Today I awoke to the sound of Jozef rustling and asking me when I would wake, I asked him what time it was, to which he replied quarter ‘til seven. After a bit of motivation I roused myself out of bed and got dressed and joined everyone for breakfast, taking my tent down beforehand. After this, we prepared the truck for travel and dropped off the first batch of people in Arusha. Before this everyone was in a rush to exchange email addresses, and we finally stopped off in the parking lot of a Shopprite, where we lost Oli, Gali, Naomi, Rod, Myoungsook and Kidae. At the store itself, I got some sodas, candy and chips. Along the way to the Kenyan border I read “Eye of the Beholder” in my Azazelle book by Isaac Asimov. We made it to the border and proceeded to be extremely hawked at. After promptly getting through immigration, I got on the truck and waited to leave again.
On the truck, Alex, in his usual custom borrowed my MP3 player for most of the journey. We stopped for lunch in a pretty area near the border and I walked into a nearby curio shop, and nearly bought a knife but thought better of it. We left again on a straight shot to Nairobi, which took about three hours. Along the way the truck hit a goat and we stopped for a tortoise crossing the road. We also saw zebras, gazelles and ostriches along the road, no lions though :-( ! We finally made it to our site and I have to say, Kenya is an incredible country, rich and gorgeous, and a place I would certainly like to return to. Nairobi was a very pleasant and surprisingly modern city (from what I saw of it anyway), reminiscent to me in many ways of an American city. Anyway, after stopping, I charged my MP3 player and showered, a brilliant treat after such a long abstinence from it. After well grooming myself, I sat in the bar and chatted with everyone and really realized how sad I would be to leave them all. After a while, I proceeded to pack my stuff finally, and was all ready to leave. I requested we all get a group picture, and we did, then said our good-byes and parted.
Leaving Matt, I must say was by far the hardest part, and he was and is such a great person. In the taxi we saw some of Nairobi, which was amazingly modern. In the middle of one of the roundabouts stood an elephant, which was truly astonishing. We finally made it to the airport after some crazy traffic. I was dropped off first at the BA (British Airways) counter, which I checked in at quickly. When I got through, I searched around for Matt and Becca for a long time, but with no luck. I started feeling peckish, so I bought a tiny pizza and Fanta. I searched for them some more, but with no luck. They called check-in for my flight, so I bought a pith helmet, that had caught my eye earlier and checked into the gate. It was all a rigorous process through the search and I eventually made it in and sat down with my journal to begin this entry, when I saw Matt and Becca through the glass, but by then it was too late to try and get their attention.
So I sadly resigned myself to writing this when I noticed a white fellow pass by the window wearing a Masai tunic and clothes. As I was writing this, the fellow came up to me and asked about my journal and mentioned that he too kept one totaling about 40,000 words a week. As we talked he asked how I kept this and I offered for him to read this. This guy was probably one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met, later middle-aged originally from Bristol, but now living as a Masai amongst them. He was a professional journalist writing about the rampant corruption and social problems of Kenya. This man struck me as extremely bright and I was disappointed I didn’t get to speak longer with him. His name, by the way, was Graham Pendril and I think he dropped that he worked for the London Times. We finally boarded and after taking a my seat, I talked with a lovely primary school teacher from Australia named Katherine. Eventually I watched the Wedding Crashers, which was rather funny and afterward finished this entry and hopefully will have slept.