Blog #13

I would just like to start by making it clear that we are now calling Matayo Matthew again as the other one has now left and I’m pretty sure he prefers the original and English alternative anyway.

We had arranged for breakfast to be earlier this Saturday as we needed to be at Buko Primary school for 9am as we were travelling on their coach to the district competition in Webuye. We set off after breakfast at 8.15am and caught the Matatu from town and got off just outside the path entrance to Buko School. We arrived in the school yard where there were not many members of staff around. Most importantly there wasn’t the Head Teacher around who had invited us to come on this trip, so Matthew have him a call to see where he was. He was arranging the Bus. It was now past 9am and he was only just arranging the Bus that the students needed to visit the competition. So we waited around for about an hour and the bus arrived where we jumped on and got a seat before the students all piled in. The condition of the bus was not very good in comparison to the buses and coaches used back home but nether the less it would still seat all the students coming on the journey, even if it did mean them sitting on very torn seats.

Despite our efforts to get a place on the bus before the students made their choices, we were already allocated some seats at the front near the driver. I had a window seat and was able to look out at the people and views we passed while the students on board beat drums and sang songs in excitement. The drive took around 30 minutes and we arrived outside the grounds where the competition was being held. We joined in for a group photo with the school and at this time Matthew began to get multiple phone calls on his mobile from some of the Mission staff.
There was a problem, because of the power issues the previous day, the server which networks and supplies the Internet to the multiple computers in the Cyber Centre was down. The Operating System had become corrupt and Matthew had spent most of the afternoon and evening on Friday trying to see and fix the problem. When he realised he couldn’t, he arranged for Ken, the previous IT Technician for the Mission, to come up from Nairobi with the software needed to reinstall the server to a stable and suitable state. Matthew had the key to the server room which is also his office where he runs the Gap Programme, and does other jobs for the Mission via the Communications Department. Having the key restricted the new IT Technician, Robert, from being able to access the room and the server however, Matthew was fully aware that despite Robert’s best efforts, without having the software he was unable to resolve the problem.

So after the raised awareness of the problems in the Cyber Centre, even knowing nothing could be done Matthew and I decided to cut our journey and time spent at the competition short and head back using public transport, after only seeing the many schools at the competition in their colourful costumes and catching only a few performances. We arrived back at the compound at around 2pm. Matthew gave it five minutes before Robert would realise he couldn’t do anything to improve the conditions of the server. He was right. In all fairness though, I do think there was a mix up in communications and even though the Cyber Centre was not fully functional the problem was blown out of proportion.

We left the offices and come back home where we had to find alternative things to do for the afternoon. The weather wasn’t so appealing so we decided not to do any washing, but instead decided to watch a DVD in the guesthouse lounge. After dinner I decided to see if it was possible for me to have a shower in one of the other room’s available, one with warm shower as the one I have is still freezing. I was given some keys and first tried the room next to mine but unfortunately that shower was also cold so I went to try another. The next key I had been given was to the Green Room in the main guesthouse and with the rooms being named after the colour of the walls inside, it’s quite hard to distinguish which room is which when the doors don’t exactly have signs on the outside. So I tried the key in a couple of doors but they didn’t seem to want to open, so I moved onto the next ones to see if I had any luck. I tried one door and this time the key seemed to fit but not turn. I decided I would try the handle because sometimes doors are left open, and as I tried the handle the door began to move. I had opened the door to Richard’s room, one of the regular guests who had come for the weekend, and I'm pretty sure I woke him from sleeping. I apologised several times closing the door and leaving and in slight embarrassment and in a bit of a huff because I couldn’t get a warm shower, I went back to my room and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Sunday arrived and I knew that Ken was visiting from Nairobi today and was due to get into Kimilili at around 6.30am. Matthew had already left early without breakfast and I was going to go and catch up with then after I had eaten mine to meet him. So this morning instead of going to St James Church I head off to the offices to see how much progress Ken, Robert and Matthew had made on fixing the server problems from the past couple of days. When I arrived Matthew was outside painting a metal box he had bought that he is using to store his Gap Programme equipment when he is out and about doing things in the community. Quite creatively and professionally, using a fine paint brush and the black paint used to coat his bike frame, he artistically painted “IcFEM MISSION GAP PROGRAMME” onto the blue container.

Ken still hadn’t arrived as he had somehow got on a bogus bus in the morning delaying his journey. I watched Matthew paint a little until Ken did arrive, equipt with the software and skills to get the centre up and running again. He began by talking both Robert and I through installing the Operating System onto the server. I had never seen RedHat functioning before so it was interesting to see this working. We worked through this until it got to the stage where you have to wait and cannot do anything but let the software install. We sat around discussing things and I found out a little about Ken and what he did with the Mission and what he is now doing in Nairobi.

Once the problem was fixed and lots of little technical adjustments I had never seen before and probably will never remember were done, Ken made his way back home just after lunchtime, as the trip back was long and he had work the next day. We left him and thanked him for his time and help and then made our way back to the guesthouse for lunch. After lunch we were invited to take a trip with a local and often used mini bus driver to Bungoma as he was going and I was interested in seeing more of the country I was living in.

So we spend about an hour and a half taking the trip there and back and it was nice to see the difference between the towns around Kenya. I didn’t exactly see a lot of it as we quite basically just passed through and around Bungoma. It was interesting to see the differences with this place being slightly more upbeat and popular. On our journey both there and back we were stopped by Police guards who regularly check up on larger vehicles passing up and down the main roads incase they are smuggling or carrying too many passengers.

Back home after Ughali for dinner, I managed to get into the Yellow room which occupied a hot shower and when I say hot shower I mean the complete opposite to mine. It didn’t take seconds to get warm and soon after a couple of minutes began to extremely warm as Matthew mentioned to me at the beginning of my stay. Don’t get me wrong, I'm definitely not complaining, it was nice to have a refreshing shower and not come out sneezing and shivering. After the shower I decided to have a shave and trim my hair a little. Not realising how much sun I had caught over the past couple of day, I was now left with small white areas where the sun had not seen for years. I then sat down and watched an episode of Only Fools and Horses with Matthew until I was called up by my parents for their weekly chat.

After our chat I decided to retire to bed and get a good night sleep for the mudding I would be doing on the house on Monday. Luckily last week as I was wearing overalls and my Gap T Shirts, I didn’t get many items of clothing dirty so not doing any washing this weekend was not a major problem.

Until next time, Take Care x