Blog #16

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and it’s completely dark and I'm not talking about any of this wait a few minutes and your eyes will adapt darkness. Yeah I'm talking about full blown, I need to eat a sack load of carrots darkness, and you soon become very reliant on either a torch or your mobile phone as a flash light to find your way to the toilet. Luckily my room is only small and fortunately the route to the loo is always the same, however hard I dream the walls never seem to move and I always seem to make it there in time without any accidents.I wake up frequently, maybe its too much Chi in the evening I don’t know, but all I know is I often need to go and I've been struggling to hold a good nights sleep for a while, especially with the constant crazy dreams going on.

On the way back from the office Monday evening I noticed that my bike pedal was on its last legs and I had been avoiding get it fixed for a couple of weeks now and I think it was time something was done about it. After suggesting we took the bike to the Fundi with Matthew, we went to the guesthouse to drop off our bags that had our laptops in, and then we would head into town for the repair job. Back at the guesthouse while we waited for Matthew to get his act together, I sat talking to Dennis. I pointed out the problem with my bike and explained to him our plan of getting it fixed this evening. As I was discussing this with him he squeezed my front break slightly and it snapped. Another job to be done with the Fundi but fortunately we were just about on our way so we could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. In town we stopped off at a store where Matthew purchased 4 new pedals, 2 for my bike and 2 for his, these were blue metal ones and would hopefully be stronger, and he also purchased a new break to replace the snapped one. Meeting with the Fundi we discovered that we would have to wait around twenty minutes for him to finish his current repair job, but with dinner not far away and huge dark rain clouds creeping over the top of us, we decided we would call back in the morning and get the repair done then.

Luckily I could still ride my bike. I had one brake working and the pedal hadn’t fallen off yet so I could still use both feet. I rode back as Matthew pushed his bike and we were in time for dinner. After dinner we all sat around in the guesthouse doing our own things. I wrote up my blog and we talked for a while. I then received a call from my folks on my mobile towards the end of the evening. I had missed several calls as they attempted to contact me yesterday so we had our weekly discussion and then I called it a night.

Tuesday morning I had breakfast then returned to my room. I laid down on my bed and was fast asleep again for an unplanned hours rest. Waking up shocked at the fact I had dozed off, I got dressed and washed again and went to the offices to meet Matthew. I walked to the offices as he had taken my bike to be repaired, I half expected him to be gone by now and in town with the Fundi. I met him at the gates where he was just on his way to get the bike repaired. We decided to go back to the guesthouse, pick up Matthews bike also, which had a puncture, and then go into town together. In town we left the bikes at the Fundi being repaired with the replacement parts we had purchased the day before and decided to have a drink of Soda at Mount Crest while we waited to collect them. We sat around waiting for about 25 minutes talking and discussing thing then made our way back for lunch at the slightly earlier time of 12.30pm.

Lunch was earlier today because Jane was leaving at around 1pm and when we arrived in the dining room, Jane was still packing her gear together into her suitcase as she was delayed during her last minute meetings in the morning. We began eating at around 1pm and were soon joined by Jane. Afterwards I helped Jane with the closing and stringing up of her suitcase to make sure it stayed closed throughout the journey. When Jane arrived 3 weeks ago the handle of her suitcase had snapped off so during her time here she had it repaired at the Fundi. He looked to have done a nice tidy job of attaching a new handle to the suitcase which was a wedding gift in the 1960’s, but on the travels carrying it to the front of the guesthouse the handle began to come away from the case. Trying to give it extra support we re strung the case adding more of the thick golden string around and along the case tightly. We saw her off approaching 2pm where she rode shotgun along side Anne as she drove to Kisumu.

The rest of the day was very ordinary. I spend a lot of the afternoon developing and modifying the website and in the evening sitting in the guesthouse.

Wednesday morning I began at the office writing up some material for the website. The power was off for some time with heavy rains the night before but then returned mid morning. I went back to the guesthouse after running out of steam and ideas for the material I had to write, where Matthew and Dennis were testing some Televisions for the guesthouse. The closest we had to a working TV was one that didn’t accompany a remote and looked like something possibly from an old film with buttons to change the stations. The guys attempted to tune in the stations and managed to come up with a couple of pictures on screen but these were pretty much shocking quality. The sound wasn’t right cracky either, with a screeching sound constantly in the background. Matthew was sorting himself out before we went to the office, so I waited around attempting to watch the TV. I was watching the news where they were broadcasting the release of Johnston the journalist. I watched the same clip possibly about 12 times of him being taken to a car and watched them drive away in safety. It was good to watch something at least, even over the top of the screeching and poor display.

We shared our lunch alone, just Matthew and I as Roel and Marianne were using the day to visit El Doret and purchase some furniture for their house. After lunch we continued on to the office then came back in the evening to watch 15 minutes of the legendary Art Attack. After watching the crazy hands and the talking head Matthew and I had a stroll into town where we spotted Dennis and Edgar in the Pioneer mobile phone store talking to Peter the owner. We spent sometime talking to the guys then headed back for dinner. Watching Big Daddy was the main entertainment for the evening, so we sat in the lounge watching this with still no sign of Roel and Marianne.

Thursday morning saw another power failure so we decided while we couldn’t use our machines we would have the meeting with Lois that we really should have had a couple of weeks back. Spending an hour or so we ran through how the Education System here in Kenya works and learned a lot that will stand me in good stead with this project. Once the power came back, I neatly rewrote my notes into a form that was much better for me to understand and use for material. I spent most of the day doing this with a few more brief power failures throughout the afternoon. In the late afternoon I returned back to the guesthouse where the two lads had arrived from their journey from Holland and their overnight stay in Nairobi. We sat chatting for most of the evening and learned how Roel and Marianne had experienced trouble with the Landrover the day previous which lead to them being late home. We shared some Dutch biscuits in the evening that the lads had kindly brought from home.

I began Friday morning by blowing up a couple of balloons for Marianne as it was Roels 58th birthday and she wanted to make the dining room a little more decorative. After wishing Roel a Happy Birthday I went to the office for an hours work.

At around 10.30 pm we went to Kimilili Boys school where Luke and Yip, the lads from Holland, had arranged for 4 schools to come together to participate in a football tournament. The Harambee Foundation is the name of the charity in which the family from Holland help contribute towards schools here in Kenya. They visit schools and supply them with funds and equipment and today they were running this tournament as a fun event. We hung around until 1pm where we watched the first two games take place. The teams were all dressed in their athletics uniforms which consisted of mainly a T Shirt with the colours of their schools. Kimilili Boys, Kamusinga, Lutonyi and Kamingichi were the four Primary schools taking part in the day. The first game we saw ended with the score 0-0 and the second saw a two nil victory for Lutonyi.

After spending some more time at the office after lunch we made our way to watch the remaining games of the tournament and show our support. Today there was going to be no Final as there were time issues with the students needing to get home before dark so the scores were all tallied up at the end of the day. After all the games had been played and scores were recorded, the teams and certain players were awarded prizes. The lads had brought over football shirts and trophies from home to give out to special players. The awarded players all came forward for a photo and their prize. Kamusinga was the winning team of the day and they received a trophy for their achievements. Matthew and I followed the team on our bikes as they walked home from winning the tournament and they were so happy and showed it by chanting and parading all the way home.

We still had a little time before dinner so we left the parade of blue uniformed school children outside the office. We were visited by a man who Matthew must know and he showed me a CD he had wrote and produced so I gave it a listen on my laptop. It was Gospel music with some songs in English but most in Swahili. It was nice to hear and he seemed very pleased and happy with his work.



The evening meal allowed me and Matthew to be fed more than usual with lots of food left over to be swallowed up. When we had finished, not a single plate was in the same position it had been first placed in. I was definitely full but because it was a birthday evening we were presented with a special birthday cake. Occupying 21 candles, Roel had the job of blowing them all out from the cake. We shared this and while doing so the power was out from 8pm. It didn’t last so long, maybe 15 minutes or so, and unlike usual we had been warned by the electric company that there was going to be a short power cut. They had explained the power would be out from 8 and that they couldn’t say how long for. Everyone expected to be 8 in the morning so we were slightly shocked it happened when it did.

We spent most the evening playing Uno on one of the wonky tables from outside. After wining one of the 5 or so games, I retired to my room to get my rest for the weekend which would involve a short break away in Bungoma, a town about an hour away.