From Kenya With Love

Sleepy Carol in the Addis Ababa Airport at 5am

In short, yesterday was major travel day. Carol and I took a final stroll through Jerusalem on Saturday after checking out of the Abraham Hostel one last time, and then made our way to Ben Gurion airport by about 9:30pm, thinking that we had plenty of time to kill before our 1am flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Airports, however, have an amazing knack for absorbing whatever time is available, so by the time we finally made it through 1) questioning + passport control, 2) check-in + passport control, 3) oversized back check-in + passport control, and 4) security + passport control, we barely had time to scarf one last shwarma before dashing to the terminal to have our passports checked so that we could board the plane. We made it on easily, fell asleep, and were immediately woken up to find that Ethiopia Airlines serves a meal at 2am on their flight, which was awesome, after which Carol napped, and Joe watched movies and read.

Joe has crossed the equator for the first time!

At 5am in Addis we enjoyed a few random power outages at the terminal while we waited/slept in some surprisingly comfortable lounge chairs that are provided by the airport (see picture of Carol), and then caught our connecting flight to Nairobi at about 10am, enjoying another meal courtesy of Ethiopia Airlines which had some kind of wonderful blended pineapple meringue thing that I need to look up. Anyway, as the plane landed we were pleased to see that most of the Nairobi airport was still standing after seeing some of the photos of the recent fire, but we didn't ever actually get to go inside the airport, since customs, luggage, visas, and pick-up for our flight had all been moved temporarily to large tents standing out on the tarmac.  It wasn't a hassle at all, but it did take us over an hour to get our visas and luggage, and finally walk out a random gate to find...

Nicholas! A driver sent by our wonderful hosts here in Nairobi for a few days, who had been waiting in the hot sun for us with a sign reading "STEVICK". Given the chaos everywhere around us, the fact that I was sleep deprived, and the general disorientation of being in a brand new place, it was a huge blessing just to see someone with our name on a board.

Parts of Nairobi went by in a blur on our way from the airport to Alison and Tom's house, and I still don't have the words to describe any aspect of it, but hopefully with a bit more exposure it will start to take some shape. At any rate, our driver did a fantastic job of introducing us to Kenya, gave us a brief socio-economic introduction to Nairobi, taught us a few key words and phrases in Swahili, told us how to avoid being sent to jail, and told us a little about his family history... all in the 20 minute drive.

Alison was there waiting for us when we arrived, and since then she and Tom have made us feel extremely at home, and have already included us in a movie night with friends, meals, projects, etc. Especially enjoyable today was an awesome lunch right next to the airstrip at the Aero Club of East Africa at Wilson Airport where Tom works.

Finally, a huge gift was being able to meet up this evening with Celia Nyamweru (a friend of Joe's from Wolfson College, Cambridge) for dinner at a nearby Lebanese restaurant, where we were able to catch up a bit and reminisce a bit about life at Wolfson.

Once again, in the few hours since we've arrived there is just too much to tell, but we thought it was about time to let you know that we have safely moved on from Israel to Kenya, and that we continue to be amazed at how diverse and rich with life this world is.

In His Peace,

Joe