Day One

It is 9:00pm in Kuria, Kenya. I have just finished my first day here [Edit: A power outage last night made it so that this was posted a day late].

Yesterday and the day before and the day before the day before were a kaleidoscope of tires and tickets, wings and waiting. 51 hours, 23 minutes and 43 seconds to be exact, door to door. Which, for people whose backs do not like extended periods of sitting, was quite uncomfortable. But if you think about it, is a pretty incredibly short time. Getting to a remote village on the opposite side of the world is no small matter.

But after a long and restorative sleep (my first under a mosquito net (or if you're an insider, an Insecticide Treated Net, an ITN), it has begun. I spent the morning with Jake, a farm boy turned Marine who has decided now to spend his life in the service of the poor. We walked accros the district, from one end to the other, looking at the corn that Nuru had helped to bring to pass. It's staggering to compare: Nuru corn is ~7-8 feet while non-Nuru farmers barely come up to my waist. The words from "Oklahoma!" are perfectly appropriate:

The corn is as high as an elephant's eye
And it looks like it's climbing right up to the sky

Oh what a beautiful morning
Oh what a beautiful day
I've got a beautiful feeling
Everything's going my way

Following that, Chris (Water and Sanitation leader) took me on a pikipiki (motorcycle) around in a circle around the town. I got to sit in on one of his meetings (wherein I was hit hard by a bout of jet lag and just about lost consciousness).

The beauty of this land is difficult to describe. Hills roll, covered with yellow and green corn stalks. Those few pieces of land which remain uncultivated host a wide variety of strange and wonderful trees and plants. The road was an orange cut through the green, worn and twisted from the heavy traffic on a dirt road.

The only thing that was more inspiring about the land was the people who till it. The Kurians are an incredible people. I have seen variances in how friendly people are on the street. But there was not a person we passed in the street who did not warmly and sincerely greet us. I met most of the Community Development Committee, the full-time Nuru staff in Kenya. These, too, were incredible people: hardworking and ambitious for those they serve. Perhaps most entertaining was cries of "muzungu" coming from elated children who rarely see white people.

To top off a wonderful day, there was a thunderstorm right as we got home. This had the benefit of being awesome, but the disadvantage of making the power go out.

Overall, I have done my best to learn the geography, people and language. For example, I learned that to say "hello" in Kikurian: "mbuya" which is pronounced almost exactly like "boo-yah" as we say in English slang. Unfortunately, I have been largely unsuccessful in becoming a master of Nuru, Kuria and Kurians in a day. Perhaps tomorrow will yield better results.