Saturday, May 15, 2010

May 13, 2010 - Thursday

We again woke up at 5:30 am, this time arriving on site at about 7:45 am. We walked down the same path as Wednesday but didn't see any scary dogs. We set to work straight away with me joining Steven, Mark, and Phil on the cement mixer.

We had decided that an operation filter was necessary and without one the trip would be a failure, so we were really working quickly to finish. To ensure we got done, we had decided that we'd sift as much as possible, wash as much as possible, and set a time to stop everything and set up a bucket brigade to get the sand into the filter, washed or not. At the cement mixer, we got all the fine sand pre-washed, then started to wash bulk sand.

Around 10 am, Dr. Blatchley comes to tell us that our flight from Eldoret to Nairobi was canceled and that we had arranged to drive to the airport and thus our day was going to be cut even shorter. The plan was to leave the site by noon to give us time to quickly clean up, pack, and get on the road by 1 pm. Strangely, none of us batted an eye at this and just kept working while Scott and Dr. Blatchley formulated a plan to finish up on time. Amazingly, the airline had called Susan Chebet to tell her the flight was canceled. Had that not happened, we would not have made it home on time and we're very fortunate for that.

From Kenya 2010

The tank needed to be reinforced prior to filling, and we finished that up by about 11:30 and set to filling the tank with sand. We set up a bucket brigade and tossed sand in while adding water and smoothing out the surface. We had it filled rather quickly and set to getting all the holes drilled in it that we needed.

From Kenya 2010

While some finished up with the tank, others were packing up. Once Bruce got that final bushing in with the valve, we posed for a group photo and then headed out. We gave Scott and Claire all of our sieves, extra materials, and a lot of sunscreen and insect repellent. We got back, quickly cleaned up, packed up, ate lunch, and hit the road to Nairobi. The trip to Nairobi was quite adventuresome.

From Kenya 2010
From Kenya 2010
From Kenya 2010
From Kenya 2010

Road behavior is a sight to behold in Kenya; it is one of utter chaos. People walk across at random, drivers are incredibly aggressive with passing (we had multiple near head-on collisions), there are random speed bumps on open roads, and more. Nairobi's traffic was incredible, with people just driving wherever there was room and forcing their way all over the place. While in Nairobi, there was a portion of road that had around 6" of water from the rains that everyone was driving through. Our driver nearly, or actually did, hit a pedestrian with the side mirror at one point and was fairly aggressive in town to ensure we got to the airport on time. We spent at least an hour in traffic to go only about 30 km, if that far.

My van got to the airport about 45 minutes prior to the other van, which got lost at one point. Their drivers wouldn't listen to our driver and wouldn't answer many of his calls. This is apparently rather common in Kenya to not trust those you don't know, even if there is a common goal. Our driver was from Nairobi and had a route planned out, however the drivers of the other van also had a route in mind. They eventually had to stop and ask a guy on the side of the road how to get to the airport.

Overall, it was a great yet somewhat terrifying trip through the Kenyan countryside and we got a real taste of what people deal with daily in rural and urban areas. In Nairobi, I noticed a lot of newer apartment buildings, a sign of a growing middle class, with clothes hanging off the balcony to dry, even in the pouring rain. I also noticed that almost all of the property in Nairobi was fenced in as was also the case in the rich part of Eldoret.

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