Trip to Nairobi Fun

Its now been two weeks since we landed in Kenya and we are starting to get settled. Having two weeks has been excellent to prepare ourselves by learning where things are and how to get places. Most staff have now arrived, and our all staff meetings started today. If anyone is interested in coming to Kenya on short notice they are still looking for a few positions, in particular Dorm parents for girls dorms and Athletic teachers.

It looks like Sue is going to be very this term as they are short staffed in the Student Health Department. Her nursing schedule is going to be both during the day as well as over-night if their are students who need to stay in Student Health over night. My job is also going to be fun! Working on computers in the middle of rural Kenya is difficult. The town of Kijabe, where Rift Valley Academy is located, currently has a 1MB line into Nairobi on which their are about 800 computers (400 at the school, and 400 in the rest of the Kijabe station). That leads to very slow traffic. Over the next couple of months I have been asked to manage a financial application that they use for many of the services here, as well as look at some computer infrastructure build that they need to do.

Yesterday we took a trip to Nairobi for the day. A wonderful family who has been here for many years (Todd and Kylie Dubber) has been helping us setup and get organized. Food like meat, cheese and milk can only be purchased in Nairobi and takes about 1 hour to get to. We have been told that the opportunities to get into Nairobi is difficult during the term so we should stock up now. Sue and Beatrice went with Kylie to do lots of grocery shopping. Todd and I went with Hannah and the Dubber kids to visit AIM Internation Services in Nairobi. On the way we went through several very very poor towns. It was incredible to see (and reminded me of a World Vision commercial!) We drove down muddy, bumpy roads with hundreds of people walking around the few cars on the roads. Hannah asked my why it smelled so bad. The difference here between the very poor and the wealthy is night and day. These are areas where AIM missionaries don't go near when their are any problems in the country.

At International Services the kids go to go inside the airplanes they have (AIM Air provides air freight and evacuation services in East Africa to many missionary organizations). They had a great time. After shopping we met up with the women and all went swimming at a Nairobi hotel.

Well, that is all for now - I'll post some pictures next time.

Andrew