We're finally here!

Wow, 19 hours in the air and 10,557 miles traveled and we’re finally in Kenya! We zipped through airport security at every airport, actually enjoyed our layovers in Detroit and Amsterdam and the airline meals were plentiful and pretty good! The best part of the long flight was flying over the Sahara Desert; miles and miles of golden sand - it was incredible! We were very relieved when we got through customs in Nairobi and saw a Kenyan man holding a sign that read “Tamara x 3”. He helped us get checked in to the Shalom Guest Hotel with our 6 huge duffel bags and our first night in Nairobi was uneventful as we schlepped our heavy bags up the stairs and passed out in our cozy little beds.

We finally met our host Dr. Bishop Kamau and his wife in person after 3 months of email communication. He is incredibly nice and provided an orientation and tentative itinerary for our time here. He thought we might like to rest after our long flight, but we were ready to see Nairobi! So after a tour of Cornerstone Faith Assembly, we hit the ground running; exchanging our dollars into Kenya shillings and visiting the Giraffe center where Ryana kissed a giraffe. Well, technically, the giraffe licked the nugget of food out of her mouth with his enormously long tongue, but it’s more fun to call it a kiss.

We saw a sign for the Kazuri Bead Factory and stopped there for a tour. It was a beautiful and peaceful place where single moms from the slums work to feed their families and make a living. It was very cool watching the whole process from the raw clay rocks to the finished product. We bought items they made in the factory to help support those single moms!

We visited the Karen Blixen museum (the author of Out of Africa) which was a gorgeous house on manicured grounds and then we dined on local African food that was very delicious.

Back at our hotel, we enjoyed cappuccinos in the cozy little restaurant and played with a little grey kitten that was wandering about. It was an absolutely wonderful day!