Two Saturdays ago, we went to visit this woman: Mama Obama! Also known as Sarah Obama, Barack Obama’s grandmother. We woke up ready to leave Busia at 8am, so we could visit Kogelo and leave before the rains came (it’s been raining a lot recently! but it is the rainy season, after all..). The plan was to be in Kogelo at 10, leave by noon, reach Kisumu by 2pm. Well.. we were picked up late (by Jimmy, top right, Busia tech guy and former resident of Kogelo - his uncle is the current chief of Mama Sarah’s village), we went on a wild [goat] chase that ended with a gift of soap + flour instead of mnyama due to wazungu price inflation, and we ended up at Mama Sarah’s house around 3pm. We had to sign in with guards at the gate, showing ID [I had left my passport at home but luckily had a business card that they accepted], and then we just wandered over to a nice shady area under a tree where chairs were set up. Sila was the lead speaker for our group, but we all went around and introduced ourselves and said where we were from. Later we all shook Sarah’s hand and took pictures :) In the above photo, I’m holding a picture of Sarah and Barack, age 25, from one of his visits. It was really adorable.

We left just as the rain started to come, then headed to Kisumu. It seemed like we would reach Kisumu by 5… but then just outside the city we got stuck! All of the incoming traffic was stopped because the presidential motorcade was on its way to the airport - there had been a funeral for an MP earlier in the day, so President Kibaki and other important people were there. We got out of the car and waited for awhile, saw the president’s car pass by… basically, it was a very patriotic day?

We had a good dinner at Duke of Breeze, where I finally met a few OAF people, then went dancing at Octopus! The most ridiculous moment of the evening was when they raffled off the bicycle that usually hangs in the middle of the dance floor - people spin the wheels, it’s funny, etc. Our entry receipts were our raffle tickets… and after a lot of calling numbers of people who had left, BASTIEN won! We went crazy, he gave an acceptance speech, there are really funny pictures of us doing victory dances…. And to cap off a fun night, Eric and I were later awarded mugs (that say Coffee Coffee Coffee Coffee x a lot). For what, we are not quite sure. But we were damn proud.

So that was last weekend! Quite a contrast to this past working weekend. Ah well!