A few photos from Kenya.

I am glad for the discussion that has been happening here. It has been helpful to me to hear other perspectives and I hope that it is useful to others as well. The trip was not all discord and pain. It also included a lot of visiting. The North American Friends spent 4 days visiting hospitals and schools in western Kenya and eastern Uganda. I had my camera with me but I am not much of a photo-journalist. Here are a few pictures that might give a taste of Western Kenya.


We arrived in Nairobi on Saturday night and on Sunday afternoon flew out to Kisumu. Here we are waiting for our luggage at the Kisumu airport.


And here is the luggage being unloaded from the plane. When they finished unloading the plane they pulled the cart by hand to the terminal. One advantage of this low tech baggage handling was that we left a week later there were several planes that left ahead of ours. There were no announcements but we knew it was time for us to board when they pulled the cart with our luggage away from the terminal.


We had dinner overlooking Lake Victoria at sunset. This was a spot where hippos were common but since December these water hyacinths, which float in mats on the water, have blown into the bay and driven the hippos away.


Africa is just filled with incredible juxtapositions. This is the market on the edge of Kisumu. The billboard says "Live on the Coke side of life."


And even for someone from New England, this is some seriously rocky land.

The shops in Kenya often have names that would not have occured to us wazungu (Swahili for white people). This store is at the Kakamega market. As the song says, "All God's children got shoes." And this must be where they get them.
One last commercial note. Many of the shops have large advertising signs on them. Sometimes the whole shop or block of shops are painted in a theme by an advertiser. The shopkeepers get a free paint job. It is like the Mail Pouch Tobacco signs that used to be a staple on American barns. On the side of this building is a condom ad. These ads are a very visible reminder of how AIDS has affected Kenya.

And this was just a pretty flowering bush at the Bishop Stam Conference Center where we stayed and had our meetings. This was February. It was cold when we left for Africa and it snowed when we got back. But it is not winter everywhere.

I may post more pictures later.

God is good, all the time.

Will T