Mike arrived!

Addendum...Apologies for no posts lately... The internet has been spotty at best since Mike arrived on July 2, and understandably (I hope!) I have had othter things to keep me occupied, since he came, which meant less time looking for internet connections!

A quick note to say that my husband Mike has arrived safe and sound on Kenyan soil, after a couple flight delays... But, nothing out of the ordinary for transcontinental flights, I'm sure!

Luckily I have made a friend who is a travel agent in town, and she managed to switch Mike's internal flight to land at Eldoret (2 hours away) since he had missed his flight to Kitale (10 minutes away!).

I think Kenya, it's transport, the chaos of matatu touts vying for business, the cows on the road, the garbage everywhere, and the sight of a bare-bottomed baby sitting in a pile of maize meant for human consumption has left him wondering just where his dear wife has brought him...But, thank goodness there is still cold Coca-Cola and french fries at easy reach.

Each day seems to be getting a bit better- today he has started using a little notebook to record phrases he learns, and is getting lots of laughs when he tries them out :) A crowd pleaser, for sure!

After a day of rest and 'orientation' to Kitale, Mike joined us in field work, which meant riding public transport- the buses and bicycles- and talking to local farmers. I felt a bit badly for Mike as, amazingly, my Swahili is getting much better, and it is harder for someone who doesn't know the language to follow along on the conversation. Twice I have even conducted the whole interview in Swahili, which was thrilling for me... tough, I was very happy to have my research assistants madly writing notes as I didn't always get EXACTLY what the respondent was saying... that's okay... I could follow along, and we sorted the details later.