Farewell to Moi University and to Kenya

This will be my last blog posting for a while.  I leave Moi University and Eldoret this evening, and Kenya on Wednesday evening.  It has been quite a ride.  I was sitting in my empty bedroom this morning, thinking about the first time Evan and I saw the house that we have been staying in, and thinking "there is no way I can do this."  But, it got easier, and then normal, and finally it became okay.  The stay here in Kenya has been amazing on so many levels.  The people, the places, the challenges.  Just incredible.  Leaving here will be bittersweet, and I am completely convinced that my relationship to this country and east Africa is not at an end.

I decided to end with some shots of a place we visited briefly in Nairobi.  It was after closing, and we had to convince the guard to let us in, but we did.  Karen Blixen's house, which I plan on returning to this week, has a special meaning for me because of Out of Africa, both the movie and the book.  I realize that this movie really made me think of the possibilities of traveling to east Africa.  And to read the opening words of the book, and hear them spoken by Meryl Streep, "I had a farm in Africa, in the Ngong Hills," still makes my eyes well up, as they are doing now.  Simple and beautiful, and simply beautiful, as has been so much of my stay here in Kenya.

The front entrance to her house.

A view of the veranda, where Blixen used to sit.

A side view of the house.  It isn't huge, by any stretch, but beautiful.

A view of the grounds.

Another part of the grounds.  By this point, its getting dark, and time to leave.

That's me, in front of the house, as night begins to fall.  A farewell, at least for now, to Kenya.