January 5 – Ndwara
After a breakfast of excellent sausages, mediocre eggs, and nasty bread with margarine, it was back to the airport for my flight to Kisumu, on the northern shore of Lake Victoria. The domestic airport in Nairobi would not be out of place in a small town in northern Canada, it appears to lack any design features or consideration of comfort, but it does have a small cafe. Since I made it to the airport on time for once – the traffic actually moved continuously – I had time for a Coke. It was the only cold choice and the airport authorities only provide air conditioning for international travelers.
I fell into conversation with the couple at the next table when they asked me to watch their bags…he’s working in Kenya and she was here to visit; her first time in Africa. Her first upset occurred when a largish bug approached her. Compared to Canada bugs this one was very large, but my perceptions have been tempered by travel. Not only did it approach, but it waved its antennae at her. It may have just been admiring her, but she required her boyfriend to stomp on it, thoroughly, which he obligingly did. Shortly, it was followed by its much larger sibling, which also approached, antennae waving, which resulted in her pulling her legs up onto the chair. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that a compared to other things she was likely to encounter a friendly waving bug wasn’t much, and b) it didn’t seem inclined to bite or attack.
She and her man were traveling to Malindi on the coast for a beach vacation before she flew home to Ireland. There was an announcement that the plane to Malindi “couldn’t fly” and passengers would be rerouted through Mombasa. There followed a typically un-Canadian scene…everyone swarmed the desk wanting to change their reservation, get details, or find out what was wrong with the plane. After about an hour of swarming, during which I watched their bags, the couple returned, only to hear that the flight to Malindi had been uncancelled, and everyone who wanted to could go back to the desk and resume their old travel plans. At this point the young woman lost her nerve and decided that they would just cancel all of the plans and stay in Nairobi until it was time for her to return to Ireland. She said that she didn’t trust the airline to get her back to Nairobi on time to catch her plane. In the end I felt sorry for her…I don’t think she was having a good time at all.
In time my flight was called, and we wandered across the runway to the plane as is quite normal here. It is incredibly hot and windy, and terribly dry. As we waited to go up the stairs to the plane, we were held up by two gentlemen (using the term loosely) who were taking pictures of each other on the stairs to the plane. It wouldn’t have been so bad except they both seemed to think they were Ansel Adams, and instead of just snapping a few pictures, they were posing while the photographer told them to turn this way and that. Just when it seemed they were finished, they traded places and started over. Meanwhile, the line of hot, windblown people waiting to get on the plane just got longer and longer.
Apollo met me at Kisumu and took me to the library where he works at Maseno University. The University was created out of two old British colleges: a teacher training college and a college for government workers. The teacher training college buildings are beautiful – long low red brick on a hillside with a large lawn in front, and then lower down the hill a number of brick bungalows where faculty lived. The British had a gift for finding wonderful locations and creating architecture that has stood the test of time, both by enduring and by continuing to be attractive.
The University has been building a new library for 10 years. It is being financed by the government and being built under the direction of the government and from my perspective the library seems to have remarkably little to do with it. There appear to be wild cats and various birds living in the unfinished building, and the university has started to use it to store furniture. It’s an interesting concept when we complain about government construction not coming in on time or on budget. We toured the building, which is a concrete construction 4 stories high with various rooms and unfinished stair cases, some of which are already crumbling.
While the University has electricity and internet access, it’s all a relative things. The internet had been out for three days and the electricity has good days and bad days. It brings to mind a discussion that I tried to have with my esteemed boss when he cancelled our book exchange program with the explanation that everyone should be using online resources now. Even many of the books on the shelves are in worse condition than the ones that we routinely weed from our collection.
Finally home to Ndwara to a wonderful reception. Tonight I sleep in Apollo’s (unfinshed) house for the first time. It has toilets!