Back from the Mountain and Back to Work

One thing about Kenya is that it can a lively place at the most unexpected of times. I often walk home from the taxi stand in Kiminini to Pathfinder Academy where I stay. One day when I was walking home, I passed the place where on Sundays they usually weigh grain and place it into sacks. Only on this particular day there was a keyboard, microphone and PA system set up and a crowd was dancing to the free show. It was quite the sight to see.

In Kiminini, people dance

Another time when I was waiting at the taxi stand in Kitale I witnessed the unusual sight of someone blowing up a condom until it was quite big. I joined in the circle that had formed around him to see what was going on. He was speaking very emphatically, but in Kiswahili so I have no idea what he was saying, but every now and again he would say: “Citric Acid! Vitamin C!.” He used orange juice to pop the condom. From what I gathered it was a “medical” product.

This balloon tastes funny

CITRIC ACID!!! VITAMIN C!!!!

Work at the factory has been going very well. The transition to electrically powered equipment has been a smooth one, and thanks to Sammy, the production manager, things have been going quite smoothly. We adjusted our method of firing filters in the kiln by a little bit to help slow things down and it has lead to an increase in efficiency which has been quite pleasing.

Martin and Collins are now safe.

I also took a day off from KCP business to accompany Ron, an American who works with a faith based charity, to deliver some food to an area in West Pokot. The day began fairly early, it’s been so long since I’ve been able to say it, but, we left on time, so it was a good start. We left in a lorry carrying about four tonnes of food, and when we got to the first town we realized we had a puncture in one of the duals, so we waited for about an hour while the driver fixed it. Only when the driver came back the puncture was not repaired, we went on anyways. After some driving we stopped for lunch, chapatti and beans, standard Kenyan fare. When we went to drive off our driver informed us the battery was dead, so we had to push. Only he’d parked in the ditch, with sand, so thanks to help pushing from about the whole village we finally got rolling again.

The trip was a little rough, in some places the roads were pretty shoddy, and it involved going through dry river beds which could be somewhat steep. In one of the riverbeds our driver misjudged the slope and put the truck precariously towards its side. When he tried to put it in reverse he stalled the truck. This left us with a stalled truck in a river bed, with no battery. We were stuck and the sun was hot. Our only option was to unload the truck of all the food and hope that we could then push it backwards up the slope. That was a lot of fun. So with all of us pushing we got the truck back up, and it chugged to a start. So the driver took it back down to the river bed and there we loaded back on the potatoes, which were the heaviest of the cargo. After this the truck backed up again, and took its shot at the slope and this time conquered it. The rest of the cargo was then retrieved from the river bed and carried up, and finally we were off again. After all the excitement it was nice to roll in and be greeted by the singing crowd, but we couldn’t stay long, we were there long enough to be presented with a gift of chicken and eggs.

It was a long day, and as we got close to home it got dark. At that point the driver pulled the truck over and wouldn't drive any further. He wanted more money. We got out and took a taxi home. A few days later I heard Ron telling someone he sent the police after the driver, for kidnapping, or something like that, but Ron is a little crazy, so who knows.

And one more taxi story. There are some station wagon taxis, and when the taxi is full sometimes people ride in the trunk. So not wanting to wait for the next taxi I decided to get into the boot and hope that someone would get out early. After we were rolling an mzee noticed me sitting behind him. “You shouldn’t be sitting back there” he told me “you’ll write things about this country.” I told him I was reporting for the Wall Street Journal but he recognized me from a promotion we had done in town, and had good things to say about our filters.