Early to Embu - February 3, 2011 - Thursday

After arriving late the night before, I tiptoed around the room at 6:30 in the morning to avoid waking Shawna and Cheri, who got in much later than I did, and darted down to breakfast. Now, breakfast at the Methodist Inn was fantastic! Knowing what is coming ahead helped me quite a bit to appreciate the amenities that the Methodist Inn offered. For breakfast there was a huge buffet including sausages, fried eggs, cereal, a local porridge (that I later found out you add sugar to. Doh!), and amazing fruit: mango, pineapple, and mango. The mango was straight sugar! I don’t eat mango anywhere but Kenya because there’s so many more flavors and juices in the mangos here. Breakfast was fantastic and I was able to catch up with Kathy, Dr Ed, and Jack, who I had not seen the night before. I was also introduced to Paul, our driver for the week. The drivers are really specatular. They quickly become part of the team and join in with any work or activity we have. In addition, they’re very knowledgeable about the local vegetation, wildlife and landscape. We’ll be driving along and someone will ask ‘Paul, what’s that mountain called’, and he always has an answer! They do so much more than just drive us around.



Kathy, Ed, Antony, Ted, Jack, and Paul at lunch at Issac Walton



We got into the combis and drove about 3 hours to Embu, where we stopped for lunch. On travel days, it seems like there’s only driving and eating, but we were also going to pack in meetings along the way.  On the way to Embu we passed through Mwea, which is the largest rice producing area in Kenya. Apparently their rice is much tastier than anywhere else. Once in Embu we stopped at the Issac Walton Inn and saw these fantastic birds. The males have a great crest on their head. They’re black with white breasts, called the ‘white cheeked hornbill’. Okay for lunch I had the food I had been looking forward to for a year: Chapati, (which is a greasy tortilla but uses a local grain different than the flour we have so it has a flatter quality than the fluffiness of tortillas), Kenyan curry (which tastes different than Indian curry because of what they put the curry on: they use a lot of a potatoes, peas, and carrots), and a Fanta (yes the pure suger yummy British drink).



Prosthetic leg for Amputees made at ADPK in Embu



During lunch we talked with a man from APDK (Association for Physically Disabled Kenyans), which is a government organization that supplies wheelchairs, prosthetic devices, and physiotherapy. After lunch we toured his facility in Embu. Ted, Kathy, Ed, and Jack had toured the Nairobi facility where they manufacture wheelchairs for only $250. The Embu facility was full of very nice occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and other specialists. The most exciting part of this meeting is that APDK will be holding a screening in the town of Mikinduri the following Tuesday for the disabled people’s needs in Mikinduri. If the need is there, they will hold a monthly clinic to assess the disabled, which will allow amputees to get prosthetic devices, referrals for children with club feet and bow legs, those in need to get wheelchairs and much more. Really this is a huge development for Mikinduri whose disabled have been overlooked up until now. We also agreed that a discussion needed to take place between the local community leaders and the organizations that are offering help, so a ‘Shareholders Meeting’ was organized for the Monday before the screening. This was a fantastic meeting where we were able to partner with a group that already has so many services and bring them to the people that we are supporting.

We then drove three hours onto Meru, where we would stay for the night at the Three Steers Hotel. (I slept the whole way so it didn’t seem far at all). We stopped there for lunch on the previous trip and enjoyed the meal immensely. For dinner I enjoyed a beef samosa (ground beef in a deep fried triangular shell), more chapati, curry, and a tusker (a Kenyan beer). If I keep up at this rate, I’ll gain the typical 5 pounds Ted claims he gains on every trip! We had a group discussion concerning all we had learned and how to proceed over dinner.

Meru is the largest town near Mikinduri, and we would consider it a city. Most beneficial: they have Nakumatt, a Kenyan walmart to get all those amenities you forgot or didn’t realize you needed until you got there. We had a quick stop where I tried to grab postcards, nail polish (the only thing I forgot when I left), and a pillow (the pillows in Mikinduri are abysmal: little airplane sized hard foam, which I imagine have bugs in them, though I doubt they do. This year I brought a hypoallergenic pillow cover with the plans of buying a pillow from Nakemat.) I walked out of there with a pillow and some soda as apparently not too many people visit Meru (so they don’t need postcards) and Ted laughed when I mentioned the nail polish. Oh well, I got my pillow! It was a great day!

Summary: We’re within ½ hour of Mikinduri and had a great meeting with ADPK.