Here are a few pics that will catch y’all up on the first phase after our arrival to Kenya.  We’ll end this first set of pics arriving onto the airstrip for the beginning of our Safari at Samburu. We’ll share our AWESOME time on Safari in our next post!  OMG.  So much more to come … What a first week it has been !

Seems impossible that it’s only been a week since we arrived here in Kenya! This may be the most we’ve ever packed into one week’s time.  How can it only be 7 days??  Since we have only had internet (and some limitations on charging all of our devices), we’re trying to figure out the best way to catch you up on the past AMAZING week since arriving in Kenya.

The flight from Nashville was no short hop, but we made the 25+ hour trek fine …  After almost having a heart attack running from our 1 hour delayed arrival to catch the flight to Amsterdam from Detroit, we made the connection by the skin of our teeth … literally !  Unfortunately our checked baggage did not have any teeth, so although we made it to Nairobi as scheduled, our bags did not.  Fortunately this thought had entered our minds before leaving, so our carry on backpacks did have our essentials just in case !

We arrived into Nairobi last Tuesday night and didn’t make it to the Mayfield House where we were staying until around midnight …  can you say tired?  But we were so thankful to be in Kenya safe and sound.  Our next day was spent trying to navigate making sure that our baggage would arrive the next day as we only had one more night in Nairobi before flying out to Samburu for our Safari.  We were praying hard for the arrival of all of our belongings this day as we were leaving Nairobi and not returning until the very end of our trip in over 3 weeks.  And the night of our arrival when trying to report the delayed baggage at the airport, it was quickly apparent that we weren’t in Kansas anymore !

We also found a short window of time on our 1st day in Nairobi to take a long walk along the main road just up the dirt side lane where the Mayfield House was located.  Turned out we were in a very bustling area of the city not far from City Center.  Lots of roadside merchants and we were in a center for many Medical Hospitals, clinics, etc.  There were many curriers of sorts on bicycles with transportation talents that we had never seen before!  On our first day in Kenya we were quickly aware that we were definitely in a very different country than we were used to.

We noticed people staring at us a lot as we passed on the sidewalk.  We knew that it couldn’t be because we were white.  So the only thing I could deduce was that they had just never seen two white scruffy nomads before !

God continued to watch after us during the day and here’s what happened about our delayed luggage.  Before the trip, my brother, Kevin, reached out to a good friend of his who lives in Nairobi and told me to contact him if time permitted so we could meet.  As usual, I was flying by the seat of my pants and had not yet contacted him and here we were in Nairobi for one day.  On a whim, after our walk I sent Andy an email. The next thing we knew, he and his driver were picking us up for a “night on the town” and he so kindly offered to take us back for the late night airport run to help us navigate retrieving our bags that were supposed to be coming in on a 10pm flight from Amsterdam.  We were staying positive, trusting God, and eager to have those bags in hand again ! And God had sent us a Nairobi bar hopping angel named Andy !  Our night out with Andy turned into a very late night as we were awake after having time and sleep confusion after our long flight from America.  It was so cool to get to see more of Nairobi than just the walk we had taken earlier in the afternoon. Of course, we had to be up early the next morning to get to the smaller airport to catch our small plane to Samburu!

So were off and running in Kenya …  The Mayfield House was a great place to begin our journey and orientation to the new country and culture we were about to be immersed in for the next few weeks …

We are writing to you all from Nyeri Town where we are now with Rosemary Kumunya, our friend who started her own Nursing School here,  the WAKA School of Nursing.  Once we catch y’all up to present time, we’ll explain more about the project we’re working on here and why we came in the first place … It’s a great story and will be directly related to the rest of our time here in Kenya!

Kuwakaribisha kwa Kenya, Y’all !  (Welcome to Kenya) 

– Two Wide Eyed, Enlightened Scruffy Nomads 

Karole Sessums