Nairobi to Kabula, April 14th

It was an early morning for me. I had to be ready for pick-up from the hotel at 6AM. Fortunately, the kitchen was ready enough that I was able to get a small pot of “white coffee” and rolls before leaving. No, white coffee is not what the serve to us mzungus. It’s simply black coffee with warmed milk served on the side. It’s about as close as one can get to a latte. Also, the hotel served fresh brewed coffee and not Nescafé. Almost all of Kenya’s home grown coffee is exported, so one usually ends up with packets of Nescafé. I travel with a little can of Africafe instant coffee which is actually pretty good. But, enough of coffee.

The flight from Nairobi to Kisumu is only 45 minutes. The plane was bigger than I anticipated as there were probably about 30 passengers and it was not a full flight. It was fairly clear so you could look down at the Great Rift Valley. The Rift Valley runs for a couple hundred miles and is the dividing line for the Western Province. We also flew over Kericho which is the home to all of the tea plantations. The airport in Kisumu is a simple little building. They unload your bags onto a big luggage cart and then two guys have to struggle to pull it over to where the passengers are waiting. I ended up waiting about an hour for my ride to come.

Kisumu is once again buzzing with activity. We drove through town. The good news is that most of the businesses that I watched being looted are back open. The obvious exception is the building that we watched burn up. The other good news is that the hotel we watched from was not burned as we had once heard. The market place was packed with people.

I received a very warm welcome when I got back to the farm. The younger kids came running across the lawn to give me big hugs. The most surprising was Joshua because he is normally such a comedic little boy. He was the first to arrive, followed by Wendy and Pauline. The older children along with Jennifer and Rose gathered around as well. I met up with Reuben and Mama Betty later on in the day as they were in town.