I had my visa for Kenya.
The plane flew over the Sudan.  I tried to pick out the ancient rivers cut into the mountainous rock, but at this height it all looked like a child’s drawing, reassuringly a happy place.
Closer to Kenya, near Ethopia, we flew through a yellowish fog, as if a huge desert had risen to greet us.  Clouds lay like sleeping animals beneath a pale moon.  It was dark now, almost ten o’clock, with only a ribbon of white lights seperating the blackness as we descended into Nairobi.
As I walked across the tarmac towards a bus jammed with people the anxiety I had been carrying during the whole time I was preparing for this trip came back.  Will I really be able to live in a small Massai hut in the remote village of Kilgoris with no clean water and only a latrine to relieve myself?  I only had a moment to think about this as the bus stopped and we were at customs.  A huge USA Red Cross tent!
I waited in the tent, dimly lit by lantern as hundreds of people lined up in lines so thick I couldn’t tell which line to stand in.  I chose the one that seemed to be moving faster.  After what seemed like an hour I was at the head of the line and a man with a large serious face leaned over a table and quickly checked my passport and visa.  He passed it to a cheerful young man that leapt to his feet as he handed the seious man a rubber stamp he had been holding.  It looked as if the young man would burst into tears as the older, serious looking man shook his head and frowned.  He looked at the table and then looked at me absently.
“Are you here as a tourist?”
“Oh, yes, yes.”
“What is your problem?”
“Er, I have no problem?”
He thought about this for some moments as he read my passport again.  “Then you are in the wrong line. You need to be there.”  He pointed to the line next to me where most people stood.  By now it was almost 11pm and I hadn’t slept but for a few hours for two days and I was overwhelmed.  “But can’t you just stamp it?”
He again thought about this for many moments, stroking his neat beard.  He looked very serious and frowned at me, but scrawled some notes on a piece of paper and handed it to the cheerful young man.
“He will stamp your passport.”
Before I could thank him in my halting Swahili, he called out next and handed the stamp to the young man who cheerfully stamped my passport and I went through the tent flaps.
The other passsengers were all rushing to another tent and I followed them to  where thousands of pieces of luggage were strewn about.  I groaned and then couldn’t help but laugh at the sight even as I thought I might have to wait until every suitcase was claimed before I found my non-descript small black case.  But this trip was a trip of miracles. I found my two cases near one another after stumbling over about fifty other cases.  As I rolled my two cases out of the tent, I walked towards a great crowd of people standing in front of cars, buses, vans, trucks, bikes, all strewn about like the luggage in a huge dirt parking lot where no one seemed to know how to park.
The night air was balmy and as I rolled my case along the line of people holding signs I searched for one with my name on it. People rushed around me pushing and dragging all kinds of luggage.  Most of them seemed to be very tall.
“Taxi, hotel, hotel.  Change, change.”
I pushed my way through, clutching the handles of my luggage as hands grabbed at it.  “Porter, Porter,” men shouted, their faces eager.
“Let me help you.”
“No,” I said, worrying the man would run off with my bags.
He insisted and within moments, he picked up one of the cases.  I didn’t know what to do and was relieved when I spotted someone with a small sign that had my name on it.
“Where’s your driver?”
“Over there.”

“Hurry, hurry,” the tall, very dark man that was my driver motioned for us.
Driving through the streets without lights, confusion all around me.  Handcarts bumped over cobblestone, motor bikes revved and stirred up dust on dirt roads, while palm trees, their long leaves outlined in the darkness seemed strewn about with artful carelessness.  The smell of sweat and cigarettes and dust filled the air along with a damp, lemony smell that would become familiar to me.  I wondered at the hint of lemon.  I wonder still.

Here I was, body and soul, far away from home with my predictable life left behind.

Starting March 10, Betty’s adventures in Kenya will appear here every week, interspersed with stories written by students at some schools she visited while there.  You can subscribe to this blog by clicking on the email subscription box at the right.