Monday, March 9th PM

We arrived in Kenya this afternoon after a 41/2 hour flight from Jo’burg and I had 2 first impressions: (1) the dry landscape I saw from the plane which has recently experienced a severe lack of rain and (2) Body Odor. I’m not trying to be rude, just trying to describe that once we got off the plane there was a smell of B.O. all through the busy airport in every section. We were graciously met right when we got off the plane by 2 representatives from “Feed The Children”, the Regional Director, Seintje Veldhuis (originally from the Netherlands but in Africa for at least 15 years) and the Nairobi Operations Manager, Jesse. Prior to his job with “Feed the Children”, Jesse had been an immigrations officer at the Nairobi airport, so he walked us through getting the $50 visas which were required for our entrance into this country. Jesse’s help made the process so smooth. I think it also helped that our US President’s father was from Kenya. I heard it mentioned twice by officials during the visa process, and I saw it referred to in a poster advertising a traveling exhibit of African heritage in the lobby of our hotel.

I noticed immediately that being a friend of Larry Jones and Feed the Children also had extreme advantages. As we approached Customs, our guide walked us through the line that said “East African Passports Only” and without stopping, led us to where Jesse had already collected our bags. Wow, I thought—this is the way to travel! As we were driving through the extremely crowded streets, (there are 35 million people in this city), our driver, Justin told a story which I had also heard from a former Kenyan in our church in Oklahoma. He said that Larry was so well respected by the people of Nairobi that he could walk the streets of the city day or night with no body guards and even the street hoodlums would not touch him. (Seintje said those claims were a little exaggerated and Larry would most certainly always be accompanied on the streets of Nairobi.)

As we pulled into the entrance to our hotel, we had to stop at the HUGE black and white striped gate arm which prevented us from entering. Two uniformed guards were stationed at the security post and one of them got out of the guard shack and walked carefully and slowly around the outside of our car looking down at the direction of the wheels while walking completely around. When I found out that he was checking for a bomb under the car, I didn’t know whether to be scared or relieved that he didn’t find one!
When we arrived at the hotel check-in counter, I was NOT relieved to see a notice telling us not to put our valuables in the safe in our hotel rooms. As I found my room on the 3rd floor, (B.O., still) again—I did not know whether to be scared or relieved that there was a security guard on each and every floor of the hotel. I will tell you this, when I left my hotel room for dinner that night, I left the televisions blaring and put on the ‘Do Not Disturb’ light on the door. I had to ask myself, “WWMCD?—what would Mark Crow do?” Thanks, sweetie. Your voice is in my head and heart!

Then I totally entertained myself by watching the Nairobi television in my hotel room. I flipped through the channels and, as God is my witness, I found stations in 10 different languages as follows:

English - 18 channelsFrench - 2 channelsKeswahili - 1 channelAfrican produced but in English - 1 channelItalian - 1 channelGreek - 1 channelArabic - 1 channelIndian - 1 channelJapanese - 1 channel Spanish (it felt so familiar, like home) - 1 channelSpanish with English overdubs - 1 channel (this one was especially entertaining!) Channels with picture but no sound - 3 channelsNorwegian or Swedish channel with sound but no picture! - 1 channel (OK—I’m a language nerd, but I knew Chris would appreciate this list.)
Tomorrow, we will tour Feed the Children’s Abandoned Baby Center and an HIV treatment center. You can be sure I will keep you posted. Internet is down in this hotel, so not sure when this will go out.

Until next time…

Love,
Jennifer