It just hit me: I haven't slept more than an hour in the last 24 hours, but still I'm wide awake — and no, before you say it, my alertness is not chemically enhanced! After going to sleep at 3 a.m. and then being woken up exactly 60 minutes later by that annoying BlackBerry alarm (easily one of the most hated noises in the world, with the possible exception of Hanson), the team and I were once again in our convoy headed to the airport ... AGAIN.
But really, there is no time to be tired today. Our flight left Nairobi, Kenya, at 5 a.m. Almost as soon as we had taken off and reached cruising altitude it was time to touch down just 25 minutes later in Kisumu, Kenya. For the second time in my life (the first was in Aspen, Colorado), the plane came to a stop on the runway, the doors opened and we walked across the runway to the terminal.
The first thing that hits you when you arrive (apart from the plane that nearly ran me over when I was walking across the runway) is the vast Kenyan landscape. From the sky, pockets of life can be seen scattered amid miles and miles of green and yellow fields, rocky mountains and rivers. On the journey from the airport to the Kiboko Bay resort, it's one long, straight road, and I've never seen so many people walking huge distances in such heat, and I've never seen so many bicycles in one place. Being the cheapest mode of transport out here, there are so many bicycles — some have even been fitted with larger seats to act as taxis. At regular intervals along the road there are makeshift stalls constructed from corrogated iron, cardboard, sticks, steel — basically whatever they can find — selling everything from candy, T-shirts, jeans, full two-piece suits in all colors, phone cards, and yes: Obama memorabilia. They've got Obama pillows, Obama bags, Obama pictures, pretty much everything.
We're staying at the Kiboko Bay resort, a cluster of thatched, open-air tent bungalows set on the coast of Lake Victoria (which from here looks more like an ocean than a lake). It's picture-perfect, complete with two hippos chilling out, two four-foot-long iguanas, a snake (a cobra, only a few yards away from where we're sleeping), dozens of brightly colored birds, and everything else you would imagine from rural Africa.
It's the trip of a lifetime, but there's no time to rest. Today we're taking a trip to the school in Lahunda where in just two days we will be putting the finishing touches to a new computer lab. Can't wait...
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