Mt. Longonat

Planning for any youth event in Kenya is significantly more challenging than in the United States.  Today, we took a hiking trip to Mt. Longonat with the youth, which would seem to be a relatively simple event with little or no room for complications, or so I thought.  It is safe to say that I am completely exhausted tonight after the day’s events.  The few main tasks in planning this hiking event are relatively simple when in the United States, but they are definitely not so here.  My first task was to arrange transport and determine the cost of the trip.  Pastor Habib and I contacted a few people and worked out a deal with one of our church members, who owns a matatu (public transportation van).  We were given a price of 300 shillings per person and reserved 2 matatus for Friday.    I inquired whether there would be any other expenses and was told that there was no entrance fee to Mt. Longonat so we set the price for the youth to be 300 per person.  Nicole and I planned to provide breakfast for the day, which of course is chai and bread.  We decided to have the youth pack their own lunch.  My second task was to announce the details to the youth at church and have them sign up.  On Sunday, after we made the announcement and had the youth sign up, the church member informed me that they could no longer provide transport for 300 per person but could do it for 400.  I talked with Habib, and we decided that the church would supplement the remaining since we had already told the youth 300.  I then was informed that there was a 200 shilling entry fee for Mt. Longonat and that some people lit the mountain on fire because they were angry with the government and that the park had been burning for 4 days.  Luckily, it rained the next few days to put out the fire.  A few days later, on Thursday, which was the day before we were leaving, I received a call at about 9 PM stating that one of the matatus was in Nairobi and would not be back until 9 AM the following day.  We needed to leave by 7 so we had a big problem.  I then talked with the owner, who assured me that the Matatu was coming back Thursday night instead now so it could be ready by 6:30 AM Friday.  I then discovered that our other reserved Matatu was headed for the Masai Mara.  Another big problem.  The problems continued for another 2 hours until we finally were able to secure another Matatu, but for a price of 450 now per person, which meant we would have to pay our first matatu 450 as well.  Friday morning comes and I have no idea how many youth will actually come because you can never be certain despite having a sign up sheet and calling to confirm with them the night before.  I told them to be at the church no later than 6 AM and that we were leaving at exactly 6:30 (I actually had the goal of leaving by 7 because time is very relative here).  The youth finally arrived and were ready to leave at  7:30.  We had another big problem though.  One of our promised matatu was still in Nairobi and could not come, thus we needed 18 seats and only had 14 available.  Luckily, we had a missionary’s car that was available, so we took that as well.  Habib also informed me that the other matatu that had arrived was refusing to take us now unless we paid 500 per person.  AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  We finally left at 7:30 and of course, some of the youth did not bring any lunch, so the youth leaders in the front Matatu, without being kind enough to let me know (I was in the car), told the driver to pull in to a near by grocery in Nakuru so the youth could pick up some lunch.  I assumed we were just picking up our other youth member in town, as we had planned.  We then had someone, not sure who he was, take the licenses of our two drivers and refused to return them until we paid him a 500 shilling bribe because we were “parked illegally.”  I am not sure what exactly transpired after the matatu driver and I began negotiating with this man (most of the conversation was in Swahili).  One of the youth then told me that things were taken care of, whatever that means.  I am not sure if the driver paid the bribe or not, but we left after about an hour of delay.  So we finally reached Mt. Longonat.  Margie and I, the two wazungu (white people), also discovered that we were being charged 8 times the amount of the Kenyans.  Since Margie didn’t have her residency papers with her and I have not yet gotten approved, we were forced to pay the extra charge.  I also had to supply each youth with a bottle of water, since most did not think to bring water when hiking one of the highest mountains in the rift valley (I figured they would forget).  We ate breakfast and began our ascent at about 11 AM, about 2 hours later than when I planned, which meant that we were joined by the sun’s most intense rays as we climbed.    Somehow, we managed to get everyone up and down the mountain and returned safely.  As my wife and I like to say often to each other, “Nothing is easy in Kenya.” The youth did have a great time and were able to bond well during the trip so that’s what is important. ~Jeremy