The first group left at 4:30 AM to go to the hospital and observe surgeries and whatnot, but I didn’t go so the second group headed out a little after 7 AM. Still early, but not as early. It is about a two hour drive from Thika, and the scenery along the way is very interesting, ranging from farmland to market shops to strips of grass with grazing goats or sheep or mules. Kijabe is totally safe, so Jessica, Sarah and I went for a walk to stretch our legs and saw some of the local high schools and some of the local monkeys. :)
Lunch was at the hospital café. It was quite good, I got samosas (beef/veggie filled pastries), a chapatti (a flat, tortilla-like staple), and chai tea. We all skipped out on the matumbos, (cow stomach/innards). Then we walked around to the back of the hospital and saw a missionary graveyard and the ridge overlooking Rift Valley. We circled back to the guest house, and I grabbed my camera and headed out again. Mrs. Rispin met me on the way, and we went into the graveyard to look around and take pictures, and then to the overlook again. Again, it was gorgeous.
During the afternoon we went over to Rift Valley Academy (RVA), a well-known missionary boarding school. We saw a bit of rugby practice, then went straight to the playground at the back. The playground is at Titchie Swot, which translated essentially means Little Kid School. That was the most fun part of the day. It wasn’t like the super safe playgrounds we have in America now, it was actually fun! We climbed trees, bounced on see saws, swung on multiple kinds of swings, and rode a merry-go-round type thing. The pictures describe it better than I ever could, and laughing like that in this clean mountain air after such a long week was fantastic.
We are going to climb one of the local mountains tomorrow, and we are all looking forward to the hike. And because I am in the mood for quotes, (though let’s be real, when am I not?), here is a quote from Moby Dick by Herman Melville that I really enjoy.
“And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he forever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.”
I don’t know exactly what it means, but for a team spending the night in the mountains on the edge of a valley, I feel it is appropriate.