mean a short stay??. 50 bucks later… we have our single visit visa and a few new friends who try to convince us they are Obama's cousin. Riiiiightttt…..
Back on the bus for our crowded, bumpy, semi-sleepless ride making more stops along the way putting us into Nairobi at 7am. Whoa. Long night. We couldn't get a hold of Father David (Kevin's priest friend-- description to come!!!) so we did all we knew to do… wait. We grabbed some coffee and mandazi and didn't leave the area we had promised via email hours earlier. We had good faith that Kevin and gang would show up, which they did shortly after they landed and grabbed their bags!
Kevin, his sister Hannah, and his friend Amanda had just arrived to Kenya. We were all sorta jetlagged/tired from crazy bus rides so we spent the morning settling in and getting a tour of the seminary we would all stay at. Father David was more than generous to host us all. The seminary itself has a beautiful grounds and they are completely self sufficient. They have their own cows for milk, chickens for meat and garden for any herb or vegetable you could want.
That afternoon, Father David took us out in Nairobi. We went to see traditional dances put on by the Bomas. The dances were so cool- the music was great, the costumes were colorful and the dancing seemed authentic. There was an acrobatic act too. Afterwards, we did a bit of African craft shopping. Father David was insistent that we try a Kenyan beer called "Tusker". We all fell in love. All 6 of us Americans agreed (which is rare with beer tastes) and ordered a 2nd round. He also wanted us to check out the mall. It was a really nice shopping center that included our favorite African superstore: NAKUMATT!!! Yay for a walmart equivalent! In the food court, we had real, American-like ice-cream. It was delicious to those of us lacking diary and refrigeration in their diet.
All big city luxuries aside, we were still having food cravings: nachos, gala apples, soft pretzels, cantaloupe.
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