Yesterday, the four of us took a trip to Lari, in the highlands of Kenya to see the conclusion of a week-long bike-trip sponsored by MCC and Lari Memorial Peace Museum. The event included some of our Maasai friends as well as friends from MCC Alberta. The idea was to bike from Kisumu (on lake Victoria) to Lari, creating awareness about HIV/AIDS and talking about the need to build peace in different communities.
For us, the event was a way to get out of the house and try out our baby-handling skills. The girls did fine for the first hour or so, but soon got hungry and frustrated by the wind. Since we were about 2200+ meters (that's 7200+ ft) up it was actually cold (not just Kenyan cold) and windy. So, we retreated to the refuge of our car which was toasty warm with the windows rolled up. Of course, the problem with 4 white people, including 2 white babies, sitting in a car is that within minutes a crowd of children will inevitably come to stare. We had to make good use of our windshield wipers to keep the kids off the car and when we eventually pulled out nearly ran over 3 old women who seemed to think it unimportant to move out the way of cars.
All in all, it was a nice outing. On the way home, we got visit a view point of the Rift Valley, this one even higher than the one we normally stop along. The day was crisp like late autumn at home and was a day to celebrate peace with our Kenyan friends.
Check out the blog of the bike-a-thon here:
http://cycleforlife-buildpeace-stopaids.blogspot.com/
