The beginning of the second week. Monday the 24th of November 2008. The day started out slow. We woke late had a breakfast of boiled eggs and peanut butter sandwiches. Doug and I wanted to go over to the secondary school site and verify a couple of measurements to make sure we didn’t make any mistakes on the survey. Mark went with us and we walked down to the bridge site to see the road the Kenyans had been building. Then we headed up the hill and across a field to the bottom of the 20-acre parcel that David and the Church purchased. We took some bearings and verified some distances then Mark and I showed Doug where the Shoshone (sp?) river comes together with the Kipkaren River. The Shoshone drops a good 30-feet over the last 150 yards producing a series of small cascading water falls. After Doug took some pictures we then headed back to the Training Center ate some lunch and headed into to town to check the progress of the bridge fabrication and then do some shopping.
I can’t say enough how crazy driving in this country is. There are no traffic laws, and if there are they certainly don’t enforce them, no police and most drivers are either way too slow or way too fast. Motorcycles swerve in and out of traffic seeming to have a death wish. Our driver Meeshack lives on the way into town and stops often to pick up friends to give them “lifties.” We drive past his house and he honks as his wife waves from the side of the road. Mark rides shotgun and the rest of us sit on the benches in the back. The roads are a sea of humanity. People are everywhere, even way out in the middle of nowhere. Bikes, carts, tractors, you name it and it is on the road side. We make our way through Turbo, a small roadside town that houses a bunch of roadside shacks and stores. The way the Kenyan government gets people to slow down through the congested parts of the road is to put multiple speed bumps in the highway. Just imaging you are driving up Highway 41, you get to Coarsegold, and there is a bunch of speed bumps in the road. It is crazy. Cattle in the road, u-turns wherever and ill-advised passing are common occurrences on the way to Eldoret.
The City of Eldoret is a swarming mass of humanity. It seems that everybody is outside. There are major intersections with no stoplights or traffic control. Side streets are dirt or gravel and road grading is non-existent. It is wild being the only white people around. Everybody stares at you and looks you up and down. You hear Muzungo’s (white man) whispered from all around. We go into Tusky’s, a large Longs Drugs type department store. Two floors with groceries on the bottom floor and clothes and other miscellaneous stuff on the top floor. There must be 200 people working. On every aisle there a guy just standing there watching for shoplifters. Dress shirts cost about 200 shillings, or about two dollars and 50 cents apiece. The dollar goes a long way here.
Before we went shopping, we stop by Sorens to pick up Ben and my Dad and check out the bridge fabrication. Things are going well, and once inside you see how large the bridge actually is. It looks huge in the shop. Six by six tube steel frame, 95 feet long, and about six feet tall. Soren is going to transport the bridge in four 23-foot long sections. One section on the back of his flat bed truck with a crane and the other one on a trailer with the sides taken off. Soren was planning to leave Eldoret at 4:00 Tuesday morning to beat the traffic and hopefully the possible lorry (large trucks or big rig) inspections.
Apparently, they had some issues lifting the pieces with Soren’s crane and he could not completely lift each piece off the trailer and truck so they did not get going until 6:30. After three and a half hours, they got to the bridge site. However, with Soren not being able to lift each piece completely, things were going to get tricky getting each segment off the truck and trailer. Now, each section weighs in at over 4,000 pounds, so the plan was to use about 40 Kenyans to lift the first section up and set it on the four steel drums with wood blocks. This would allow us to pull the trailer out from under the sections and then use the crane to lower one half down at a time. Things went smooth with the first section and we set it down nice and easy. The next section was a little trickier. We set the steel drums and lifted each side onto the drums. We pulled the truck out, just squeezing the wheels past the drums. However, the drums in the back were a little crooked, as we were on uneven ground. We had to shift the weight in the front with the crane and when we did the rear section shifted and I swear was going to go down, but didn’t. The only was it stayed up was by the hand off God, cause it was the ugliest looking thing I had ever seen. We used the crane to set that end down and then lowered it into position. The Kenyans lifted it into its final position so the two pieces could be welded together. Remember, every time this thing had to be moved it involved about 30 to 40 Kenyan men lifting in unison and sliding it into position. It was impressive to watch the community come out to watch and help put this thing together. Young men came from all over the place to help lift these sections off the truck. David made an impassioned plea for everybody to come out early the next morning to repeat the exercise once again on the next two sections. The welders would also be there to melt this thing together. It was quite a day’s work.
Later that evening we were schedules to have dinner at Cosmas and Helen’s house. They live just on the other side of the road from the training center. They were married about 5 months ago and Cosmas would have loved for us all to be there, but since we couldn’t he had a small celebration for us. He planned to kill a goat, and since Chris was the guest of honor, he had the privilege of killing it. Apparently, there is a specific technique involved when it comes to killing the goat for a feast, but after Chris got back, he said it wasn’t really the case. But, anyway, I won’t go into the details. So, Cosmas and Helen rent a small place, and when I say small, I am not talking about 1,000 square feet or anything. I am talking about 300 square feet at best. Dinner quest included David and Alison, Julie, Mike and Debbie, Doug, Mark, Chris, Peter and myself. They literally had to move all the furniture out of the house to fit us all in for a meal. I have to say it was a very nice intimate time. The food was great, roasted goat, mashed potatoes, cabbage salad, goat stew, and flat bread (can’t remember what it is called). For dessert, orange slices and hot Chai tea with milk. Delicious.
David entertained us with stories of when he, Cosmas, and Peter were boys going through Moran training. Which is a right of passage for young men in this culture where they go out, sleep in the bush, are circumcised, and practice warfare techniques by raiding other camps. The training sends the boys into adulthood. The stories had us laughing and before long, it was off to bed.
The interesting thing about this place is you feel like you are stepping back in time, while at the same time, you get little glimpses into the modern world. Doug used this analogy; Living in the US we can see the future, here they are still in the past, we just need to connect the dots in between. It always makes me smile. We be out walking amongst the homesteads, mud huts with thatched roofs, cooking by wood fires of corn cobs, and then you look up and there is a woman coming out of the hut talking on a Nokia cell phone. Makes you double take every time.
The next two days will be the crux of the whole trip as the final pieces of the bridge will be put together and the big crane will come to lift it into place. Should be interesting.
Check back later to see how everything went. More pics to come......
Thanks
Tim
Before we went shopping, we stop by Sorens to pick up Ben and my Dad and check out the bridge fabrication. Things are going well, and once inside you see how large the bridge actually is. It looks huge in the shop. Six by six tube steel frame, 95 feet long, and about six feet tall. Soren is going to transport the bridge in four 23-foot long sections. One section on the back of his flat bed truck with a crane and the other one on a trailer with the sides taken off. Soren was planning to leave Eldoret at 4:00 Tuesday morning to beat the traffic and hopefully the possible lorry (large trucks or big rig) inspections.
Apparently, they had some issues lifting the pieces with Soren’s crane and he could not completely lift each piece off the trailer and truck so they did not get going until 6:30. After three and a half hours, they got to the bridge site. However, with Soren not being able to lift each piece completely, things were going to get tricky getting each segment off the truck and trailer. Now, each section weighs in at over 4,000 pounds, so the plan was to use about 40 Kenyans to lift the first section up and set it on the four steel drums with wood blocks. This would allow us to pull the trailer out from under the sections and then use the crane to lower one half down at a time. Things went smooth with the first section and we set it down nice and easy. The next section was a little trickier. We set the steel drums and lifted each side onto the drums. We pulled the truck out, just squeezing the wheels past the drums. However, the drums in the back were a little crooked, as we were on uneven ground. We had to shift the weight in the front with the crane and when we did the rear section shifted and I swear was going to go down, but didn’t. The only was it stayed up was by the hand off God, cause it was the ugliest looking thing I had ever seen. We used the crane to set that end down and then lowered it into position. The Kenyans lifted it into its final position so the two pieces could be welded together. Remember, every time this thing had to be moved it involved about 30 to 40 Kenyan men lifting in unison and sliding it into position. It was impressive to watch the community come out to watch and help put this thing together. Young men came from all over the place to help lift these sections off the truck. David made an impassioned plea for everybody to come out early the next morning to repeat the exercise once again on the next two sections. The welders would also be there to melt this thing together. It was quite a day’s work.
Later that evening we were schedules to have dinner at Cosmas and Helen’s house. They live just on the other side of the road from the training center. They were married about 5 months ago and Cosmas would have loved for us all to be there, but since we couldn’t he had a small celebration for us. He planned to kill a goat, and since Chris was the guest of honor, he had the privilege of killing it. Apparently, there is a specific technique involved when it comes to killing the goat for a feast, but after Chris got back, he said it wasn’t really the case. But, anyway, I won’t go into the details. So, Cosmas and Helen rent a small place, and when I say small, I am not talking about 1,000 square feet or anything. I am talking about 300 square feet at best. Dinner quest included David and Alison, Julie, Mike and Debbie, Doug, Mark, Chris, Peter and myself. They literally had to move all the furniture out of the house to fit us all in for a meal. I have to say it was a very nice intimate time. The food was great, roasted goat, mashed potatoes, cabbage salad, goat stew, and flat bread (can’t remember what it is called). For dessert, orange slices and hot Chai tea with milk. Delicious.
David entertained us with stories of when he, Cosmas, and Peter were boys going through Moran training. Which is a right of passage for young men in this culture where they go out, sleep in the bush, are circumcised, and practice warfare techniques by raiding other camps. The training sends the boys into adulthood. The stories had us laughing and before long, it was off to bed.
The interesting thing about this place is you feel like you are stepping back in time, while at the same time, you get little glimpses into the modern world. Doug used this analogy; Living in the US we can see the future, here they are still in the past, we just need to connect the dots in between. It always makes me smile. We be out walking amongst the homesteads, mud huts with thatched roofs, cooking by wood fires of corn cobs, and then you look up and there is a woman coming out of the hut talking on a Nokia cell phone. Makes you double take every time.
The next two days will be the crux of the whole trip as the final pieces of the bridge will be put together and the big crane will come to lift it into place. Should be interesting.
Check back later to see how everything went. More pics to come......
Thanks
Tim
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