Arrival in Kenya

Written on March 30, 2008 from Kakamega, Kenya

By Anne Olson

Hello Everyone – Jambo!

I arrived safely in Kenya after some changes in plane reservations. When I got to the San Francisco airport on Wednesday morning, my flight had been canceled due to mechanical failure. So they had rerouted me – SF to Chicago to Amsterdam to Nairobi arriving one hour later than the original schedule. They were so efficient that I didn’t even have time to worry! Since I left in the morning, I wasn’t tired so didn’t sleep at all on the way to Amsterdam. By then, it was morning local time and night my time so I was tired. Luckily the flight from Amsterdam was quite empty so I got four seats to stretch out on and sleep for a few hours. I arrived Nairobi at 8pm and stayed there over night – so some more good sleep. Flew to western Kenya the next morning and am now in Kakamega where I will stay for about a month.

Was so great to see my Kenyan friends. Haven’t really started to do any work as I just arrived on Friday. Monday (tomorrow) we will start. It has been raining here (the start of the rainy season). It is a good idea to take my raincoat whenever I go somewhere even if it is sunny when I leave the hotel. Today there are beautiful blue skies with puffy white clouds so maybe it won’t rain today. The farmers are busy planting so the rains will help their crops.

Yesterday, I met up with Julia (a VEF Staff member who is here working on a project) and Max (a VEF intern who is evaluating training and also happens to be Julia’s boyfriend) and we all went to visit Margaret (a local Village Business Mentor – VBM) and have lunch. She prepared a feast for us! There must have been 10 different dishes including freshly made chapatti (which I love!). So delicious! No need to eat dinner last night. I went to bed early as I just couldn’t keep my eyes open by 8pm. I slept well so hopefully am now rested and ready to function on Kenya time.

That’s all for now. Hope this finds all of you doing well.

Baraka (blessings in Swahili)