Our day in the capital

It's 1:30am here in Kenya. Isaac and I are both wide awake even though we went to sleep around 10pm. I think we are both planning on blogging now. I'm not sure why we are keeping the lights off and typing in total darkness.

Anyway, I was woken up yesterday by the Islamic call to prayer blaring over loudspeakers at 5am. After a quick breakfast of pancakes with a couple missionaries from Australia at the Mayfield Guesthouse, we were driven over to another AIM compound for more orientation. The weather was amazing -- sunny and 80 degrees with a light breeze.

Murray and Janet spent the morning giving us a background of the country of Kenya and its culture. Unfortunately, shorts are reserved for boys and prisoners, so I'll be wearing my only pair of jeans the whole month. We had a break at 10am for chai time. We've also been hearing about how people in Kenya interpret meeting times loosely from a Western perspective, but sure seems like everyone shows up on time for tea breaks...

We stopped by a couple shopping malls in downtown Nairobi in the afternoon. The first one was definitely a hot spot for white people, or muzungus (which apparently includes me and Isaac). It was almost like walking around Water Tower on Michigan Avenue except with military guards holding rifles. The second was like a Kenyan Wal-Mart. The combination of crazy drivers, bad traffic and horrible roads make each drive in Nairobi an adventure. Murray says that the way to tell if a Kenyan is driving drunk is by looking for the one person driving straight.

We also took a tour of AIM's airplane fleet at the local airport, which they use to deliver supplies and missionaries to more remote locations. Pretty sweet.

The 40% unemployment rate means we have to stay inside after dinner, so we watched some X-Games snowboarding on a TV in the basement of the guesthouse and finally got around to taking showers. By the way, Isaac and I both haven't shaved since Pearl River and it ain't pretty. Kind of patchy for both of us.

A taxi driver is picking us up at 8:30am tomorrow for the ride up to Kijabe, so looks like the vacation is coming to an end. The hospital is located at 7,000 feet above sea level and overlooks the Rift Valley and Longonot volcano -- hopefully we don't sleep the whole way there and miss the views.