Day 5 - Sunday

 

Sunday wouldn't be the same without a trip to church. We went to AGC church in Kitale for a Gospel church service. The service started with some very energetic gospel singing from the worship band. This was completely electrifying and unlike a traditional service in the UK, there were lots of active worship and children joining in with whistles and even a vuvuzela! One of the strangest things was when they were leading a prayer, everyone was joining in with their own prayers out loud and this was quite a strange experience and a little overwhelming as everyone was joining in in their own way.

The pastor then led the sermon for the day with members of the congregation following along with their own bibles but also taking notes about the sermon. I have never seen this before. There were large numbers of people writing in their notebooks taking on board what he was saying. I would be interested to find out what they do with the notes afterwards!

I was asked to introduce our group and tell the congregation about our own mission and what we were doing in Kenya. I spoke to the congregation and said that I have been in their church 5 years ago and that we are carrying on our mission to support the building of classrooms, but more importantly the building of relationships and I invited them to stay and speak to the students and teachers from the group.

After the service, we had lots of people coming and talking to us and taking a few minutes out of their day to just get to know us a little.

After church a bit of downtime in the Karibuni before lunch. I took the opportunity to walk to Anne and Jacob's house. These lovely people invited my group to their home 5 years ago to see their coffee and banana plantation at their house and I wanted to see if we could repeat their very kind and generous offer this year. The half-hour walk to their house was insignificant in comparison to the warm welcome we received when we arrived there. Anne & Jacob remembered hosting us but not me specifically, which was completely forgivable given the time and all that has happened in the last 5 years. They both are lovely people and they showed me and Olly around the plantation giving us a private tour and explaining the process of coffee making, the economics and risks of growing it with so many factors that can affect the overall price of the coffee.  These include the rains during growing, the fermentation process of the been, and the drying and roasting before being graded by a single cup of coffee in Nairobi. The final factor they have no control over is the amount of coffee grown in Brazil! 

They were completely shocked that we had never seen coffee bushes or banana trees before! They very graciously offered to host as many of our students as wanted to come along and see the plantation and even bringing a bus load down was not too much trouble. So after lunch, most of the students joined the walk down to their house and enjoyed a tour of the plantation.

The generosity of these two to share with us their home and give us some of their time is a testament to the welcome we have had during our stay so far. They asked for nothing but to share with us their knowledge and a little glimpse into their lives.

Our evening meal followed by a games evening wrapped up our first weekend in Kenya.