The team is complete! Karibu Alex!

Finally it’s time to pick up Alex at the airport. As Rev Wasike doesn’t have a car himself, one of his friends kindly offered to drive us (5 Euros). As he lives close to the airport, we agree to come close to his house. Two of the four kids desperately want to join us to pick Alex up, so the four of us started the journey. I quickly do the math: Rev Wasike + two kids­ + the driver + Alex + myself = 6 in a car. Well, not too bad given two are kids.
 

We start our journey picking up a Matatu. Too many people again. To my bad luck the person next to me still hasn’t figured out how to “shower” with two buckets of water. It is smelly, hot and dusty in the car. I’ll try to face the window, but one of the kids sitting on my lab restricts my movements.  On the plus side: I have a good driver and my head only pumps twice against the car roof.

A few minutes later we get off. This is the place where we are supposed to meet the driver. And only a few minutes later a car turns the corner. It’s the driver and he brought his sister (that would make seven in the car, once we pick up Alex).

It’s only a few minutes drive to the airport. A policemen stops us, looks into the car. I wonder whether the number of people in the car might become an issue, but that doesn’t seem to bother him.

We arrive at the airport. Alex is 20 minutes late, so I suggest inviting them for a drink. Rev Wasike is hesitant: “this is really expensive”.  But I assure him it can’t be too expensive and how kind it is from his friend and his sister to pick Alex up. So we go and have a drink (6 Euros).

After a few more minutes Alex finally arrives. How good to see her! Karibu Kenya Alex (Welcome to Kenya)!

After an uneventful drive back we arrive back “home”. Alex will have her first Chapati (similar to pancakes) and a long conversation about Kenyan and Swiss culture will follow. Sometimes the conversation is a bit weird. How would you answer some of the following questions:

•  “Why is your hair color different from each other?”
•  “Do you live in Europe or in Switzerland”?

Rev Wasike was shocked about the fact that most people in Europe decide to only have two children (bad job Rebecca/Mami) and the fact that some women chose a career over a family is simply “bad”. Boys are important (congrats Andreas and Penny :) ) and a woman that only gives birth to girls will have to accept a second wife to give birth to a boy. Kids automatically belong to men, women are considered to be “vessels” (Rev Wasike compared women to a glass of water, carrying the water).

Despite the cultural talks we also further prepared Kimilili. We will use the private car (due to the huge amount of luggage) so we need to wait for the driver from Kimilili to arrive in Nairobi to pick us up. This will be today after lunch at some point, so hopefully by tonight at some point we will be in Kimilili.

I also suggested to look at the financials of CBSM to improve the transparency. Rev Wasike appreciated the effort (even though the idea of a monthly run rate (Thanks you project Meridian) was a bit strange to him. 

First impressions of Alex:

I arrived safely in Nairobi and was warmly welcomed by the family. 

This is exaclty what I wanted to do / experience so please don't worry: I'll be fine.

There is just one issue that really is hard to deal with: the toilets! As we have no running water, "it" just stays in the toilet. With temperatures of 30 degrees the smell isn't exaclty "nice". (Comparable to street parade with 300 people and one toilet!). When I first went in this morning, I immediatly had to head back out again. A cigarette first... Then I inveted the "toilet scarf": Add half a bottle of perfume to your scarf and tie it as close as possible to your nose. Done, I can manage now!

Agnes said I'll get used to the toilets (as well as to the cockroach (already killed two this morning!)).

We will be heading off now (get the luggage organized). Thanks for all the donations, this is much appreciated by Rev Wasike and the members of CBSM.

All the best from Nairobi,

Agnes & Alex