After entering the Kenyan border, there were crowds of people trying to sell us bus rides to Nairobi. We tried to make them compete against each other and finally agreed on a price with a decent looking bus. It was dark by this point and we were the only foreigners in site, but at this point in our travels, this did not fase us at all. We are quite comfortable in the middle of no where in the middle of the night with all the locals staring at us curiously. We tried to buy a pinapple but the lady was trying to rip us off so our new friend (the bus company guy) bought it for us at the local price which was significantly less. When we were on the bus several children started banging on our windows begging for food. There was only one at first so we threw out a piece of bread and cheese. It fell on the ground but he picked it up and ate it anyway. Within seconds four other children ran up to the bus and before we knew it most of our loaf of bread and cheese was out the window. They even got the last of our candy which they seemed very grateful for. It was a very sad and eye opening experience to witness hungrey children like that who ate our stale bread and cheese as if it were a five star meal.
That bus ride may have been the closest we have come to major injury so far this whole trip. The roads from Busia to Nairobi are awful, they are not paved and some of the pot holes are the size of vehicles. The first major pot hole we hit sent me shooting up so high that I bashed my head on the roof of the car. I cried out in pain but no one seemed to notice. With a massive headache brewing I decided that I would let that one go. There were several moderate bumps soon afterwards that sent us flying around the bus. Then I layed on my side accross both seats and the next major bump sent me all over the place and I cut open my elbow and had a tough looking bruise on my thigh. Tyson cursed out loud as his head slammed into the roof and his elbow cut open on the sharp edges of the elbow rests. Our bags fell out of the luggage rack and onto an elderly man who cried out in pain. This was the last straw as everyone half heartedly shouted at the driver. Since we did not have much more options, we found two empty seats with working seat belts and strapped ourselves in. The only other injuries we got after that was bruising on our hips from pulling on the belt but that was acceptable compared to what we experienced without seat belts. The bus jolted over pot holes and bumps for the whole ten hour ride to Nairobi. Needless to say we did not sleep at all and we were holding on tightly the whole ride. At one point the bus swayed from side to side so far that when I looked out the window the groud seemed inches away. I cannot believe we did not flip.
We stopped once on the way at a dingy eatery. When I got out of the bus everyone was glaring at me like I had something they wanted. I tried to act cool as I walked accross the restaurant to the bathrooms in the back. I used the reeking, disgusting, filthy washroom and on my way back out a girl stopped me and said there was someone who needed to speak with me. I told her I did not know anyone here but she insisted that I follow her. Since I had to go the way she was leading me anyway, I followed her to the door. She lead me to a guy and walked away. The guy looked up at me and said "yes?". I just stared at him, so he said "can I help you?" I said "no". It was strange and I believe he was about to say more when I walked away. When Tyson took his turn to go to the bathroom, I warned him that he might feel uncomfortable inside. He walked into the joint and several people just started to laugh at the sight of him in this place. When he was gone, the same guy who confused me earlier, came onto the bus, head straight for me and sat down in the next seat over. I was about to say something but as quick as he came in, he was gone off the bus. It was strange again.
We eventually made it to our destination around 5am alive but shaken up and tired to Nairobi. The city looked scary at first because of all the pre judgements we had in our hearts. We called a few of our host offers in the area, none of whom who could not pick us up right away. Our best option was a guy who said he could come get us at 7:30am. So we stayed on the bus and slept until that time. We got off and met our host at the bus station, when he met us, he said that he was having some problems at home and could no longer host us at his place. He was very kind and took us to his work at a huge open air market in the downtown area. It is in the slums of town and we walked through muddy alleys and small walkways full of garbage. It smelled awful and everyone was staring at us. Our host made us feel very comfortable though and as we began to smile at people, they began to open up and smile back. Soon we were meeting people and making friends. Our host, Joseph, sews his own clothes and sells them at the market. He owns a small shop and works there on his own for the most part. As we freshened up we decided to call another one of our hosts, this was Pastor Dave. It was a good thing we called him because he was at the bus station waiting for us. He agreed to cab out to the market to meet with us. He was very kind and agreed to host us, so we arranged to meet him later that night after exploring the city for a bit. We left all our bags with our new friend at his shop and headed back to the bus station area on our own to find a taxi. This area of Nairobi is extremely crowded with people, the roads are not paved and the driving is crazy. There are huge pot holes everywhere and since it had recently rained most of the dirt alleys were now mud. The busses are speeding around painted with rainbows and decorated with quotes like "gansta rap", "thug life" and other inspiring words. Rap music was blasting so loud that I could not understand how the windows were not blowing out, it was great. Most of these busses belong to young children who inherited money and decided to buy busses for extra income. So they deck them out in vinyl, fur, inspiring quotes like "kill bitches" and stripper poles.
After asking several very friendly and helpful people for directions, we got to the taxi station where they asked for 70 shillings for the short drive. We took a different one for 30 shillings.The taxi dropped us off at Garden Village. It was a gorgeous shopping center with hotels, theaters, restaurants, shops and anything else one may need. It is truly a beautiful place, super clean with waterfalls, fountains and we could not believe that we were only a few kilometers from the open air market that we just left. We had been told that if we wanted to find the Bahais in the area, we could find them in this mall. This is all the information that we had so we started walking around looking for signs. We were loudly saying things like "Alla u Abha" and "Bahai" to each other but no one was paying attention. So we checked a notice board for clues and noticed a sign for a Persian carpet store. We started our search by looking there but we noticed that the lady had a veil over her hair so we were back at square one.
We checked the restaurants and stopped at a Persian restaurant. Of course a small percentage of Bahais are Persian but there are usually a few in every community and this stereotype is all we could think of at the time. Tyson asked the young attendant if he was Bahai. He said "No, but the owner of the whole village is". So we went upstairs and into the state of the art office of the owner. He was the kindest most humble man who happily met with us right away. He had a huge collection of African art and swords on his wall. The office was the size of a small house and decorated beautifully. It turns out that around fifty of the shop owners in the area are also from the local Bahai community. The man gave us the contact information for the Bahai center as well as his personal contact information. Having accomplished what we set out to do, we left in another taxi to the monkey park at the city park. Here there are thousands of various types of monkeys living freely. We enjoyed sitting in the park watching them play and live their interesting lives. We walked around the small market and ate lunch at a dark tiny stall in the back corner of the area. We had rice and beans, but the portions were so huge that we barely finished half of our food and we packed the rest to go in a plastic bag. We also inquired into having my dreads fixed but they all said that I had to buy my own dread wax and come back the next day. The prices I got were anywhere from 250 shillings to 3000 shillings.
We headed back to Joseph's market area and even shopped a bit on the way. Luckily we found our way around decently because we did not want anyone to think we are lost or new to the area. Joseph was one of the kindest guys we met and he bussed us back to the Pastor's house in Kayoley at his own expense. He took us all the way to the house which we never would have been able to do without him. We were met by two young ladies who walked us back to the house and we were greeted by dozens of young boys. They were all sitting politely in a corner of the suite. The place was small and extremely simple with one couch being the only piece of furniture. The kids are orphans from around the area who are being housed, fed and educated by the pastor and a few other volunteers. Almost all of their parents died from HIV, one parent died of a natural death and one of the boys was from an extremely abusive family. They did not have even one toy to play with. They just played with each other quietly. The one boy who had been abused was about twelve but he wore a diaper and could not speak as a result of the abuse. He used to be tied up naked at his parents home. They were trying to starve him to death because he had a mild dissability and in their culture this means that you are cursed. All their other children are happy, well looked after and thriving. The police helped the Pastor to get the child out of that environment. He has since learned to walk but his disabilities are very severe and they do not have the money to get him the education he needs so he stays home alone all day with a caregiver. For the boarding school that he needs it would cost about $20 per year, all in. He was very affectionate and loving with us and we developed a special relationship with the boy.
The Pastor welcomed us to his home and served tea and plain sliced bread pieces. We soon learned that this is the common food served to visitors at all the local homes. After chatting for while, Joseph left to go home and we had baths. We boiled water in a kettle and mixed it with the cold water out of the tap and used a small bucket to splash it onto ourselves.
We tried to tell the Pastor about the Bahai Faith when he asked why we had gone to the Garden Village but he was not quite grasping the teachings behind the faith. Nevertheless he seemed to be quite interested and was asking a lot of questions. Albeit they were a bit negative and condascending. It was an ejoyable conversation for me as it was testing my knowledge and patience. We slept in the Pastor's bedroom that night and he slept on the couch out of respect for his guests. It was a very comfortable and enjoyable place to stay.
The next morning the Pastor tried to wake us up around seven but he was not succesful. He tried again every half an hour or so until he gave up. We got up after nine feeling refreshed after two nights with no sleep. When we got up to breakfast of deep fried dough and very sweet milk tea wating for us on the table. We ate and then left the house to head downtown. On the short walk to the main street, children were running after us screaming "muzungo" and wanting to hold hands. We felt like celebrities. We flagged down a bus and as I mentioned the busses are extremely old, painted wildly, have gangster movie quotes on the sides and are blaring with vulgar rap music. We took one of these into town, on the bus, we met a nice lady Pastor who took it upon herself to make sure that we did not get lost. She had important plans for the day but she stuck with us for over an hour to make sure that we got on the correct taxi to get to where we wanted to go. She called her friends to ask the best way, she even had her son look it up online as we walked. She took down our information and emailed me the next day to invite us to dinner at her place but unfortunately we could not make it. So we took this taxi to a place called Bomas of Kenya. The taxis here charge whatever they want for their services. The same ride could cost anywhere from twenty to one hundred shillings depending on the time of day, the amount of traffic and how the driver is feeling that day. Bomas of Kenya is right accross from the National Park of Kenya where everyone does the safaris. In fact there were wild animals all over the place. We saw some large warthogs and took some photos.
At Bomas we watched a dance performance set up for tourists as well as life size replicas of the local villages around the country. We convinced the attendant to allow us to pay the student rate for the entrance even though it was still very expensive. The price for locals was 30 shillings and for foreigners the cost was 600 shillings. We attended the dance which included local dances and costumes from all the villages in the country. There were very few people watching but the performers still did a decent job. We then walked around the villages for about an hour. A guy who was dressed in local costume started to follow us around a bit giving us very simple information he was reading off the signs. He then asked us for a tip which we declined.
We checked out the National Park to see what they offered and planned to come back the next day to see the animals. We head back to town and after getting lost in the rain for a while we found our way to the Bahai center. We changed our clothes in the bushes and cleaned up a bit for the celebration of the declaration of the Bab. This was the day when the Bab declared that he was the for runner or "gate" for the coming of Baha u llah. The Bahai center was full of local Kenyan Bahais. We met most of the people before the celebration began including the kind man from the Garden Village. The choir sang some beautiful music in Swahili and two guys did a really great rap about the life of the Bab. Dinner was also prepared by one of the Bahais and it was delicious. When I walked into the center, I was greeted by a familiar face. I soon realized that I had volunteered in Haifa with this Kenyan guy nearly ten years ago. I had no idea he lived in Nairobi and it was great to catch up. We planned to meet up the next day to go to the safari park together. He even offered to let us stay at the Bahai center in the dorms.
We met a couple of Canadians and a young guy who is moving to Vancouver to study at UBC. We had a really great time and luckily, after the event, three people were headed in the same direction as us and agreed to let us tag along to get back to the house. We took a taxi van downtown and then switched to a bus for the hour long journey to Kayoley. When we got off the bus we quickly realized that one of the Bahai ladies lives accross the street from the pastor. The social rules in Kenya are quite different than the ones we have in Canada, the people there are very open and friendly with their neighbors and its very normal for people to show up to each other's houses without permission or warning. So our new Bahai friend came with us to the Pastor's house, walked in and sat down as if she had known him for years. It was strange to us but nice at the same time. When we walked into the house, we also noticed Joseph was waiting for us. He had not heard from us that day and had become worried so he came to the Pastor's home to make sure we were ok. When we were not there, he waited until we got home. It was an act that a long time friend may not have even done and we were touched. So we all visited together for a while and shared dinner prepared by the volunteer girls. The Pastor was very surprised that Rose was a Bahai because he was expecting that only Persians can be this religion. I think it opened his eyes a bit when he met her.
In the morning, Rose showed up around nine and picked us up to take us to her place accross the street. We met her sister and really cute niece named Anna. She was only two but very active, strong and social for her age. She jumped on my lap and I felt an instant bond with her. She even cried later on when we left. A few of the neighbor's kids wandered in and out of the house without knocking which seemed appropriate at the time. I quite like this open set up that the communities have here. Rose served us sweet milk tea with plain slices of white bread and we ate again even though we had just finished breakfast at the Pastor's place.
Another one of the hosts we were meant to stay with was called Abraham. He came by the Pastor's house in the morning and accompanied us to Rose's place even though he did not know her. This was not a problem at all. After visiting with Rose and her family we stopped back at the Pastor's house and showed the volunteer girl some of our photos. We waited until Abraham ran back to his house to grab something and he joined us on the bus into town. When the bus attendant came by to collect payment, Abraham told us to pay for him. It turned out that he expected us to pay his way through the day which we were not prepared to do, especially since we were not consulted about it beforehand. So we came to a mutual understanding that he should go home and we would meet with him another time.
We walked from the bus station about forty minutes to the Bahai center. We had all of our bags with us because we intended on staying at the center for the night. My friend was a bit busy at first but we met some other Bahais from the Northern part of the country who were there for some Bahai work. Their area is getting a brand new temple built so it is a very exciting time for them and they shared some of their feelings. We all had tea together and when we told them where we are staying they were shocked. They asked how we ended up staying in that part of town and how had we not gotten robbed yet. Tyson and I decided that we should go back to the Pastor's house to sleep but we left our bags at the center. We walked back to town about ten kilometers in the dark. Later when we told locals this, they again said we were lucky we did not get hurt. Everyone we asked for help with directions was super helpful and generous with their time and knowledge. We found the bus that took us back to the village and though there was a lot of traffic and the bus was driving all over the place, we made it back.
The Pastor was at a prayer camp for a few days so he was not there but the volunteer girls were surprised to see us back because we had told them we would be staying at the Bahai Center. On the way back we had stopped at the store to buy some candy for the children. We handed them out and their excitement was unbelievable. Some of them had never tasted candy before. We had also upladed some cartoon movies on our laptop so we put one on for them. They gathered around and were watching with great amusement. They had never seen a computor or television before. They did not even own any toys, they had no entertainment outside of school hours. One of the neigbors we had met a couple of nights ago came over and invited us for dinner at his place. We went there and met the whole family. We spoke of our trip and the differences in our countries. We shared a beautiful dinner with them and stayed until late into the night. When we got back to the Pastor's place, we passed out quite quickly.
The next morning after breakfast we confirmed with the volunteer girl that we would definitely be leaving this time. She and her friend volunteer all their time to the children and they have no personal income of their own. She has not seen her family in years and cannot attend college because of lack of funds. We gave her a small gift to help her start saving and she was grateful.
She took us to the school that the hundred and fifty orphans they have adopted attend. These children get food, clothing, education and accomadation from the Pastor's organization. They work by donations but of course they never have enough money. They are dressed in dirty rags and the boys wear girls clothes and vice versa. Some of their clothes really do not resemble clothing. There are also many more children that need help but there is no space for them yet. The plan is to build a large orphanage, they already have the land but no cash to build. They have also bought a corn farm to help with food. If anyone would like to donate anything to this legitimate organization, please let me know.
Our visit to the school was very special. We already knew a dozen or so of the kids who live in the Pastor's house but there were many we were meeting for the first time. Their classrooms were small and cold but at least they existed. The chidlren screamed and shouted when they saw us. They could hardly contain their excitement. They had even prepared a welcome song for visitors that each of the classes sang for us, so we heard it about eight times. We took photos with the children and visited for a while.
We then stopped for a visit to Rose's place to say bye. When we came through the doors Anna actually squealed with delight. She was almost asleep but she instantly woke up and jumped into my lap. We gave her the remaining candy and she loved us even more. We stayed for a short visit and Anna cried again when we left. The rest of the neighbor children ran up to us to say bye. They grabbed our hands and told us to "welcome again". It was sweet that after only a few days it felt like we had developed quite meaningful and long term relationships with the people in that village.
We stopped at an internet cafe for an hour and paid fifty cents. We checked in back home after several days and caught up with everything else. We expertly caught a bus to town to see joseph. We met his elderly mother at the shop who had heard so much about us that she recognized us right away. He left her in charge and came shopping with us in the market. He took us to all the cheaper shops but all the clothes there had stains and holes in them So we took it up a notch and bought some gifts in a better area. The three of us walked to grab our bags from the Bahai center miles away. We hung out there with my friend for a while and then had to get going. We walked a lot through the town from bank to bank to exchange our extra Kenyan money back to US. We had taken out too much cash thinking that we would be in town much longer than four days. All the banks were closed or had awful rates so we kept our money. We also tried to buy dread wax but the tourist prices were too steep so I let it go. We bought corn on the cob, roasted peanuts, eggs, mangos and other snacks off of street vendors for the night.
It was getting late so we rushed to catch the last taxi van but it seemed that we had missed it. As luck would have it though, a big empty airport staff bus drove by us at that time. Joseph waved it down and it stopped. The driver agreed to take us to the airport in the private bus for less than the cost of the taxi van. We were unbelievably lucky. Joseph took great care of us and even came all the way to the airport to see us off. While we were in line to get into the airport the Muslim Persian carpet store owner from the Garden Village and one of the Canadian Bahais we had met at the center tapped on my shoulder. It's a crazy small world, and we were shocked that after such a small amount of time in the country we had already developed a great circle of friends and we were running into people at the airport. When we got back into line a local guy pointed at Tyson's Canadian hat and asked us if we needed to change Kenyan money. It turned out that he collected coin money in different currencies and wanted to trade us some. Since we had been desperately searching for a way to trade back our extra Kenyan Shillings, we were ecstatic that he popped up. So he counted out some Canadian coins as well as some American coins and traded us for our extra Kenyan. Then he mentioned that he also had some extra Turkish Lira in coins and he would be very grateful if we could trade him for bills. Our next stop was Turkey and the coins looked legitimate so we tried to help the guy out. We paid him Lira in bills for the same in coins. He seemed very pleased and we were happy with everything as well so we said good bye to him as well as our good friend Joseph and we went inside the airport.
During our walk earlier we had bought a lot of snacks for around 5-15 Lira for each thing. At the airport we had an extra 60 or so Lira and the only thing we could afford was a small bottle of water. Money is worth so little in the airport!
We found seats to snooze on before out flight and a guy came over to speak with Tyson. He mentioned that he had noticed us and we looked like interesting people. He wanted something to remember us by. We thought that was nice so we offered him a prayer book and the Canadian flag tag off of our bag. He was visibley disappointed and said the last people gave him the shoes he was wearing.
We checked in for our flight at 1am and boarded around 3:30am. Thankfully we had no problems with the three day visa even though technically we were in the country illigaly for two extra days. Tyson was in the window seat and I was in the middle. Next to me, in the aisle seat, was one of the larger woman on the flight. She did not speak Englsih and was trying to communicate with the flight attendants throughout the flight. She was very uncomfortable in the seat even though she took up nearly half of my seat as well.
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"
That bus ride may have been the closest we have come to major injury so far this whole trip. The roads from Busia to Nairobi are awful, they are not paved and some of the pot holes are the size of vehicles. The first major pot hole we hit sent me shooting up so high that I bashed my head on the roof of the car. I cried out in pain but no one seemed to notice. With a massive headache brewing I decided that I would let that one go. There were several moderate bumps soon afterwards that sent us flying around the bus. Then I layed on my side accross both seats and the next major bump sent me all over the place and I cut open my elbow and had a tough looking bruise on my thigh. Tyson cursed out loud as his head slammed into the roof and his elbow cut open on the sharp edges of the elbow rests. Our bags fell out of the luggage rack and onto an elderly man who cried out in pain. This was the last straw as everyone half heartedly shouted at the driver. Since we did not have much more options, we found two empty seats with working seat belts and strapped ourselves in. The only other injuries we got after that was bruising on our hips from pulling on the belt but that was acceptable compared to what we experienced without seat belts. The bus jolted over pot holes and bumps for the whole ten hour ride to Nairobi. Needless to say we did not sleep at all and we were holding on tightly the whole ride. At one point the bus swayed from side to side so far that when I looked out the window the groud seemed inches away. I cannot believe we did not flip.
We stopped once on the way at a dingy eatery. When I got out of the bus everyone was glaring at me like I had something they wanted. I tried to act cool as I walked accross the restaurant to the bathrooms in the back. I used the reeking, disgusting, filthy washroom and on my way back out a girl stopped me and said there was someone who needed to speak with me. I told her I did not know anyone here but she insisted that I follow her. Since I had to go the way she was leading me anyway, I followed her to the door. She lead me to a guy and walked away. The guy looked up at me and said "yes?". I just stared at him, so he said "can I help you?" I said "no". It was strange and I believe he was about to say more when I walked away. When Tyson took his turn to go to the bathroom, I warned him that he might feel uncomfortable inside. He walked into the joint and several people just started to laugh at the sight of him in this place. When he was gone, the same guy who confused me earlier, came onto the bus, head straight for me and sat down in the next seat over. I was about to say something but as quick as he came in, he was gone off the bus. It was strange again.
We eventually made it to our destination around 5am alive but shaken up and tired to Nairobi. The city looked scary at first because of all the pre judgements we had in our hearts. We called a few of our host offers in the area, none of whom who could not pick us up right away. Our best option was a guy who said he could come get us at 7:30am. So we stayed on the bus and slept until that time. We got off and met our host at the bus station, when he met us, he said that he was having some problems at home and could no longer host us at his place. He was very kind and took us to his work at a huge open air market in the downtown area. It is in the slums of town and we walked through muddy alleys and small walkways full of garbage. It smelled awful and everyone was staring at us. Our host made us feel very comfortable though and as we began to smile at people, they began to open up and smile back. Soon we were meeting people and making friends. Our host, Joseph, sews his own clothes and sells them at the market. He owns a small shop and works there on his own for the most part. As we freshened up we decided to call another one of our hosts, this was Pastor Dave. It was a good thing we called him because he was at the bus station waiting for us. He agreed to cab out to the market to meet with us. He was very kind and agreed to host us, so we arranged to meet him later that night after exploring the city for a bit. We left all our bags with our new friend at his shop and headed back to the bus station area on our own to find a taxi. This area of Nairobi is extremely crowded with people, the roads are not paved and the driving is crazy. There are huge pot holes everywhere and since it had recently rained most of the dirt alleys were now mud. The busses are speeding around painted with rainbows and decorated with quotes like "gansta rap", "thug life" and other inspiring words. Rap music was blasting so loud that I could not understand how the windows were not blowing out, it was great. Most of these busses belong to young children who inherited money and decided to buy busses for extra income. So they deck them out in vinyl, fur, inspiring quotes like "kill bitches" and stripper poles.
After asking several very friendly and helpful people for directions, we got to the taxi station where they asked for 70 shillings for the short drive. We took a different one for 30 shillings.The taxi dropped us off at Garden Village. It was a gorgeous shopping center with hotels, theaters, restaurants, shops and anything else one may need. It is truly a beautiful place, super clean with waterfalls, fountains and we could not believe that we were only a few kilometers from the open air market that we just left. We had been told that if we wanted to find the Bahais in the area, we could find them in this mall. This is all the information that we had so we started walking around looking for signs. We were loudly saying things like "Alla u Abha" and "Bahai" to each other but no one was paying attention. So we checked a notice board for clues and noticed a sign for a Persian carpet store. We started our search by looking there but we noticed that the lady had a veil over her hair so we were back at square one.
We checked the restaurants and stopped at a Persian restaurant. Of course a small percentage of Bahais are Persian but there are usually a few in every community and this stereotype is all we could think of at the time. Tyson asked the young attendant if he was Bahai. He said "No, but the owner of the whole village is". So we went upstairs and into the state of the art office of the owner. He was the kindest most humble man who happily met with us right away. He had a huge collection of African art and swords on his wall. The office was the size of a small house and decorated beautifully. It turns out that around fifty of the shop owners in the area are also from the local Bahai community. The man gave us the contact information for the Bahai center as well as his personal contact information. Having accomplished what we set out to do, we left in another taxi to the monkey park at the city park. Here there are thousands of various types of monkeys living freely. We enjoyed sitting in the park watching them play and live their interesting lives. We walked around the small market and ate lunch at a dark tiny stall in the back corner of the area. We had rice and beans, but the portions were so huge that we barely finished half of our food and we packed the rest to go in a plastic bag. We also inquired into having my dreads fixed but they all said that I had to buy my own dread wax and come back the next day. The prices I got were anywhere from 250 shillings to 3000 shillings.
We headed back to Joseph's market area and even shopped a bit on the way. Luckily we found our way around decently because we did not want anyone to think we are lost or new to the area. Joseph was one of the kindest guys we met and he bussed us back to the Pastor's house in Kayoley at his own expense. He took us all the way to the house which we never would have been able to do without him. We were met by two young ladies who walked us back to the house and we were greeted by dozens of young boys. They were all sitting politely in a corner of the suite. The place was small and extremely simple with one couch being the only piece of furniture. The kids are orphans from around the area who are being housed, fed and educated by the pastor and a few other volunteers. Almost all of their parents died from HIV, one parent died of a natural death and one of the boys was from an extremely abusive family. They did not have even one toy to play with. They just played with each other quietly. The one boy who had been abused was about twelve but he wore a diaper and could not speak as a result of the abuse. He used to be tied up naked at his parents home. They were trying to starve him to death because he had a mild dissability and in their culture this means that you are cursed. All their other children are happy, well looked after and thriving. The police helped the Pastor to get the child out of that environment. He has since learned to walk but his disabilities are very severe and they do not have the money to get him the education he needs so he stays home alone all day with a caregiver. For the boarding school that he needs it would cost about $20 per year, all in. He was very affectionate and loving with us and we developed a special relationship with the boy.
The Pastor welcomed us to his home and served tea and plain sliced bread pieces. We soon learned that this is the common food served to visitors at all the local homes. After chatting for while, Joseph left to go home and we had baths. We boiled water in a kettle and mixed it with the cold water out of the tap and used a small bucket to splash it onto ourselves.
We tried to tell the Pastor about the Bahai Faith when he asked why we had gone to the Garden Village but he was not quite grasping the teachings behind the faith. Nevertheless he seemed to be quite interested and was asking a lot of questions. Albeit they were a bit negative and condascending. It was an ejoyable conversation for me as it was testing my knowledge and patience. We slept in the Pastor's bedroom that night and he slept on the couch out of respect for his guests. It was a very comfortable and enjoyable place to stay.
The next morning the Pastor tried to wake us up around seven but he was not succesful. He tried again every half an hour or so until he gave up. We got up after nine feeling refreshed after two nights with no sleep. When we got up to breakfast of deep fried dough and very sweet milk tea wating for us on the table. We ate and then left the house to head downtown. On the short walk to the main street, children were running after us screaming "muzungo" and wanting to hold hands. We felt like celebrities. We flagged down a bus and as I mentioned the busses are extremely old, painted wildly, have gangster movie quotes on the sides and are blaring with vulgar rap music. We took one of these into town, on the bus, we met a nice lady Pastor who took it upon herself to make sure that we did not get lost. She had important plans for the day but she stuck with us for over an hour to make sure that we got on the correct taxi to get to where we wanted to go. She called her friends to ask the best way, she even had her son look it up online as we walked. She took down our information and emailed me the next day to invite us to dinner at her place but unfortunately we could not make it. So we took this taxi to a place called Bomas of Kenya. The taxis here charge whatever they want for their services. The same ride could cost anywhere from twenty to one hundred shillings depending on the time of day, the amount of traffic and how the driver is feeling that day. Bomas of Kenya is right accross from the National Park of Kenya where everyone does the safaris. In fact there were wild animals all over the place. We saw some large warthogs and took some photos.
At Bomas we watched a dance performance set up for tourists as well as life size replicas of the local villages around the country. We convinced the attendant to allow us to pay the student rate for the entrance even though it was still very expensive. The price for locals was 30 shillings and for foreigners the cost was 600 shillings. We attended the dance which included local dances and costumes from all the villages in the country. There were very few people watching but the performers still did a decent job. We then walked around the villages for about an hour. A guy who was dressed in local costume started to follow us around a bit giving us very simple information he was reading off the signs. He then asked us for a tip which we declined.
We checked out the National Park to see what they offered and planned to come back the next day to see the animals. We head back to town and after getting lost in the rain for a while we found our way to the Bahai center. We changed our clothes in the bushes and cleaned up a bit for the celebration of the declaration of the Bab. This was the day when the Bab declared that he was the for runner or "gate" for the coming of Baha u llah. The Bahai center was full of local Kenyan Bahais. We met most of the people before the celebration began including the kind man from the Garden Village. The choir sang some beautiful music in Swahili and two guys did a really great rap about the life of the Bab. Dinner was also prepared by one of the Bahais and it was delicious. When I walked into the center, I was greeted by a familiar face. I soon realized that I had volunteered in Haifa with this Kenyan guy nearly ten years ago. I had no idea he lived in Nairobi and it was great to catch up. We planned to meet up the next day to go to the safari park together. He even offered to let us stay at the Bahai center in the dorms.
We met a couple of Canadians and a young guy who is moving to Vancouver to study at UBC. We had a really great time and luckily, after the event, three people were headed in the same direction as us and agreed to let us tag along to get back to the house. We took a taxi van downtown and then switched to a bus for the hour long journey to Kayoley. When we got off the bus we quickly realized that one of the Bahai ladies lives accross the street from the pastor. The social rules in Kenya are quite different than the ones we have in Canada, the people there are very open and friendly with their neighbors and its very normal for people to show up to each other's houses without permission or warning. So our new Bahai friend came with us to the Pastor's house, walked in and sat down as if she had known him for years. It was strange to us but nice at the same time. When we walked into the house, we also noticed Joseph was waiting for us. He had not heard from us that day and had become worried so he came to the Pastor's home to make sure we were ok. When we were not there, he waited until we got home. It was an act that a long time friend may not have even done and we were touched. So we all visited together for a while and shared dinner prepared by the volunteer girls. The Pastor was very surprised that Rose was a Bahai because he was expecting that only Persians can be this religion. I think it opened his eyes a bit when he met her.
In the morning, Rose showed up around nine and picked us up to take us to her place accross the street. We met her sister and really cute niece named Anna. She was only two but very active, strong and social for her age. She jumped on my lap and I felt an instant bond with her. She even cried later on when we left. A few of the neighbor's kids wandered in and out of the house without knocking which seemed appropriate at the time. I quite like this open set up that the communities have here. Rose served us sweet milk tea with plain slices of white bread and we ate again even though we had just finished breakfast at the Pastor's place.
Another one of the hosts we were meant to stay with was called Abraham. He came by the Pastor's house in the morning and accompanied us to Rose's place even though he did not know her. This was not a problem at all. After visiting with Rose and her family we stopped back at the Pastor's house and showed the volunteer girl some of our photos. We waited until Abraham ran back to his house to grab something and he joined us on the bus into town. When the bus attendant came by to collect payment, Abraham told us to pay for him. It turned out that he expected us to pay his way through the day which we were not prepared to do, especially since we were not consulted about it beforehand. So we came to a mutual understanding that he should go home and we would meet with him another time.
We walked from the bus station about forty minutes to the Bahai center. We had all of our bags with us because we intended on staying at the center for the night. My friend was a bit busy at first but we met some other Bahais from the Northern part of the country who were there for some Bahai work. Their area is getting a brand new temple built so it is a very exciting time for them and they shared some of their feelings. We all had tea together and when we told them where we are staying they were shocked. They asked how we ended up staying in that part of town and how had we not gotten robbed yet. Tyson and I decided that we should go back to the Pastor's house to sleep but we left our bags at the center. We walked back to town about ten kilometers in the dark. Later when we told locals this, they again said we were lucky we did not get hurt. Everyone we asked for help with directions was super helpful and generous with their time and knowledge. We found the bus that took us back to the village and though there was a lot of traffic and the bus was driving all over the place, we made it back.
The Pastor was at a prayer camp for a few days so he was not there but the volunteer girls were surprised to see us back because we had told them we would be staying at the Bahai Center. On the way back we had stopped at the store to buy some candy for the children. We handed them out and their excitement was unbelievable. Some of them had never tasted candy before. We had also upladed some cartoon movies on our laptop so we put one on for them. They gathered around and were watching with great amusement. They had never seen a computor or television before. They did not even own any toys, they had no entertainment outside of school hours. One of the neigbors we had met a couple of nights ago came over and invited us for dinner at his place. We went there and met the whole family. We spoke of our trip and the differences in our countries. We shared a beautiful dinner with them and stayed until late into the night. When we got back to the Pastor's place, we passed out quite quickly.
The next morning after breakfast we confirmed with the volunteer girl that we would definitely be leaving this time. She and her friend volunteer all their time to the children and they have no personal income of their own. She has not seen her family in years and cannot attend college because of lack of funds. We gave her a small gift to help her start saving and she was grateful.
She took us to the school that the hundred and fifty orphans they have adopted attend. These children get food, clothing, education and accomadation from the Pastor's organization. They work by donations but of course they never have enough money. They are dressed in dirty rags and the boys wear girls clothes and vice versa. Some of their clothes really do not resemble clothing. There are also many more children that need help but there is no space for them yet. The plan is to build a large orphanage, they already have the land but no cash to build. They have also bought a corn farm to help with food. If anyone would like to donate anything to this legitimate organization, please let me know.
Our visit to the school was very special. We already knew a dozen or so of the kids who live in the Pastor's house but there were many we were meeting for the first time. Their classrooms were small and cold but at least they existed. The chidlren screamed and shouted when they saw us. They could hardly contain their excitement. They had even prepared a welcome song for visitors that each of the classes sang for us, so we heard it about eight times. We took photos with the children and visited for a while.
We then stopped for a visit to Rose's place to say bye. When we came through the doors Anna actually squealed with delight. She was almost asleep but she instantly woke up and jumped into my lap. We gave her the remaining candy and she loved us even more. We stayed for a short visit and Anna cried again when we left. The rest of the neighbor children ran up to us to say bye. They grabbed our hands and told us to "welcome again". It was sweet that after only a few days it felt like we had developed quite meaningful and long term relationships with the people in that village.
We stopped at an internet cafe for an hour and paid fifty cents. We checked in back home after several days and caught up with everything else. We expertly caught a bus to town to see joseph. We met his elderly mother at the shop who had heard so much about us that she recognized us right away. He left her in charge and came shopping with us in the market. He took us to all the cheaper shops but all the clothes there had stains and holes in them So we took it up a notch and bought some gifts in a better area. The three of us walked to grab our bags from the Bahai center miles away. We hung out there with my friend for a while and then had to get going. We walked a lot through the town from bank to bank to exchange our extra Kenyan money back to US. We had taken out too much cash thinking that we would be in town much longer than four days. All the banks were closed or had awful rates so we kept our money. We also tried to buy dread wax but the tourist prices were too steep so I let it go. We bought corn on the cob, roasted peanuts, eggs, mangos and other snacks off of street vendors for the night.
It was getting late so we rushed to catch the last taxi van but it seemed that we had missed it. As luck would have it though, a big empty airport staff bus drove by us at that time. Joseph waved it down and it stopped. The driver agreed to take us to the airport in the private bus for less than the cost of the taxi van. We were unbelievably lucky. Joseph took great care of us and even came all the way to the airport to see us off. While we were in line to get into the airport the Muslim Persian carpet store owner from the Garden Village and one of the Canadian Bahais we had met at the center tapped on my shoulder. It's a crazy small world, and we were shocked that after such a small amount of time in the country we had already developed a great circle of friends and we were running into people at the airport. When we got back into line a local guy pointed at Tyson's Canadian hat and asked us if we needed to change Kenyan money. It turned out that he collected coin money in different currencies and wanted to trade us some. Since we had been desperately searching for a way to trade back our extra Kenyan Shillings, we were ecstatic that he popped up. So he counted out some Canadian coins as well as some American coins and traded us for our extra Kenyan. Then he mentioned that he also had some extra Turkish Lira in coins and he would be very grateful if we could trade him for bills. Our next stop was Turkey and the coins looked legitimate so we tried to help the guy out. We paid him Lira in bills for the same in coins. He seemed very pleased and we were happy with everything as well so we said good bye to him as well as our good friend Joseph and we went inside the airport.
During our walk earlier we had bought a lot of snacks for around 5-15 Lira for each thing. At the airport we had an extra 60 or so Lira and the only thing we could afford was a small bottle of water. Money is worth so little in the airport!
We found seats to snooze on before out flight and a guy came over to speak with Tyson. He mentioned that he had noticed us and we looked like interesting people. He wanted something to remember us by. We thought that was nice so we offered him a prayer book and the Canadian flag tag off of our bag. He was visibley disappointed and said the last people gave him the shoes he was wearing.
We checked in for our flight at 1am and boarded around 3:30am. Thankfully we had no problems with the three day visa even though technically we were in the country illigaly for two extra days. Tyson was in the window seat and I was in the middle. Next to me, in the aisle seat, was one of the larger woman on the flight. She did not speak Englsih and was trying to communicate with the flight attendants throughout the flight. She was very uncomfortable in the seat even though she took up nearly half of my seat as well.
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"
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