The Unexpected Journey

This is Ben!

Ben is an older Kenyan gentleman (probably mid to late 60's) who lives just down the road from us in Essaba Village.  He is an electrician by trade and he has a lot of pride in his country.  Ben's favorite hobby is to go hiking across the countryside.  He can literally walk for miles and miles without ever getting tired.  What's incredible about this is that he upholds Kenyan traditions in the highest regards.  What this means is that he REFUSES to drink water unless it is with a meal.  So during his hikes, he NEVER CARRIES WATER!

Ben has been taking David and I on amazing hikes all over Kenya!  We never asked him to do so...he just showed up one day and declared that "A proper Kenyan education meant understanding 
the countryside," and so off we went!  

(For my family members reading this, Ben is a friend of the family we live with so don't worry about our safety!)

Here is an image of the countryside on the very first hike we took...

complete with strange beasts that we had never encountered before.

 At the end of our first hike, Ben showed us this view of a hillside and proclaimed that "we would conquer this mountain!"  (For those of you who didn't catch that...HE TOLD US THAT WE WERE GOING TO CLIMB THE HILLS IN THIS PICTURE!)  I was skeptical to say the least, but I brushed it off thinking that he was just joking.

 ...He wasn't joking!

The foliage was so dense that I couldn't even see a path up the mountainside.  I started to wonder how we were going to do this.  To make matters worse, I only brought one bottle of water, and I knew that I would need more.  But then I looked at Ben and realized that he was climbing this mountain in slacks and dress loafers and I realized that I just needed to "man up."

P

Part of "manning up" is realizing when to ask for help, and we definitely needed some.  So we enlisted the aid of these kids.  They lived at the base of the mountain and climbed it daily FOR FUN.  


(Mental pause for clarification)
Reason #1 to man up:
These kids do it for fun

Reason #2 to man up: 
They do it BAREFOOT!

 Following the children was not easy!  Their tiny bodies could easily maneuver past thick bushes and slide between large rocks.  They moved so fast that it was hard to keep up with them.  But someway, somehow, we got to the top of the hillside (which I will still refer to as a mountain).  Here's a picture from the top.


 After a couple of days of rest (and I use the word "rest" lightly because of the work that we're doing for the Clinton School) Ben showed up again, and insisted that there were bigger hills to conquer.  I thought to myself..."Who is this guy?"...but I couldn't resist the chance to prove myself to him after such a tough previous climb.

 So we ended up here!










Here are pictures of us at the bottom of the hill

 Look how happy we were to be there.  I had never seen anything like this place before.  The rocks came in all shapes and sizes and the air was so pure that it was like my lungs were on vacation.
One moment we wold be standing next to a rock that we could squat down to sit on and the next moment we would be standing next to a boulder that could fill Sturgis Hall or completely cover my parents' or my oldest sister's home.  Some of the plants in the area matched the size of the rocks as well.  I saw a version of an Elephant Ear plant where the leaves were half the size of my body.

E

Every time we stopped to take a breather, I took a picture of the hillside.  It just kept going up for what seemed like forever.  You'd reach a point where you would say, "This has to be the top!"  Then, you'd turn a corner on the hill, and you would see another huge expanse.

Like this one!

O

Or this one!

 But finally, we reached the top, and this was the view we saw.  It's tough to see in this picture, but we could actually see Lake Victoria (a huge lake that touches the countries of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania).  It was difficult to take in this view because I knew that there would be few moments in my life where I could see this sort of thing.  I looked out into the countryside and realized, yet again, that I'm in Africa.  It goes without saying that this picture is very valuable to me.

 Finally, I don't mean to scare my parents (mom I know you're reading this...like every day), but I climbed on the highest boulder that I could find on the top of this hillside and took this picture.  I was a good way to confirm that I had conquered my fear of heights. 


Highnote
Today's highnote is in response to several emails I've received about people not being able to leave comments.  I don't know exactly why you can't leave comments on my blog page, but to FIX THE PROBLEM...I have set up a comments section on the right side of this blog screen.  It is titled "Comments on the Journey."  Just click on the link inside that says "Leave a response," and...leave a response.  Thanks so much for sharing in this experience with me!