Namanga Trip

Namanga is a town on the boarder of Kenya and Tanzania. Grace has been wanting to take a trip there with all the kids for some time. She came up with the idea to combine a trip to Namanga with a women’s conference for African Inland Church that was being held in Bisil about 50 km from the boarder.

If you’ve ever heard the expression if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. You have a pretty clear picture of our travel adventure. Grace had planned to leave Ngong at 9 a.m.

At 8:30 a.m. I called her and the vehicle she hired had not arrived. That was not a good sign because the vehicle is parked just down the road from them in Kimuga. When it finally did arrive, the driver didn’t think he had enough gas to get to Ngong. So Grace called and ask me to send my piki piki driver down with petrol. When he finally met with them on the road, the driver had neglected to tell Grace that the vehicle used diesel. The vehicle however did make it to Ngong. Grace called and told me to meet them at the Kibiko stage because the driver was getting gas. The driver had not gone to a gas station because the matatu did not have a proper gas tank. It was jeri-rigged under the driver’s seat! So after waiting for 15 minutes we were on the road in this highly illegal and dangerous vehicle! We stopped for snacks and water at the Tuskys, a new chain grocery store on the way to Kiserian where this matatu would leave us and we would hire another one from Kiserian to Namanga. Grace wanted to negociate with the present driver to take us further but I said it was unsafe for us to go any further in the death trap matatu!

We secured another matatu in short order in Kiserian and were on our way again. After transerfering the eight high school girls and all our luggage, including blankets which were not provided at the conference.

In Oolitokitok (yes, that’s the name of the town it’s a Maasai name), a man on the side of the road yelled to the matatu and pointed at our tire. Sure enough it was dead flat. We were there for another half an hour while we waited for another matatu to come from the same company so we could continue to Namanga. 

The matatu took us to AIC church in Namanga where we were luckily enough to have a local missionary (he works with the muslims in the area) to walk us across the boarder. No paperwork, just lunch in Tanzania and pictures by the “you are entering” signs. The Tanzania shilling is really low right now. For $23.75 USD we bought 12 people lunch at the Alpha and Omega restaurant! Judie and I agreed as we were leaving that she should go to college there so we can live on the cheap! 

It was a quick tour since it was getting late…not much to see anyway. They are building a new road from the boarder of Tanzania to Arusha. So it was just dusty…lots of stuff had been bulldozed to make room for the road so the no-man’s land between the boarders was truly that.

We got back to AIC and piled into the matatu and Grace told me the driver wanted more money…they always do this about this time in the journey. I held my ground and they got paid what was originally agreed to. They see my white skin and even though their money is not green they know mine is and all of the sudden all they see are dollar signs. My budget doesn’t have wiggle room… and doesn’t abide whiney matatu drivers!

We had dropped our luggage off at AIC church in Bisil, so we stopped there and picked it up and headed to Bisil Secondary School where the conference was to take place. Bisil is a desolate but beautiful place.

When we were handed a conference schedule, I knew I was going to be in for a very boring four days. The schedule was entirely in Swahili, which meant none of the sessions would be held in English. There were a lot of Maasai women there too, so that meant everything would be translated into Maasai, which means everything takes twice as long.

The first order of business was to find a place to sleep. We were taken to a dorm and told to find a bunk and a mattress. We did our best. Most of the bottom bunks were taken. I found a top bunk in a corner by a window.  Judie took the one parallel to mine. There was not enough room for all the bunk beds in the room so some of them were pushed up against one another. A Maasai woman took the bunk next to Judie’s that had no space between it and Judie’s and another Maasai woman shared it with her so that Judie only got 2/3 of her bed to sleep on.

The bathroom was huge but there was no running water, so you had to carry water from an outside tank to bathe. We used the mattresses and the buckets that were the property of the high school girls who boarded there. I feel bad for them. How will those girls every find their things!

You were not allowed to poop in the indoor toilets (which were just squat toilets), you had to use the choo outside, which was really disgusting.

The conference was not well organized. They did not take pre-registration so they didn’t have a good idea of how many people were coming so some people had to sleep on the floor in a classroom and the first night they did not have enough food to go around.

The pastor from Bisil AIC Church came to welcome the women on the second day and told them (as there had been complaints about the quality and lack of food) that they had not come there to eat but to pray! Enough said about that!

By Saturday morning I had had enough and went to find Grace during breakfast…(there was not a hall to meet or eat in so we ate outside or on our bunks and met in a building that was under construction without a roof); and asked her if I could please leave because I wanted to attend my church in Karen on Sunday so I could hear the word of God in my language. She said yes and I took Judie and came home.

Judie’s last words to me as I said good night to her on Saturday night were, “thanks for taking me with you Mom!”

Grace meant well by inviting me…but this was one event she needn’t have included me. I did by the way have a marvelous time at Karen Vineyard Church on Sunday! Everyone needs community. Grace has hers at AIC and I have mine at KVC. No one said, we all need to be apart of the same community…believers come in all shapes and colors and speak different languages. Finding a place where you belong, where just being there makes you feel better, that’s what fellowship is all about. I’m so incredibly blessed to have found that here in my adopted home.

 Self-portrait at AIC Women's Conference.