On schedule I left Atlanta International at 5:40 PM on 14 January. Each bag had been carefully weighed and came in scant ounces under the dreaded 50 pound limit that triggers outrageous fees. I was able to stagger under my two carry on bags weighing together an additional 50 pounds. I may be slope-shouldered for a month.
The nature of air travel, of which I have done a surprising amount in the last ten years, is that of a tube. One enters the tube immediately after watching your bags disappear into the infernal regions of the airport check-in. You then negotiate one long corridor-tube after another before being inspected to be allowed permission to continue your sun-less journey to wherever. The tubes in which one is slowly processed, as if by a large multi-headed snake, are of only two types: those that vibrate (in which you and your fellow travelers are required to face in one direction) and those that don’t vibrate (and you are free to sit in any orientation).
I was finally allowed to emerge from the snake in Nairobi, purchased my visa, collected my bags and got a ride to the Mennonite Guest House, a typical “room (and “bathroom down the way”) and breakfast” arrangement for about $35 a night. Jeremiah, the driver, and I exchanged news of Kenya politics and who happened to be rioting where and why (Muslims, downtown, for deporting an imam, 2 dead). Despite all the difficulties I have trouble sleeping past 3am (8PM CST) being awakened sweating from a Lariam (my malaria prevention)-induced dream that I immediately forgot and start rearranging the luggage for transport to Bomet.
At breakfast I met my fellow travelers: the Tapley’s, (Dwight and Mary) and the Winfoy’s, (Winston and Sally). Winston is a Urologist from Macon, Ga and Dwight is a family practitioner from South Bend, IN. The Tapley’s are returning to Tenwek for another 2 month tour and the Wilfoy’s are here for two weeks for the first time.
Our driver was Patrick, a large affable Kikuyu, apparently an expert in the practice of three dimensional Tetris, perhaps better known a “luggage stowing”; that not withstanding, the six of us, 10 pieces of luggage, an ice cooler (of unexplained provenance) and collected groceries did not in fact leave room for my one remaining duffel containing mostly requested gear for Tenwek Hospital but not incidentally my remaining supply of clean clothes. This would arrive late Sunday.
The road to Bomet goes north out of Nairobi past a large open air market, turns off to take the “Italian Road” a two lane that loops around the draping folds of the “Escarpment,” the eastern edge of the Great Rift Valley, descending about 1000ft in several miles. It is named for the Prisoners of War from Italy who were interned in Kenya (then Br. East Africa ) after capture by the British during the Desert Campaigns during the early part of WWII. Near the bottom, tucked into a small defile, the prisoners built a small chapel looking much better now than in 2002 when last I visited it.
The land is verdant, much to my surprise as this is the “Dry Season” which has featured rain daily for the last four months. Patrick kept pointing out Zebra herds along the road and standing pools of rainwater with the same excitement and expectant wonder. Although one might consider this fortuitous, the Kenyan farmers are greatly distressed by this occurrence as they only plant AFTER the rains have stopped. The rains that should have come in Spring 2009 hardly showed and the crops planted then died. The two previous harvests were devastated by the political unrest occasioned by the last election.
The political situation is tense as the contested election which prompted the violence and displacement of people has only just been smoothed over with a power-sharing arrangement and a promised plebiscite on a new constitution. Violence at whatever the outcome of the plebiscite is widely expected. Kenya, the poster child for a stable multi-ethnic democracy of East Africa, has lost a lot of its self-confidence with this open slide into partisan violence.
We started west into the Great Rift Valley and reached Narok, a town I had visited previously (see my comments on that trip on a linked blog). From there we started climbing through rolling hills, becoming more verdant as each new vista unrolled itself. Bomet, a bustling town of wood smoke, open air markets, sand colored cinderblock buildings and crossroads graced by patriotic monuments in concrete and vivid color, was passed (with whole inches to spare) at speed.
Even after we turned at the sign for Tenwek, the road still climbed, turning ever more sharply on itself. Tenwek is at 6500 ft, about the same altitude as the Nairobi, so despite being “in The Valley” we wound up into terraced hills of maize, banana trees and potatoes on small plots. Once leaving the main road, the smooth macadam (quite the improvement over the collection of pot-holes which it replaced) was itself replaced by the rutted red-clay tracks familiar to all east Africa. Deep gullies line this highway so that “stopping on the shoulder” and “falling out of the road” are not easily distinguishable. Indeed, trauma from traffic accidents is a major contributor to business at Tenwek, I learned. After about another 20 minutes we turn off onto a road and pass the sign:
Tenwek Hospital
“We Treat, Jesus Heals”
Relayed by Dr. Walt January 19, 2010 3:45 PM EST
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