Blessings

I guess the reason I stopped writing these stories is that all my pictures from Rwanda, Tanzania and most of Malawi were destroyed by a hardware failure. I'll try write up some entries sans photos though. Maybe I'll just post pictures of flowers that I took along the way.

A couple weeks ago, the rest of my pictures were almost lost as well. Thieves broke into my hotel room while I was at supper. They took pretty much everything except my clothes and my backup harddrive. They stole my camera, laptop, phone, ATM card, passport, and money. But those things are easy to replace. I already have a new passport.

I am in Naivasha, Kenya now. Most days I hang out at a barber shop nearby. I like chatting with people there.

The barber shop also charges cell phone batteries for people without electricity in their homes. The other day a lady came by with a new LED flash light still in the box. She asked how much it would cost to charge it (25 cents). She started to take it out of the box, but then decided to take it home first. She wanted to pray over the flashlight and to ask God to bless it.

After she left, the barber told me she was going to use the flashlight to raise broiler chickens. Broilers need a light on at night to keep them awake. Those things have to eat day and night. They eat a lot. People often underestimate how expensive it is to feed them and are forced to sell them at a loss before they're fully grown.

Life is full of everything. We all pray for God's blessing on us.

Christmas 2010

I'm in Uganda at the moment.

Dad came up here to spend Christmas with the grandkids. Mum couldn't make it because they have a limited travel budget and she's planning to travel to the States next year.

Anyway, Grandpa Bob (as he is known around here) was remarking to me that the grandkids made out a great deal better than we did in Zambia. I turns out I was already aware of this. Because I remember what it was like growing up in Zambia. Because I was there.

We had almost no toys at all. My favorite toy was a prize from sports day. I always came dead last on the real races but I did OK on the novelty races like the Egg Race. For the Egg Race, you have a spoon in each hand and you balance a hard boiled egg in each spoon. First you race 100 meters without dropping the eggs, then you eat the eggs, and finally you work up enough saliva to the point where you can whistle. The third place finisher gets a Knot Twitch String.

Basically imagine if you took a jump rope and chopped it in half and then tied a wooden bead to the frayed end. The game was that you held the handle so the bead was hanging motionless, then you gave it a very specific kind of twitch and the bead would jump up and loop around and form a knot in the string on the way down. I got to the point where I could make seventeen knots in a row. After that the rope was too short and knotted, so the bead didn't jump properly and you had to stop to untie it.

Jason's kids are too young for a Knot Twitch String but maybe that can be their Christmas present in a couple years.

The picture is of Grandpa Bob and a grandchild at Lake Nabugabo. We went camping. I hope you enjoyed the holidays as much as I did.

Bananas

The average Ugandan consumes 1 Kg of bananas per day. When you cross the border the guard is like, "Welcome to Uganda. Please eat 1KG of bananas per day so that you don't pull down our average banana consumption. Uganda is the world's number one consumer of bananas. Enjoy your stay."

Bodo Boda

You can get them other places, but Uganda is the true home of "boda-boda" motorcycle taxi.

Originally boda-bodas were bicycles that gave you a ride between the Kenya and Uganda border ("boda" get it?) posts back in 1960s. You can still get bicycle taxis in Kenyan towns. It's a very pleasant way to travel. It has the advantages of cycling but without the work. They put a padded seat on the back of the bike. In Nakuru rush hour doesn't mean noise, stress traffic jams and pollution. Businessmen read their newspaper as the bicycle taxi man ferries them to work.

But these days the word "boda-boda" means a Ugandan motorcycle taxi. They are everywhere. It's very conveniant. Even if you have your own car, you will find yourself taking the occasional boda when you are in a hurry. Traffic is terrible in Kampala, but the boda-boda men can pass between cars or on the sidewalk so you reach your destination on time.

I sometimes ended up taking bodas late at night. It's a dangerous thing because they could drive you somewhere dark, where their friends are hiding, beat the crap out of you and take all you stuff stuff. But it's also exhilerating because the town is deserted so there is nothing to hold you back. The boda-boda men love to race. You fly through the silent sleeping streets and you realize that life is a glorious thing and short.

Sabaot Land Defence Force

These stories are so old it's not even funny.

For example I was passing through Eldoret, Kenya in 2008.

One thing on the television back then was the leader of the Mount Elgon rebels making pronouncements about justice and so on. It was very local news for El Doret. You can see the mountain from town. I was going to cycle out that way the next day.

They interviewed a general from the Kenyan army afterward and it reassured me. He looked annoyed. "I don't know what he was doing on television making these outrageous pronouncements. The only thing I know is that he is dead. We shot him and then we checked his finger prints. He's definitely dead."

The next day was sunny and good cycling. People were out and about in droves.

Bonus Kenya Entry

My last post was perhaps too bitter and depressing so here is a bonus Kenya entry. This is a picture of a Kenyan tea farm. I think tea is one of the most beautiful plants you can farm. Isn't this a soothing picture? Also tea is very soothing to drink.

One day I stopped to talk to a Kenyan walking thoughtfully behind a flock of sheep. He was a fat man in a business suit. In fact he was a banker from Nairobi. But he told me that whenever he could, he liked to get back to the farm.

I asked him why Kenyans never sheer their sheep or do anything with the wool, because this had been puzzling me for some time. He explained that you need to raise Merino sheep for wool. For meat, people prefer larger, hardier varieties, although his neighbor had a flock of Merino or some kind of Merino hi-bred.

He asked where I was going and I said to South Africa. "Ah," he says, "I am going to South Africa too for the next World Cup."

Another day I passed a team of marathon runners training. Perhaps a some of them competed in the Olympics. Kenya is famous for its athletes.

Gar. Haven't blogged for a while. This picture is from a game drive in Swaziland.

I kind of want to fast forward through blogging about Kenya. I went to high school in Kenya. Kenya is a beautiful country with fantastic wildlife. Kenyan's are highly educated and prosperous people in East Africa. I was looking forward to cycling in Kenya, but when I got there it made me depressed.

The post election violence had happened while I was in Egypt. It was over by the time I arrived, but there were still camps of displaced people and I passed through some burned down towns. Over a thousand people died in the violence. In the end, no one was punished for any of it. When I got there, there were politicians on television calling for all the prisoners to be released because they had just been caught up in the moment or were falsely accused. The chief of police was interviewed and he said they had already released everyone except the murderers and rapists, if anyone was falsely accused they would have a fair court case. As I understand it, a judge eventually released everyone and accused the police of doing shoddy investigations. The international court wants to get involved now because genocide cannot go unpunished.

Kenya is a lawless place now. I visited my high school. There is a big fence around it these days. When I was there, I used to go for runs in the forest. The guard said I was unsafe to go there now. A group of students had been robbed by local charcoal makers who had machetes. The guard said that if I really wanted to go outside it was safest to take a machete.

The roads were dangerous too. Kenyan drivers are the most selfish and reckless I have seen. One person was killed when I was riding to Eldoret. It was at those dukas after you cross the equator for the last time. I was out of town, winding my way up the hill and I heard the crash. I stopped and looked down the hill. I could see the people down streaming towards the accident. There women screaming. A minivan had hit a pedestrian. The van had stopped and a passenger had gotten out. In the old days, bystanders would have lynched the driver and set his minivan on fire. I didn't want to see it so I left.

I love Kenya, but it has become a violent lawless place.