Day 1 in Kitale!

Almost three full days of sleepless travel made our arrival in Kitale seem that much more surreal. We landed at an airstrip which was nothing more than a paved road and a one room building. The eighteen passengers deboarded, the station attendant unloaded the few items of checked baggage, three new passengers boarded, and the plane was airborne all within 10 minutes. The drive to the hotel was all two lane road, and only a small portion of it was actually paved. We got to our “lodge” (the Karibuni Inn) at around 6 PM. Getting settled and used to our surroundings is when it finally hit that we are actually in Africa. The Karibuni Inn (karibu means “welcome” in Swahili, karibuni is plural) is essentially a compound that has a home (where the owners live) with several surrounding buildings that act as the lodging for the inn. Despite being at an elevation of about 6000 feet, the plants and birds fell very tropical. After such a long journey, though, we didn’t do much other than settle in. I managed to squeeze in a sound 12 hours of sleep our first night here.
Our first full day was filled with more wandering and acclimation. We started the day with a short walk into downtown Kitale (about 30 minutes). The landscape is lush and green and almost none of the roads are paved, but the dirt is a beautiful deep red (just like that found at Vinehill in the Sierras). By the time we made it into the heart of Kitale it was obvious that we all stand out like sore thumbs. Most people we passed would just stare, but a few would wave and smirk at us. If someone wanted our attention from afar they would shout Mizunga (Swahili for “white person”) and wave dramatically. It almost makes one feel like a cross between a zoo exhibit and a celebrity. Aside from a few tough acting males, though, everyone I’ve met so far is an instant friend.
The two major things we did outside of wandering were to tour a school and make our first visit to our construction site. The school is called St. John Bosco Children Centre and is geared towards getting kids off the street and tailored for a proper education (preparing them to enter primary and secondary school). We were instant hits among the kids with magic tricks and nifty digital cameras. Our time at the school was cut short, though, when the sky began to show signs of the afternoon storms so we made a quick exit and drove over to our construction site. The term construction site is, of course, used in the loosest sense possible. The site consists of a large plot of land, with a small portion (maybe 50x90 feet) plowed and leveled for where the Water Filter Manufacturing Facility is to be built. We had expected the foundations to at least be laid, but because our shipping containers with all of the supplies have not even made port in Mombasa (at least a full day’s journey from Kitale) everything has been put on hold. In the mean time it seems as though the plan is for us to be glorified tourists. Maybe we’ll get to find a bar on Wednesday night and watch the Brazil/Manchester match for a good time, who knows!