Tuesday, 7-21-09 Day 35

Before I get to today’s post, I must tell you about something that happened yesterday. I don’t know why I didn’t write it down already. Zapporah had a friend who we hadn’t met yet, and who went to boarding school. We found out yesterday that this friend of hers was sick yesterday, so she went to the hospital, and ended up dying there. This little girl was between 10 and 12 years old. Zippy misses her friend, but didn’t cry or anything. Death is such a normal thing over here, that even a 10 year old little girl doesn’t give it a second thought. I am saddened by this news.
Today:
Getting up at 4:30 is NOT FUN! I ended up falling asleep in the van. Hours later, I am still without coffee. This is ridiculous. Do these people not know me at all? No sleep AND no coffee? And they want me to be NICE? I don’t know how this is going to work.
We stopped at a gas station, where Jan and I had the misfortune of using the worst bathroom in Kenya. Still no coffee. This trip is supposed to take us all day, because Masai Mara is so far away. I passed the time by watching the new scenery. It’s weird to be driving through actual cities, when we’ve been in rural Kenya for so long. It’s also odd to see how the scenery changes from jungle to savannah. Along the way, we saw some refugee camps. To see them on TV is one thing, but to see them in real life and watch the people living in them, it breaks your heart!
Later on, we got pulled over by the police. There is really no surprise here. Pastor Titus was in a t-shirt and pants, since he was travelling and not pasturing. There seems to be no point in me telling you this, but trust me it’s important! They asked Titus to step out of the car. I was later told that they were purposefully taking up our time because they were looking to be bribed. Pastors don’t give bribes, and Titus told the policemen that he was a Pastor and would not bribe them. “How do we know that you’re really a pastor?” they ask. And Titus, in all seriousness, says, “I have a suit!” Forget that his bible is sitting in the driver side door. Pastor Titus puts on his suit jacket, the police finally accept that he is a pastor, and they let us go!
The closer we got to Masai Mara, the more we started to see wild boar, zebra, and gazelle along the road. Sometimes they were actually in the middle of the road, and we had to wait for them to cross before we could continue our journey. We stopped for lunch at something similar to a trucker stop. I had something similar to sourdough chapatti, which was terrible, and a chicken toasted sandwhich. Jan and I each had an icecream bar, which was a nice treat!
Mike also had us stop every once in a while to check out hotels that we could stay at on our trip back. That was fun.
After another 4 or so hours driving in the middle of sand and savannah grass, we finally found our tent sight! Oh, but these were no ordinary tents! These had actual BEDS! The beds were surrounded by mosquito nets, the floor was concrete, and it had an actual bathroom room with a working toilet, sink, and shower! This was the absolute cheapest place to stay in Masai Mara, but the team couldn’t have been happier to stay here! They have a buffet style community dinner place and bar. It was an open building- no doors or windows. We had a nice meal of spaghetti, bread, and tea. We met a nice lady named Michelle, who was from Canada. She told us about how she spent a few weeks in Ethiopia recently. She told Jan and I about how she grew up part of her life in Ethiopia, and about how beautiful it is there. She told us that it’s filled with beautiful, ancient castles and church that are over 800 years old, and are still in use! She said that a lot of people don’t visit Ethiopia for the buildings, so there are many castles that are still well preserved because of the lack of human traffic around them. It makes me want to visit Ethiopia one day!
Tomorrow is a long day, so I’m going to get my sleep. As Titus says, “Lets do our thing!”