It went downhill quickly from there. Saturday was also an exciting day for the people of Nairobi, because it was the first rains of the short rainy season. So the roads were even crazier than Kenyan roads are typically at night. They were flooded in places and people were darting into traffic even more irregularly to get to shelter. There were more accidents, and therefore even more chaos than usual, including cars coming down our one-way side of the highway since theirs was blocked by the accident. So we were dodging wrong direction cars, people, huge potholes that covered the entire road (so we went into the ditch to avoid them). Well, you get the picture. So during the craziness, we picked up a screw and a piece of wood in the front driver's side (right in Kenya) tire. Our driver tried to get it loose, but it was just too dangerous to be out next to the car trying to do that. So while driving to a gas station, the wood let loose, the clunking stopped, but he was unable to find the screw when we were able to safely stop. He did however leave his window open while driving through a large puddle (lake), and another driver came flying by... (you must see where this is going).. and he splashed a huge wall of water right into the car. The driver and I took the brunt of it. All I could think was "Well, so much for avoiding getting into standing water in Kenya!" Thank the Lord the screw stayed in place... so we just drove the final hour or so with it in the tire. When we finally arrived at the BTL Conference Center in Ruiru, on the NE outskirts of Nairobi, the driver was so happy to arrive, he said "We made it, God be praised". To which we all said a fervent "Amen!" Thankfully the BTL has hot water on demand so I was able to shower and get all of the road/puddle grime off of me with a nice warm shower!
The following day was far less exciting, but ended up having a few more repercussions than we realized. We were staying at the BTL Conference Center near Ruiru, which is a ways of out town (Nairobi). Our purpose on being there was two fold - first of all, Kevin's brother Arlin recommended it as he stayed there when he went on a mission trip in 2005 to help build a bridge in the nearby town of Ruiru. And also our Compassion child in this area lives 200km NE of Nairobi, so we figured we may as well stay out of town a bit and be on the way.
They had a nice playground. Notice our oldest climbing the pole.
And a nice guest house with 2 bedrooms and plenty of room, including a kitchen and living room.
This is the outside of the dining hall.
And the inside. Note we're the only ones there. We were their only guests for the first two days that we were there. It was a little odd to be in the large dining hall on our own, but they were very kind and took care of us, being flexible to our schedule since we were the only guests eating.
They also had a swimming pool, which they put in about 3 years ago. We were happy to let the boys have some down time swimming on Sunday as we didn't really have any plans that day. It was a bit cold out with the rain the night before, and the water was really cold, but that didn't stop the boys!
Piper was especially cute. He would jump in and swim around with his little tube like he owned the pool.
Guests can come in just to use the pool, so there were many others using the pool that day. They were all quite entertained by Levi. The nice part was our kids were really easy to spot, they kind of stuck out in the crowd :)
This was probably the worst culprit of the day... the 'fresh' water feeding into the pool that my boys just couldn't stop playing with. Somehow Kevin and I just didn't think about them playing with that water...
Kevin got in and played with the boys a little...
which of course means they were launched!
And finally we had to call it a day since they were freezing cold and shivering. No, that's not the reflection off the blue towel, CJ really did have blue lips!
Here's a view of the pool area. It was really nice and the boys had a blast... but....
Remember how I talked about the repercussions? Sunday night the boys started vomiting ... and they continued to all night. It was a long night, and we were a bit worried about taking them to visit our first Compassion child on Monday, but we really had no way to reschedule or do anything about it. They didn't eat all day on Monday, just drank a little more (bottled!) water, and each of them puked a few more times in the van. By then Kevin and I were both pros at catching it in a bag and disposing of it without getting it everywhere. The poor boys, it was a rough lesson that you just can't drink the pool water while you're swimming. We're guessing that the pool was the culprit since we all ate the same foods and Kevin and I did not get sick. The pool was not very chlorinated, which makes me almost sick to think about... plus they were all playing with the fresh water hose. So, whatever caused it, we sure did have a rough night Sunday night.
But I am jumping ahead a little. Sunday after swimming, we were able to get a taxi and go and visit the bridge that Kevin's brother Arlin had helped to construct in Feb/Mar 2005. So that was fun to see and I'll post more about that along with some pictures in the next edition of our Kenya blog posts!
So, first impressions? The driving is pretty crazy,the roads are insane, but the people of Kenya are really warm and kind. The food is good, but you shouldn't drink pool water! Poor Piper, he still won't eat any rice since that terrible Sunday night...
1 comment:
Very humorous. Thanks for sharing. I'm guessing you all survived since you're now writing about it.
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