When was the last time you drove to a shopping center (i.e. K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Target etc.)? Did you have to do much planning to get there? Or worrying if there would be police stops along the way? These are just a couple questions we had to (and will again once we move to Kenya in May) consider when driving from Tala to Nairobi.
The first order of business is finding a driver to take us to Nairobi because you want someone you can trust, someone who won’t charge you an exorbitant amount and someone who is a decent driver! Once we found a trustworthy driver, Mutuku, he was our driver throughout our time in Kenya. However, Chuck has his Kenyan drivers license so we will be able to drive to Nairobi by ourselves and eliminate this step, but while we had a driver…
we arrange schedules between us and depending on Mutuku’s schedule it’s probably within the next two to three days. We also have to make sure whatever vehicle Mutuku is using will fit us and our purchases. (When we purchased mattresses in August 2008 for Mercy Child Foundation we had to organize for a large truck to deliver them).
Mutuku comes to the compound as scheduled but with an empty gas tank and asks for shilling (Kenyan currency) to go back into town to put gas in the car! This happened a couple of times until we told him not to show up on empty, we would pay him for the fuel! It took about an hour between coming to the compound, going back into town, getting gas, coming back and picking us up. Plus many times Mutuku would be invited in for tea before leaving to go over details of the trip. Being American we just wanted to leave but by this time we are usually a couple of hours behind schedule and trying to get everything done in Nairobi in one day makes for a very long day and we’d rather get there early to make the most of our time.
Some of the details we go over before leaving are whether Mutuku has heard of any police stops along the way, if there has been trouble along the road or any number of incidences between Tala and Nairobi. It isn’t unusual for police stops but we almost didn’t make our flight out of Kenya in 2008 because of ‘incidences’. A few days before our departure a gang, called Mungiki, (click here for updated information regarding this gang) basically had control of the route between Tala and Nairobi. They were terrorizing matatu (public transportation) drivers and killing citizens and because of that we were having a difficult time finding someone to take us to the airport. Fortunately the violence stopped and we were able to leave Tala safely. God’s hand of protection was certainly on us that trip!