Flight to Kenya

Well hello everybody,

The flights to Kenya were on time mostly, only the KLM plane started 25 min late and landed in Nairobi only about 15 min. late. So that was pretty good actually. In Nairobi, where the big international terminal was burned down by arson last year, we were picked up by big busses that took us to immigration and baggage pick up. We went through immigration pretty quickly, actually, after which we began to collect our baggage. Well, that turns out to be a three ring circus every year we have gone to Kenya with Kizimani.

The problem is that there are over 300 passengers on a 747 and just about everybody checks in two bags except us--we check in three bags. In addition to that, many passengers carry personal carry-on luggage. Usually the problem starts that there are a lot of passengers who get through immigration earlier and so they hog many of the available carts and they fill up all the available space around the carousel. So it is very hard to muscle through them, with or without a cart, to begin to pull off your personal luggage from the carousel. Usually only a few of us manage to do that, but since we have all our luggage color coded we can then ask those of us who have penetrated next to the carousel to pull off any of our bags they see coming..

Well, once that finally was accomplished and all our bags accounted for and corralled in a safe area, we could begin to sort them out by owner and once that is done, each owner takes his cart to where the customs people are. Once all of us have collected there, Miriam, the one with the silver tongue, begins to address "the King" of the customs department. He looked the part being big and "majestic" as he sat there surrounded by his minions. Well, he wanted to know what was in all these medical crates, who had donated the stuff in them, and what the value was so that he could charge us custom duties. Miriam explained why that was impractical if not impossible and that, besides, we never had been asked to furnish that information before. At this point he invited Miriam into his office since there appeared to be too many ears standing around which complicated a free flow of information.

Finally Miriam came out of his office and urgently gestured for us to get our carts and get out of there NOW, and find Wachira, our micro bus contractor, and follow him to the parking lot and begin to load the luggage. Once we arrived there we saw that Wachira had brought a big truck with the sides and roof screened off with steel wire to safely stow our luggage under. With three drivers loading we filled that truck up fast, and just when they were about done, Miriam sent someone over (she was still holed up with the customs supervisor) telling us she needed the last three digits of the number on medical crate #15. This meant that the truck had to be unloaded again till we would find medical crate #15. Well, you guessed it--it was the first crate in--so the whole truck had to be unloaded. Anyway, we ended up arriving at the FPFK guest house at 11:30 PM.

There, the same chaos develops as we saw in the parking lot of the airport. After the truck was unloaded we each needed to find our own luggage and take it to our rooms and stow it away there. For me, it meant that I would have to repack my carry-on suitcase and fill it with all the books I brought for Pastor Sammy, New Dawn High School and Irene and Dennis Tongoi. So it ended up being almost 2:00 AM before I went to bed,

Even so, it was the next day before I finally found my camera battery charger, and a bit later until I could account for all the Bibles I had bought for students struggling with an ancient version of the King James that was way beyond their understanding. Because they were too heavy for me to take them all, I had to distribute them over the suitcases of several different fellow team members. Then I took a well deserved nap until it was time to go to the airport with Wachira and take the plane to Eldoret.

Well that was my first day, and I look forward to sitting in the plane and take a nap. I will write about my trip to Eldoret when I get there.

God bless you all,

Hans