It’s only been a week?

I arrived Thursday, June 9th. Friday we spent at the farm; Saturday we went to a birthday party; Sunday mom and I played cards and made food; Monday we left for safari; Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were spent on Masai Mara, Friday was spent in Nairobi’s malls, Saturday we went grocery shopping and came back home, Sunday we spent the day at Horec, a children’s home (orphanage) with a friend of my dad’s that he hasn’t seen since high school 30 years ago.

Today (Monday) I will stay home and make a blog, read my bible, and watch a movie with my mom. I will be posting this last week in blog increments since there is so much information. Today's blog is just about heading to Nairobi. The following blogs will be about the Safari and after.

I think it was on Tuesday I told my parents, “I can’t believe I’ve been here for a week and a half already!” They looked at me oddly and said, “You’ve only been here five days… You got here last week.” We had been doing so much since my arrival I figured I couldn’t have just gotten there the week before. And then I realized how awesome that was because I’ve got more time here than I thought!

Packing with Patches

Let me start with the drive to Nairobi…

Tala traffic jam

I knew we were getting closer to Nairobi as the smell of diesel became more prominent, the cattle jams became less frequent, and the two lane streets swelled with cars to become three. Our driver, Willy, dodged pedestrians and cars like a pro, weaving his way through outrageous traffic. There are no streetlights: cars shove themselves where they want while pedestrians shove themselves between cars.

We arrived at Hampton House, a missionary hotel, but our room wasn’t ready so we headed to Sarit Center, an American type mall in the heart of Kenya. Once in that mall I could have sworn I was back in the States. The food was American, the service was American, the prices were American. The 3D movie (Kung Fu Panda 2) was American. How can this exist in the same area where I just saw street vendors and dirty alleyways, and right around the corner from one of the biggest slums in Africa?

3D movie

We headed back to the hotel for the night.