Our last night in Nairobi was long, we went out for dinner with two close friends of Adams but I was so tired so didn't enjoy it as much as everyone else - it was a big place with live music and dancers, and boy can these Africans shake it and thrust it! When we finally left, the van wouldn't start and a bunch of people helped us to push start it. Then it stopped again, we got it started but then the sliding door got stuck....so Adam tried to slam it but it came slightly off its hinges and wouldn't close! Then we stopped at a shop to pick up snacks for our long coach ride to Kisumu, and it wouldn't start again! We had some help to push start it again and even managed to get the door back on.....it all felt very African!
Today was our 9 hour bus ride to Kisumu, which left at 7:30am. We all got up at 6am to leave at 6:30am and no one was drinking any water, because we weren't sure if we wouldn't get a toilet stop! But we did, 2 hours in, and that was the last. And that was um, a bit of a dose of reality, sort of toilet seats in the ground, thank god they had doors though! Boy do I feel like I'm in Africa now! The ride was so interesting, I don't really know where to start! Parts of the road are fine, and others are so bad that we could only do about 25kms/hr so we could go gently over the massive potholes and lumps and bumps! The scenery was breathtaking, we passed over the Rift Valley which was incredible, and everything is so lush and green, and not just through that part of Kenya but from what I've seen in general. But the trip from Nairobi to Kisumu and the people we passed - random. Random is how I would I would describe it. There are people just sitting on the side of the road looking out into nothing, some alone, some in a group, and they look like they have been sitting there for a long time. We passed through some tiny little towns with lots and lots of people, everything is so ramshackle and incredibly poor, and there are many children walking on the side of the road, some alone, some with siblings, I saw a little boy who must have only been 3 years old piggbacking his baby sister, and saw many children carrying water on their heads or sticks on their back. I just can't describe it to people, hopefully the photos will give you some idea. It was sad for me to see, but it is just the way life is for these people, and they don't know any different.
We got off the bus in Kisumu and split into twos and took tuk-tuks (I would describe as sort of like an odd looking, run down, brightly-painted golf cart but steering like a motorbike) to our hotel which is quite nice, two people in each room and a bathroom in each. Our balcony looks over Lake Victoria which is amazing. Kisumu seems so much more run down and in a much poorer state than Nairobi. And in Nairobi, I didn't feel like everyone was staring at us as we walked by, but here it is much different. Everyone stares. I understand how the Sudanese people back at home must feel.
But I'm tired, hungry and dehydrated now, so we are all about to have some dinner. I didn't have enough time to write everything about our bus ride, so I might update this one in a couple of days, so check back!
Lots of love to everyone xoxo
