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An African adventure
One of my favourite things about TeakDoor is the travel tales, so I thought I would have a bash at it.
Four years ago my brother took his family to Kenya on safari and whilst there went off the beaten track and came across small villages with extreme poverty, when he came home he decided he had to do something and we started to look how we could help. with a little research my brother found an Irish priest who lived with a small hill tribe called Pokot. we got in touch with him and learned about what he has done and his plans for the future, we will cover all that through the course of the thread. we have been raising money since then with events and fundraisers in our local area.
Anyway myself my brother and 2 others made a trip last halloween to see what we were raising money for, I have to say its the most amazing experience of my life so far.
We flew into Nairobi and were met by David(the irish priest) who took us to our hotel, he told us to get a good nights sleep as it was a tough 8 hour drive in the morning to our destination and after a couple of nightcaps thats what we did.
We got up around 6.30 had breakfast and loaded up the truck and set on our merry way. It was a misty rainy morning very similar to a shitty morning at home in Ireland, i thought i had taken the wrong clothes with me for the trip but david assured us we didn't, Nairobi is 5000ft above sea level so the mornings are quite damp, we were to climb another 3000ft on our mornings trip. Nairobi is a lot like any other big city but as soon as you get outside the city it is a lot less modern.
these first group of pictures were taken from a moving pick-up so excuse the quality
the road was very good at this point and had little groups of buildings close to the road
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Its pretty green here and there were lots of cattle grazing and crops planted
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as we got further the markets started to fill up.
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The rain finally stopped, the clouds lifted and we began to see around us a bit better, quite the view, this is around 8000ft above sea level.
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when the rain stopped the dust started and we started our decent
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the weather was clearing up now and we decided to stretch our legs at the Equator, which consisted of a few shacks selling trinkets and a sign that read"you are now on the Equator" I thought they would have at least had a starbucks!
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a couple of locals up to take a look at the funny looking white men
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we chatted to the local women for a bit had a look round and set off again armed to the teeth with wood carvings, treasure boxes and necklaces ready for anything
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The road was still pretty good at this point, a few pot holes here and there but not too bad, the land around us turned red and the lush landscapes were replaced by clay and cactus plants. The photos are quite deceptive, the green you see is trees and thorny bushes
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we arrived in Eldoret around midday and stopped for a bite to eat and to re-fuel.
Eldoret looked very much like a wild west town with shops made from leaning bits of tin together with dirt roads, lots of goats and people around,
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we had some lunch in the restaurant at the local hotel(i only call it a restaurant and hotel cause thats what it said on the sign) Don't know what I ate but I know it didn't taste like any meat I have eaten before.
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great stuff mate! (i'd green but i've shelled out too many in the last 24 hours)
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Good start...like you I always enjoy these travel reports...
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We stocked up in Eldoret and split into 2 trucks as this was the difficult part of the journey and the end of terra firma.
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the dirt track cut its way through the bush and brought us to this dryed up river bed
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David told us this was pretty dangerous and that flash floods happen regular and have torn down the bridge and swept trucks awayhttps://teakdoor.com/Gallery/albums/u...C_0176.JPG.jpg
the bridge got washed away a couple of years ago and was never repaired, looks like it could have been a pretty prosporous area at some point, quite a lot of dwellings around the bridgehttps://teakdoor.com/Gallery/albums/u...C_0178.JPG.jpg
After we crossed the river the roads got really bad and we were basically driving over a mountain, our trusty steed
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The road was pretty much like this for the next 3 hours, rough rocks and dirthttps://teakdoor.com/Gallery/albums/u...C_0200.JPG.jpg
after being tossed about a pickup for a few hours we came over the crest of the mountain and were faced with a view i don't think i will ever forget, in the distance we could see our destination, barpello village on the edge of the Rift Valley, photo's and video really don't do it justice.
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next part tomorrow when we have a look at Pokot life.............................
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After a night of scary jungle noises we got up for our first look around Barpello,
this is the view that greeted us
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the hi tech piece of equipment on the left is a solar oven, a wooden box with 2 sheets of glass on top, stick you dinner in there in the morning and it slow cooks all day
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Our first visit for the day was to Barpello primary school, a Government run school with 303 students fro the age of 5 to 15(late starters).
This place is very run down and in need of some attention
This is the old kitchen that blew down in a storm
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this is a makeshift kitchen to feed all the students when food is available
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Primary school can be pretty exausting
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there were 3 main buildings that made up the school housing 7 classrooms and a staff room, the wind was lifting the tin roof and making a lot of noise
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There have been less than 30 white people to have ever visited this area because it is so isolated, we were quite the attraction(freakshow)
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Mate I'm off there next week, although off to the coast. Beat me to it. :)
Great stuff. Always love a traveller's tale :)
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As this is the jungle some of the kids have to travel a long way to come to school, so a lot of the kids board.
25 boys sleep and cook for themselves in this small room
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A tiny suitcase for the term
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Teachers in the staff room
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Our visit was big news for the Kids and they had lined up some entertainment that they had been practicing for a couple of weeks.
we all gathered round
some of the parents
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Some didn't like to come too close
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the kids came out and showed us a traditional dance, it was similar to a haka. they wore bells on their ankles, stamped their feet and chanted, amazing thing to see.
the guy in the white led them
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This lasted for about 45 minutes, then it was our turn to entertain them. we had a guitar, violin, tin whistle and a bodhran and played them some irish jigs and reels, they hadn't seen instruments like these before so they were wide eyed at the sight of them.
I noticed these 2 kids trying to sneak up for a look, I found out later that they were painted up like this because someone in their family was or had been sick
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these kids were very well mannered and keen to learn, something you don't see where I am from that often. they don't have much, well anything really but thats the way they have always been so don't know any different. their smiles were very infectious
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well I got my eyes opened that morning
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we waved good bye and pushed on...........................
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I have some video that is quite interesting, can videos be enbedded in this part of the forum, ans how do you do it??
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^You can now, they need to be under 10mb and wmv format, just click "Post Reply", "attachment manage" and upload, if you need a video convertor I can send you one.
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Thanks, I'll let you know about the convertor, i will have to chop the video up a bit first.
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Great pics Flash. It's always lovely to see pics of kids having fun, and the scenic ones were pretty good too.
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Thank God for Africans, at least it gives the Thais someone to feel superior to :)
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Thanks flash love these threads beautiful pics of the kids.
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WK - if you're off to Mombasa, keep your cock in your pants. :)
Love the pics - thanks
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thanks for your comments
back to the story
After the primary School we went to visit the medical centre, I didn't really like taking photo's inside as there were sick babies and upset mothers.
David started the medical programme 9 years ago and has been very successful. when he started infant mortality was 2 in 10 babies survived, today 8 out of 10 are surviving, and amazing achivement i'm sure you will agree. With more babies surviving now it creates the problem of their population growing at a much higher rate with a lot more mouths to feed.
this is where patients have to stay overnight
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This is the kitchen
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Pretty basic stuff
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you really have captured the feel of this place in your pics got me wanting to go now.
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it was hot, the smart people stayed in the shade
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this blind man had walked a good distance to meet us too
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It was our turn then to entertain.............
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I think Irish dancing might be the next bit thing in Chepturu
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thats a blurred me in the background dancing(without being totally shit faced)
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this kid never dreamed such moves were possible
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this one just liked the camera
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and the dancing continuedhttps://teakdoor.com/Gallery/albums/u...C_0821.JPG.jpg
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we then all sat down to have a chat, we thanked eachother for the entertainment then the old lady above(the one who walked 35k/m) told us about the problems they faced each day. It was at this point that i became a bit overwhelmed by everything. these people were placing a lot of hope in us and I starting feeling a bit concerned about letting them down. their biggest problem was clean water, david told us about 80% of illness in the area was due to drinking dirty water, since our trip we have got fresh clean water piped to their village, one thing of a very big list. its nice to see positive things happening.
I think we shook hands with every single person there before leaving, of course they had a song to keep us safe on our way.
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with just time to show the kids their pictures
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this is one of my favourite photo's of my trip.
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felt a little sad leaving Chepturu
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Thats all for today. hope i'm not boring you.
next we will visit the camel compound, the camels were walked 1600 kilometers from the Somalian border................................
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^certainly not boring to me mate.
Cheers for all the hard work
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Fascinating thread, and surely rewarding to see your kindness is tangibly helping these people. :)
