First of all, a belated Furaha Siku ya Baba (Happy Father’s Day) to fathers everywhere - we forgot to put that in last week’s post and do apologize. 

Last Sunday we attended the 6:30 am Mass in Kisii in order to leave by mid-morning for Nairobi where we had an appointment with Immigration on Monday.  It takes approximately five to six hours to travel to Nairobi and since our appointment at Immigration was at noon on Monday, we had to leave on Sunday.  Nairobi is approximately 180 miles from the Mission but because of the winding roads, which travel through many villages and towns, it takes a while to get there.  Then there are the speed bumps before, after, and in between that slow you down as well.  Wes has counted the speed bumps from the Mission house to Nairobi and he came up with approximately 250 of them!  It was a beautiful day for a drive and we had the opportunity to see many different landscapes along the way.  After leaving the Kisii highlands with its lush green carpeted hillsides and abundance of trees, you drive through areas that are very dry with few trees and others that have large fields of grains such as wheat, barley, maize, etc.  It was also a relatively clear day so we were able to take in the breath-taking views of the Rift Valley as we traveled up the escarpment.  The Rift Valley is a vast geographical feature that starts in the Middle East and runs as far south to central Mozambique in East Africa and totals about 4400 miles.  The town of Mai Mahiu is at the base of the escarpment and as you leave the town and start to ascend, the air has the distinct smell of “hot” brakes from the trucks that are descending and one can smell it whether your window is open or closed.  Navigating this road is not easy as it is only two lanes and people here drive crazy but Rogers got us to Nairobi safe and sound.  On the way back to the Mission house on Tuesday and after coming down the escarpment, Rogers decided to drive a different route which took us through some very beautiful country and were able to see tea fields that stretched for miles.  These tea fields, which are owned by large companies, are not plucked by people – they are harvested with a machine which ultimately means less jobs for the people.  Rogers told us the quality of this tea will not be as good because the machine cuts all the leaves off the top of the plant whereas when it is plucked by hand only the bud and two leaves are taken.  We also traveled through areas where the smell of onions was very potent!  Women stand beside and in the middle of the highway with bundles of onions hoping the passing travelers will stop and buy some.  We arrived at the Mission house in the late afternoon on Tuesday and we were glad to be back.  Nairobi is nice to visit but we like being in the “bush” as they say here.  While in Nairobi, we did have the opportunity to have a nice visit with a couple of the priests from Consolata where we attended language school, shopped in a few stores to pick up some items that we could not find here in Kisii and Kathy got a haircut or more of a buzz!  Kathy told the young lady how much she wanted cut off but in hindsight should probably have expressed her wishes differently.  Oh well…it will grow back with time.  When the young lady was done cutting, she asked Kathy, “do you think I cut it too short?”  Kathy simply said, “no, it is fine”.  There truly was nothing else to say. 

We are finally one step closer to having all of our required documents in order to be here in Kenya. As stated above, we traveled to Nairobi to go to Immigration to get our Biometrics done which is a part of the process of applying for our Alien ID Card - a card that foreigners must carry with them along with their passport if they are residing in Kenya for more than ninety days (we have been here seven months!).  The Kenyan Immigration Department is located in the Nyayo House and upon arriving there, you are met with lots of security which is understandable but can be very intimidating.  Most everyone we encountered had few words to say when you asked them questions or you felt like you shouldn’t be asking that question.  They were not rude but at the same time were not overly helpful in their explanations – you got the feeling like you were supposed to know the process.  Upon entry into the building, a guard directed us to go to Window #4 to get our U.S. passport endorsed with an official stamp indicating our work permit is valid – a permit that has taken us months to obtain - and then to Window #5 to get our Biometrics started.  As we stood in line at Window #4, another guard came along and asked us to produce our papers of which there were six different forms required.  So, standing in the middle of the room and with Wes as the holder, Kathy began to pull papers out of our bag.  The guard wanted to make sure we had everything that we were supposed to have before we saw the person behind Window #5 though we never got to see this person.  The guard then took our U.S. passports and our work permits...we never give our passports to anyone and didn’t feel comfortable handing them over because they were not within our sight but we had to.  Once they did take them, we never saw our passports again until almost two hours later when we left the building.  After waiting for a short time, a guard took both of us to another room where Kathy was directed to a young man sitting behind a large computer screen which obscured his face while Wes was directed to a lady across the aisle.  After Kathy answered a few of the young man’s questions, he asked Kathy to put her right hand on the scanner for the digital fingerprints which she did.  He then asked her to put her left hand on the scanner.  Because Kathy could not see the man’s face, she stood up to show the man her left hand and proceeded to tell him that there will not be fingerprints for the ring finger since she lost part of it years ago.  The look on his face was one of bewilderment and he said nothing – she then tried to explain that the skin that covers the bone will not have fingerprints.  He still said nothing and then finally motioned for a guard to come over, gave him Kathy’s paperwork and the guard in turn motioned for Kathy to follow him with no explanation of where they were going nor the reason why.  The guard left Kathy in a hallway with one other person who was Chinese and tried to talk to Kathy in English but she had a hard time understanding him.  Kathy saw that he was missing his thumb so she finally figured out where she was and why.  Because of the inability to have both hands fingerprinted digitally, Kathy had to have it done the old-fashioned and messy way.  Once done with both hands, the technician sprayed Kathy’s hands with a solution and soon there was black liquid dripping onto the table and floor but he didn’t care though Kathy did!  Finally, he gave Kathy a couple of hand wipes to try and clean the black ink off – there was no sink in sight in which to wash one’s hands.  In the meantime, Wes was able to get through his Biometrics with no problems.  Once we were both done, we had to wait in a room with everyone else until they called our names and returned our endorsed U.S. passport to us.  Now we must wait approximately five to six weeks and will again have to return to Nairobi to get our ID cards.  The next and hopefully final hurdle we have to cross is applying for a KRA (Kenyan Revenue Authority) PIN number.  This number will allow us to be on the Mission’s checking account while the bad side is that we will have to file taxes in Kenya though this should not be a big ordeal since we do not have a job here that generates income for us.    

We had a Water with Blessings follow-up on Wednesday in Mosobeti and then traveled to Kenyerere to give away blankets to those women who had attended at least five of the six follow-ups.  We gave away thirty blankets.  The women were so happy to receive the blankets and after having a group photo taken, they broke into song and dance to express their gratitude for both the filter and the blanket.  They kept repeating, “Thank you Bismarck” and it was very touching to experience their gratitude for these gifts…simple gifts that will make a difference in their lives. 

On Monday of this past week, the Kenyan Health Minister reinstated the mask mandate to tame the spread of Covid-19.  Masks are mandatory in indoor public spaces, offices, supermarkets, and places of worship. The mask mandate had been lifted in March due to the low positivity rate.  This past Monday, the positivity rate was reported to be 12.6% which is the highest it has been in four months thus prompting the new mandate.   
As mentioned in a previous posting, Kenya will be casting their votes for the various positions including the President, Members of their National Assembly and Senate, and the various County Government positions on August 9^th.  Therefore, we have been seeing a lot of posters plastered everywhere including poles, road signs, fences, vehicles, walls of buildings, sidewalks and even on speed bumps on the roads!  And, there is not just one or two posters of the same candidate(s)…if one is good then fifteen must be better (see photo album)!  We have also seen vehicles, especially trucks and pickups with huge speakers in the box, driving around in the towns and villages promoting their candidates.  We have come across a few rallies as well.  There is uncertainty here as in many parts of the world because of inflation and the shortages of supplies especially with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.  Kenya imports many things from both countries.  Food prices have risen tremendously just in the seven months we have been here.  Our grocery bill is higher than it used to be and we don’t even buy meat.  For example, a three-liter gallon of sunflower oil in December was KSH 966 ($9.66) and last week for the same brand and size, the price had risen to KSH 1,775 ($17.75).  In the past few months, they have started putting anti-theft alarm devices on the containers of cooking oil and we know that from experience!  The last time we bought oil, we walked out of the store and Wes set the alarm off which prompted a security guard to pull Wes aside to search our bags and of course the culprit was the cooking oil!  The checker forgot to deactivate the device.  This has also happened with a jar of Nutella which happens to be Wes and Fr. David’s favorite topping for a Nice Cookie – the only dessert they ever get!  Another example of the extreme increase in prices is the cost of maize which the Mission buys a lot of since it is given away every weekend to the orphans as part of Mission Saturday.  Per Fr. David, last year the Mission paid KSH 2,800 ($28) for a 90-kilogram (198 pounds) sack of maize and now, the price is KSH 5,400 ($54).  Oil and maize are main staples in the diet here and for those people who are already living on the edge or are in extreme poverty - which many people are – these increased prices are devastating. 

With the upcoming elections on August 9th, it has been decided that the three of us will be leaving the country for four weeks.  We are leaving July 25^th and will be returning to Kenya on August 23^rd.  We are coming home to Williston and are excited to be able to see our sons, Aaron and Nathan, as well as friends and other family.  We have been asked numerous times since arriving in Kenya if we are safe, if we feel safe, etc.  and the answer to those questions is “yes” we are safe and feel safe especially here in the “bush”.  We have never not felt safe though we realize with the upcoming elections, there is always the potential for violence.  Past elections in Kenya have experienced violence for various reasons including a candidate not accepting their loss…something we in the United States - for the first time ever - experienced with our last election.  We hope and pray that the people of Kenya experience an election that is free of violence but with the unpredictability of inflation, increased prices, and other issues, one never knows and thus the reason for us coming home. 
We continue to keep you in our prayers and ask that you keep us and the Mission in yours.  Mungu Akubariki!

See photos from this week in the album section: 
https://stjparish.com/photoalbums/kenya-6-26-22