A Wild Ride

Today we went to 3 prisons, but the wild ride came in getting there and coming home. It was a two hour ride on the bumpiest road I have ever been on. It was like riding on cobble stones that weren't leveled in the ground. It was so bumpy I hit my head on the roof of the van and scratched it pretty good. Along with that we saw some great animals in there natural habitat. (More about that later with pictures.) We went to the Machakos Main Prison, Machakos Remand Prison and Machakos Women's Prison. There were all at the same location, but separate from each other. I'm having trouble loading the pictures in the right order so I'll just tell you what's going on. Below is the Women's Prison. As you can see there are children. As I said before kids stay with their mother until they are 5 years old. (I don't know what happens after that.) We even had a mother breast feeding right out in the open.

I took these pictures out the van window on the ride home to give you a feel for the terrain in Kenya. I would relate this to a small strip mall, but very shabby. Though this is much better than most as you will see.

This a gas station, but the animal you see in the middle close to the first set of pumps is a cow. Yep there were two of them. Also right after we got by this station we watched a goat go over and drink out of the window washing liquid. Cows and goats are very common walking down the street. Sometimes in the median or crossing the busy highway. Right at this gas station one of the cows started to cross the street and I guess he realized it might be a little dangerous.

This picture shows two people walking on the side of the highway. This is very common. Lots of people walking on the side on the highway.

This is a shot of what we were seeing driving home. Those buildings are not in very good condition.

This is at the men's prison this morning. It was set up like a court yard with rooms on 3 sides where the prisoners stayed. I watched at least 15 men come out of one room. The smoke is coming from the outdoor kitchen which is set up in the middle of the court yard. Lots of smoke while we were there. The item in the middle is a drum that they used while they sang for us. They also had a tamborine and two other instruments I didn't know the names of. All percussion type instruments. This prison actually had a choir and conductor that sang for us. They were very good. They didn't have prison stripes on, so we figured the didn't have to wear them because they were in the choir.

The man on the right is part of our team. He was preaching here and using one of the inmates for an illustration. The man on the left is the translater.

Again the man on the left is the translater and the preacher is a team member. This is Mark Wright, the youth pastor at Arlington. Some of you may have heard me talk about his boys, Seth (2) and Blake (7 mos). The really cute ones that I'm madly in love with. This was taking place at the Remand Prison. I mentioned before these guys haven't been convicted yet, awaiting trial; hence no striped uniforms.

More of the prisoners. We had about a half-dozen new testaments to give away and they were fighting for them. That's something you'd never see in the US.

This is at the Women's Prison again. The girls on the right are singing a song for us. They also had a drum and were very good.

Now the shots below were taken out of the van window on the way to the prisons this morning. The first picture is a school of some sort, I believe. The picture below shows how dirty the landscape is. Someone said this morning they were glad we had littering laws, because if we didn't our landscape would probably l0ok this bad.

This picture on the left shows road side stands. There are hundreds of these as you riding down the road. The next picture is a road side stand of sorts also. Can't really tell what they were selling here.



Here was the highlight of the day. Giraffes. We saws groups of them 3-4 times this morning. They roam like deer do in North Carolina. It was so cool to see them in their natural habitat. We also saw an ostrich, camels, and wildebeest. This about finishes up Saturday. Tomorrow morning we are going to church and we have the afternoon off. Don't know what we'll be doing.

I mentioned yesterday that we had two that were sick. Well the doctor is much better. The other man ended up in the hospital last night dehydrated and his blood sugar skyrocketing. He is home tonight. They determined that he had food poisoning, but he didn't eat anything the same as the doctor. We have narrowed it down to the lettuce he had in his salad. No more lettuce for anyone. Everyone should be back to work by Monday. I did get sunburned pretty bad. It's not because I didn't use the sunscreen. It's the medicine I'm taking, but I'm not about to stop taking it. Just keep us all in your prayers.