Traveling is an Adventure

Sometimes, the traffic on the Mombasa Road becomes so congested, many of the drivers choose to leave the main roads and seek an alternate route through the maze of dirt side roads. Here you see a safari-type vehicle ahead of us on one of these secondary roads. This is a vehicle used by the Kenyans for long-distance traveling.

A few days ago, we left the Nairobi campus at 5:10 p.m. on the Daystar bus, to return home to Athi River. Because there was an accident and extensive traffic delays we were an hour behind schedule. Our driver, who seems to enjoy adventure, chose to leave the main road. There were 2 times when it looked like the bus might get hung up, or scrape bottom, or topple over. The first time the bus was nose down at a 45-degree angle. People on the bus got out to help. The second time the car ahead of us got hung up on a bump. Our driver and several of our passengers got out and pushed and lifted the car to get it over the barrier. We then had many people giving our driver guidance as we proceeded very slowly over the same hazard. After getting off the bus at the Athi River campus, in the dark, we had about 50 lbs. of groceries to carry half-a-mile up to our flat--arriving at 7:25 p.m. Our trip to Nairobi for some errands and groceries was an 8-hour adventure.

At this point we think about our decision to live at Athi River instead of Nairobi and need to remind ourselves of why we made that decision--better interaction with the students. For example, on Wednesday Phil got a phone call asking if he could help a student with a homework problem. He agreed to meet with her in 2 hours. To his surprise, 11 students gathered at the appointed place and he had an enjoyable and profitable study session. If we weren't living at the campus where he is teaching, this probably wouldn't happen, or at least not as easily.