Kitale

Kitale- It’s my kind of town!
We arrived in Kitale early Thursday morning, Nov. 1st. We rode on the Coach bus, Alan sat at the aisle seat and I sat at the window seat. Let me tell you about the ride from Nairobi to Kitale. It was rough, I mean really rough! My legs were sore, my back was sore after the ride. I didn’t get any sleep at all. The ride started smoothly at first but after a couple of hours we were on bumpy roads, and this went on and on for a good part of the trip. The bumps are due to the fact that a lot of sections of the road are not paved. The people here will tell you that they ran out of money and so it’s been left that way. Alan went to sleep almost right away, and this was good because I knew he needed the rest as he had been so tired the last 2 days and needed to catch up on his sleep. How he was able to sleep through the ride is beyond me, but Alan will tell you that he can sleep under any circumstances. He was so sound asleep that he would fall leaning to my side, on my left shoulder and sometimes I was pressed close to the window, then when the bus went swaying to the other side, he swayed with it and I had to hang on to his arm for dear life because he would have fallen off his seat. In a way this was a good thing, because I had a purpose on the trip! Life is good when you have a purpose! So somehow the journey came to an end and we were dropped off at the petrol station at 6.00 a.m. I was so relieved the journey had ended. Now I also understand why people take a plane to Eldoret and drive to Kitale from there which is about an hour and a half drive.
My first impression of Kitale is that it is a much cleaner place than Donholm. And I don’t see any slum areas here. There are the same kind of little villages scattered at different intervals along the major road where people have set up their homes and businesses. These are houses with tin roofs, wooden and mud houses, some in a row, some scattered, mud houses and made-shift wooden stalls for selling stuff.
After two days at the “rhino gate house” I became aware that there are no mosquitoes and hardly any flies. We are here for a week now and this fact proof to be true. I like Kitale. The weather is very pleasant, I don’t recall being hot at all. It is actually cold in the morning and I need my sweater.
The town is quite nice, not too many people like in Nairobi or Donholm, there are some street boys but they leave you alone after you tell them to. There are enough restaurants around for you to have a good African meal. Yesterday we went to the Boulevard Restaurant and Alan ordered their daily special, even though he didn’t know what he was ordering, it was all in African terms. And he enjoyed it. I also tried a mouthful of "Kumbe Kumbe" (fried flying termites), it was not bad. For myself I ordered a fried tilapia. I enjoyed it as I was hungry having not eaten too much the last couple of days because of not feeling too well.

Kitale is a small town, from the “rhino gate house” to the city centre it is only 10 minutes away on a “boda -boda” (bicycle taxi that has a seat for you on the rear rack). The first time I got on a “boda boda” was quite frightening, the driver can be going pretty fast, and when they get to the unpaved road it can be quite bumpy too and at these places you hang on tightly to the little handle bars in front of you . Yesterday I rode on a “boda boda” again because it’s just too far to walk to the city centre, and this time it was not so bad a ride. Alan gave the “boda boda” driver a treat by being the driver and giving the driver a ride and then he got paid for the ride as well.

So in spite of the hardship getting here I think Kitale is my kind of town.

Esther