We repeated Monday morning, but didn't leave our hotel until 7:30 for the ride to the clinic. We thought we would see if traffic would be any worse. Sometimes a few minutes later can add a lot to travel time. We go against the normal rush hour flow, heading away from the heart of the city. Our only bottleneck came at a roundabout that was hopelessly snarled. Every one wanted to be first. A conductor from the matatu behind us got it sorted out with the help of several other conductors. For those of you who haven't read all of my blog posts over the years, a matatu is a 14 passenger van, either under a private contract to a company or certain riders or it is licensed as public transportation. On a public one, the conductor hangs out of the side door, scoops people into the van and snags their money all in one move. It's pretty amazing to see. Since time is money and matatus are used to get people to near their destination, when traffic gets jammed up, the conductors become instant traffic cops. We were on our way in a few minutes and arrived on time at the clinic.
We got the clinic setup quickly, since Pastor Kevin had taken the step of getting our essential gear into only a few of the footlockers yesterday afternoon. We also have a better idea now of which extra footlocker to go to for more of a particular item. This is good, since we need to setup and tear down the clinic each day. We had clear skies in the morning, so it warmed up fast. Cynthia had done the eye chart Monday, and being close to the equator, the sun is stronger than you think. Even with a good sized hat she got some sunburn. She did the reading glasses and Merrilee took the eye chart, wearing sunglasses and a ball cap. We saw about 225 patients, but more importantly, 24 people confessed Christ as their Savior, including one Muslim man. Praise God!
We have been blessed by clear weather so far. The long range Nairobi forecast had high chances of rain for our whole stay here. It is lightly drizzling Tuesday around 9 pm as I write this. We're hopeful the good weather in the daytime will continue.
When we got back to the hotel, I took a quick shower. I gathered up my wildlife camera and headed for the front desk. I always have tried to hit it off with our staff everywhere we stay from cooks to waiters to cleaning staff. I asked my friend at the front desk if he could tell me a good place to view the sunset, maybe a balcony. We get a good sunrise from the courtyard, but the west is not visible. He told me to follow him. We climbed 5 stories worth of stairs and then went up another half flight that ended at about a 3 by 3 foot open hatch. We ducked down, went past a lot of the staff's laundry hanging to dry over the hotel plaza below, came to another hatch and emerged up on the roof. The sky was stunning about an hour before sunset. He stayed with me for about 20 minutes chatting about what camera he should get. I got pictures during the 45 minutes I was up there of the sunset as it progessed, some of the Nairobi skyline and many birds in flight including Sacred Ibises, Pied Crows, the biggest hawk I've ever seen and what appeared to be herons. Wow! I'm going good to take Cynthia up there with her Canon camera Thursday evening, weather permitting.
Time to wrap it up for now. Stay tuned!
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