We are very lucky that our Friendship Link co-ordinator Jennifer Laute has links with Kenya, as she was able to visit our link SI Kisumu on a recent family holiday. Her husband Upkar wanted to visit Kenya again where he was born, the last time was in August 2000. Here is Jennifer’s account.
We flew with my sister in law to meet up with Upkar’s brother in Nairobi. The route was Nairobi, Mombasa and Makindu. Then we flew to Nairobi in June 2022 and also took the new modern railway to Mombasa, built by the Chinese.
The visit to Kisumu had not been planned as we wanted to understand the logistics and realised it was a reasonable domestic flight from Nairobi. It is located in the west, on Lake Victoria. I made contact with Christine Achola whilst in Mombasa and she was delighted we could make it to Kisumu despite the short notice.
The four of us flew into Kisumu Airport (a delightfully small, clean and green airport) at 8am and were met by 5 Soroptimists (Christine, Bernice, Valerie, Miriam and Barbara) in new roomy cars. After introductions we were driven some 10 miles to The Smiling School which the Winchester club helped set up and have supported for many years. The last mile to the school was a dirt track which many students walk every day.
The Director of the School (Mr Derek Ochieng) the headmistress and 4 staff members had lined up the school children, who greeted us with a welcome song and a solo recitation. We were able to mingle and chat with the staff (who spoke excellent English) and the children with whom my family members spoke in Swahili. Many photographs were taken.
We felt greatly honoured and humbled that the school had arranged for us to plant 2 avocado trees, which they had arranged in the school grounds. A full breakfast was then laid on for us by the school and Soroptimists, followed by cake which was shared with the school children.
Two hours later we left and the Soroptimists drove us to the tourist spot which marks the Equator, and showed us the unusual clockwise and anti-clockwise spinning of the water through the plughole.
We were then driven through Kisumu (a clean, green city without the usual traffic chaos) to a park with a museum. It had displays of Kenyan flora and fauna and paleantology a’ la Dr Leakey. Outside were live tortoises and snake pits. Also there was model Luo village with typical round mud huts, where a native dance troupe had been arranged. Then there was a dance where we could join in.
From the park we drove through a salubrious area of Kisumu to a lakeside restaurant. They had booked tables on an open-sided veranda on stilts above Lake Victoria. The whole party had a fish and vegetable lunch cooked in a local manner, served with Ugali.
The Soroptimists had organised another outing for us after lunch, but because of our early start we were flagging a bit, and everyone was happy to sit above Lake Victoria and chat. I and my sister-in-law were presented with a gift each. My gift (for the Winchester Soroptimists) is a carved black rhino.
At 5pm we were driven to the airport for our flight back to Nairobi.
My overall impression is of friendliness and kindness of our hosts in Kisumu. They went to a lot of trouble and expense, and took days off work, to entertain us in spite of relatively short notice from us.
Long live our Friendship Links. The last project we worked on with SI Kisumu was to build their new school kitchens with safer cooking ovens.