Kenya Day 1 - Nairobi

Arrived at Upper Hill Campsite late last night and thankfully, Jesse had kept the kitchen open for us so we were able to get somthing to eat before hitting the sack. The flights had been pretty easy, and the pickup at the airport was smooth. Amazing that we got 32 50lb bags from Blairstown to Kenya without incident. The boys and girls were each in seperate dorm rooms, with Monie in a single, self contained hut, and Q and in sharing a permanent tent. Not a bad setup, save for the late night barking of various guard dogs in the area. Shockingly, it was the girls and not the boys who got yelled at first. I think Jesse's quote was something like, "I've got 30 other guests here so you need to shut up. And stop breaking my shit!"

Anyway, breakfast was good and we got an early start heading to Muthare slum on the other side of Nairobi. Lots of Biden induced traffic, so the going was slow, really slow, but we eventually made it to the Mercy Care Primary and Secondary School. After milling around, blowing up soccer balls, and experiencing our first of millions of "How are you?" chants, we headed to an athletic complex that we had rented out for the day with the secondary school kids. The first few hours there were spent playing various games: Q, Zack, Ted, and I teamed with a Kenyan guy to play basketball against 5 other Kenyans, and Scott, Quinn, and Tom were part of this 1/2 mile race.

Also, lots of learning how to throw a frisbee with Scott and others, and of course, there were two football games, one for the girls and the other for the boys.

Our boys teamed with some club players to take on the serious Mercy Care Squad. It only took Tom about 5 minutes to ditch his sambas in favor of the african way ... barefoot. I think Luke got our first goal.

The games were a good way to start, but it wasn't until after the games, and after a few words from Q and their Headmaster that the kids started to feel comfortable with their Kenyan counterparts. After that, the ice was broken and conversation flowed.

The walk back was filled with questions and converstation, and that portion of the day ended with email address exchanges and promised of future Facebook friendships.

After lunch (a lunch that our kids had touble stomaching) we played with the elementary school kids for an hour or so. They are facinated with the digital cameras, and loved nothing more than having their pictures taken and then swarming Ally or whoever had taken the pic to see themselves on the tiny screen. In the midst of the Mzungu (White person in Swahili) inspired chaos, an amazing choral teacher rehearsed with his choir.

We headed back to Upper Hill in the late afternoon, and because of Biden's visit, the traffic was outrageous. Monie and I actually got out and walked alongside of the van for a while just to stretch. All in all though it was a great day.