Monday, June 6, 2011

Kisumu and Miwani Farm

June 6th
Waking up at 4:30am to catch a flight is always quite enjoyable!  Some of the breakfast foods weren't so good at that time in the morning however.  They hadn't been replaced from the night before so ants or some sort of bugs got into a few of the foods (samosas mainly I think).  Luckily the hard boiled eggs were still good, and the fruit was covered.  Still makes a good brekky!

Anyways, we flew out of Nairobi to Kisumu, which is a short 1.5ish hour flight across the country; to contrast to Washington state it's like flying from Seattle to Spokane.  And check out the Prop Plane!  Awesome!  Heather even got a picture of the Plane stalling!  Oh wait, no it was just a high iso and it looks that way.  Silly Jolly.


While in Kisumu we dropped by the large grocery and other items store (Kenya's Safeway) called Nakumatt to pick up a few food items for dinner.  I wish I got a picture of it but they were selling a Ham In A Box.  Hilarious, think Chicken in a Can but Ham; and Box.  Definitely a "Whoa!" item.  As in most places in the Kisumu area, lots of wonderful green growth everywhere.  This is in the center of the large shopping mall of which Nakumatt is part of, hence the Elephant I figure which is Nakumatt's symbol.


We met up with a gal named Dinah while there, I guess she was quite close to achieving a Senate seat last election cycle but got terribly ill during the last bit of the campaign and either dropped out or stopped campaigning.  She's definitely a strong woman though.  She gives me the impression of making an awesome friend, and a terrible enemy.  Luckily she likes almost everybody.

We drove the 20min to 1/2hr trip to the Farm.  It was a pleasant drive and one of the few things I strongly recognized in this trip so far.  Good to be back in an area that I remember well.  and I certainly remember these roads and the bony cow herds!

One new thing though was this nearby village got some new housing.  Now, keep in mind that the metal roofing is generally regarded as a better roof, for the wealthier of people, but I can't see why they would want this over a thatch roof.  Granted, less maintenence, but my goodness, can you imagine the heat from a 80-95degree sunny day (practically every afternoon throughout the year) and the noise from the crazy hard rainstorms (3x a week average in "winter", 2x a month in summer).  And I mean crazy hard rainstorms, not the piddle paddle of Seattle.  A good rainstorm here can dump the entire years worth of Seattle rain in a night.  I don't think I could sleep on a night like that with a metal roof.  Granted, I'm not one to judge and I'm sure they have their reasons, but I think I explained my case well enough above.  ;-)

And lastly for this post: a picture of a lovely mango on a tree:

No comments: