July 13^th, 2008

     Got a pretty decent nights sleep last night and awoke late around 8:00AM. I got caught up on my blogs to post as soon as I get internet. The Safari-com kiosk at the airport did not have the modems and I will have to wait until tomorrow to go to an office that is open. It is Sunday and I can hear from my window here someone playing a recording of a very worked up Pentecostal preacher. It is so African as church here is a very emotional experience. I am not saying it shouldn’t be. On the contrary, I believe church should be a whole experience every day. Our mind, will, emotions, spirit, and body should be totally infused with the presence of God. Some days I am better at expressing it than others. Allie’s baggage should arrive late today so we have to hang around here a bit in case it shows up. Besides that she has nothing to wear to church. I text messaged the people who’s numbers I had stored on my SIM card to let them know my new number. Several answered back and are excited we are back in town. Turns out Joe Peterson (a friend of mine from my home church) is here in Nairobi. Hopefully we can get together before he returns to Mbita. I would try to travel back with him but I have several stops along the way before getting back there myself. Kennedy (another friend and local from Mbita) phoned me back and said he needed to be at the market on Tuesday of next week so he will probably travel back with me and Allie. IT will be good to see him and Nancy again. I contacted Dr. Simon who has my van stored in his garage and he is to pick Allie and I up at 3:30 to go to his house and pick up the van. I called on Allie’s bag about 2:00PM as they hadn’t showed up yet and was told they would not start deliveries until 2:30. Allie and I watched the birds from the apartment where we are staying for a while and then went to the main gate to meet Dr. Simon. Allie is very interested in the plants and animals here and she is really enjoying the trip thus far. I showed her a 6’ Poinsettia plant and she was amazed at it’s size. I told her it was just a small one as I have seen much larger ones. There are several plants here that we use as ornamentals in the states that grow much larger due to the extended growing season. In fact, Dr. Simon has the plant we call bottle brush bush in the states growing as a tree at his house. Totally cool. We asked the guards to hold our bag for us and we would pick it up when we got back. They are very nice and agreed.

     We met Dr. Simon at the front gate of PAC with his daughter Bernice. Allie and her hit it off immediately and proceeded to do the girl talk thing. We arrived at Dr. Simons house to discover he had cut down his very large Bottle Brush Tree!! He explained that he was doing battle with the tree as it’s roots were trying to lift the corner of his house. I told him I had been bragging on his behalf and now I could not talk anymore about it since it is now cut down. It is sprouting from the root though so I suspect his battle is not over yet. We had a very good visit with the family and Joyce (Dr. Simons wife) asked about Lori and the rest of the family. She sure wished Lori was able to come this time and I am looking forward to the day they meet. After a little chai Dr. Simon and I pushed the van outside and I got the battery connected. The van fired right up and it was good to hear it running again. We gave it a light rinsing off as there was a good bit of dust on it from being stored for almost 8 months. The garage doors at Dr. Simons are not completely installed and I am trying to get back early enough to finish the installation for him. It would be a great blessing for him to have garage doors that are easy to lift. Right now it takes two men to lift it. A serious chore for sure.

     Allie and I left Dr. Simons house to visit the church he has been building. Wow, what a change from when I left last Nov.!!! The church now had a roof and cement floors as well as electricity and white paint on the inside. It looked very nice and he is doing a great job on it. Another surprise was the fish pond he had built. Last trip I had left him a CD with a lot of information in fish ponds and the like. He was very interested in aquaculture and was wanting to try to get something going. Well, he purchased ¼ acre next to the church which was a bit boggy. He dug a pond and lined the edge with cement, put in drains and even made steps down into the pond with cement to get access in and out!! I did not have my camera with me at the time but told him my camera had to see this! He has stocked it with 1000 tilapia fingerlings and later put in 100 catfish fingerlings to help control the tilapia. He is excited about the project as am I. This is what F.A.S.T. (Faith And Sustainable Technologies) is all about. Sharing information, encouraging people to go for it. Dr. Simon has for sure taken this thing in hand. I am so blessed to see what God is doing through him. As soon as I get pictures I will post them on this blog for sure. We left there so Dr. Simon could make an appointment and went to get some groceries. Allie and I had not had anything to eat all day except for the breakfast bars we brought along. I had to stop in at a filling station to sir up my tire as the rear left was a bit low. The fellow at the pump was right on it and probably saw the low tire as I was coming in. The valve stem did not have a cap on it so they sold me one for 100Ksh. That’s about $1.40 USD. Quite a high price for a valve stem cap but I was not buying fuel and using their air so I agreed. Everything has a price here. In the states that item would have been free.

     Allie and I made it through traffic to the local Nakumat. It is a store very much like the Wal-Mart’s back home with everything from food to paint and hardware including the refrigerator, stove and kitchen sink. We got some groceries and went back to PAC. Food here is quite expensive as we got a few bags of things and the total was over $80.00. The quality is also low on most local made things. I sprung for Heinz ketchup and a 36 oz. Bottle cost $5.00 USD!! The local made stuff is simply not fit to eat (personal opinion which may not be the same as staff and management). We were the last ones to check out and went back to PAC well after dark. Allie got to try her first Black Currant Fanta and she really enjoyed it.   She also tried the yogurt here which is drinkable. After getting back to the apartment she made deviled eggs (I bought a flat of 30 eggs) and I opened a can of corned beef and made a sandwich. The eggs we bought were of such poor quality the yolks were very pale and had virtually no taste. They were brown eggs and still had traces of chicken manure on them so they appeared to be farm fresh. Yea right. These eggs came from a layer house somewhere where they probably about starved the chickens. Give me a real farm egg any day. I know I will be producing eggs when I live here for sure. When things are this low quality it will be easy to produce something better. Allie wanted to take a shower so I went in to clean the shower head. The type of water heater here is made by Lorenzetti. It is basically an electric water heater built into the shower head. You turn on the water, flip the switch and you can hear the element start sizzling and the water gets warm. Some places they call these “Widow Makers”. You control the temperature by controlling the flow of water through it. Want things hot slow down the flow, cooler- turn on more water. It is quite simple but when the openings get calcified from the minerals in the water it gets restricted and the water gets scalding hot. I cleared the openings and turned on the water. Eureka!! We had good flow. Now to turn on the switch…… Bummer. Turns out the switch is fried. Nothing happened. I pulled off the cover plate to inspect it and found the switch melted. This is a common problem here as I have seen it before on previous trips. Once again the quality of things is not very good. Seems the connections were weak and created an arc which heated up the plastic housing. Allie had to take a cold shower and from the outside it sounded like she was almost having a religious experience either that, or there were snakes in the shower.  I really couldn‘t tell. Either way it was for sure and experience for her. We got to bed around 10:30PM with many things to do tomorrow.