Leaving Lamu

After a few days in Lamu, it was time to head back to Nairobi for the Intermission Retreat.  It's only a little more than a couple of hours to fly, so I landed in Nairobi by 1:45 in the afternoon.  I took one of the small motorboats back across the channel to the airport.  Since it's hot weather around here nearly year-round, the airport waiting room is open air.  It would have been nice to have a bit of air conditioning, but at least there's shade.  

 In the photo above, you can see Lamu along the coast of the island across the channel. The water was a beautiful color as we flew down the coast, although the pictures aren't great as the plane window was quite smudged.

Inland, it's dusty and dry.

Once I landed back at Nairobi Wilson airport, I had a while to wait because I had planned for someone from the Monduli crowd to pick me up as they passed the airport on their way up, as they were all driving up that day.  It was a bit stressful at first because I couldn't get my phone to work, even though I'd bought a roaming bundle that should have allowed me to use whatsapp in Kenya.  I couldn't get a Kenyan sim card because all the official sim card sellers are only allowed to sell sim cards to people with Kenyan IDs.  I'm sure it's possible somewhere to get a sim card without said ID, but the places at the airport follow the law.  Finally someone told me that there was a Java House restaurant down by the private jet area that has good wifi.  That was a wonderful move--the food was great, the wifi was strong, and they didn't mind at all that I stayed for six hours since they weren't too busy.  I splurged on the crazy sundae below.  My waiter was really nice; they close at nine except for a side part for private functions, but he offered to let me stay anyhow rather than sending me outside at night.  Fortunately, I had been in contact with the Monduli crowd and Ralph and Twyla Williams had agreed to stop and get me, and they would be arriving soon, so I headed back down by the airport entrance to meet them.  It was pretty late by the time we arrived, after 11 pm.  Tomorrow Intermission begins!

Easter Break: Shuttle bus from Arusha to Nairobi

From the bus window: the scenery just north of Mt. Meru, driving from Arusha towards the Kenyan border

Here in Tanzania, most schools close for a two week break around Easter, and I’ve been looking forward to it.  Over a long weekend in the middle of the two weeks, most of the missionaries associated with churches of Christ here in Tanzania are heading up to Nairobi, Kenya for an Intermission Retreat.  Missionaries from all over East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi) are coming.  I’ll explain a lot more about Intermission when I write about the conference itself, but for now, let me tell you about the days leading up to it.  

Local Maasai women walking along in northern Tanzania

Most of the crowd from Monduli and Kisongo are driving up on Wednesday (it’s about a seven-hour drive), and then the conference will start on Thursday afternoon. However, I decided to head up a bit early since school is out and I’ve never spent time in Kenya other than at airports.  The first thing most people think of to do in Kenya is to go on game drives in one of the National Parks, especially in the Maasai Mara (the Kenyan half of the same reserve as the Serengeti), but that area of Kenya is not that far as the crow flies from where I live in Monduli and is a similar landscape.  Also, we’re going out to a park on Saturday as a group from the conference.  I wanted something different. 

Maasai sheep herders out on the open savannah north of Arusha

When people think of beaches and tropical coastlines, Kenya is usually not the first country on the list, but it does, in fact, have miles of beautiful beaches.  Now, I like beaches, but I get bored after a day if there’s nothing further to do than just sit on a beach.  I found Lamu, an island with hundreds of years of history and a unique culture. 

Getting somewhere is rarely quick here in Africa, so I broke this trip into two stages. Today, I took the afternoon bus from Arusha to Nairobi.  Beth, Michela, and the kids drove me into Arusha, and we stopped for lunch (at one of my favorite places, our one-and-only Mexican restaurant) and a bit of shopping before my bus at 2.  The bus usually take around six hours, depending on how long the lines are at the border and whether there’s traffic going into Nairobi.  

From the bus window: there are a few small, rocky mountains near the border

The drive isn’t bad; it goes mostly through countryside and the scenery north of Mt Meru towards the border is beautiful in a stark, wide-open sort of way.  We ran through some rain just out of Arusha, but the sky was clear by the time we reached the border. 

I splurged a bit and got a place to stay for the night; I've slept in plenty of airports, but tomorrow I'm flying out of the domestic airport, which I've never been to, and I found a fairly expensive place not too far out.

The rest area that the bus from Arusha to Nairobi always stops at, just over the Kenyan border

I saw a rainbow as we drove through southern Kenya

Southern Kenya in the afternoon light

Southern Kenya from the bus window

Driving through a small town in southern Kenya 

My guesthouse room in Nairobi