To Kenya we have come

So we have finally arrived in the beautiful country of Kenya.  Travelling went fairly smoothly for us.  We even managed to get our entire luggage down to 80Kg including carry-ons, pretty impressive for 6 people planning to travel for 6 weeks.  We were able to get a flight from Sarh to N’Djamena through MAF.  It was very nice.  Instead of a 14 hour bus ride, we had a 3 hour flight (with one stop in-between to drop some pastors off.  The stop in between was just a landing strip and we were greeted by lots of children.  It reminded me of landing in Karawa.  The MAF flight was on Thursday and we had the opportunity to spend the time with family friends (a MAF engineer’s family).  The kids had a blast playing with the other children in the compound which has a pool, big trampoline, bikes, roller blades, jungle gym/tree house (basically a children’s dream place).  It was a wonderful time despite it being so short.

Our next flight was on Saturday.  We flew from N’Djamena to Addis, and then Addis to Nairobi.  The flights went smoothly.  After having our passports checked around 6 times in N’Djamena, we were finally able to board, and the people around us were kind enough to switch seats with us so that we could all sit together.  I sat between the two girls and assisted them, trying to keep them entertained.  The next flight we weren’t quite so lucky.  People were not really willing to change seats, so I ended up sitting by myself.  I tried to get as much sleep as possible, but did not get as much as I would have liked, considering we were coming into Nairobi around 2:30am.  Here is a little tid bit of information for you.  In Kenya they keep time differently.  One o’clock is really about 7am.  They start the day when the sun rises and then continue from there.  So 12:00 is around the time the sun is setting.  As I understand it, they have the 12 day hours and the 12 night hours.  It makes it interesting for figuring out pick-up times and arrivals.  It really makes one think when someone asks the time.

Sunday, we all slept in as much as possible, though near the apartment where we are staying there is a church which we could hear all the music and speaking.  It was only about 4-5 hours long quite the difference from our keep the service to an hour or less.  I have been here a few more days now, and have discovered that not only is there church all day Sunday there is also church every evening, typically multiple hours.  Nothing like live music, if only it were Christmas carols then it would really feel festive…at least we are getting the idea of what the donkey in the Christmas story sounded like (they use donkey pulled carts around where we are).  There were a few lights around the airport as well as wreaths in the airplane.  There are those hints of Christmas around.

Thus far, I have not done much exploring of the city.  We have been settling in, meeting Moses’ family, and a few of the family members have done some applications for passports.  I have been able to be useful by watching the children who didn’t need to go into town (making passport applications so much easier).  I am happy to assist.  It is also a lot of fun to see all the cousins spending time together.