I’m sitting at the dining room table across from Rose enjoying a restful evening at home. I went to bed a little late last night as I tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to get photos to load to my blog post. I’m thankful for a little down time today to catch up on writing and get those pictures to upload! Hopefully this post will include more than one since I am taking a rather large number of photos each day. I believe that my total from yesterday came to 203 (after editing). I have always loved photography and this trip is a great opportunity to sharpen my skills. I owe many thanks to my friends Jamie and Will—they generously loaned me their Canon Rebel and three lenses! It’s a great camera and very fun to use. As soon I can (bandwidth permitting), I will upload many photos to my Picasa web albums. For now, my goal is get a few on the blog each time I post.
I set my sights a little high when I starting writing last night. There is no way I could have put my first two days in Eldoret into one blog post—it would have been unmanageably long and no one would have wanted to read it. I have always been a “wordy” writer (all of my English teachers thought so) and while I want to be concise, I love to include the details! It’s the little things—the food, the transportation, and the cultural lessons—that make each day unique and help me see how different each place is from my own home. This is why I love to travel. So, let me tell you about our second day in Eldoret…
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| A group shot (me, Rose, Amie, Charity) after lunch at Kerio View overlooking the Rift Valley. |
Eldoret, Day 2…
Tumaini outreach, walking along Eldoret roads, lunch at Kerio View, swimming at Iten, dinner at an Indian restaurant
Saturday morning I woke up refreshed and excited to for my second day in Eldoret. Again, the day was well planned out and we were not going to be bored! After a breakfast of international, generic Smacks with boxed milk and toast with Nutella (both brought back memories of living overseas), we put on our walking shoes and sunscreen and hit the road. Rose led us down some more dusty roads, this time away from the city center. The pace was much slower and we could enjoy the walk and the surroundings rather than dodging cars and other pedestrians. She only had to ask for directions a couple of times to find the soccer field—our destination for the morning’s activity. We met up with the Tumaini’s Saturday morning soccer outreach. Tumaini means “hope” in Kiswahili. The full name of the organization is Tumaini Children’s Drop In Center and most of their work is done at the center in Eldoret. Their mission is this: “The Tumaini Children's Drop In Center seeks to improve the lives of street children in Eldoret, Kenya by empowering them with hope, knowledge, skills, opportunities and resources necessary for them to find a healthy alternative to street life.” On Saturday’s the outreach staff have organized a time for the kids to come together, play soccer, have fun, and also receive a lunch. We got to meet and talk with the girls and those not playing soccer. Rose had asked for jump ropes from home and they were a huge hit with everyone. Rose had written on her blog about the street children, which did help me prepare a little bit for the time with them. They are sweet kids; it made me sad to think about the fact they have no place to live and no regular meals. They scavenge, they beg, they pick-pocket. Tumaini offers them a way out and hope for a life off of the streets. I pray that the kids that come to Tumaini may not only find a better life in Eldoret, but that they would find true hope—that comes only in a relationship with Christ. I am glad that street children in Eldoret, Kenya have a chance to just play and be kids on Saturday mornings—hopefully they can forget a little bit of the pain of the their day-to-day life and just enjoy the simplicity of soccer and jump ropes.
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| Me with Elizabeth, one of the street kids. |
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| Some of the street boys playing soccer at the Tumaini outreach. Notice the yellow Butler shirt on the left? |
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| Amie and Charity with one of the kids. |
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| The jump ropes were a hit and the kids were really good! |
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| Rose with two of the girls: Cecilia and Elizabeth. |
The hot Kenyan sun was high in sky when we left the soccer field to walk back to Rose’s house. I washed my feet (a frequent activity—but I think they already have a permanent tinge of orange) and threw my swimsuit, towel, and sunscreen (a necessity!) into my little backpack. The taxi driver was waiting outside to take us to Iten, about 30 minutes northeast of Eldoret, for the afternoon. Iten is home to the High Altitude Training Center frequented by many serious athletes. (While we were boarding our small plane to Eldoret we met four guys from England who were heading to the training center—they looked liked runners.) We had lunch at Kerio View, a restaurant up on the mountain that overlooks the Rift Valley. The view was AMAZING! We had some time to walk around while we waited for our food (it was very good, but kind of slow) and just enjoyed being outside surrounded by the lush, green landscape.
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| The view from our table at Kerio View restaurant. |
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| Rose, taking in the view of Rift Valley. |
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| Looking down on Rift Valley. Beautiful. |
After lunch (which I think was around 3pm) we drove to the training center to hang out at the pool. Several other girls from IU House were there, so we pulled up lounge chairs next to them. The facility was very nice and it only cost about $3 to use the pool. After spending two days in the sun (and getting my first bits of sunburn) I was so ready for some time in the water! I even got to borrow some goggles from one of the girls and do some laps. I went swimming in a pool, on a mountain, in Kenya. Wow. This has already been a fabulous vacation! We topped off the day with dinner at Sikh Union, an Indian restaurant in Eldoret that is one of Rose’s favorites. The food was delicious. Back at the house that evening, we ate ice cream and looked at the 200-some photos I took that day. So fun.
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| The entrance to the High Altitude Training Center at Iten. |
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