Heading to Narok

Today is our last day in Eldoret. We'll be leaving in just a few hours to begin the trek to Narok. It should take about 5 hours, but we tend to add three hours to everything here, so I'll be interested to see when when actually arrive.

To begin where I left off, last weekend we were invited to Kip Keino's house. Kip is an Olympic gold medalist. He now runs a number of schools and a high altitude training camp where aspiring runners (and some more prominent ones) from all over the world can come and train together on this beautful farm outside Eldoret. He met some members of our group at the Eldoret Club (where they are staying) and invited us to visit his training facilities and have lunch with him. It was an exciting day, especially as we toured the dairy and learned to milk cows, and spoke with runners from across the globe. Unfortunately, the further we got into last week, the more people seemed to fall ill. Along with some sort of throat bug, about 16 people at the IU House came down with a 48 hour stomach bug that was absolutely miserable. While most of our group managed to stay healthy, quite a few of us took a day off and we used our time here to recoup.

This week was much of the same in terms of visiting Moi for lectures, then working at our individual service placements. Friday and Saturday were free for walks into town, where we did plenty of shopping. Our favorite stop was a milkshake bar that served amazing chocolate shakes and fries. Thanks to the donations I recieved from individual donors and volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House (thanks guys!!) I was able to buy a plethora of school supplies (chalk, pencils, sharpeners, colored pencils, crayons, markers, notebooks, pens, and more!) before I left Indy and I purchased three soccer balls and three jump ropes in Eldoret this week. Some of each item went to the Special School (for children with disabilities), to the school for the Deaf, and the rest will travel with me to Narok to go to the school we're working with there. I believe we're doing some sort of day long service project there, which I think has something to do with their water systems and helping to re-work them. Exciting!

Yesterday, while some of us took an extra day of rest, others loaded up and made the historic trek to Mama Sarah, President Obama's grandmother's house. We visited her and brought gifts and we were able to sit and chat with her for awhile. The ride to Kisumu was absolutely beautiful! We passed tea fields, sugar cane, and lots of papyrus along the way and while some of the roads were so beat up they were almost unusable, it made us extremely grateful for the time we spent on smoother roads.

Before we went home we stopped to watch the sun set over Lake Victoria which was aboslutely breathtaking. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect spot. The ride home beat us up a little, but we're packed and ready to hit the road today. Crossing my fingers for more excitement and adventures in Narok and at the Masai Mara.