Nairobi, Eldoret and Kijabe .. Again

Our trips to Kenya are always pretty incredible. Kijabe in particular is great because we get a chance to hang out with our kids and their friends, enjoy the cool weather and fires in the fireplace, and we always feel drawn to RVA and Kijabe, like we’re supposed to be doing something there. Whenever I’m in Kijabe, I feel that same exact feeling I had when I stepped off the plane that first time in Entebbe. It’s unmistakable but vague.

This trip was similar in many ways to our last trip, and I was in Kijabe, Nairobi and Eldoret.

Business first. I went to Nairobi to meet again with the BRCK team. Earlier this month, we “donated” our volunteer Vito (who coded our volunteer site) to the BRCK project to do some work on the local dashboard (which allows the user to configure the 3G and Wi-Fi interfaces on the BRCK. The team was so thrilled with his work that they offered him a paid position. Vito has a contract this month, so he had to decline for now, but agreed to reconsider in one month. I met with Reg, Erik and Phil and it was a very productive meeting as we planned our next steps with our partnership and BRCK development. Whenever I’m with those guys, I feel like I want to pack up and move closer to do more work with them. Another call to Kenya that I can’t quite figure out what to do with.

In Eldoret, I met with Zack Matere again, and dropped him more gear. We donated another TP-Link MR3040 and 32GB Leef SD card loaded with RACHEL to replace the one we gave him earlier. His original unit ran into problems which we were unable to troubleshoot remotely. This is one of the reasons we really need the BRCK in places like Soy. Remote troubleshooting would be such a HUGE benefit for folks like Zack. We also donated two 32gb SD cards and two USD SD readers so that Zack could distribute RACHEL. We use this combination because the SD card can be locked read-only, which blocks viruses.

In Kijabe, we spent a lot of time with the kids and their friends. We were there for Talent night, and got to see Drayton, Makenna, Austin and Isom WIN their category in the talent show. I was so proud, and even Trevor and Declan helped out in the final act, getting on stage and helping out! Amazing! The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mew58bweWMw. We also got to be there for “scarfing” (a tradition in which girls chase boys and put a scarf on them, thereby “Asking them” to the class party..which is always fun to watch) and the Class party, where everyone dressed up in various costumes. Makenna and Luke went as Tyler and Marla from Fight Club (one of my favorite movies). Trevor and DaEun went as Edward and Bella (Twilight).

We took our kids and many of their friends to a nice “local” lunch at a new restaurant in town.

This is a big deal because the kids aren’t allowed to walk far off of campus and there aren’t many places to go in Kijabe anyhow. This new restaurant advertised pizza, hot dogs and burgers, but all the kids opted for local food, which they prefer and was probably a safer choice since the owners aren’t American and likely have no idea what American food is supposed to taste like, never mind how it’s supposed to be prepared.

Jen and I mused at how well a bed and breakfast / coffee shop / cafe would do within walking distance of RVA. The local guest houses are jam-packed most of the time and there’s no place to go for good coffee and American food. There’s this one building we’ve eyeballed within the “safe” zone that would be perfect, and we have some experience running a BnB and Cafe/Coffee Shop.. It would even be a one-hour drive to Nairobi to work with iHub and the BRCK team. Then we realize it would be a massive job to raise the money to do it then uproot from Jinja without everything falling over and we get depressed. But who knows.

In Kijabe, we spent a lot of time chilling with the kids and their friends, playing games, watching movies (the Lego movie was a huge hit, and “Everything is Awesome” is my new theme song) eating, watching games in the gym, eating in the cafo and more. It was a really great time of getting to know our kids friends and spend time together. Our kids are so blessed to be in that school. Such an amazing education, and a great environment. I’m so jealous of them.. I wish I had those opportunities.

We drove straight home from Kijabe in a record-breaking ten hours, but as we approached Jinja, Jen and I could feel our blood pressure rising. We started getting stressed, and today, we’re bot feeling sick.. strange ailments that we didn’t have in Kenya have returned in full force.

I have no idea what that’s about (stress, toxic house, stress?) but it’s adding to the “Kenya calling”. :-)