Into Africa

We arrived in Nairobi, Kenya on Sunday evening, September 6th without incident and with all of our luggage. We took a brief tour of Nairobi on September 7th, including a trip to the elephant sanctuary, a giraffe center, a memorial sight for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombing. Then we exchanged some money at the bank, grabbed a quick meal, and hopped on another plane to Eldoret, Kenya on Monday evening. We've spent the last two days unpacking, recovering from jet lag, visiting the village, and helping take care of the three newest members of the Open Arms village. Today we had a site meeting with the foremen on the construction of the OAI village (they have been making quite a bit of progress on the orphanage homes - it looks like the first one will be completed within the next week or two, and two other homes will be completed within the next month). We also met with the District Commissioner of Eldoret about the possibility of starting a school at the village and he gave us some helpful advice along with assuring us that we would be able to start the school in January (the earliest we had hoped to start the school). On the way out to the site, we had a hilarious conversation with the project manager, Andrew Kiptoo, about the custom of polygamy in Kenya. He asked what Matt thought about gaining a second wife while he was here in Kenya and then he proceeded to tell Cheryl that according to Kenyan custom, she could choose who Matt's second wife would be. Matt then proceeded to ask Cheryl who she would choose, and she informed Matt that she would choose someone who would make his life miserable. At that point, the conversation changed to Kenyan politics. We are out of time for today, but we are looking forward to sending more photos and stories about our experiences here. Have a wonderful day.

Matt and Cheryl