Kenya with Thrive Life

Written by Lonny (May 18, 2013)

I am very excited to go to Kenya again. This time I will be going with Jason and Lindsay Budge, and Steve and Amy Palmer, the founders of Shelf Reliance that has grown to be Thrive Life. Alan Silva from The Institute for Self Reliant Agriculture, SRA, will be going with us also. It is a wonderful group!

We started our journey learning another lesson about travel. Double check and make sure your names is exactly the same on your passport and your tickets. One of our group had her middle name listed on one and  her maiden name as her middle name on the other. They had to change the tickets which led to a long story that will probably be funny but now is just painful.

In Amsterdam we also met up with Alan for our long flight to Nairobi. Leah met us at the airport with John, our driver. The battery was dead on the car so we asked around until we found someone with "jumper cables" (they were really just two lengths of heavy wire that we held against the battery posts). After the car started the guy with the cables wanted me to pay him. I have learned to defer to my native counterpart who understands the culture and knows what is appropriate. Leah gave him about 300 Kenyan Shillings ($3.5) to share as he saw fit with the crowd that had gathered to help. It was one of those times that I wish that I understood the language. It appeared that some of them were discontent with how it all happened. I have helped dozens of people start their cars with jumper cables and have never accepted anything but thanks.

We stayed at the Nayali Hotel in Mombasa. The parking attendant had Leah pull into a spot that only had about a foot on each side of the car. I had to crawl to the back seat to be able to squeeze out of the car. In spite of the parking attendants confusion as to how to turn the wheel Leah was able to drive in and then back out the next morning.

As I walked down to the beach passed the swimming pool, I was almost wishing that I had scheduled a few hours extra in the morning to relax at the hotel. It was raining but there were still several people enjoying the beach.

We had a very nice buffet style breakfast in the hotel. Marty and Angela from Aqua Culture without Frontier joined our expedition group. They will look at the water situation and give us recommendations on how to better utilize the water that is here. They also can give us ideas of using fish ponds in some of the areas.

Leah and Amy picked up Steve at the airport to complete our group. We should get the last of the luggage at the airport tomorrow. We know that it finally arrived in Mombasa. Travel tip #2: always put a change of clothes in your carry on in case your bags don't arrive when you do.We look forward to a great expedition in spite of a few set backs to start it off.