In Which Chaos is Defined

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you, a move across Kenya.

Allow me to add some backstage comments. The overview of the trip was supposed to go like this. Truck arrives at 8 a.m. on Monday. We load and head to stop one: Kericho where WGM stored some furniture for us. After we loaded Kericho stuff we would drive about 4 hours to Nakuru. Some WGM directors live there and offered us their house for the night. They have “the fastest internet in Kenya,” which I was going to utilize for a skype interview with Wheaton College that night. Then Tuesday we were going to load up some stuff from Nakuru and the grocery store and finish the drive to Chogoria. Sounds like a solid plan right?

Early on Monday the 21^st of October we arose and finished packing up our stuff. The moving truck was going to arrive at 8 so we had to be ready. We carried all our boxes and luggage down to the Tenwek carport and piled it up. And waited. And wondered where the truck was. And checked our watches. Daddy called someone and found out the truck had left Nairobi at 8 so they would be 4 hours late. I decided to go back to the apartment and finish a college application. Homeschoolers: they tend to do normal stuff in a weird way. 

Then, 4 hours later, the truck hadn’t come. More calls. Apparently they got stuck in ugly traffic. Finally, at 1ish the truck rolled in and we frantically loaded stuff. We went to Kericho and collected all that nonsense, and debated about whether we should try to make it to Nakuru before dark. I was stressing out because I was going to either have to do my phone interview in the car or reschedule it altogether. You all know my family. You know what kind of shenanigans Daddy or James would pull in the middle of the interview. Plus the roads here aren’t exactly smooth so jolting around while trying to sound intelligent and stable and generally worthwhile isn’t ideal.  I rescheduled in the interest of sanity.

We did make it to Nakuru before dark, however, and snagged dinner at a restaurant. Nairobi Java House is essentially the Kenyan Starbucks therefore making it one of the more popular places for Ex-pats to eat. So to Java House we went. Mom shopped for mattresses while we waited for our food. We take multi-tasking to a whole other stratosphere.

Ok, confessions, Tenwek has crummy internet. So for several weeks we were holding the wrong size cable into the laptops to get 2 bars. That does things to people. (whine, whine, whine) So being in Nakuru with amazing internet…….I was up late Monday night.

Tuesday crashed upon us like a crowd surfing fat man. Happily the parents had compassion on the weary children and allowed us to stay at the house while they did another shopping run. Hallelujah.

Finally we hit the final road for Chogoria. It’s a lovely drive, all tea fields, rice fields, mountains, and overloaded motorcycles. We even found a good bathroom stop that has pretty fantastic little pastry things.

We landed in Chogoria around 6. The truck was once again nowhere to be seen. But Dr. Ikunda (The other doctor at the hospital who showed us around last time we came) appeared, unlocked the house and helped us unload the stuff out of our car. Then we went to dinner at a restaurant nearby and talked. We were all rather exhausted. Driving here is essentially composed of playing chicken with semis who are IN YOUR LANE PASSING THE BUS WHO’S GOING TOO SLOW. Thus, one emerges from the car with shot nerves. 

The truck arrived at 8:30 and we unloaded. The two drivers helped and one of the gate guards. We didn’t have the energy to direct it too much so all the stuff was heaped everywhere. We dug out the mattresses, found some sheets and crashed.

Wednesday-Saturday were consumed with assembling beds, sorting furniture, getting the house organized, clean, and hiding the shipping trunks out of sight.

-----I realize this post is all of 3 months late and I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself. Terribly sorry to all who were dying of suspense wondering exactly how our move went. More about the hospital and daily life in Chogoria to come later.-----