Touching Down in Kenya

After almost 4 solid weeks of adventure, fun and reminiscing in Madagascar, we finally headed to the Tana airport for the last time (a place I was not disappointed to say goodbye to, thanks to the lax, monopolistic airplane brousse Air Madagascar) and boarded our plane to Nairobi. Mom and dad had left on a flight the day before and we had a nice last day in the capital attending to various travel and life plans. We were sad to leave the unique and engaging island but I am particularly excited for this last section of our trip in Kenya.

I wrote about this a bit earlier, but Kenya has been a country that has held special sway in my mind for as long as I can remember. Hearing of the adventures and importance that this place holds for my dad throughout childhood and adolescence has built it up to a degree shared by just one other country in my mind, Brasil, where my mom lived for several years as a child herself. Since I have studied abroad in Brasil, conducted grad school research for one of my master's projects, traveled its length from crossing the frontier in Chui in the south up to the Amazon to the north, I feel pretty good that I have experienced that country to the max.

But, I had never been to Kenya until this trip, and never really been close. It always seemed so far away and required too many resources (money, time, planning). As such, I am so thankful that we have overcome those challenges and are here now. There is something inherent to the power of childhood associations, it is amazing the deep strength that these stories hold. Those stories get into your brain and never really go away. And nor should they. Dad's Kenya of almost 40 years ago is certainly very, very different from the one that we are visiting today, for instance the country has gone from 8 million citizens at independence in 1961 to 44 million today. Still, the landscape and spirit of the people remains true, and has been superior to those stories of yore that i was so enthralled with as a kid, a teenager and into adulthood.

Mom and Dad @ Hell's Gate NP

We have been here for about a week and had many an adventure, despite the horrendous gridlock of Nairobi. Right now, I am writing from the veranda at our delux lodge on Lake Elmenteita deep in the heart of the Rift Valley. Mu and I got in a morning run on the dirt tracks in the village around the resort, with long views across the pale, still lake right along the side of the Rift. Traveling with mom and dad has been wonderful and a serious steps up in comfort, several steps really. They have been so impressive in our travels in Madagascar and here in Kenya, riding with the punches and reveling in the splendor we have seen along the way.

Sunset across Lake Elmenteita

Dad will get into more detail shortly in his own post, but just wanted to mention one of, if not the, main reasons we are here in Kenya, returning to my dad's Peace Corps road project 38 years after he left this country. It was super emotional for my dad to see his road project that connected Machakos to Kitui 40 years ago intact and being used heavily. Some of the stretches we drove did not look like they had been improved much in the intervening years and were still much better than the heavy majority of the roads we have driven elsewhere. My dad will write much more on this in a day or two - it was a lifetime experience for my mom, my wife, my aunts and myself, and certainly for Dad.

Dad's road (Machakos to Kitui) in use 38 years later