Our time to depart had arrived and we awoke bright and early
Monday morning to pack up our belongings and begin the arduous journey back to
Nairobi.
For whatever reason, the fellows we were with
decided they wanted to wash the van.
Since the rains had come and been duly collected, there was no shortage
of water.
However, the van was sitting
in mud, which would ensure its pristine exterior for only about five seconds
after the journey began.
They cleaned
the inside and out and we packed up our few bags along with a few things
acquired in the village.
The whole town certainly turned out to see us off.
I was rather intrigued that someone from the
village had a camera.
It was an old 35mm
style, faithful but true.
To be honest I
doubt that it really had film in it.
Moreover, I believe if it did have film, the exposures were over about
halfway through our time there and they were just snapping pictures that were
going unrecorded.
Our departure was
delayed at least forty-five minutes due to everyone wanting to pose in a
picture with the white folk.
The life of
a celebrity is a hard one indeed and something I should never care to partake
in.
It was slightly frustrating because
we could do nothing without someone fighting to be in a picture with us.
Alas, I was humbled by their desire to
capture the time on film but I also felt a bit like the bearded lady in a
traveling carnival.
We left to go home carrying more than we did traveling
there.
Our van held the following:
thirteen people (we picked up a couple of ladies who were going to town and one
had a rather small baby in tow), the sound system and related goods, a large
bag of corn, several gallons of fresh milk, two pumpkins (donated by someone in
the church), other random bags of corn and vegetables donated to our
passengers, a good bit of water for the overheating engine and three chickens
that rode underneath the seats and atop the feet of the vehicle’s
inhabitants.
With all our goods we
headed down the road to get as far as we could before overheating.
Our expedition began well, although rather rough on those
roads going through the bush.
We passed
many breathtaking scenes and had to stop from time to time as the Maasai led
their cattle and goats across the road.
We dropped one lady off just as the dirt road turned into the paved one
and the other stepped off in the town of
Narok.
There we met up with the village elder who
promised me his daughter, to see if we could get the van fixed from
overheating.
We added air to the tires,
filled up with diesel but due to the delicate process of cleaning our
particular radiator, he suggested we go slowly to
Nairobi and fix it there.
This would turn out to be quite the
chore.
We bade him farewell and set off
once again towards our final destination.
Each time we would overheat we would pull to the side of the
road, uncap the erupting radiator and fill with water. Only a half a dozen
times later we neared the region of our home.
Even the lone giraffe we passed on the way there came back to the road
for a visit, wondering why we continued driving and stopping.
Towards the end of the trip the chickens grew
restless and were fighting among themselves, even fighting some of the
passengers at times.
The riders were
getting weary and it was a welcomed sign to see
Nairobi looming in the distance.
We made it.
We went
there, we shared the Gospel and we came back.
The van has since been remedied and life is grand.
I miss Tendwet somewhat but I also missed the
slums.
The work of the Lord has been
done and we now prepare for our next venture this coming weekend.
Travel is wearying here in country but I am
confident that one could travel all over the face of
Kenya and would not be able to see
in a lifetime everything that it has to offer.
God is good!
