Saturday, September 24

Saturday, September 24, 2011 – Nairobi

Well we started the day off with breakfast at The 140 guest house.  This was followed by orientation with Erica who is the manager of the Eastleigh Project.  We learned that Eastleigh is actually a ghetto rather than a slum, because it has real buildings, rather than just tin and cardboard make-shift shelters.   We then drove to the Sarit Center where we purchased hundreds of books for the Eastleigh library.  After spending several hours purchasing over 400 books, we were presented with a register receipt that was five feet long.  Despite our best efforts, we still had 90,000 Ksh left.   

We had a wonderful time in the Textbook Store selecting books and getting to know the staff.  They assigned 2 cashiers to check-out the books.  The owner, his son, the store manager and several customer service clerks had a terrific time with us and were thrilled when we asked to take a group photo with our newly purchased books.  

Our next stop was the Westgate shopping center where we had a quick coffee and desert then proceeded to the Nakamut grocery store (similar to our Walmart) where we purchased some much needed groceries for the home visits that we will make to three families.  We proceeded to fill 3 shopping carts with lots of rice, flour, toothpicks, oil and many other staples which we will pack and take to these Eastleigh families.  We were surprised that all the food for these families totalled approximately $61.00 CAD.  This will make a huge difference to these people who have very little. These shopping trips and expeditions took us to after 6:00 pm.   

Sammy, our driver drove us back to The 140 Guesthouse and the staff helped unload and store our boxes in a spare room.  After a quick freshen-up we walked next door to the Kenny’s where we were served another delicious dinner consisting of beef stew, rice and yummy rich chocolate pudding cake with ice cream.   Thoughts about having an early night completely left our minds once we started chatting and getting to know the Kenny’s better.  At ten thirty we finally hit the sack for the night.