Fun and Pain

First order of business is to book flights to Kigali, Rwanda for Friday.  I found out you can't book tickets online for persons under eighteen.  The solution was to walk 25 minutes down the road to the YaYa mall and the Kenya Airways outlet.  I love walking and there are lots of interesting people along the way!  Well, we ended up walking past the mall for about 10 minutes and got directions to go back to the main intersection.  Of course, we remembered that.  It was the major intersection with no lights, no 4-way stops, no obvious procedures and where traffic just went in to the center and jostled and blew horns to bully their way through.  By the time we got back, there was a policeman and a civilian frantically waving their arms to get the traffic moving again. And a bus trying to make a u-turn in the middle of it all.  We stood there for a few minutes watching the chaos unfold.  That's probably what distracted us from seeing the mall when we went by the first time.

The mall is new and shiny, and six storeys tall.  To enter, you are met by two guards, who use one of those airport security wands to detect metal and you have to empty your pockets of everything that sets off the alarm.  We found the Kenya Airways office and were able to secure the tickets we needed.  Then we went and had breakfast at the Java House.  Very fine breakfast at a very reasonable price.  We checked for the date and time of the Masai Market which we had heard about earlier.  We strolled through the mall window shopping and planning on coming back with more shillings.  An interesting expat who has lived in Kenya for 45 years had some personal perspectives to share with us.  When she found out we were going to Rwanda, she insisted we go see the mountain gorillas. She had been within 20 feet of a huge silverback for an hour on her trip there and refused to leave with her tour group until she was satisfied with her visit.  The cost was $700 each.  We thought we should just hike in through the mountains and see them for ourselves without the wardens.  You should have seen her face!  Priceless.  As we left the mall, we stopped to thank the security guards for their thorough work in making us feel safe while we relaxed at breakfast.

Back to the flat and past the Kenyan cooking show on our lane.  We saw how they were washing their eating bowls, so went to the flat and got a tin server for the ugale and a bowl for the meat and veggie relish and asked Joel, the gate keeper, to go and buy some for us.  He would know which vendor to go to.  So we had ugale (oo-gawl-ee) for lunch!  The taste, the texture, the one-handed procedure for forming the ball and impressing your thumb to make a spoon-like depression with which to scoop up some relish and put it into your mouth brought back many memories.  It was so good!

While waiting for Bishop Stephen, we unpacked and sorted out things for the school and the orphanage.  We heard kids playing on the other side of the security fence.  It sounded like a school yard so we went in search of the entrance.  Out our security gate and through the neighboring security gate, getting permission from the gate keeper, we found kids.  We had taken a handful of the really bouncy balls and showed the kids how to bounce them off the ground and about 20 feet into the air.  Well, there were kids running in every direction trying to catch the erratic balls as they bounced every which way.  Then in the chase one of the boys stepped on the back of a sandal of a little girl and she went down hard on the broken tarmac, tearing out the knee in her slacks and skinning her knee quite badly.  So much fun suddenly came to an end.  Five balls were still going, but the girl was on the ground crying.  We hadn't brought slacks or trousers with us, but I went back to our flat and found a fancy white t-shirt with glitter, went and asked for her as she had gone into one of the apartments.  Lavalee came out without her pink slacks and wearing a hijab and bare legs.  I examined her road-rash which looked painful.  I apologized for causing such a commotion that resulted in her being hurt, sorry I couldn't replace her slacks, but would she accept a gift to make up for it.  She smiled and said yes and thank you.  Branden almost lost his camera as children wanted to see it and he learned how quickly and easily it could be grabbed and gone.  Now we have to face 64 orphans who all want a piece of whatever we have to give.  I think we will involve the orphanage staff to keep chaos under control when the time comes.  Good insight for Branden as to how quickly we can instigate a riot, a revolution and a ruckus!

Eventually, Bishop Stephen arrived and we visited for an hour and made plans for our schedule as he still had a part to play in the conference as the plenary speaker tomorrow.  We will start on Sunday afternoon.

It was now approaching 5:30 pm and time to go for supper.  Branden and I struck out in the same direction as the Fairview Hotel because there had been another Java House along the way.  We were stopped along the way by a sock salesman, so I bought a pair of cotton socks for about $1.85 and we chatted for awhile about Canada and snow.  It took awhile for our orders to come and darkness was falling only as it does in Africa, like a curtain!  It was raining and dark when we left the restaurant and the sidewalks are neither wheelchair friendly nor pedestrian friendly.  There are many tripping hazards and cavernous holes where storm drain covers are missing and then watching out for cars and thugs hiding in the darkness.  No streetlights to speak of, only vehicle lights if they are not glaring in your face.  Branden has a theory that if you walk along cracking jokes, the Africans will smile and the white smile will immediately give them away in the darkness.  So we chat it up with the people in the road side market who are now packing up their fruits and vegetables and flowers.  We ask them if it is going to rain and they retort vehemently that it IS raining.  Oh, "yanera pura", which is Chibemba for "It's raining", that I learned in Zambia.  Then they teach me the Kiswahili expression with another comment which I wasn't supposed to understand.  So I just replied back, "Inkoko" (chicken) and they breakout in peels of laughter.  Now we can see them!  We were wet but warm when we arrived back at the flat.  Still about 24 degrees, even in the rain.  Time to wind down for the night now.  It's nightfall for us and your day is just starting back in BC.  Have a great day!

First 24 hours.

Apparently, most people who come to Kenya, and arrive as late as we did, tend to sleep in until 4 pm.  I was awake at 10 (yes, in the morning!) and Branden was fast asleep so I went on a fam tour of the neighborhood.  The lane we came in on last night was dark and deserted, but now it was lined with people using charcoal cookers making omelettes, porridge, chipatas and other things.  Don't ask about the other things.  I noticed the office front door was open on my return and went in to meet Susan, the receptionist.  What a wealth of information!  She has family in Rwanda and Uganda.  We talked!

Then I met David B who has been here since July 2.  He offered to take to get a SIM card for my phone.  The airtel card was a good deal costing only about 75 cents with $5 worth of airtime that would allow me to call Canada for about 3 cents a minute!  I don't know why we pay as much as we do in Canada, unless we are subsiding the telecom here.  We took the SIM card to David's office to cut it down to fit the SDmicro slot in my phone.  He's done it several times including his own.  Well, it didn't work.  I tried the London SIM and it recognized that and the iPhone SIM worked fine as well.  So it was back to the shop for some advice.  The "no -working" SIM worked in the agent's Nokia though, so no refund. Back to the office to troubleshoot on the Internet, but no luck.  In the end, I went and bought a safari.com SIM card for $36 and about $3 of air time.  It's working finally but all that nonsense took until 4 pm.  I should have slept!

In the evening we walked a kilometer to the Fairview Hotel with some of the staff for supper.  Along came a couple of other people from the University of the Fraser Valley!  Calen, who bunked in with us to get some rest before a 3 am flight back to Canada.  A student who was here with a research team studying urban agriculture and sustainability.  He liked our approach.  His team was just on there way to visit Westgate Mall the day of the attack by el-Shabab and ordered out of Nairobi by the Canadian university authorities.  So he went to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.  Now he was finally returning home.  The other person, Sherry, is the daughter of Gary and Marg Foreman, missionaries we met years ago.  Gary passed away about 15 years ago but was one of the influencial men in my life who encouraged me to pursue missions.  Imagine meeting his daughter who is now an instructor at UFV who was on contract with Save the Children to research and write a child-friendly version of the charter of rights for children in East Africa.  She had just come out of the dusty Sudan and was also heading home.  What an interesting dinner table discussion we had.  Well, it was well after dark, so the staff would not allow us to walk back in the dark as it can be quite dangerous.  It seemed like a wasted day, but in the end, very interesting.  With the phone working, I was able to contact Bishop Stephen who was actually involved in a conference and unable to meet us til Saturday afternoon.  So ends our first 24 hours in Kenya.  Oh, it also makes me feel real good when people we meet assume Branden is my son!

Thursday Oct 17 - Leavin' London Behind

We could have slept in, but my alarm clock scared us awake at 7 am, well, not Branden, I had to scare him awake! We were cleaned up, packed and out the door at 7:35.  A five minute walk to the bus stop and we arrive just as the #140 is pulling away.  Missed it!  I knew we should have been out the door at 7:30.  This bus service runs 24/7 and in10 minutes another 140 arrives.  We step aboard and tell the driver we are going to Central Bus Station.  "It's alright, mate, this one is free to the airport".  At the airport, it's up two floors in an elevator, then across to security, and then enough time to catch breakfast at the Giraffe Cafe.  We order a breakfast omelette each, without toast, at double the price we pay in Canada.  $5.95 didn't seem so bad at all and I forgot we were looking at a menu in British pounds.  Then the currency conversion nails you with just about double the price!  Branden thinks everything in London is inflated.

As we were getting up from the table, a jolly black lady is trying to get in at the table next to us.  I smiled at her and asked her where she was from.  She just got off the plane from Nairobi, so I mentioned we just happened to be going there.  She asked what we were doing and we mentioned visits to schools and orphanages.  Well, she lit up and shared how she just opened up an orphanage in Nakuru on October 1st.  She was starting with 5 children, and another being added and by the weekend, 2 more children from Kitale (where Rebecca spent some time this summer) whose parents have both died of Aids.  That makes 8 children.  She showed us pictures on her iPad of the children and the home she is renting.  It was the former residence of the local MP who had just vacated the premises to move to his own newly-constructed home.  It wasn't available in August when she was searching for a suitable location, but then it came open in September and she signed a lease for the equivalent of $500 Canadian a month.  Pastor Josey was educated at a Bible School in Colorado Springs.  She is traveling in the US for about six months to raise support for this new orphanage.  I couldn't help but admire her dream and her vision.  We may even get to Nakuru on this trip.  It's only a couple of hours north in the Rift Valley.

After breakfast we go back down to ask for gate instructions since the board was flashing, "Please wait".  Well, no gate number and only 30 minutes before they close for boarding.  We went down to the lower floor where there was an information booth and showed that our tickets had no gate numbers.  The girl told us it should be up on the board, but said it was displaying a wait notice.  Wouldn't you know it, that as she took us to another departure board, it read Gate 48.  It must have changed on our way down the stairs.  Now comes the complicated directions to get there.  Go to the end of the terminal, take a left down the elevator (two floors) and follow the directions to the underground train where you wait for the right train to get to terminal 5.  At the platform, there is an 8 minute wait for the train but it is going to the wrong terminal.  Another wait for the next train and it is a 4 minute underground ride to the correct terminal.  Wow, we're not there yet!  Up two more flights to departure level.  After check-in, guess what.  Down the outside stairs to tarmac level, across to the plane and then up the stairs into the plane. Finally!

Nope. Now we get to wait another 45 minutes because a passenger who was in a wheelchair couldn't be brought down the stairs to the tarmac, the person responsible was on a first responder call and other staff had to be located to bring her by another route to the waiting plane and then use a lift to get her up to the aircraft door.  I was just telling Branden how lucky he was to have the middle seat with the window seat vacant beside him when the pilot explained the reason for the delay.  Guess whose seat if was? Yup!  The very person we were waiting for, Sahra.  Sarha is only 38 but moved like she was over 80. She took the window seat but eventually took my aisle seat because she had to get out in the aisle frequently because of severe back pain.  Sarha is Somalian, born in Mogadishu.  She fled as a child due to the civil unrest and somehow made her way to the US where she became a citizen and now resides in Massachusetts.  She has a cousin in Nairobi that she has come to visit 3 times since 2007.  She wore a head covering and was in obvious pain, holding her head and awaying back and forth or holding her head in a pillow against the seat in front of her.  The cabin crew brought her pain medication every four hours, so she was a bit out of it.  How do I know all these things?  Because of her condition and lack of understanding of the visa application and landing card, I helped fill out her forms from the information in her passport. She could barely print.  Her speech was slurred and it took careful attention to understand her, but for the last 30 minutes of the flight we chatted.  She asked what we were going to do in Kenya and after telling her some of our plans, she simply said, "God bless you".  Well, with a 186 km tail wind, we not only made up for the lost time, but got to Nairobi 5 minutes ahead of schedule.  How does that work?

Well, that got our feet on African soil.  Erastus was sent to pick us and waited for us to get through immigration and customs.  Both were a breeze.  Two guys with four gigantic suitcases should have brought more attention.  We proceeded to "Nothing to Declare" and one customs lady asked what was inside and I explained we had gifts for friends, and some gifts from family members for missionaries...and we had gifts for orphanages.  For orphanages?  Yes.  Keep going.  We came out of that ordeal (hahaha) to find Erastus holding a pink sign with Harry H printed on it.  After exchanging some money, Erastus took us to the PAOC Guest house.  We arrived at 11:30 ready to come to rest inside a locked iron gate.  Safe.

London Layover - Wed. Oct.16

Although we left Vancouver at 7 pm, we traveled 9 hours until 4 a.m. Vancouver time to find out it was already 12 noon when we landed.  Time zones can sure mess you up.  Now it's 10 pm here in London but we are wide awake because our bodies tell us it's only 2 in the afternoon!  So I'll just take an afternoon nap and get up to catch our next flight 9 hours from now.

The first shock on arrival was the cost of a taxi to take us out of the airport to the Apple House guest house just 12 minutes away.  $60!  The young proprietor of the guest house was from Venezuela and he gave us some valuable tips.  A free city bus back to the airport and then about $20 for all-day passes for the two of us to travel anywhere on the subway.  So we did take time to traipse around the city for quite a few hours.  First and foremost was to ride the giant ferris wheel known as the London Eye.  Another $60 I wouldn't normally spend but it was a unique once in a lifetime time experience and an engineering marvel.  The ride lasted about 40 minutes inside enclosed capsules that can hold a dozen people.  The floor in the capsule stays level the whole time and you can walk around to all sides for viewing and taking photos.  We then crossed a bridge over the Thames and wandered around Parliament Square, Westminster Abbey and walked under the shadow of Big Ben.  Then we went for the traditional English fish and chips for supper!  That was worth it.

Now to find our way back at night while taking a different route...oh, and the bus driver from the Central Bus Station didn't know about the street we wanted to get off on or even the name of the Guest House where we are staying.  So we kept our eyes peeled and yelled when West End Lane came up and a five minute walk later...voila, there we were!

The weather was drizzling when we arrived in the morning but by mid-afternoon the skies had cleared and it was warm and sunny.  Tomorrow, Africa!

Tuesday October 15

We did not miss the Quick shuttle bus from Surrey to Seatac airport!  But the bus driver was wondering about the four gigantic bags with the old guy and the young guy.  He was quite animated about our trip to Africa.  He wished he could have taken a trip with his grandparents who had passed away when he was still quite young.  When we parted company after he unloaded our luggage, be sent us off with a God bless you and we hadn't even talked about that aspect of our trip.  It seems we are being blessed by strangers at every turn!  How great is that???

Well, they are pre-boarding our flight now.  Next communication will be from London.

Monday October 14 - Thanksgiving Day

We left Logan Lake at 8:30 a.m. thinking we might need extra time if there was fog or snow, but the sky was cloudless and the roads were clear and dry.  We were an hour and half early for our appointment with the Consul General of the Republic of Kenya!  So we dropped in to see Egan and Lee and their daughter, Darlene.  They have another daughter in Burundi and a couple of grandchildren in Kigali, Rwanda. Had an inspirational visit and received some gifts to take with us for them via the "Two Harry's International Courier Service".

Our next stop was at the Consular offices, out in the countryside of Abbotsford.  We got there with three minutes to spare.  While the Consul General was preparing our visas for Kenya, we chatted and got to know him.  In just a few short minutes, we discovered jewelry had graduated from a three year course at Columbia Bible College, had another two years of seminary, worked on his degree at Trinity Western University, worked for the United Nations and now as a representative of the government of Kenya.  His octogenarian parents are still alive and reside in Kenya.  He himself was born in Canada.

Our conversation turned to matters of faith and health.  His words, "Five hundred people a year die of Aids in BC, but that, any die EACH DAY in Kenya.  In contrast, there is spiritual poverty in Canada where there might be a handful who attend any given church, but in Kenya faith is alive and vibrant!". How's that for a commentary?

He also left us his personal cell number so that if we had ANY problem in Kenya, we could text him, even if it is on the weekend, and he would see to it that we had the attention and help of the right people ASAP!  Wow!

Just 25 minutes later after he had given us a blessing, we were in the parking lot with visas glued into our passports and heading for Surrey for the night to bunk in at Branden's other grandparent's home.

Oh, we went to Walmart at Guilford to print some photos.  Coming up the escalator behind us were three young men speaking Arabic.  I greeted them in Arabic and asked where they were from.  All three are from Iraq and have recently emigrated to Canada.  Two of them are cooks and the third is looking for work.  One was wearing a gold cross on a necklace so I asked him about it.  "I am a Christian!". "So am I! We are brothers!". We shook hands all around as we discovered a commonality of faith.  I knew there was something different about them!

Another turkey dinner and pie for dessert!

Adventures in Africa - Preparations

Harry Holmquist and grandson Branden William Harry Holmquist are off to Africa starting Thanksgiving Monday, Oct. 14, 2013.  Yup, there's two of us!  Besides all the shots for yellow fever,  typhoid, hepatitis, and pills for malaria, we had to jump through the hoops for visas to 3 African countries, Kenya, Rwanda and Ugtanda.

Believe it or not, Rwanda has an online visa application that was processed and returned via PDF file within 2 days!  Pay $30 each on arrival.  We had a glitch for a day with the Uganda High Commission in Ottawa who required the Parental Letter of Consent to Travel with a minor to be notarized by a Commissioner of Oaths AND photocopies of each of the parents passports.  First time for everything.  In the past only signatures and a witness were all that was needed.  Cost of U$50 each.

With that done, we waited for the ExpressPost package with our passports to arrive by Wednesday Oct.2 for a quick turnaround to the Kenya High Commission in Ottawa for that country's visas.  They promise a turnaround within 7 days.  However, Canada Post sent the package from Ottawa to Richmond to Kelowna.  Upon calling Customer Service I was assured the package would be delivered as Kelowna was only 2 hours from Kamloops.  Nope.  Package went back to Richmond for re-routing to Kamloops and finally arrived in Logan Lake on Friday morning.  Wow, that only took 8 days!  The consolation apparently is a refund of the cost of  Xpresspost from Ottawa to Logan Lake.  Now we only have 5 business days left to get visas for Kenya!.

A call to the Ottawa-based Kenya High Commission to ask if there was any way to shorten the time frame for processing a visa.  Is there an office in Vancouver that I could drive to rather than depend on the Postal Service?  Yes!!!  Call the Consul General of the Republic of Kenya in Abbottsford and see what can be done.  Knock me over!  The Consul General did not want me to make an extra trip, but we could stop in on our way to the Seattle Airport.  "But Monday is the Thanksgiving Holiday."  "No problem," he replied.  "Make an appointment for Monday and I will be here and process your visas in 15 minutes!"  Unbelievable service!  So that little problem was solved without the help or interference of Canada Post.

Since we are allowed 51 lbs per bag and 2 bags each, we are Packing a lot of gifts for the children at orphanages and/or schools.  Soccer balls, skipping ropes, school supplies, T-shirts, bouncy balls, ball pumps, and referee whistles.  We are going to have FUN!  We have also received cash contributions for buying goats and chickens to give away.  We'll see how that goes, but it's part of the Adventure!