This and that:

This and that:


Gas costs $3.75 per gallon.

An oil change costs $175.00 – we had it done last week on the truck

Driving in Kenya is an altogether different experience. It works in a very different way. Nairobi has an estimated population of 4,000,000 people. There are only a very few traffic lights and no road signs (stop or yield) in all of Nairobi. It is almost unusual to hear people blowing horns. Main roads have right of way over smaller roads and you watch how fast vehicles are coming. Basically the first person to an intersection has the right-of-way. If you want to merge onto a road that has bumper to bumper traffic you just ease the corner of your bumper between cars and go. Everybody assumes that who ever has his vehicle, even just a corner of his vehicle, in front of you then you have the right-of-way. It works surprisingly well. People also let people through when you have to turn across lanes. People are very polite drivers in ways that would never happen in the USA. Space is also very different. Instead of cars being a few feet away from each other the space here is in inches. It can be a little un-nerving when you first start to drive but it all works because everyone understands the un-written “code of the road” when driving.

People are much more patient here. Chris, the Kenyan man that we work with, has a good way of saying things. He said “North Americans may come with the Fruit-of-the-Spirit called Patience but it does not truly mature until they have been in Africa for a while”.

In America we know that we have problems, especially now. But people in Kenya have a tendency to think that everything in America is very good. A teenager approached me and said “take me to America”. Kenyans view of America comes from Hollywood. They think we have lots of material things but that we all have broken homes and don’t have close relationships in our families. They say that they are surprised when American talk about their families because they assume that we don’t put much value on families. Families are very important to Kenyans. If a member of your family; parents, siblings, nephews or nieces are having difficult times then it is assumed other family members will help out. It is expected. Brothers and sisters help out other siblings when one of them needs money to go to college. It is expected to be the norm. If God blesses you then it is expected that you are required to be a blessing to others. Parents expect that when they grow old that their children will take care of them if they need it. This is one of the reasons that there are very few rest homes for the elderly in Kenya.

I asked one woman that received grain at a distribution what the grain meant to her. She said “It is life to me”. She meant that with out the grain we were distributing she and her four children would not be able to eat.

I ask what people eat each day. One woman said that in the morning her family eats a thin soup of corn flour in water. She doesn’t eat any lunch. Her children eat lunch at school which we were told comes from the USA for school lunches, it is a whole corn soup with some onions in it. At night she eats a thicker soup of corn flour and water.

There are probably thousands of different perspectives and my impressions will probably change with time.