“Our Accommodations”

Jen and Dave Bell, our team leaders, and their son Nate had rooms in the larger of the two homes on the estate. They would be remaining in Nairobi as fulltime missionaries, so needed a place they could truly call home. The rest of our team stayed in the main lodge.

I shared a second floor bedroom with Kari, Amanda and Brie. Val was next door with Michelle and Sarah. Downstairs, Jon and Cathy Reese had a bedroom to themselves. Their son Carson was next door with Brandon and his father Geoff.

As I already said, each of the bedrooms had its own bathroom. Though we had running water, we were constantly reminded to conserve it as much as we could. Military showers were mandatory. Also, to save energy, each room had its own small hot water heater. We were instructed to turn it on 20 minutes prior to taking a shower and then to remember to turn it off afterwards. Also, none of the tap water was safe to drink, so we each had one of those huge bottled water jugs in our room for drinking water and to brush our teeth.

The HEART compound was also about the only place in Kenya with conventional toilets with toilet seats and toilet paper. I have lots of bathroom stories to share as we go along on our journey.

Your first Swahili language lesson: choo - a Kenya bathroom, but think of an outhouse, whether it is outside or inside. Rhymes with "show", hence the phrase we used throughout the trip - "It's choo time"