Nairobi, Kenya - Monday & Tuesday, May 30 & 31

I will be catching up on our two week trip to Kenya, as most often we did not have WiFi and those times that we did it was very ineffective.

Our journey, as I previously noted on Sunday May 29th, started early and our connection flight was via Paris.  Our flight was delayed 45 minutes which meant we did not have much time for our connection.   Little did we know that I would end up running through the Paris airport in order to catch our Kenyan Air flight. Lesson learned try to avoid the Paris airport (CDG) if at all possible for any needed connections. Our total trip took about 15 1/2 hours to get to Nairobi. 

Our "driver, travel agent, safari guide and overall great guy" "Big" Ben picked us up and dropped us off at the Fairview Hotel.  It is a beautiful respite in the middle of a very busy and crowded city. While we arrived at night it was very clear that our hotel had a lot of security.  It happens to be across the street from the Israel Embassy.  I never met any Jews in Kenya but maybe there are some their?

Monday (5/30) we had lunch and dinner meetings for GNU Foundation. Beth is a volunteer on the Board of Directors for this small Foundation.  I volunteered to help and attend all the meetings and be "production" for the two day seminar later in the week.

On Tuesday (5/31), we drove to the Haruma slum to visit the Furaha Community Foundation.   Below is a You Tube video to give you an idea of the slum.

BTW Furaha is a Swahili word which means JOY. When we visited the school, which has been in operation for 11 years the kids were amazing.  They were respectful, considerate, kind, thoughtful you can tell how much they appreciate the opportunity to get an education.  They have "baby" classes for kids 3 years old up to 6th grade.  Their school has a 100% pass rate and was rated one of the TOP schools for education in Nairobi.

As you can see they fit about 40 to 45 kids in a space we would have maybe 20 kids.  They have 12 class rooms each about 15 X 15, three on the bottom level and 3 on the top on both sides of the dirt center space.

Below is a video of the older kids in the school doing a dance of appreciation for the funding GNU Foundation has made to help fund the school.

BTW I've traveled to some cities known for their terrible traffic, Mexico City, Cairo, Bangkok and even LA....but never in my life have I experienced traffic like in Nairobi.  What should be a 25 minute drive can take 2 hours.