Today is a good example of a day that seemed to have a straightforward plan when in actuality unforeseen events make it so much more interesting. The plan was simple: Rent a pickup truck/driver to bring some supplies to a few schools in Ainabkoi, check on the accommodations and beds being made for a couple of the Moi students, pick up some sand, and bring the sand to another school in Kapsabet. Here’s a list of the unforeseen things that I can remember:
· Hitting a chicken in the road and watching it flail around the road through the back window as we drove on. We veered first, and it must have thought we wanted to dance.
· Checking on various schools filters and realizing that most of them had various issues resulting in some stern conversations by Isaac.
· Shaking hands with 50+ primary school children at Arap Moi Primary School. They were all congregating to stare at me when the head teacher told me they wanted to greet me. As soon as I greeted the closest student they all rushed it. Thankfully, I have large hands so I was able to shake hands with up to 3 kids at a time in each hand. It only took a minute and was quite entertaining.
· Fixing the truck’s radiator with rope and having to refasten the front license plate halfway through the trip. The truck was an old Toyota Hilux and was pretty similar to the ’85 Toyota XtraCab truck that I drove for a couple years (for those of my family members that will know what I’m talking about). I suspect this truck was of the same era given that the dashboard indicators were exactly the same as my old truck (except mine all had the necessary needles and actually worked – which could not both be said about ANY of the displays in this vehicle). Also, the passenger door had to be opened by pulling the wire to which the handle would normally be attached, the window had to be pulled up while cranking the metal crank that would have been covered in plastic at one time, the hood was held done by a metal wire, the interior was a red paisley print, there was a silver, plastic strand Christmas tree garland rigged up above the sun-visors….It makes me laugh just thinking about it all. I couldn’t have made up anything more entertaining. All in all, I felt perfectly safe, though I can’t really explain why, but that’s a conversation for another day.
· Finding out that we couldn’t get our first choice of accommodations due to the landlord not being able to get the key to an unused room from the tenant that hadn’t paid any rent for his first six months.
· Getting sunburned on both of my arms due to riding in the truck all day. (I’m going to have a great start to my watch and farmer’s tan by the end of my trip.)
· Commissioning my first piece of furniture ever. It’s a small stool that the polytechnic school in our study has agreed to make. I’m not quite sure of the type of wood since it’s native to a small area nearby and only has an indigenous name. The ones they had for another buyer were beautiful, though – and it’s only 350 KES ($4.25)! I’m detecting a trend in my Africa buying habits that I’m a sucker for small stools. (This one is much more presentable than the one I got in Zambia, though.) I’m going to need to get a sweet coffee table once I have my own place to use these with….
· Getting a flat tire after loading the sand. I’m a little surprised that it took this long to have this happen. To make matters worse, first, our jack was broken. Our driver called a buddy to bring another one. (We were quite close to town, thankfully.) There was a little confusion as to where we were so it took a little longer than ideal for them to arrive. Then we decided that our spare tire was a little underinflated and lacked sufficient tread if it were to rain (which it was obviously raining in the general direction of our destination). We commandeered another spare tire from a passing truck who our driving knew. (I get the feeling that the community of drivers for hire is relatively close-knit.) This tire was a little underinflated but otherwise sufficient. Isaac and our driver dropped me off at our place since we were so close, I wasn’t really needed, and it was turning into a late night of work. (He’s still not back as I write this at 8 p.m.)
So yeah, that was today’s work - just another day in Africa. The power has stayed on so far tonight so I’m pretty happy with that. I’m starting to doubt Scott’s information regarding regular power outages on Thursday evenings….Well, time to relax a little more before enjoying my sleep!
-Steven
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