Catching Up on Recent Events

Greetings!

Dinner at the Parris home in Karen, Kenya

It has been a little while since we've been able to update our blog and we are excited to share about some of our latest adventures these last couple of weeks.  We spent our last few days in Nairobi staying with the wonderful Parris family (friends from Cornerstone church back in Glendora).  We very much enjoyed being in a cozy home and all the comforts of a washing machine, home cooked food, a lawn to play soccer on with the Parris boys and best of all, a wonderful visit with Regula Parris and her kiddos (Michael and Daniel).

Worshiping with the kids at KCC

It was a great chance to see another part of Nairobi too-- called Karen Plains which is quite spacious with lots of open fields.  We very much enjoyed attending Karen Community Church with Regula and the boys (Andrew was sadly out of town for work while we were in town) and get a taste of what church life looks like for the Parris family in Nairobi.  Regula leads the worship music time for the kids at the church and needed some assistance-- Joe jumped in and played guitar while she sang some songs (including one of our favorites, "Seek Ye First"). 

The morning we left Nairobi, Regula had arranged for a cab driver to pick us up at 5:30am in order to make the 8:30am Impala Shuttle Bus from the Silver Springs Hotel in Nairobi to Arusha. At first we wondered about the necessity of starting so early since we were staying only a few kilometers outside of Nairobi, but after the taxi got lost trying to find the Parris' house, arriving 40 minutes late, and then we found Ngong Road packed with morning traffic headed into Nairobi, we realized how slow things can really move in Kenya (Pole Pole = "Slowly Slowly").

We did make it to the hotel on time however, and the first people that we met while waiting for the bus to show up were an Australian couple who had also been traveling through Africa for the past couple months. I think the friendship really started when they pointed out that Carol was eating "Yankee Doodle" brand cashews on the bus ride south. Little did we know that we would end up spending the next week traveling with Paul and Karryn, sharing some rather remarkable experiences which we will attempt to describe in our next few posts.

In the meantime, we are headed to Dar es Salaam tomorrow morning on the Dar Express with a hypothetical ride time of 9 hours :)  We are excited and eager to write more about our safari the last 5 days through the Sarengedi, Ngorongoro Crater and Ol Doinyo Lengai.  Stay tuned! =)

love, carol and joe