Thursday morning, let the mission begin!

Cynthia and I arrived at Pastor Kevin’s house as planned at 6am for the drive to the airport in his truck with Tammy.  We got there in record time because of the light traffic and we heard from her that she got back to the Redeemer neighborhood quickly as well.  We got through security with very little trouble, one footlocker with my backpack and toiletries in it got searched and swabbed and then we were good to go.  We’ve got about an hour until we board, I’m having a cup of hot coffee because it’s best if we stay up.  I always have a fitful night’s sleep before each trip, just sure that I’ve forgotten SOMETHING.  I shouldn’t worry, after 14 trips I’ve got a checklist of the essential items such as my passport that I go over just before we leave.  The passport and a rain poncho for when we get a real gully-washer are the only two things you absolutely can’t live without.  Working in the city limits of Nairobi, we can get most anything we may have forgotten after the clinic each day anyway.

We fly to New York from Austin at 9:15am and then we have about a 3 hour layover before taking British Air to London.  After another 3 hour layover (with a major security check), we fly to Nairobi before noon London time.  We will arrive in Nairobi about 8pm local time, spend about an hour going through immigration and customs and then will ride for about an hour  to the Little Daughters of St. Joseph convent  where we will be staying the first 2 nights with teams from Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball. 

We plan on going out to Lake Naivasha for a river and lake photo safari Saturday morning.  Even if we don’t sleep well, it’s good to try to get onto local time as soon as possible so we will be in good shape for the start of the clinic Monday.  I expect we’ll see hippos in the river, many different water birds and, if it’s dry enough, we will get to walk around the island among zebras, giraffes and other non-predators.  There’s an 80% chance of rain there on Saturday, but many times those are late afternoon thunderstorms.  We will be there from about 9:30am until maybe 1pm, with lunch near the water’s edge.

That’s about it for now.  I’ll try to get a little more in from New York and London as we progress in our travels.  Thanks for keeping up with the blog and keep coming back.  I’ll report as often as it’s possible.