27/11: Plan in Tharaka

The breakfast more than made up for this place’s price, if I come here again I won’t eat dinner to have more room for breakfast. My Plan driver, Bedan, was only half an hour late in picking me up from the hotel. Then we started our journey with a quick, though nothing is quick in Nairobi, visit to the Plan office to drop off some papers. After 4.5 hours we were in Marimanti, Tharaka, by then it was 12.30 pm. The program was planned to start at 10 am. How they thought I could make that I don’t know. On the turn-off to Marimanti we had picked up a Peace Corps guy working in the area who wanted to know more about Plan’s work in the area. At first they thought he was with me, but we quickly straightened it out – though he was referred to as my friend for the rest of the day.  I met a few of the staff before I set off with Bedan, Vincent and Kendy. We had two school visits planned for the day. By the time we got to the first one we were three hours late. I could have told them that if they knew it takes 4.5 hours and even if we left on time we still would not have made it there at 10. At the first school there is more than 300 students normally, but as it is a vacation now, I had counted on it being next week, only 30 had shown up for me from class 6 and 7. The school has some nice buildings that Plan has made and also some water tanks because there is no river nearby so they are completely dependent on rainwater. The 30 girls that were there were patiently waiting for me to come and talk with them, but they were painstakingly shy – laughing when I said something, I apparently spoke too fast for them so they needed time to digest. A small group of nine wanted to speak with me more personally. Before I could really speak with them like I wanted to we had to go to the other school. We drove an hour to get there and they had gone home. So I took some pictures and we drove the hour and a half back to Marimanti where we got some late lunch/early dinner. Back at the office they had to clear a few policy issues before we could go as we would be travelling at night. We left there at 6 pm, me with lots of things to tell, but I have to tell them right so wait a little while and wait for them at plan-future.blogspot.com. A little after 9 pm I was at the Blue Post Hotel in Thika, my lodgings for the night. I picked it because it is situated between two falls – Thika fall and Chania fall. I want to go to the fourteen falls which is a little outside of Thika tomorrow. It was nice to go to sleep listening to the sound of the waterfalls.