Waking up to no power is great, NOT, but never the less we still managed to have a nice breakfast and discuss that if the power didn’t return in the next couple of hours that we would spend the day hammering out the 300 and odd wrist bands we needed to use as gifts and souvenirs for our programme. Luckily just after 9am it did return, so I head off to the office to begin my productive week of finishing off the website and getting as far in front as I could, knowing that time was ticking away and I was now into my last months stay. I spent most of the morning working, having a little break for lunch, then returned in the afternoon to continue with the working and researching on the Internet. Making it home for dinner we ate and then decided to spend the evening in the guesthouse lounge watching the remaining minutes of the film we had begun watching at the end of the weekend.
Tuesday I started my day with morning devotion. After this I returned to my office working on my usual trying to decide on images to use and manipulating them to try and improve the quality. I needed some specific images for the website and I knew where I could find some nice ones that would fit quite suitably. With this I grabbed my camera and head outside to take some photos of the IcFEM compound, capturing some nice bright photos. I even took a few snaps of some of the Mission staff, mainly the ones that were in and around the Cyber. Rhoda, Jose, Robert and Tony were just some of the staff that struck a pose but unfortunately I wasn’t very successful in capturing a very clear photo, even after multiple attempts. I continued working up until lunch then came back for a nice meal at the guesthouse.
After lunch I arrived back at the office and figured it was about time my bike was fixed as about a week ago the front left brake had either fallen off or was stolen. I had been coping until now but I thought maybe soon I would pull the front break a little too hard and the whole thing would snap because of the fact of a missing a pad. I told Matthew so soon after lunch he head off into town to get it fixed whilst I stayed in the office and continued with my work. Towards the end of the afternoon it began to rain really heavily. The ground soon became a muddy pit and unfortunately I was wearing flip flops and walking across the compound became an even bigger mission that usual. It soon became time to go home for dinner and both Matthew and I knew that riding in this condition was risky and we would have to go slow to avoid slipping. We set off home riding at snail pace getting drenched in water but managing to avoid having our backs sprayed with red mud or having to put our feet down.We arrived home with no power as the storms had some how again stopped the electricity. We had our favourite meal and spent most of the evening sat in the guesthouse lounge using the gas lamp for light. Towards the end of the evening the power returned so we switched on the TV and watched an episode of LOST and the news before bed.
Wednesday mostly involved working in the office. I made some good progress creating some neat pages and began to use some software to create some Gift Aid forms. We spend the evening in the lounge cutting and platting cotton whilst watching the Dads Army movie on DVD.
Thursday morning I woke up and had breakfast. Instead of heading straight to the office I decided I would wash some of my T Shirts as they were beginning to pile up in my room and also my trainers needed a good clean too. I gave these a mighty good scrub leaving them considerably clean given the amount of mud that had managed to soak its way deep into the material. I left the clothes to dry on the line then grabbed my bike and set off to the office.
Just as I set off I noticed Matthew coming back through the gate. He had come home to get on with as many wrist bands as he could so I left him to do his thing in the guesthouse lounge and made my way to the office. At the office I continued with the Gift Aid forms and worked on some other materials along side checking my emails and researching on the Internet. During my stay in the office I was visited by several members of the Mission with one of them leaving me a large envelope for Matthew. I finished up with the work then came back to the guesthouse around half an hour before dinner, bringing the parcel back for Matthew to take a look at.I found Matthew working real hard with a big pile of completed wrist bands sitting at the side of him on the chairs. He had a movie playing on the TV that was nearly at the end, and he was concentrating hard strategically platting. It was soon lunch time and Matthew had to break off from the good work. We ate and then decided to head off into town to buy a great big bunch of finger bananas just to see us through the afternoon.
We searched all the way to town for stalls selling finger bananas but none of them seemed to have any available. Finally after passing at least 4 stalls we found a lady selling some so we purchased three bunches, with each bunch holding about 16 fingers. A bunch cost us 10 Shillings each so we handed the money over to the lady and walked off where Matthew began to eat his share instantly. As the bananas were so small Matthew ate most of his in a matter of minutes, throwing the skins to the side of the road as we walked back to the guesthouse. Throwing the skins was allowed but Matthew admitted that he did feel slightly guilty at first as it is something we don’t tend to do at home.
Back at the guesthouse, after leaving a trail of banana skins that I'm sure Mr Locke from LOST would have had a field day following, I begun to iron some clothes whilst Matthew continued platting. An Old school episode of Superman was on the TV so I cracked on with my ironing, in between eating my share of the bananas. Towards the middle of the afternoon I decided to go back to the office to get on with some more things and maybe post a blog online. I worked for a while and was then visited by Mike as he was leaving the Cyber. It was around 5pm and almost time for me to leave anyways, so I left with Mike and Anthony and rode into town as they walked along side. Mike did a couple of things in town and then we made our way back in time for dinner. Leaving them I met with Matthew and ate then spent the rest of the evening watching the box and having a slightly early night preparing for an early morning as we were setting off to Eldoret.Friday my alarm went off waking me at 5.30am. I grabbed a shower, got ready and set off to meet Matthew and leave the compound for 6.15am. We were to get the Eldoret Express Bus which leaves at 7am, so we made our way to the bus stage with my passport amongst other things in my backpack.
We got on the Bus that was considerably empty but I was assured it would get a lot more crowded as we stopped off at the destinations along the way. We paid our 200 Shillings each, which we were later told was a little steep and not the usual price, and sat down towards the back end of the bus waiting for it to set off. Waiting and watching the early morning people hover around outside, we saw a couple more people occupy the bus. A young boy dressed in a blue and yellow school uniform came and sat behind us on the bus. The bus had two rows, looking from the back, the right row had three seats and the left, which we were seated on, had two. Matthew was sat near the window leaning and the young boy must have decided he wanted to some fresh air. He slid the window open jabbing the tough plastic into Matthew leaning shoulder which didn’t leave Matthew best pleased at all.
We set off on time and the bus did begin to get full. I was surrounded by people and families travelling to Eldoret and the stops along the way. The bus was noisy and the ride very bumpy. I felt like I was torn between a day out in Alton Tower and a bouncing car scene in a rap video. We were bouncing all over the place hitting bumps and occasionally leaning into each other as we turned corners. It was fun but at the same time a little uncomfortable, as you had to be constantly aware of your knees, as every time you hit a bump, if you weren’t careful you would have them trying to pierce their way through the seat in front of you.
We made it there in once piece and after stopping off at a small restaurant to relieve ourselves we made our way promptly for Matthews 9.30 appointment at the Salon in Eldoret. I left Matthew to visit the salon whilst I nipped next door to have some passport photos taken which I need to be able to extend my Visa. I had a photo taken in the upstairs and then was told to return in an hours time where they would then have developed. I met Matthew as I was leaving the shop and his hairdresser hadn’t arrived yet. We decided to grab some breakfast as we had left without any, so we went to a close by café for two Mandazi and a cup of Chai.
Matthew then spent fourty five minutes with the lady hairdresser that was specialised in cutting Mazungu hair. He had a couple of trainee hair dressers stood around watching how the magic was done. The hairdresser did a good job of the cut and seemed to know what she was doing. She only struggled to put the shaving lengths on the clippers a couple of times which only worried Matthew a bit, but overall she did a good job and he left looking much younger and tidier.
We grabbed the developed photos, which were pretty good to say they were taken with a camera and I am not the most photogenic person in the world, and head straight to the Immigration office to extend my Visa. The lady begin the counter filled me out some forms and then sent me upstairs to have my finger prints taken as I was to be registered as an “Alien”. Glad I wasn’t going to actually become an Alien, I head upstairs to have my prints taken and passport stamped. I rolled my fingers in black ink and printed them several times onto a card document. This was all over in about five minutes so we took the stairs back down and left towards the front doors.
Just as we were leaving I turned to Matthew and asked, “Where do we pay?”. We had not yet been asked to pay and it was pretty obvious that we were free to almost leave with an extended Visa in hand. We turned back and head to the lady at the first desk we came to and asked where we pay. She told us we should pay upstairs but the two guys up there didn’t even ask us for any money. We visited the two guys again and told them we hadn’t paid. They were surprised that we were so honest, but nether the less still took our money for the service. We finally left the place knowing we had done a good deed and continued to look around Eldoret.As we walked through the markets and streets of Eldoret, I noticed lots more similarities between here and the places I had visited in previous years. The place had a feel to it that reminded me of so many things and it was nice to be able to be once again filled with the memories from the holidays in my life.
We walked down one particular street where there were shops, stalls and people with sheets of material laid out on the ground presenting T shirts, hats and other items for sale. All of a sudden as we got about a third of the way down the road, several men quickly picked up the sheets of material that were on the ground, bundling them up in their arms and running away as fast as they could to our particular direction. As soon as I saw them coming I was expecting to be ploughed down, even if I moved to get out of the way. Somehow the guys would still manage to knock me down like the last remaining skittle and it wouldn’t be the nicest feeling in the world with so many people stood around watching. Luckily some other poor soul managed to get in the way first and one of the men running collided with her and saw himself hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. The lady was ok, but the rest of the running men took another route and made it away behind some shops. To this day I still don’t know why they were running, even after a lady shop keeper tried telling me, I never fully understand their rush. Maybe they were stealing someone’s things or maybe the Police were close by and they were selling stolen goods. All I know is they wanted to get away quickly and they weren’t taking anyone’s feelings into consideration as they made their escape.
We soon left Eldoret, getting on a bus to Kitale. This journey was even bumpier than my first bus ride of the day as we hit many pot holes throughout the drive. We both tried sleeping but it wasn’t really possible as we were getting thrown around all over the place, only being held in because of our seat belts. We arrived at Kitale and found ourselves a nice restaurant to eat and at the same time sit outside to enjoy the sun. We sat outside for a while until we were harassed by ants and insects, then made our way inside as the weather was beginning to take a turn for the worse anyways. Inside we sat at our table and waited for our ordered food. Eventually it came after a considerable wait, where the beef Pizza I ordered turned out to be vegetable and Matthews Ughali and beef seemed to consist of 90% bone. We ate up adding sauces to give it extra taste then walked back into the main town to the bus stage.
In the Matatu I got to ride shotgun, sat in the front cab next to a lady and the driver. The journey lasted about an hour and it found us caught in a thunderstorm with heavy rain. I had a short talk with the lady named Agnes who worked at Delta Cresent in Mount Elgon, whilst being seated in a much more comfortable place than usual in the Matatu.Back at home we had our dinner and sat resting from the early morning and the long day. We were both pretty tired and there wasn’t much to do. The television wasn’t showing anything interesting so we decided to turn in for the night and get ready for what the weekend had to offer.
God Bless x
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