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Kenya was breathtakingly gorgeous. What a fantastic trip. Some of my dearest friends covered the cost of my trip, so that I could experience their work in Kenya, and so, I got to spend an amazing ten days living, learning and playing in one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I saw so much and did so much that it's going to take two posts to tell you about it, so stay tuned for the second half to follow this post a little bit later.
Flying in, I could already tell that Kenya was going to be a special place. Everything was so lush and green, and I loved seeing the farmlands and mountains that were visible from the air.
Due to a storm, our flight had to be re-routed to Tanzania. The delay was annoying, but we landed at the foot of Kilimanjaro and the views were anything but disappointing! Another thing I can check off of the life list was seeing Kili. Too cool!
After landing much later than expected in Nairobi, my friend and fellow missionary, Katie Defries, came to pick me up at the airport. What's funny about Katie is that we had actually only met once in real life a long time ago back in Nashville, but were re-connected via the internet when we both decided to move to Africa.
We thought we would get along really well, and we were right. Which was great considering we were about to spend the next ten days together! Both from Nashville, both nurses, both single women in missions living in Africa... needless to say we had a lot in common and a lot to talk about.
Since it was too late in the evening to drive back to her town outside of Nairobi we stayed in a guesthouse overnight in the city and treated ourselves to dinner out, which is a rare occasion for both of us, so we took our time staying out late sitting outside by a fire, listening to jazz music. It was perfectly pleasant. The next morning I requested that we grab a cup of coffee before hitting the road at the famous Java House. Java House is the Starbucks of Nairobi and known for it's good coffee, good food and hang out spot for ex-pats, so Katie and I fit right in.
The famed Malindi Macchiato... yum in a mug.
After running a few errands in Nairobi the next morning, we were on our way. Katie was a stellar driver in the insane Nairobi traffic and we made it out of the city and into the country in no time. An hour into our drive, with the radio blasting of course, we ascended up a mountain pass, crested to an elevated outlook point and started our descent into the famed Great Rift Valley. It literally took my breath away. Katie said it's one of her favorite things to welcome her visitors to the Great Rift Valley, and I can definitely see why! The geographical landmark runs some 3,700 miles all the way from Syria to Mozambique and it looks exactly like something out of the Land Before Time. Those baby dinosaurs had it right all along, looking for the Great Valley. Also known as the "Cradle of Mankind" some speculate whether The Great Rift Valley was actually the location of the Garden of Eden. I can certainly imagine it! The pictures won't due it's enormity justice, but here are a few so you can get a sense.
Little did I know that later that week, we would be climbing the very mountain you can see to left of the middle of this pic!
Beautiful rolling hills
Love these trees
The cattle on a thousand hills are His... Psalm 50:10
Can you see the Masai man with his herd of cattle? He's wearing the traditional red garb signifying his Masai tribe association.
Our challenge for Saturday? Climbing this volcanic mountain crater... Mt. Longonut.
But before we got to play over the weekend, Katie had work to do. She got me settled into her beautiful and rest-inducing two bedroom apartment right near her office, and I got to spend some time at her workplace, Africa Hope, learning about what it is that they do, tagging along to meetings and to language training. Katie's Swahili is impressive to say the least and I was so amazed by all of the hard work she has put in over the past year in becoming fluent to better understand her patient population. I also got to tag along to a local clinic out in the bush and see how their HIV/AIDS care was being given. I met some very bright young doctors, and I was encouraged to hear that they are seeing a drop in HIV in their area and are seeing less advanced cases of HIV as time goes by. Katie and I could talk about medicine forever, so learning about each other's mission organizations was really fun for us.
Sleeping under my mosquito net
Katie's daily commute to the office.
Africa Hope's Conference Center
The road to one of the clinics that Katie is working with...
And of course no African field-site visit would be complete without visiting the new-born baby cows! (But if SA immigration starts asking questions, my official answer is that I absolutely did not come near any livestock while visiting Kenya :)
Before we headed off for the weekend, we also got to meet with the rest of her missions team for a taco night which was great. One thing you can guarantee about ex-pats or missionaries all over the world, is that when we live in a foreign country, Mexican is the food that brings us together with a mutual love of refried beans and guacamole. Strangely enough two of Katie's teammates attended their pre-filed training with two of my teammates from Cape Town, which made for some "it's a small world after all" connection fun.
Saturday dawned early and we were off for our hiking adventure!
Trailhead
After an hour of pretty intense dusty hiking you make it up the initial ridge of the crater, and you get rewarded with this gorgeous view!
But there's more of course. We decided we wanted to round the entire rim of the crater and summit the peak in the background, so off we went up trailing behind the guys up some really steep trails.
"Come on slow pokes!"
Katie and I broke up the climbing by stopping for some pretty amazing photo ops.
Mini crater?
Volcanic rock
Where we had come from...
And then after another two hours or so.... We made it!!
The fearsome foursome Katie, Kennedy, me & Jackson
I love this shot of Katie.
Can you pick out which one of us has inborn Masai jumping skills? (Hint... it isn't Katie or me :)
Enjoying the view
Jackson & Kennedy think that Kenya should host the World Cup here :)
We took tons of photos, ate our lunches, posed for some photos with some random people...apparently it's a Kenyan thing to take pics with people you don't know and then it was time to head down. Little did we know we still had 3-4 hours of hiking left. That crater rim is a lot wider than it looks!
Trail or water shoot? Questionable to say the least.
And then it started to rain...
And 5 hours into the hiking, I started making this face :(
But 7 total hours later, it was totally worth it. Jackson & Kennedy told us that we "hike like a man" which I'm sure in the Masai culture is a massive compliment, so Katie and I took it for what it was worth! For the rest of the trip every time I saw Mt. Longonut in the distance I was pretty proud to say I had stood on top of it. That is one hike that is going to hold a pretty special place in my heart for a long time. Thanks to Katie for making it happen.
Stay tuned for part two!
