I’m not sure I’ve ever been this hot in my life! Our team, down to nineteen from twenty-five, headed for Garissa, Kenya on April 6th. We left early in the morning and arrived in the small town around lunchtime, only to find that our contacts had not pre-arranged transportation for us. We stood around like animals in the zoo, forming a barricade around our belongings, while the town’s people moved in to get a look at the “wazungu”–white people. For over an hour the primarily Somalian culture lingered throughout our group, making the situation a bit tense for many of our team memebers. Honestly, it didn’t bother me too much because I’ve received this kind of attention from curious onlookers in many places around the world, but it would have been nice to get out to our site rather than stand there.
After many hours of waiting around once we reached the church, we were finally taken out to the site were we would be staying, called Anoles. It is almost twenty-five miles out of town, and located in the middle of the desert. The sun was setting in gorgeous color as we drove down the sandy path further from civilization and deeper in to the “bush.” I had never seen anything like it in my life. There was nothing out there except shrubbery, a few desert animals, and a couple of tiny communities every so often. The temperature was barely tolerable, but I’m always up for new adventures.
Many of our team spent the night outside because it was a bit more bearable than the heat in our mud house. The animals came out at night, though, so it made me a bit leery. One of the nights, a hyena came about three feet from Mark’s head before some of the other guys noticed it and chased it away. Almost every morning we were greeted by donkeys or camels. It was pretty surreal.
Outside of the heat and lack of water (no showers of any sort for five days), the setting was gorgeous, and I would have loved to spend more time there. Pray for rain for this community. Pray for messengers of the gospel to reach this primarily Muslim area of Kenya.
