Had No Internet at Kisumu But We Did Have A Little Excitement.....

..... The flight from Kigali was, as I expected, not without problems but I made it here ok and with my entire luggage. The flight to Nairobi was only one hour and we flew over the Rwandan mountains, across part of Lake Victoria and even over a part of the Serengeti Plain before landing. It would have been possible to see Mt. Kilimanjaro except for the cloud cover, which is almost always the case. On my first visit to Africa, when I was flying from Johannesburg to Nairobi, we caught one of those rare days when you can see it from the air and I was sitting on the right side of the plane so I got to see the summit and it does have snow on it.

The flight to Kisumu from Nairobi was only about 45 minutes and I arrived before dark. I was mistaken before, Kisumu is actually north, not south, of Nairobi and sits on the bank of Lake Victoria. In fact, from my room window, I can just see the water and the sunset over the lake every night isbeautiful.

The airport here is very small—we have larger convenience stores in Texas. Literally. After we deplaned, we had to wait on the tarmac for another jet to take off in front of us. Of course, only small jets can access this area. The waiting area for departures is under a large tent.

The Imperial Hotel is not bad. During the British Colonial Period, I’m sure it was a 5-star. Today it is a 3-star but still very adequate. The restaurant is beautiful—fully finished out with teak paneling and planking. There is teak through the hotel, even the outside areas (teak is almost impervious to weathering). The only problem was no Internet.

The first morning I walked around and went downtown. I felt fairly comfortable doing it and didn’t have any problems but there is a considerable tension because of the upcoming elections. Two years ago the elections resulted in rioting and thousands being killed and much of it was here at Kisumu. Kisumu was an important British colonial outpost and I’m sure sixty years ago it was a beautiful and maintained small city. Unfortunately, like most former colonial cities in Africa, today it is run down, dirty and in disrepair.

I walked down past the University of Nairobi branch (again a very small building) and down to the city’s main attraction—the clock tower in the center of the main traffic circle. Sikhs have a strong presence here—obvious by their long beards and turbans—and I went past one of their temples and took a photo. The main street was pretty deserted on Sunday morning, but street venders were already putting out their wares on blankets along the sidewalks.

Odd thing happened again—I ran into someone I knew here. The driver who picked me up at the airport trained with me in 2005 wh
en we were at the US Embassy in Nairobi. He now works up here for the Center for Disease Control.

My students were from Botswana, Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda and Mozambique and were a pretty good group. The only really notable thing we did this week was one day we drove south toward the border of Uganda and visited the village where Obama’s father was from. There wasn’t much there—really poor road with shacks and dirt floors.

I particularly enjoyed the evenings here. Because of the mountains and Lake Victoria, there is a fiery beautiful sunset every evening and I would go up to the bar in the top floor of the hotel around 6:00 and order a pot of mint tea and sit there and watch the sun set across the lake. After that I would go down to the outdoor Victoria Terrace and eat supper. Really an enjoyable end to every day…..

I am posting this from Heathrow Airport in London and will make another post after I get home. There were some interesting things happened towards the end of the job......