Saturday Road Trip

Spent our Saturday on a road trip. Our tour guide was Jay. Our destinations were many. A short photo essay of our daylong excursion.

Here was a proud tree we stopped to shoot near the Firestone Plantation. 

We stopped by Kenya Airways so Jay could buy a ticket to Freetown, Sierra Leone for the week after Tim and I depart. Similar to the protocols for Ebola, six years earlier, businesses have water washing stations outside their frontdoors. Use before entering. 

Acquired coffee and tea at Kaldi's Koffee in the Royal Grand Hotel. This cat slunk around us looking for food. 

Right next to Kaldi's is Mako's Fruit, serving a variety of juices and smoothies. This will be my new go-to place when we hit Kaldi's. I had a mango/pineapple/watermelon/papaya juice. 

We stopped at The Hub for minty tea.

We (Jay) made new friends. These three just finished a Saturday morning of school and were chillin'. On Jay's kindness, we bought them and four other young people sitting nearby each a drink of their choice.

 

Next stop, an auto yard to get the front right fender of our Toyota tightened up so it would stop rattling. This industrious young man drove one screw into the upper end. When Jay pointed out it was loose near the bottom, this same resourceful mechanic removed a screw that was holding his flip-flop strap and drove it into the fender. Problem solved. 

An exposed engine block.

Three mechanics teaming up on a repair.

Entrance to the auto-yard, which was located across the street from the heavily guarded house of the vice-president. This means any cameras and pictures are very much forbidden. All shots of the car repair lot were taken surreptitiously. 

Roadside traveler

We drove into the rural areas past the airport. Along the way, we stopped at a tiny roadside village market so Jay could buy a snack. The snack he had his mind set on was smoked, spiced, baby crawfish. These are caught and prepared by resourceful boys who sell them on the side of the road. They put five or six in a bag and knot it, ready for sale. 

When we slowed down and began pulling off the road, a flood of boys and men rushed the car. In addition to the crawfish, available for sale were fruit and a sort of homemade wine in used liter water bottles. Needless to say, Jay was interested only in protein. We ended up with a bunch of snack baggies filled with spicy, crunchy, tasty crawfish.       

Many shelters and fences are made with these shiny tin sheets. 

Visited a young man who Jay is mentoring. He was a workshop attendee from Wednedsay. His name is Elvis. We spent some time with him and his girlfriend Sandra in their house. This shot was just outside their house. 

Wall pump outside of Elvis's home.

Another good day complete.

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