Settling into our new life in Kisumu...

We made it through Heathrow with surprisingly little trouble, except that Alexis had to empty all of her messily packed, bizarrely composed carry-on luggage at security to have it searched, swabbed, and rescanned. We were both able to watch Take the Lead, which, if you haven't seen it, is an amazing cinematic masterpiece in the Dance Movie genre.

We allighted in Nairobi and made it easily through immigration. We collected our bags and boxes, after watching the airport employee toss them carelessly onto the conveyer belt. We were stopped at customs and questioned about the contents of our baggage. We shadily each answered the questions differently but simultaneously, which might have confused the customs officers. We presented a crumpled letter that Alexis had drafted quickly as we raced to leave for the airport, which mentioned that the items were donations that had no monetary value and offered a brief inventory. We were scolded that Abila was supposed to provide us with an official letter, but we were allowed to pass.

Outside, we saw Mwenda's cheery face waiting for us and he motioned us to a taxi stand. Mwenda was the director of the St. Lawrence University Kenya Semester Program in the Fall of 1999, which we attended and Alexis and Sara met. Mwenda seemed surprised that we had so much luggage, although we are quite sure that we mentioned it. So far nobody seems to believe us when we tell them how much luggage we have. Mwenda was able to negotiate for a minivan to take us to the Silver Springs Hotel in Nairobi.

On the ride to the hotel, even in through the darkness, we noticed how much the city had changed. There seemed to be so many more neon lights and some neon palm trees and other structures.


We arrived at the hotel and after unloading the minivan, we went to our room. Although Mwenda seemed to want to go to bed, since he was traveling early the next morning, we made him talk to us in our room while we ordered and waited for room service (samaki na sukumawiki na ugali or fish with greens and grit cake made of corn flour). Mwenda gave us the bus schedule, which he had kindly researched for us, and advised us not to depart for Kisumu the next day, like we had planned, but rather to stay for two nights in Nairobi. We agreed and ate hungrily.



We watched some MTV Base for local and foreign music videos before going to sleep in the freezing cold room. We woke early, worried that we might miss the buffet breakfast. We ate and began our day of preparatory errands in Nairobi.

Our first item of business was to exchange money. We walked to a Bureau of Change and stopped in at the travel agent next door. We talked with Simon the travel agent extensively, exploring every possible option for travel to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and briefly visit some beachy destination before returning to the States. He was very patient with us. We left without any reservations, but we have an idea of what we might do after departing from Kisumu.

We continued on to the Yaya Centre, a shopping mall we used to frequent, which is full of wazungu (foreigners, usually white people). We bought some things, got some coffee, and tried to use the internet unsuccessfully for way too long. Alexis met a nice, drunk man who told her that she looks like Condoleeza Rice.

We went across the street to the Chemist so that Alexis could purchase some Malerone, the best anti-malaria medication available. We had hoped that it would be cheaper than $6 per pill (Malerone must be taken daily for 2 days before, during, and seven days after time spent in the malaria infected area), but found that it wasn't. Because they didn't have enough on hand, the kindly pharmacist offered for her assistant Moses to take us to the other branch of the pharmacy, where we could get the amount necessary for our entire trip. Alexis decided to take the amount available there, but they were unable to take credit cards and we did not have enough cash.

Instead of traveling to the other pharmacy, we chose to go across the street and try the ATM at Yaya Centre. We found that we were unable to get cash because the ATM only takes Visa and we had MasterCards. We returned to the pharmacy, where Moses then escorted us back to Yaya Centre to show us where the Barclay's Bank was. We approached the ATM there, but it was out of order. Alexis waited in the bank while Sara went next door to purchase a SIM card for Alexis' phone. Unfortunately, Barclay's could not give Alexis any cash and the SIM card did not work in Alexis' phone. We decided to purchase a cheap cell phone and a new SIM card.

While Sara dealt with the cell phone issue, Alexis went back to the pharmacy and traveled by car with Moses to the Nairobi Women's Hospital, where the other pharmacy is located. While there, she asked about getting a typhoid shot. She was informed that they do not offer typhoid shots, but they do offer typhoid treatment once infected.

Once Sara got the phone up and running (the number is 011 254 727 314 374 [call us anytime - incoming calls are free to us!]), she made a call to Steve at the Abila Creative Center to let him know that we had arrived and would be traveling on the 1pm bus and arriving in Kisumu around 8pm the next day. He was overjoyed to hear that and was exceptionally warm and enthusiastic, as well as impressed by Sara's pathetic attempt at Kiswahili.

Alexis arrived back from the pharmacy and we started our walk back to the hotel. On the way, we stopped in at a few shops, including a hair salon, since we were both in desperate need of haircuts. We walked through a clothing store and back into the little salon.There seemed to be a little confusion about the desired style (not that we desired much style) but we were seated and our hair was washed. We were able to get some nightclub recommendations from the hairdressers as the apprehensively cut our hair. After the trimming, our hair was clipped up and we were each fashioned with a terry cloth headband and placed under an enormous enclosed hair drying machine, which is normally used to set a more mature woman's hair. We were given Kenyan magazines and left to cook under the hot machines. When our hair was sufficiently dry, it was combed out and then greased with a combination of hair mayonaise and hair lotion and then combed again to sit flat against our heads. Sara, who was finished first, made the mistake of trying to shake out her hair a little bit. Once the hairdresser noticed, he quickly recombed it flat against her head.

We returned to the hotel and prepared for a night out in Nairobi by watching some Tyra, the news in Swahili, and napping. That night we got a taxi to the Westlands where we thought we were going to a club called Mamba, but ended up at a restaurant/bar called Tamambo, which is owned by the owners of the famous Carnivore restaurant and dance club. We decided to have a drink and plan our next move, since Tamambo seemed to be more men in suits sitting around drinking than we were hoping for that evening.

Into our second drink, we had made friends with two tables of nicely dressed men, one a group of lawyers who had come from court and the other the manager of the Tamambo, the manager of the Carnivore, and some fancy business men, one of whom was referred to as the King of Kisumu. They entertained us with drinks, warnings of malaria in Kisumu, promises to come see us, declarations that we had picked a bad night to go dancing, vivid descriptions of the scenery on the drive to Kisumu, dirty jokes, marriage propositions, and the exchanging of phone numbers. We agreed to go to a nightclub called Florida 1000 with them, but unexpectedly made a running escape once the King of Kisumu took hold of Sara and wouldn't let go.

We started at Florida 1000, but quickly left to find another club we had been told of called Dolce. We walked down the street, trying to follow the conflicting directions we were given. We were able to find the club and descended inside to an empty dance floor and a sprinkling of people at the bar. We had a short conversation with the DJ and spent the next three hours dancing with the occassional visitor from the bar. The DJ's shouts of "this one is for Sara and Alexis" into the microphone would come over the speakers from time to time.

We arrived back at our hotel and went straight to bed. Sara was up throughout the early morning sick the way that Americans get sick when they travel to Kenya, which was not making her excited for the 8 hour bus ride to come. Sara medicated and for the last time we loaded out luggage into a minivan and headed for the city center to the Easy Coach station. We arrived an hour early, and purchased tickets for ourselves and our luggage. Alexis then waited by the luggage, now overprotective of it from all the time spent with it, while Sara was escorted by an Easy Coach employee to the Uchumi market down the street. Sara uncomfortably grocery shopped while her escort followed her up and down the aisles.

We watched them load our luggage on the bus. We boarded the bus and settled in. Alexis immediately fell asleep and stayed that way for almost the 8 hour ride. It was a long, bumpy, dusty, hot but beautiful ride. We finally arrived in Kisumu around 9pm and were greeted by Steve and Victor who had arrived in a very small car. They were so friendly and we were so happy to see them, not only because it meant that we were finally free of our luggage. We looked at the car and informed them that there was no way that we could transport our luggage in it, even without the passengers. Steve called for a friend to come and help us while we waited for them to unload all the luggage.

After loading what we could into the car, including tightly packing ourselves into the backseat, we waited for their friend to arrive and got to know the people we would be working with for the next month or so. They were very appreciative of our efforts. We talked and joked. When their friend arrived, they were unable to fit the remaining luggage into the car. Alexis had the brilliant idea to open the boxes and take the items out to transport them. This worked with only minor embarrassment on our parts since it meant our clothes, which we had so missed, including our underwear, went flying around loose in the trunk.

We finally made it up the bumpy dirt road to the Abila Creative Center, which is a large house with offices in the front, a kitchen, and a living space with multiple bedrooms in the back. We found Joseph, the very young-looking Samburu night watchman laying across the front porch. After unloading the luggage for the last time ever, we were shown to our room which has a private bathroom and is furnished with two foam pads for beds. Steve and Victor were very apologetic about the lack of beds, but we didn't care.

The center is equipped with sinks and showers with what look like functional faucets, but the pipes don't lead to a water source and we have no running water. After getting us some water for washing from the well, Steve and Victor left us for the night. Since we hadn't eaten dinner and we didn't have any drinking water, they told us that they would take us shopping in the morning and we would meet to discuss our project.



We undertook the arduous task of organizing all the donated equipment as well as our own personal items. We realized at around 1am that somehow the photo printer that we had been so excited about had not made it into our luggage. We got over the disappointment and slept (with our heads under the covers to protect us from the mosquitos which we had quickly found buzzing in our ears).

The next morning Steve and Victor arrived at 9ish and left soon after for a meeting. Makena, the office assistant, arrived and we spent a long time talking to her. We tried to go down the road to buy some food and water on our own, but on our way were met by Victor, who escorted us to a vegetable stand where he brokered our purchase of eggs, vegetables, and ugali flour. To satisfy Alexis' need for caffeine, Makena took us down the road, where we went on a search for Nescafe and powdered milk. After several unsuccessful attempts, we finally found what we needed and purchased a small basin to use for bathing. We returned to the center, where Alexis and Makena cooked the newly purchased food. The four of us ate lunch together.

At around 4pm, after we cleaned up and chatted with Makena for a long time, Victor informed us that we should not wait for Steve any longer and could go to the store. We told them that we wanted to go to the Nakumatt, a huge department store that we had seen from the bus on our way into town, hoping they might have some of the electronic equipment and accessories that we needed. Makena led us down the street and took us to a Nakumatt by matatu (a decorated minivan bus). It wasn't the big Nakumatt that we had been expecting, but we hoped that we would be able to find the items we needed.

Makena escorted us through our shopping, probably thinking we were crazy judging from the odd items we were purchasing, until we finally convinced her that we could get home on our own and that she should please go to her choir practice. She told us which matatu to take and which stop to get off at. She left us by ourselves to do our shopping. A few minutes later she returned and told us that we should not stop to use the internet because it was getting late and we should leave asap and go straight back to the center.

After discovering that the smaller Nakumatt did not have any of the electronics we needed, we purchased our items and left with three shopping bags and one 10 liter jug of water. We exited the center to shouts from taxi drivers and requests from street children. We went back inside to regroup. A woman from the post office told us where to wait for our matatu. She wanted to wait with us, since she was so concerned about our well-being, but we convinced her to leave with the warning not to take any matatu that didn't have a #10 on it. We watched many many matatus pass until finally we loaded ourselves into a #10 to MambaLeo. We climbed in and out and reorganized our belongings, as needed, until we finally reached our stop. We got off and took the walk up the road to the center to the chorus of children calling out "wazungu" and "how are you?" We arrived at our new home.

Alexis made a dinner of lentil soup, which we shared with Joseph. We ate dinner, did some research, set up our mosquito nets, and settled into bed listening to Michel Thomas teaches French.