EPILOG OF OUR AFRICAN ADVENTURE
Greetings family and friends,
We have arrived home and therefore conclude our African Adventure. Our trip home was long and tiring. We spent nearly 30 hours in travel status at airports and in planes. The long trip from Frankfurt to Denver was really tough. We were chasing the Sun, which was nice as it stayed daylight the whole way but we were in the center seats of the huge 747 aircraft. It was not easy to see anything outside. Another situation was that there were 6 babies in our economy section. It seemed that one or two were awake and crying during the 9 hour flight. We wanted noise canceling headphones! Someday it would be nice to travel in first class, especially in one of these massive aircrafts. The crew of Lufthansa was great throughout the trip and did what they could to help the parents of the babies and to provide good food and free drinks for the rest of us.
During the flight we were able to review our journals and relive our wonderful time in Ethiopia and Kenya. What fun it was to travel through Ethiopia with our friends, Bob and Nancy Sturtevant, and to have Ethiopian Rift Valley Tours be our guides. Jonas and his various drivers were great. With them we saw areas and museums highlighting the beginnings of humanity and early the early Christian Church. Then there were the Semien Mountains and Bale National Parks which presented unique and threatened animals and natural resources. It was also a privilege to visit and socialize with so many Peace Corps volunteers through Bob and Nancy. What a challenge these volunteers have in performing their assignments but also in adapting to really challenging living conditions. Ethiopia is noted for its coffee and we took advantage of that as often as we could by having our “chai-bunna” (tea-coffee) stops at local coffee shops nearly every morning and afternoon.
Our Kenyan safari took us to many National Parks in southern and central Kenya. Yes, we were able to see the Big 5 (Elephant, Lion, Leopard, Water Buffalo and Black Rhino). We learned a lot about the flora and fauna through our guide, Isaac. He was a wealth of information. Sadly, my brain couldn’t retain it all, even information about the trees. Experiencing the life on a rural farm in the Kenyan Highlands was most interesting. It is hard to imagine day to day life without electricity but that is the way it is with the majority of farmers. Isaac showed us some of his efforts to be progressive with a manure digester which provides methane gas for cooking and lanterns and a small solar panel to charge his cell phones. It was interesting to note that major businesses in the villages are stores which do quick charges for cell phones and car batteries. I think many people use 12 volt lights in their homes and need to have their batteries recharged if they don’t have a solar panel like Isaac. Isaac is also doing his part to promote "agroforestry" techniques with his neighbors on their farms so they don't have to use the community forest to harvest wood for cooking and charcoal.
Finally we spent a week in the Nairobi area seeing the activities of one of our church’s Global Ministries missionary, Phyllis Byrd. We are so happy she was able to give of her time and to allow us to join a group of Young Adult Volunteers from the Presbyterian Church, USA. We saw some major social justice issues during that final week of our African Adventure. By the time we left Kenya, we were ready to reconnect with conditions back home. I think everyone, especially young people, should spend some time in a developing country. It becomes an experience of “relativity.” How fortunate we are compared to many others. Just the simple fact of having clean water and air is such a privilege.
We were retrieved at the Denver airport by our friends, Dean and Eva, and we made back home to our abode on Atwood Ct., Fort Collins. We were very tired but we still managed to sort our mail and listen to the phone messages before going to bed. Surprisingly, I was wide awake again at 3 am and spent about two hours on the computer addressing the various Emails that accumulated.
Later....It has been a week since getting home. Marcia has adjusted well. I'm still struggling with the time. I'm awake at 3 or 4 am. We have gotten back into our routines again as well. Meetings, repairs projects, winterizing, sorting through photos, etc, etc. We've already had requests for giving talks about this trip. It will be great to relive our African Adventure each time we give a talk.
Thanks for coming along on our trip though it was through email.
Phil and Marcia..
