kenya 2 - 16 may

thought i'd start a new series on sharing the journal i kept while in kenya in may this year. i've already done one post about kenya, so that's why this one is labelled as'2'.
so, here it begins on the flight over.

good flight, though didn't get much sleep. watched 'walk the line' - great film. magnificent colours in the sunrise through the plane's window. never seen a sky like it. flight got in about 0630, and then we were all packed into 3 minibuses for the trip to the anglican church of kenya provincial guest house on bishop's road, nairobi.
got caught up in rush hour traffic - incredible amount of vehicles. a very slow, and smoggy journey. interesting to watch the locals: so very many walking to work; all very well dressed, clean clothes, taking care to wash the mud from their shoes with water from roadside ditches. at one intersection, i saw a sight that would've made a good photo: hundreds of people, all walking in different directions at great speed, while one young man sat on a bench at the crossroads watching as everyone walked by him and traffic roared all around. it was a picture of human stillness in the midst of orderly confusion.
got to the guest house finally, and were allocated rooms. i'm with paul trathen and we got the new block (pictured). we got into our beds and slept for about 2 hours. got up to have cold showers as there was no hot water, before going into nairobi city centre. got dropped off at the catholic cathedral, bought a stole in the bookshop, and wandered around the cathedral. its quite large and made of prefabricated concrete that gives a stark, harsh appearance. but there is an impressive, plain east window of stained glass.
got some money from an atm and went with lee batson and dave gilmour to a very nice coffee shop. then got taken to yar yar shopping mall, which is quite small in comparison to western standards. while there, a little boy aged about 7, with thick glasses in school uniform, approached me and very politely asked if i could help him with money. i bent down to him and gently told him that i couldn't. he didn't press me, but walked away. we've been told that its not good to give to begging children, as you will soon be surrounded by hoards of them. i felt sad for the poor wee guy. the gap between rich and poor here is immense. and the gap in standards of living between kenya and uk is stark. nairobi looks tired and tatty and is trying hard to catch up with the developed west.
tomorrow we will see that gap in even more stark terms when we visit the slums in nairobi with one of the cms guys who has been working incarnationally here for 3-4 years. he's coming for dinner with us tonight and will speak to us about what he's doing and what we will do and see tomorrow morning. should be good, and i'm looking forward to it.
interesting to note that as we moved away from the city centre the quality of the roads deteriorated while the level of high security gated compounds and houses increased. there's a great deal of traffic on the roads, and while its very busy, there doesn't seem to be any aggression from the drivers - unlike the uk.
there are also more roadside stalls and mini-shanty towns further from the city centre. as we drove home from yar yar, we went through a police check point, complete with officers armed with fully automatic weapons. they were guarding the israeli embassy.

Tags: kenya, nairobi