In only an instant...

In an instant (or so) you can get on a bus and wake up halfway across a county, the colts can win the super bowl, cows can appear at your doorstep and life can hang in the balance.

That pretty much sums up the last week for me. Starting with the superbowl we started by ordering pizza which seems normal...sitting in the living room eating pizza watching football? It actually looked more like sitting in the living room eating pizza watching soccer, ruby, and the movie 'the island', waiting for the game to start. Once it did we were all looked like zombies but were awake after the action packed first few minutes. I watched with 3 americans and 2 guys from Denmark. One of the Danish guys walked in wearing a tom brady jersey and a new england patriots hat so I wasn't alone in my cheering from the bears. Staying up made for a fairly uneventful monday since I slept most of the day (which sounds like a pretty good way to spend a monday).

Tuesday I was up at 5:30 am to catch the bus Bridget and I were taking to Kakamega in the Western province of Kenya. Nairobi and Western province are about as different as say Toronto and the Okanagan. Nairobi is a big, polluted city and Western is like a massive garden just without mountains, they've got hills instead. We stayed in a guest house for two nights and had some meetings with partners we used to work with and are hoping to work with if our civic election education campaign gets funding. Then we went up to someones house for dinner, up in the hills that is. The guest house was really nice, it was the first shower where the hot water comes out of the shower head instead of a bucket in almost a month. They also have an environmentally friendly method of cutting the grass...cows. Yup, I came back from breakfast to find 5 cows in front of the door. The other thing about being in smaller towns is the transportation. Since moving across town isn't really worth driving they have boda bodas (spelling ?) They've attached padded seats to the back of their bikes where you'd put a mud flap or something. Anyway they're everywhere and cheap and a fun way to get around. They are fast enough that you get places fairly quickly but slow enough that you can take in everything around you. It was a little awkward with our bags but we managed.

Thursday morning we took a matatu to Kisumu, Kenya's third possibly second biggest city, and then got a ride up to a center about an hour into the hills. Its run by ARC-Aid a Norwegian organization I think. The main activity there is a 6 month development training course and we were there to visit 5 Congolese we had sponsored to do the training. We were only there over night, but got to sit in on some training, learn about some of their other projects and eat amazing food! They've started baking their own whole wheat bread and they had made it fresh when we arrived and we ate it for snack, lunch, and breakfast. Part of their plan is to start mass producing it and selling it locally because of the health problems people in the area are encountering. One problem, much like in Canada is that white wonder bread is the cheapest but also so refined that its unhealthy so people are starting to get adult onset diabetes. The other reason is that they are hoping to start putting a grain they call amarathas into the bread. The grain has been shown to be very good for the immune system, so they are hoping they can prevent diabetes as well as strengthen the immune systems of people with HIV/AIDS. The other thing about being in the rural areas is that white people are still a novelty, especially with the kids. In the city they'll look at you and say hi, but in the countryside you can cause quite a stir when they discover you and then whisper and giggle to each other about the mzungu (white person). I made a just few friends the day we spent at the center...sorry no pictures, I left my camera cord at home.

Friday morning we headed back to Nairobi which required a matatu to Kisumu and then the 8 hour bus ride to Nairobi. Matatu drivers tend to have a bad reputation for somewhat reckless driving compared to the rest of population, and the roads in that part of Kenya are narrow and winding their way through the hills and friday was not our day. We were two thirds of the way to Kisumu, close enough that we could see Lake Victoria when we were at the top of a hill when all of a sudden our matatu hit the breaks and swerved to the side as we heard a thud. A lady had gone to run across the road and didn't see us coming. She ended up lying face down in the middle of the road with her little girl running to her screaming and trying to lift her up. After a few minutes, while we were sure she hadn't made it she pulled herself into a sitting position but in very bad shape. Medical services aren't quite what they are at home and you can wait for a long time for help to come but almost a soon as she sat up an ambulance who happened to be transporting a sick patient to Kisumu pulled up and was able to take her. As you might expect no one in our vehicle was injured since the car usually wins in those situations but I don't know if we'll ever know if she made it. A few minutes later we were put into a different matatu and we went to catch our bus. The walk from the matatu station to the bus station took a little while but neither of us felt like getting on a boda boda in the traffic of Kisumu. The rest of the day was uneventful other than the power going out as soon as I walked into the door when we got home at 7:30 pm but the day was a reminder of how fragile life can be, you never know what tomorrow might bring.

Sorry to end on a bit of a sobering note but that's how my week ended. I had hoped to go home and watch a light hearted movie but when I put it into the dvd player it told me that the dvd wasn't formatted for that machine...ahh Africa. Tonight I'm going to see 'the pursuit of happyness' and going out for dinner and tomorrow I'm going to the Masai market after church so it should be a good weekend.

I'm also expecting to get a few less bitter e-mails about the weather this week since its reading week and I know at least some of you are headed south! Oh and as you've probably guessed, the picture at the top is me feeding a giraffe, giraffe kiss optional.