7. August 23, 1967 In Africa

August 23, 1967
Dear Jim, Patsy, Becky, Shirley, and Jimmy,
    Greetings form Africa! We were delayed two hours taking off last Wednesday and arrived here in Nairobi at 2 am Nairobi time. I don't know what time New York time, we were all too weary to care. The Ministry of Education gave us a nice welcome, took pictures, hurried us through customs and loaded us into a bus to travel the ten miles from the airport to the city. Then got us rooms in a hotel and by 3 am we were all in bed asleep, all ten families. The other families had been taken to Uganda and Tanzania on the way to  Nairobi. We were the last group.
    The help in the hotel was greatly disturbed because most of us slept clear through until supper time, and they couldn't carry on the usual routine of making beds and so forth. We have two rooms across the hall from each other. Milt and Frank and I in one, the girls in the other. Ours has a bathroom, theirs a sink. Everything is very old and rather nondescript. The floors are pine and waxed so slick they are dangerous, and they squeak when rubber soles walk on them. The drinking water is in a jug on the dresser. The room service man has a hard time keeping enough water for us to drink! We eat all our meals here in the hotel. The Ministry of Education is paying our board and room until Tuesday, when we are picked up by the people from Kigari College, seven miles out of Embu. The food leaves much to be desired. It's mostly English type, however, we did have Lobster Thermidor tonight that was really good. 
    In spite of what I implied in the beginning, the plane ride was very nice. We had plenty of room to move in, no extra seats, but a little area up front where you could sit and visit or play cards. We had plenty of good food and all sixty children behaved themselves very well, considering! We all "flew" for the first two nights here!
    Today we did a little sight seeing and went out to Kenyatta College to see the houses where the six families who are stationed there will be living. I'm really glad we are "up-country". The houses were nice but close to each other and just like town.
    We have yet to buy a car...have looked but it is discouraging. We must get a refrigerator too, a gas one, as electricity will not be a twenty-four hour thing until January or so. 
    Our air freight arrived this morning. When we left JFK airport we could see the box still sitting on the loading pier. They ran out of baggage room and had to send it and a lot of others on another plane.
    We have been shopping around Nairobi some. It is hard to get used to crossing the streets as all the traffic comes from the wrong way! It is even funnier to see cars going along with the passenger doing the driving!
    Yesterday we toured the Nairobi National Park in a bus. We saw baboons, wart hogs, giraffe, ostrich, several kinds of antelope, zebra and a pride of nine lions eating something they had killed. It was quite a thrill as even the lions allowed the bus to come very close. Frank took some good pictures. 
    All for now. Love, Barb



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