So the long, long and did I mention long, journey started with the first flight to Dubai at 6am Sydney time. I met up with Jim at the airport who is also volunteering in Kenya so we chatted a bit then boarded the big Emirates bird and we were off!
Very luckily there was no one sitting next to me so I had all four middle-aisle seats to myself which made for a restful sleep, when I wasn't watching movies and eating that is :-)
Those who know will be aware of the fact that I'm not the best flyer in the world. I get nervous at any turbulence and have flashes of my impending doom any time the plane shakes. Well I'm extremely proud to report that I wasn't scared at all, not even when the inevitable bumps occured. Yay me! Consequently it was a good flight albeit long (14 hours). I was happy to touchdown in Dubai though, even just to be on solid ground for a couple of hours.
Jim and I found our gate so wandered a little until boarding time. I bought a smoothie and a bottle of water for .... $10US!! Good lord! Ah well, at least it was good. Time to board...
This time I sat next to three ladies from Australia. They mentioned they had wanted aisle seats. I knew there were quite a few spare seats on this flight so told them that I was sure it would be ok if they moved to better seats later. I checked with the air hostess who said that would be absolutely fine and they could go now if they wanted and so they did. Excellent. Once again I had four seats to myself. Score!
More movies, more food and more sleep. The decent was pretty bumpy this time around but still I didn't worry. Pat on the back to me.
Finally we landed in Nairobi! Immigration was easy and straight forward as was applying for a Visa so with an Asante Sana (thank you very much) we were off to collect our bags. There we met Steve who worked for the airport and helped with luggage. What a sweetheart. He gave Jim his number and said he would love us to meet his family. Aww.
We cruised through customs and out to arrivals. We couldn't see anyone holding up an IVHQ sign so waited for a bit until phoning to see where our ride was. Someone was there we had just missed him. Chomli introduced himself, took us to sit in a cafe and went to wait for another group arriving on KLM.
By this time fatigue was setting in. When I get really tired I either get quiet or start laughing at everything. It was the latter in this case and I seemed to find everything hilarious. Oh dear. It took ages to finally meet one of the other arrivals, Katie from Toronto but even longer to meet the other four whose luggage was no where to be found. They were two mother and daughter pairs from Norway. Poor things had lost their luggage but were assured they would have it by Friday. Finally we all crowded into Chomli's van and were off to our temporary homestay at Pastor Regina's house.
Luckily I have experienced driving in developing countries before so I wasn't completely taken aback by what can only be described as organised chaos but perhaps some of the others were. I figured Chomli did this every day and didn't want to die either so it would be ok. In between nodding off and looking out the window I had my first glimpse of Nairobi. Busy, dirty, vibrant, poor, exciting Nairobi. It was pretty dark (about 10pm) so i couldn't see a whole lot but I got the general idea.
We drove down dirt roads through what would be markets in the morning. Rubbish everywhere, tin shack stalls, open drains. Finally we arrived at Pastor Regina's place. It was about 11pm at this stage and we were all exhausted. We bunked in rooms with other volunteers trying not to wake them as we tried to settle in for the night. I slept in my clothes under a blanket and on the best pillow I've used in ages! No jet lag here I was out like a light.
Lala salama (sleep well) Nairobi.
