One year ago today: Sept 28, 2005 (Into Kenya by way of Peru)

Once again, another long bus ride -- this time from Kampala, Uganda to the city of Kisumu in Western Kenya. Unfortunately, we were stuck near the back of the bus, so it was a bone-jarring ride. Good thing it was only about 5-6 hours.

A sketchy border crossing, in which we were detained by the customs official with the door closed. I think it was pretty clear that he wanted a bribe for a cheaper transit visa, since we were only going to be in Kenya for 4 days. But I was determined not to pay a bribe, so I made myself comfortable in my seat hoping that the customs official didn't really want us there that long. Eventually, he relented and we only had to pay $15US or so for a transit visa.

Upon reaching Kisumu, we were able to purchase a local SafariCom SIM card for our phone, and were able to touch base with our host. We had all sorts of issues with our phone and global SIM service, so in many countries we needed to buy local service. In any case, we had some time to kill so we had lunch at the local hotel.

Our host for the next three days was Wilson Peru, Volunteer Coordinator for Village Enterprise Fund in Western Kenya. It was an absolute joy to get to know Wilson and his family and our time there was undoubtedly one of the highlights of our entire six months. Wilson is an extremely intelligent, articulate, and thoughtful -- the skills we saw him apply to the work of VEF could have easily made him a top executive in the USA. Wilson also loves to listen to country Western music as he drives, and we listened to lots of Hank Williams during our time in Kenya.

Wilson lived about 1-2 hours outside of Kisumu in the countryside nearby the town of Kakamega. Once you get into the countryside, the roads can hardly be called roads. I was amazed that cars could travel on them but eventually we arrived at Wilson's house. Wilson is quite successful by local standards and is definitely a well-respected leader in the community. At the same time, he was extremely welcoming and made us feel at home right away.

For dinner that night, Wilson's wife Nancy killed a chicken and made us a wonderful spicy dish accompanied by ugali and fresh greens. We drank local tea made with milk from the Peru's own cow (which slept in the outdoor kitchen). It was delicious, and we loved listening to Wilson's stories about the work of VEF (more on that in tomorrow's post) and his own experiences travelling in America.

The Perus had about 6 or 7 children living with them in their modest 3 bedroom house. The obedience, behavior, and niceness of African children is really amazing. They would help cook dinner, serve the adults dinner, and even pour water so we could wash our hands.

We slept that night in the storage room with the big bags of maize. And when I would go outside to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I would look up at the most amazing sky full of stars that I'd ever seen.


Not many photos today for some reason, this is one of only two. The flourescent light in the background is powered by a car battery. In general, kerosene lamps were the only source of light at night.

Tons of photos upcoming over the next few days though...