Bus Rides!

June 5, 2012

Today, we were to leave the hotel at 8 am sharp bound for the marketplace en route to the village!  Of course, being in a foreign country leads to a very loose interpretation of “sharp,” meaning the bus showed up around 11 am.  Then, after the rigmarole of loading 6 American’s bags of stuff onto the top of a large bus, overcrowded with sound equipment already, we finally took off around 1 pm.  We expected the drive to be about 7 hours… in my family, my mom has a saying that any project my dad starts will take 3 times as long and cost 3 times as much as he expects it to.  This is about the case for Kenyan time scales as well!

About 3 hours down the road, we found out we were about an hour to an hour and a half into our trip, and we were stopping for lunch.  It was great food, filling and cheap, and a chance to stretch our weary legs!  Of course, as we got ready to leave about an hour and a half later, it began to pour, and our bags were all on top, meaning we now had to finagle the tarps on top of the sound equipment to protect our precious clothes as well!  As we started off, we pressured Zach into migrating to an aisle seat so he could sit sideways and play the guitar.  I can’t tell you how much I love singing with the beautiful African harmonies sweetly claiming God’s praise in British English accents.  We sang for well over an hour, until it became dark. 

As we neared hour 8, the Kenyans informed us we were about halfway, and darkness had fully enveloped us.  As we bounced around the potholes and washed out dirt roads, we felt the bus sway under the heavy weight of the load above.  The clear African sky was speckled with bright stars, shadowy tree lines fell to the sides of us, hiding the jungle behind.  At one point, Elise was leaning out the open window when Jerry looked at her and with some concern recommended she come back in and close the window, because there are “lions out there.”  We’re never sure how real their threats are, but we take them seriously, so she slid back in and returned the window to the crack providing our AC. 

The rest of the night was a long, uneventful, slow blur of bumps and squeaks as the bus moaned under the strain we were pouring on it.  We arrived in the village at close to 5 in the morning, with just enough time to unload and collapse on any open spaces for a few hours of precious rest before we hit the ground running the next day.  “It’s all of God’s children singing glory, glory, hallelujah He reigns!”