I pushed my head back into the headrest and closed my eyes, fighting off a wave of motion sickness as the turbo prop jet descended through the clouds of a thunder storm approaching Kisumu airport. One second feeling weightless, the next thrust upwards, beads of sweat forming on my brow, the unmistakable taste forming in my mouth, my stomach was giving me notice. Only five minutes I kept telling myself, you can do this. Five more minutes.

A couple of happy orphans

The plane jolted up again then the pilots voice crackled over the P.A. system. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid the visibility is so bad over the runway that I'm going to attempt one landing using instruments only. If that fails we will have to go back to Nairobi." I still don't know why he told us that, perhaps he was looking for a vote of confidence, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one to throw up a quick prayer. Oh please, God, put this sucker down. I glanced at my watch, it was almost noon. In an effort to distract my mind I tried to calculate how many hours it had been since I left home. Almost thirty I figured and now the last 2 minutes and I'm going to throw up. But I wasn't supposed to think about that, so much for distractions. Then bump, we hit the tarmac, engines reverse thrust, a short taxi, we come to a halt, nervous laughter, unbuckling of seat belts, but courtesy for others means I have to get off first.

Almost lost the load

The tropical rain drenched me before I'd climbed down the metal stair to the tarmac but I didn't care. It felt good. Passengers pulled jackets over their heads and scurried to a large metal roofed shed with open sides to wait for luggage. The rain crashed down on the tin roof making that wonderful sound and ran off the side in silver streaks. I was finally back in Africa.

Blooming Poinsettia

My friend Patrick was waiting with my car and we headed off to Rondo Retreat in Kakamega where I planned to spend the night to try to kill the jetlag. First though we drove through Kisumu city center to catch an A.T.M. machine. Kisumu is on the shores of Lake Victoria and has been in the news lately bearing the brunt of the civil unrest after Decembers elections along with nearby Eldoret. The streets of Kisumu, like any Kenyan town, are usually bustling with people spilling from sidewalks into the roadway but that day they were eerily absent, as was the traffic. A few gathered here and there with bewildered expressions standing outside burnt out buildings. The occasional burnt out shell of a car or matatu van littered the streets but at the same time it all seemed peaceful.

Happy Old Lady

Rondo in the Kakamega forest seemed a million miles away when we finally arrived an hour later. The rain had relented, driven away, replaced by cyan sky. The lawn was now littered with pink blossoms fallen from towering trees and the poinsettia were in full bloom. I dragged a chair onto the veranda of my room, ordered tea and settled into my book. Soon I drifted off to sleep.

I can handle this

The next day I set off for Kitale, a couple of hours drive away. Again the absence of other vehicles on the road was the only indication that there had been trouble here recently. Occasionally I saw women standing chatting behind their stalls selling fruits, vegetables and used clothing. A couple of guys working in a bicycle repair shop and next door a man making furniture. People were carrying on with their lives, scratching out a living. Once I had to drive around a couple of burning tires in the road but that was the only visible sign I saw of the unrest.

I got this one

I spent my first day back in Kitale calling people, visiting, catching up from where I'd left off last trip. I began the search to buy mattresses for the children's home in Runo and at first it didn't look promising. Supplies coming up from Nairobi are very limited due to restrictions in transport and store owners are cashing in their inventory without restocking as they wait to see how things develop. At the moment I can't buy steel or cement but food is in good supply. By the end of the week though I had managed to purchase 180 mattresses so I was delighted. Yesterday I loaded as many as I could on my trailer and set off for Runo in west Pokot, a hundred and twenty kilometers north.

Kids unload mattresses

Being Saturday not many kids were around when I arrived three hours later but a couple of dozen orphans were there to greet me along with a beaming smile on Samuel's face. An old lady appeared, grabbed my hand with both of hers and said something in her native Pokot language. I couldn't understand her words but her expression communicated what she was saying. Her bony fingers held onto my hand for a long time, words of gratitude coming from her mouth, her eyes moistening. I wish I knew her story.

Mattresses arrive

Giggling kids soon unloaded the mattresses and stored them in the building. Since we can't build steel bed frames for now Samuel has organized for 200 beds to be made in the traditional Pokot fashion of weaving sticks together to form a latticed mat. A price of $5 each has been negotiated but more importantly jobs created and now people are busy gathering materials from the bush. The beds should be ready in two weeks.

Pink Blossoms

We try to feed the kids lunch each day when school is in session at Runo but for the past couple of months there has been no food supplied by the U.N. World Food Program. With an estimated 250,000 displaced people in Kenya now there is little hope of supplies in the near future. So once again the tireless headmaster Samuel went to work and secured 10 bags of maize stored in a small posha mill at a village close by. My trailer now unloaded we set off to carry them but when we arrived found there were actually 26 bags. I managed to buy the whole lot for $500 and hauled them back to Runo in two loads. That will feed 300 kids for a month, there are 400 in the school.

Hauling Maize

Time still remained for us to lay out the foundation for the clinic building which we will build within the next few months at Runo God willing. Fortunately the steel columns and trusses I had fabricated and delivered to site last year. Bricks have also been made on site. Hopefully soon tensions in Kenya will simmer down and the anarchy subside, allowing supplies to reach us so the building can be finished without much delay, we'll see.

It had been a successful day and I left Runo and headed back up the escarpment of the great Rift Valley, encouraged, more hopeful. At a couple of police check points on the way back I joked a little with the police there and although they did check my vehicle a bit more thoroughly than usual this time, they joked back with me. They waved me through with a salute and a smile. The heat of the day gave way to a cool breeze as the sun began to set. I made it back by nightfall, tired but satisfied I took a shower, washed the sweat and dust away before I ate and crashed into bed. I never felt more in His grasp.