Still two days to go

Greetings

Well I still have two days to go.  Today Delta airlines texted me with an urgent message about my flight tomorrow.  Cancelled.  They were kind enough to book me on the next flight 24 hours later.  I now leave Thursday afternoon and arrive on Saturday.  I guess I can look at the bright side and I have an extra day to get ready or the not so bright side and I have a day less to get what we need to get done in Kenya.  We were going to Equity bank on Saturday to change one of the accounts that I had opened up on the last visit from a Kenyan shilling account to a US dollar account.  It appears that in order to transfer funds from the main dollar account to a Kenyan shillings savings account an extra step of exchanging currency must take place.  The procedure to do this is not that easy and just will not work for us.  So I will change the account to US dollars to make it easier to transfer funds into the micro-finance organizations savings account.

I was going to talk some more about passion fruit but today I want to mention the explosion that happened two days ago in one of the slums in Nairobi.  Here is the article from ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/International/oil-pipeline-explosion-ignites-slum-100-feared-dead/story?id=14499791 or the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14879401 about the events.  This slum is near the main road that goes to Nairobi International airport in a heavily industrialized area.  This is just one of many tragedies of this nature in Kenya.  There are numerous incidents of tankers overturning on the roads and people with their Jerry cans scooping up the fuel.  With fuel prices approaching six bucks a gallon five to ten gallons of fuel equals a half months or months wage. This is very dangerous indeed but profitable if you are able to get some of this liquid gold.  Opportunity knocks and it’s really sad that people have to resort to whatever they can to make some money.  Even if it risks their lives or their families lives. 

This particular incident was an accident just waiting to happen.  People have no where to go and they see a piece of land that just so happens to be vacant.  They become squatters and it becomes their homes.  The land was vacant because there was a pipeline underneath the ground and heavily signed of the warning.  These people had been served eviction notices many months ago but where do they go?  Once they are there moving them is an almost impossible task for a variety of reasons.  Letting them stay is the consequence of this event.  

Just a few years ago there was another large fire that swept through a heavily populated area killing hundreds mostly children.  I remember traveling with Pastor Ososo on our way to Busia on my first visit a couple of years ago.  We were approaching Kisumu and there was an overturned tanker on the side of the road.  It was actually two tankers but the main tanker and cab did not roll over.  Gasoline was everywhere, so were the people, and so were we.  As we approached I could see everything since it was on my side of the car.  I watched as people were not fleeing but coming to the event with Jerry cans in tow ready to catch some of the gasoline coming out of the tanker.  We just drove on by like nothing was happening.  I couldn’t believe it the vapors were pretty strong.   All I could think of was what are these people doing, what are we doing?  One spark and Kaboom.  Of course traffic was not moving that fast since Kenyans like to gawk at the accident like we do.  All this made me feel pretty uncomfortable as we approached and drove past.  Nothing happened and I assume there was no explosion or fire that I ever heard of.  I thank God for that.

Luckily not many people smoke in Kenya either.  Much too expensive. 

Take care and God Bless

Dave