Day 33 Eldoret June 10, 2011

Greetings

This morning Hezron and I headed out at 9 am to go and pick up Mathew in Mumias to go do some more shopping for wood working machines.  We arrived at Mathews shop around 10 am and headed over to local store that had a few wood working machines still in the crate.  The same machine we saw in Kisumu that was 75,000 Ksh is now only 63,000 Ksh in Mumias.  That’s about a $150 difference between the two shops.  While in the shop we noticed that they sell motorbikes as well.  They all go for about $1,000 and I asked the owner of the shop where we might be able to find used motorbikes.  He told us the best place to find used motorbikes are in Mombasa.  Mombasa is on the Indian Ocean coast and takes two days each way to get there.  Not going on this trip.

After we left Mumias we started the two hour trip to Eldoret.  We stopped briefly at a lumber yard here in Kakamega and asked the owner Simon if he knew of a place to get any used wood working equipment.  He said he had some connections in Eldoret and we exchanged numbers he said he would get back to us next week.  The road from Kakamega to Webuye is a really good road.  The road from Webuye to Eldoret is not.  There is a section of new road that goes up a pretty steep hill and if the road was white it would look just like moguls on a double black diamond ski slope.  This road is one of the more popular roads for trucks going in and out of Uganda.  Today I finally saw how they manage weight control for trucks here in Kenya.  As we approached Eldoret there was a line of traffic on our side of the road.  Once we got to the spot of the bottle neck there were the authorities with some scales set up in the middle of the other lane.  Of course that only left one lane of traffic to get through and there was nobody to direct the traffic either.  Free for all getting around the trucks being weighed in the middle of the road.  Of course we had to come back through this on the way back to Kakamega.

We arrived in Eldoret and we stopped at the Nakumatt and Chemist so I could pick up some more malaria prevention medicine.  This was Mathew’s first trip to Eldoret and he was so excited.  He was even more excited when we stopped at the Nakumatt because his brother worked there as an accountant and he could say hi.  After visiting with Mathew’s brother we then waited for one of the Pastors with Freedom Ministries Cusmas Mate.  The e sounds like ay so it sounds like Matay.  Cusmas was in town visiting his wife who had just delivered twins yesterday.  He had heard of a military man that had a used wood working machine available he got in touch with the guy that told him about it and we found out that he had already sold it.  Cusmas then took us to the Eagle hardware but it was lunch time and they were closed.  So we had about 40 minutes to wait so we also went and had lunch.  We went to a restaurant in the Klique Hotel that we visited back on my first trip.  We all had curry chicken however I asked for mine to be without bones.  Hezron, Mathew, and Cusmas all had ugali and I had rice with mine.  It was very good and I hope I survive it this time.

After lunch we went back to the Eagle hardware to look at the wood working machine.  This seems to be the only wood working machine available in Kenya.  Everywhere we go it is the same make and same model with different prices.  This one came with sticker shock.  They wanted 90,000 Ksh for it.  This is a 27,000 Ksh or about a $340.00 difference from Mumias.  We all stared at it for a good 15 minutes trying to figure out why it was 90,000 Ksh.  Couldn’t figure it out so we asked if there were any used wood working machines around and we were told no.  It was getting late and we decided it was time to go back to Kakamega.  On the way back we stopped at one of Pastor Cusmas’s projects.  It was a tailoring shop on the main road back to Kakamega.  Inside were two young women making traditional clothing on two manual sewing machines.  The shop has a total of four machines but one is at the pastor’s home so his wife can continue to work while she takes care of the new born twins.  The other is out for repair.  His goal for the shop is to expand to 7 or 8 machines and to start a training center.

After the shop we came back to Kakamega.  Tomorrow I am staying at the guest house and work on the computer.  Hezron told Mathew of the spaghetti meal yesterday and Mathew wanted to know why he was not invited and wants an American meal.  So on Monday Hezron will get his entire team together at Mathew’s place in Mumias and I am going to cook a really large pot of spaghetti for them all.  We have the Bishop and his wife, the Deputy Bishop and his wife, the General Secretary and his wife, the Director of Evangelism and his wife, the Project Manager and his wife, and I think there will be kids as well.  It would be nice to have a salad and garlic bread to go with this meal.  I will have to find a way to improvise to make it as American as I can.  I would also like to make a dessert but desserts are pretty much of a luxury and I need to come up with something that I can accomplish with limited cooking appliances.  Wish me luck.

Take care and God bless

Dave