Misadventures and Recycled Glass

Sometimes, exhaustion and authenticity are better than easy things.

A month ago, Stephanie and I decided that we wanted to go to Kitengela Glass Studios  about 30 minutes outside of Nairobi while David and the girls were in the States. We plotted, changed things around, and eventually ended up with a group of 5 for the adventure.  It was to be a quiet, much deserved girl’s day, complete with a fancy lunch.

I had the worst call night I have had in Kenya the night before – with kids in shock, preparing a kid for an emergent surgery for a brain tumor, my first kid with end stage AIDS, ventilators not working, desaturating kids’ with heart defects, and no time to rest. I came home once – from 1:13-1:17am, and then was called back to the hospital. So, at 9 am, when I stumbled in the door, I wasn’t sure an epic girl’s day was the best idea, but really didn’t want to miss it.

So I drank some strong coffee from our french press, changed into jeans and my favorite gold flats, and put on eye shadow and mascara, hoping it would hide the exhaustion. We piled into Stephanie’s car and headed to Nairobi.  I am a bit disinhibited when I haven’t slept, and forgot that 4 women might not think it’s normal to make sound effects as we went over the bumps (also known as enormous, continuous pot holes) as we went up the mountain, and they laughed with (at) me as I “b-dom-bummed” our way up the mountain. Everything was uneventful at first, and I dozed as we maneuvered the new bypass to the other side of Nairobi. About 90 minutes into the trip, we all pulled out the map to Kitengela, that included such gems as turning left where there are “zebra, usually”.

We went through an especially congested part of town with lots of donkey carts and motorcycles, and then realized we had passed the 9km marked on the map and had yet to see a sign. Eventually, we stopped and asked directions only to learn we had to turn around to directly backtrack through that part of town to an unmarked turnoff by a strangely named gas station. During this time, we called Kitengela to ask directions and they said, “Oh, and when you get here there is a puddle on the way, just drive through it.” Well, after we left the paved road and pounced around through rocks and pot holes for about 30 minutes, we reached said “puddle”. It was not so much a puddle as a series of  giant ditches filled with a foot of water  from the storms the day before. Suddenly we realized why the website said to call for road conditions. . .

Stephanie brilliantly maneuvered the first 2, but when a car exactly like hers got stuck in the next one, we decided it may be better to park her car in a field and walk the rest of the way. . .we called the place and they assured us we were only a 10 minute walk from the studio. Unfortunately, that 10 minutes was through quick sand like mud in a field of Maasai cows and shepherds. Only Brittany had worn shoes suitable for muddy fields, and I laughed and puzzled a bit as my post-call self played frogger from grass patch to grass patch and watch my gold flats turn completely gray with caked mud as I miscalculated and sunk ankle deep.

By the time we got through the field, Sherri and Steph were barefoot (which in Africa and at a glass factory is not as safe to do as it is in the States. . .) to keep their shoes from being swallowed and all of us were sweaty, very mud splattered, and exhausted. We had arrived about 2 hours after we had planned. At one point, one of the girls I was with exclaimed. . .”I just want something, anything, to be easy. . .”

I forget how much we live under different stress here – where going to the grocery store is 3 hours round trip with multiple police checks and unpredictable traffic,  where getting a new dress for the hospital gala requires an online order and visitors from the states, where getting to the hospital can involve sudden rainstorms and umbrellas, where making chocolate chip cookies involves well timed care packages, where starting at 1 means starting at 1:25 (or later) and where power, internet and water (although better than a lot of places) can disappear without warning.

As we finally walked into Kitengela and started shopping for art and jewelry and hand melted glass, we ran into a few more snag when we realized the coffee shop did not serve lunch and the first bathroom did not have toilet paper – but slowly, surely, the stress melted and we began to take in the beauty of the glass art hanging in the trees and the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the game park. We sat and drank smoothies and started to laugh – and then got a bit giddy when we found the room of floor to ceiling pitchers and vases and wide mouthed glasses that were perfect in their artistic simplicity.

fromwanderingduet.com

Two hours later, we had our bags full of treasure (3 pitchers for water, milk, and homemade salad dressing and glasses for me). After a moment of panic when one of us slipped and fell and twisted her knee, we successfully begged another person’s driver to take us back to our car. He did graciously and refused to let us pay him because he just wanted to help, and we made the trip home completely exhausted but safe, not lost, and with beautiful things.

We had not made it to the fancy restaurant in Nairobi. And when we arrived home we were smelly and mud caked, which was definitely not part of the plan. . . But it was one of my favorite outings in Kenya.

As we came over the mountain on the last stretch of road home, the golden light poured over the mountain, bathing everything in stunning warmth and making even the flying ants seem magical. I felt that I had spent the day with women who were becoming true friends – where frustration and tears were safe and allowed, where unplanned difficulty still ended in beauty and exhausted laughter.

Someday, we will attempt another easy outing that will bring more unpredicted difficulty. But for now, I will relax into the unexpected days that make this beautiful place seem more like home.