Milk cows mowing the grass just below the principal's house where Jim lived as a boy.



Kaimosi Friends Primary School where Jim's brothers John and David attended.  The building straight ahead was the original school with only about 40 students.  Now they have 800, about half are boarding students.



In the afternoon the students get sleepy so the teachers send them outside to run to wake them up. Since this is a private school, the student to teacher ratio is only 50:1.  It is typically much higher in public schools.



The dining hall at Kaimosi Friends Primary School being used for chapel.  One of the Friends Theological College teachers is the chaplain.



This is what is left of Mission Hill.  Jim remembers Easter sunrise services and family picnics here.  It was a long grassy slope then.  It got sold to the government and strip mined for gravel to build roads.  The base of the cell phone tower is at the original top of the hill.  This was our Sunday afternoon walk today.



Looking from Mission Hill into the valley below.



Another view from Mission Hill.  The the green square in the middle is a tea field.  Tea is a cash crop in this area.

The dairy cows eat the grass on campus.  This one is right outside our front door.  The 2 birds also are regular visitors to our yard.  We don't know what kind they are.  In the sunlight they are an iridescent blue green.



Our FTC students were invited to Kima International School of Theology near the Uganda border, about one hour west of us, for a volleyball match.  They have been practicing for a couple weeks and they are gone on the trip today.  Physical education in not part of the curriculum here, so this has been an enjoyable event for the students.



There is a technical school at Mago, about 5 miles from us.  One of the courses they offer is food service, catering, cooking, etc.  This is their kitchen, which is probably the nicest we have seen in Kenya.



The reason we were at Mago was to talk to Patrick (left) who teaches solar electricity classes.  We are considering hiring him instead of a commercial company to do the photo-voltaic system at FTC.  The Mago compound also has a guest house, and a clinic, besides the technical school.

The old monitors being replaced by the donated laptops.



Fred Amwoka, the librarian (standing back right), also teaches basic computer skills to the FTC students.



Sorted uncatalogued books put out on tables for teaches to review.  This has been something Fred has been wanting to do for a long time, but needed help to accomplish.



Five of the seven teachers and the books they picked as most useful.  These will be the first books Donna and Fred will catalog.

20 computers were purchased in Iowa and carried to Kenya for use at FTC.  Most of those will go in the library.  Today we installed the first one with a cable attached to keep it in place.

William Jumba, a local carpenter, made this book press for the library.  Now Donna can get started doing book repair.



A well worn piano in the old administration/classroom building.



For Caleb.

The fruit and vegetable shop of Simon in Eldoret.  His is a small part of the city market that fills an entire block.



The new hydroelectric plant being built on the Goligoli river just below Kaimosi.

This is why they need a solar electric system at Friends Theological College.  Jim was working on calculations for the solar when the electricity went out.  It took two candles to get enough light to power his calculator.



Jim and Rich have spent part of the last 2 days helping sort books in the library.  Having them grouped will make it easier for Donna to catalog them later.  We pulled one book off the shelf and a lizard ran out.  We are also sorting out books which will need to be repaired later.



This was an interesting name for a candy bar.

Today we made supper for the students, staff, faculty and administration - about 50 people.  We made Sloppy Joes from scratch, green beans, watermelon, and  even added Hersheys Kisses.  They enjoyed all of the new foods, but watermelon was the big hit.

Also today, we met with the last of the companies who are bidding on the solar electric project.



Sunday we went to Kitale for church.  It was 7 hours driving plus an hour to make a repair.  The truck has a hydraulic cylinder to activate the clutch.  The tube that feeds the cylinder broke.  God was really good to us in that it happened at a place with a welder who had an oxy acetylene torch on the opposite side of the road.  He was able to braze the pipe back together and we drove another 3 hours to home.  It could have happened at many places where there was no help and could have been dangerous.

On that trip we stopped to see the church that Honey Creek - New Providence Friends raised the money for back in 1970.

Rich (Richard Humphrey) is replacing the mosquito screen on the back porch of the guest house and needed some 2x4's.  We walked to Cheptulu and stopped at a carpenter shop to have them cut for us.  As it turned out, the two guys who run the shop are named Richard and Humphrey, so we had a good laugh and took a picture.

What you do when you have a short ladder.

Rich after getting a 40 volt shock from the electric instant shower water heater.

We have been in Kaimosi now for 5 days now.  This is the house we are living in.  It very adequate with running water most of the time and electricity most of the time.  It has rained 3 times since we got here and is quite hot.  I don't know the actual temperature, but we lay in bed with no covers and sweat all night.  We have to keep the windows shut because of mosquitoes and we still get lots of them in the house.



What you do when you don't have a step ladder.



Donna and Connie in front of a bottle brush tree in front of the original administration/classroom building.



As the new people, we were asked to speak at the school convocation.

Friday, February 5

The guesthouse serves a very nice British style breakfast.  We had scrambled eggs, baked beans, sausage, stewed tomatoes, dry cereals, and hot porridge, lemon picklers (small pancakes), bread & jelly, dry cereals with milk, hot porridge, fresh papaya, watermelon, fresh fruit juices, arrow root, and hot tea.






We spent the morning driving around Nairobi again on business.  We were able to visit a photo-voltaic supplier and get pricing on components.



We ate lunch at a restaurant called The Carnivore.  The two unusual meats we ate were crocodile and ostrich.  Neither are nearly as good as Iowa beef and pork.

After lunch we went to the Giraffe Center where they have tame giraffe which you can feed.  They also keep some warthogs.



Saturday, February 6,

Rich & Connie flew to Masai Mara for a couple days of game drives.  Jim & Donna took a 7 hour bus ride to Kaimosi, arriving about 3:30.  At the station in the morning the tv had an educational children's show  which was pretty impressive with puppets and geared to 2nd graders knowing how to write in words and symbols the numbers up to 99.



On the bus in the higher elevations we saw lots of green - 2 forests and tea being grown by both companies and as a cash crop for local farmers in whatever space they could.  There is a big game park around Lake Nakuru and on either side of the town of Nakuru along the highway at about 55 miles per hour (80 km) we looked at small stray herds of zebra, eland, and a couple baboons.  Near the dairy land of Naivasha and where greenhouses are plentiful was irrigation and other land was dry in that area.

When we arrived one other volunteer, who is leaving Sunday noon, walked with us to the small town  called Cheptulu, about half a mile away, where  we got some basics of groceries.  There was seasonal fruits and vegetables in stands too.  We got enough to get through Sunday at least.

Sunday, February 7

Jim & Donna went to church at the Kaimosi Boys High School.  It was a lively service with lots of singing.  Secondary school in Kenya is all in English, so we were able to understand what was being said.  The preacher this morning was the Academic Dean at FTC who has been the boys school's chaplain before.

We were invited for lunch to the home of Margaret, the Academic Dean here at FTC - Friends Theological College (that would account for the ftc in the blog address).  Jim's dad was principal here from 1968-1971, so Jim is familiar with this area.   Without warning she shared delicious beans cooked with tomatoes and onion, served  with bread and orange marmalade.  That was extremely kind.

Our house is quite nice.  We have indoor plumbing, a refrigerator, a two burner gas countertop cooker, and mosquito nets.  It is not always the case, but there have been good rains recently and there is water in the pipes.

Monday, February 1, 2016

Jim and Donna Hoeksema (right) and Rich and Connie Humphrey (left) drove to Cedar Rapids, Iowa today and spent the night in a hotel to make sure we didn’t get stranded at home by the coming snow storm.  

We will be going to Kenya to volunteer at the Friends Theological College in Kaimosi.  Jim and Donna will be there for 5 months and Rich and Connie for 3 weeks.  The picture is us behind our pile of luggage in the hotel.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

It did snow hard this morning (see picture of Donna when we got to the airport).  Our plane was an hour late waiting to get de-iced and we only had an 80 minute layover in Detroit.  We just barely made it before they closed the gate.  Connie ran on ahead and told them  we were coming while the rest of us waited to collect our carry-on bags which got put in the cargo hold.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

It is hard to say when Tuesday stopped and Wednesday started.  There is a 9 hour time difference between Iowa and Kenya.  We flew from Detroit to Amsterdam and then on to Nairobi.  Total travel time was about 27 hours from home to Nairobi.  The flights all went well, and our luggage all arrived.  We are just all messed up in our sleeping patterns.

We are staying at the Presbyterian Guesthouse in Nairobi for 3 nights.  It is a very nice facility.  I am using their wireless connection to post this.  We have hot water in the shower and the food is quite good.  They have a beautiful lawn/garden (see picture) and the temperature is probably mid to upper 70’s.

 

Thursday, February 4, 2016

We slept pretty well last night – with a few interruptions.  We realized there is a large Mosque right next to the Guesthouse.  At 5:30 in the morning they have large loud speakers that announce prayer time.  It seemed to us to be an unnecessarily long announcement.

We spent most of the day driving VERY slowly around Nairobi while buying cell phones and doing research for our work in Kaimosi.  The traffic is terrible.  Driving here is not for the faint hearted so we hired someone to do the driving.

Rich and Connie bought fresh fruit at a roadside shop on our way back to the guesthouse.