Another Day, Another Adventure

Gotta love it when warthogs have the right of way!

Friday was a somewhat slow day around Hekima for a change. We took the secondary girls who had to back to school Thursday. The rest of the girls wouldn’t return until Saturday. So Friday morning Rebecca from the Kenyan Board of Trustees came and picked me up for ‘coffee’ around 10:15 am. ‘Coffee’ turned out to be a whole day affair. First we stopped at the Nairobi National Park on Langatta Road for a 45 minute nature walk. The National Park is very large, but the nature walk is kinda like a very pleasant stroll through a natural habitat zoo with rhinos, baboons, chetahs, leopards, lions, monkeys, zebras (unusual ‘white’ ones!), cape buffalo, etc.

"White" zebras - new one to me!

My good friend, Rebecca

 It turns out that Rebecca, a Kenyan, a college professor and wife of a Presbyterian pastor, got her Master of Letters degree in Aberdeen, Scotland. And while living there all alone, she was befriended by many, charming person that she is. Among her friends were some who came and took her out for the day to drive about, see the sights, and stop at interesting places. She well remembers those kindnesses and returns the favor to folks like me who are working here in Kenya without a lot of chances to take a break. Rebecca, I should tell you, had major surgery in early March and today was the first time she’d driven a car since the surgery. What a sweetheart!

The Central Market

After leaving the National Park, we drove into the heart of Nairobi to check out the Central Market. It is a fairly typical mall (with the open air central food court, African style) except that the upper level is a canopied open-air crafts market, the largest in Kenya. Before we went to the market, we stopped for croissants and tea at the Amadeus coffee shop where we had a long congenial conversation. Then we moved on to the market where I bought a nativity created in a gourd with designs carved into the outside and two beautiful baskets. I got a pretty good deal because Rebecca did the bargaining for me. All in all, an exceptional way to spend the day with an exceptional friend.

The view out our windshield of the 2-lane road we were on

The real adventure started when we left the market at 3 pm. We both thought that would be plenty early to head back and avoid the heavy traffic and the rains. Wrong!!! Pretty quickly we got into the traffic which only got worse. For the most part, we kept moving, although very very slowly. By 5:45 pm we had only made it as far as Kamura between Rongai and Kiserian and the line of cars and trucks had come to a complete halt. Water was rushing in torrents along both sides of the road. The (usually dry) creek at the bottom of the hill had overflowed with runoff from the Ngong Hills and the cars couldn’t move across it without risking of being washed away.

View from inside the car

We started calling everyone we both knew to find out if there was a better way to get to Kiserian and thus Hekima Place, even if we had to backtrack quite a distance. Reports from everywhere around were that there wasn’t any better way to go as it seemed all area traffic was gridlocked by the water and that the best thing to do was sit tight and wait for the floodwater to recede. So we sat there in the car chatting until 8 pm before our line of cars finally started slowly moving. Even so, it was nerve wracking when we finally had our turn to drive across the bridge. Water was still surging over the roadbed and the car in front of us showed some sign of being washed to the left. Rebecca suggested I close my eyes and she’d tell me when we were out of it - but of course I didn’t, couldn’t. We both breathed a deep sigh of relief when her car cleared the worst of the water. Welcome to Kenya and it’s lack of infrastructure or anything resembling a sufficient water drainage system!

The girls eye their transport across the river

Sherry and Kinyua had their own experience with high water the previous evening when they took 3 girls to Excel to enroll there for the first time. On the road approaching the school, the bridge had washed out so the only way to get to the school was through the river, swollen with recent rains. They had to leave the Hekima vehicle on one side and drive across in a small Land Rover sent over by the school. The Land Rover was small enough that the girls and their things had to go across in separate trips. Sherry and Kinyua were required to accompany them to get them checked in. When the two of them tried to return to their Hekima vehicle, they got high-centered coming back across the river - stuck in the middle of the flood! Sherry tried to stay dry in the car while Kinyua and a number of other men rocked the SUV back and forth to get it off the rock. Sherry had visions of being swept away in the raging water! What a way to celebrate your birthday!

View from inside the car in the middle of the river

They didn’t get back to Hekima until 9 pm. That’s 9 pm on Sherry’s birthday! Dave and daughter Avril were worried sick when Sherry didn’t show up by dinnertime. And all the Hekima girls were disappointed because there was supposed to have been birthday cake and ice cream to after dinner.  Sherry finally got to celebrate her birthday and the girls got their cake and ice cream last night, but of course I missed it all because I was stranded by high water!