Fri., May 6
Just 4 more days until we leave here to return to Canada. It will be good to see the family again.

My main project this week has been building a demonstration stove that uses less fule, (I’m told), and will take the smoke out of the house through a chimney. Traditionally in Kenya they build a fire in the center of three stones that hold the pot above the fire. This is even done inside the homes making for a very unhealthy environment. I am using locally made bricks and mud as morter to hold them together. Experience in Hounduras has shown mud works better than cement based morter as it dosen’t crack. It’s also cheaper.

The base of the stove ready for the smoke chamber, cooking surface and chimney.

While we were away Jotham finished putting the corrigated metal on the shelter under which we are building the stove. This evening, a neighbour picked up the metal part of the stove that a welder in town made for me, so tomorrow morning I hope to finish it and will have to wait a couple of days for the mud to dry before we build a fire for to test it. Being a prototype, it has been somewhat more expensive than it will be normally.

Fri., 28 Apr., 2011 We had planned on being back at Robin’s Nest Thurs. night, BUT!!! We were ready to leave, as agreed, at 8:30 Thurs. morning, but no van and the driver Henry wasn’t answering his cell phone. We waited, and waited, and began to get worried when he arrived at about 10:20 am. Someone had stolen the only unlocked wheel on the van and he had to find another one and a buyer for one of his 2 cell phones (the phone we had the number for) so he could pay for it.

We headed south toward Nairobi and instead of taking the road we thought we would, they carried on toward Nairobi saying they didn’t know what the road was like. (I think it was really to take John, the other driver home.) About 50 km from Nairobi, about noon, the fan assembly on the van came off and the fan was smashed. John went in search for a replacement and after a while we took a matasti, (small bus), to a service station about a km up the road to wait. About 6 pm we decided to return and find out what was happening. When we got there, no van. I then rec’d a call from Henry saying he was at the service station so we took a matasti back. (They overcharged the rich white people both times.) The van had been moved and after the difficulty getting a matasti the first time since they were all full, we walked. By this time it was dark and walking on the side of the road was scary, especially when an impatient driver decided to drive on the shoulder where we were.

The van was finally fixed about 9pm, (work lights were 2 or 3 flashlights), and we went to a nearby hotel for the night. This was especially interesting because the van broke down within 2 km of where the alternate driver John lived when attending university. That’s how they found someone to fix it, John knew him.

Friday morning it was decided to take a secondary road which bypassed Nairobi and saved about 100 km driving. It was an interesting drive and we saw some very large tea plantations but much of the road was ‘rustic’, (translate ‘full of potholes’).

Tea Plantations covered the hills along the secondary road.

We met the main highway home, A104, and stopped at Nakuru for lunch. About an hour later as we climbed out of the ‘Rift Valley’ the engine overheated. We pulled over and discovered this was a common problem at that point and some young men had a successful business of supplying water and cooling down the engines. There was a truck there at the same time, same problem.


Site of the Sachangwan Oil Tanker Tragedy and mass grave
Right where we stopped was a mass grave for some of the victims of the Sachangwan Oil Tanker Tragedy on 31 Jan., 2009. A tanker truck turned over and many nearby residents and others gathered to ‘salvage’ the fuel. One person was smoking and set the fuel in the whole area burning. There were 347 victims, 130 burned so badly they were unidentifiable. 69 more later died in hospital of their injuries. 78 of the victims were buried in the mass grave.

About 20 km later, the engine overheated again, this time right by a garage. After some work, and 750 shillings we carried on, only to have it happen again 25 km later. Henry suggested we take a matasti back to Bungoma. The one we caught only went to Eldoret and it was almost dark. We have decided to stay in Eldoret as we are concerned about arriving in Bungoma after dark and getting to Robin’s Nest.

So I’m sitting in our 1800 shilling, ($21.69)room on the 5th floor of the Asis Hotel in Eldoret writing this summary. (Last night it cost 2000 shillings.) It has been an interesting trip.

Sat. 30 May
We were up and out by 8 am wanting to catch a bus to Bungoma and get ‘home’. A taxi took us to the bus station(?), really a large lot filled with busses and people encouraging you to take THEIR bus. We got right on the bus and it pulled out shortly. The trip only took 1 ½ hours and we almost missed the point we had to get off. We quickly got a local bus that droped us off at the end of the road to Robin’s Nest.

We arrived back to find the propane tank for the stoves was empty so we called a taxi to go to town and refill it. We also had to go to the bank to get cash to pay the salaries for the 9 staff, (most things are paid in cash here. Jotham went with us so while he was filling the tank, Eva braved the end of the month crowds at the bank and I picked up a few groceries. Returning to RN, we took it fairly easy as we were both exhausted from the strain of the last few days.

Sun., 1 May
This morning we held our regular bible study for the older children in Robin’s Nest and 2 from the surrounding community. For lunch we went to the nearby home of one of the Advisory Committee members. It was a traditional meal of stewed chicken, cow pea leaves, ugali, (ground corn boiled into a paste), and chapati, (similar to a large tortilla but fried in oil). The last time I had ugali it was plain and I didn’t care for it, but with the juice from the fried chicken on it, it wasn’t too bad.