DAY 14 and 15: Making friends in Kenya

Found out last night that there have been landslides due to the rain that wiped out some villages and killed around 100 people on the Ugandan side of Mt. Elgon. All of a sudden I am very glad that we are living somewhere pretty flat.

NY Times article on Ugandan Landslides

Here's your brief report for the last 2 days.

Monday night we went over to have dinner at the One Acre Fund. This is a group of people all dedicated to living abroad it seems for at least 2 years. Many have lived other places before this. They all work on different projects all helping to maintain positive agricultural practices in Kenya (or something like that). Some of them work with the farmers, some so marketing or research grants, and so on. It was nice to hang out with some fellow "Mizungus" (white people) and hear about what they are up to. It made Dave and Connor seem pretty isolated as the One Acre Fund lives in a compound and have a sort of built-in community.

Tuesday I went out at 6AM riding a super heavy, single speed, Indian bike to the construction sight. The building is even bigger than I originally imagined and is coming along very quickly. Amazing that there will be 5 of those same buildings on the sight. Dave and Connor have their work cut out for them. I got to meet the crew and eat breakfast at the sight with them. The foreman's wife provides a breakfast of chapati and chai and I think it was the best chapati and chai I've had yet.

Later that day I had gone back to the apartment and a woman came knocking on my door saying she wanted to meet me. I have been told many times to be cautious about letting anyone in my home and all that jazz but she was very persistent and really wanted me to come and visit her place. Her name is Esther. When she came by the second time with a 6 year old named Faith I figured there was not too much harm in locking up the place and taking only my keys with me. I didn't want stupid tourist fears getting in the way of an education. So I went to Esther's house and was greeted warmly by her sister Adelaide. We chatted for hours about our cultures and travelling. They have a house-keeper named Ruth who was an orphan and is the most beautiful woman I have seen. They had a TV going the whole time with music video-style African dancing showing on it. Adelaide showed me lots of pictures of her family. She made me promise I would come over the next day to learn to cook with her and she would make dinner for me and the guys. Said she'd kill a chicken for me.

I went home with two eggs from their chicken that were two of the best eggs I've had and stayed together perfectly in the pan while the one from the store broke.