During this past week, I had the opportunity to visit the Center’s 40 acre “ecovillage” in Lamuria (home to brown dirt, not red; surprisingly exciting to see and reminiscent of home). The visit to the land itself wasn’t too thrilling though there is a lot of opportunity for the youth to make use of the area. During my trip I did get a chance to see a little wildlife. First, in what was supposed to be one of the colonized bee hives, was a field mouse (only slightly frightening…and a little cute). Then, highlight of all highlights, I saw four zebra right on the side of the road.Unfortunately, I couldn’t take a picture since I was riding a piki piki (motorcycle). Hardly would have been a safe decision.
On Monday, I went with some of the guys to a town where they will be spending three weeks cutting grass and making hay bales. It was nothing but a good sign when we broke down just getting to Nyeri Town (the big city, if you will). After pushing the Center’s matatu up the road a little, the van was jumped started and we were ready to continue on our journey. We barely made it to our desired desert destination before the matatu stopped working once again. In the middle of nowhere we were stuck just waiting for the possibility of finding a battery to jump start the vehicle once again. All of the strife was totally worth it for the best view of Mt. Kenya I’ve seen thus far. Not only did I get a clear view of the mountain, the little rain from earlier that day created a rainbow. I tried to take a pic with the rainbow, but it doesn’t quite do it justice so Mt. Kenya will suffice…
Once we realize we wouldn’t be finding any help around where we were, the guys began pushing away. Luckily, I was there to help by documenting the experience…
Good news is we finally found a car battery (just the battery, mind you) and cabled it up to ours and got the things rolling once again. We made it all the way to our turn before it broke down…again. We did finally make it back to the Center and what would have probably been a 2-3 hour trip turned into a 5-6 hour one. Just another day in Kenyan life and totally worth it.
