Yesterday

So, yesterday I woke up at 5:15 and was out the door by 5:30.  Why you ask?  Well, I was going with Patrick (the driver) the pay the taxes in a small town over two hours away.  It's like driving to Sacramento to pay your taxes in person.  A little bit crazy.  But it was a beautiful drive.  Rural Kenya is quite stunning.  The open grasslands are golden and spotted with small, prickly acacia trees.  There were large dark clouds overhead,a nd yet the morning sun was shining through, and the bougenvelia was blooming.  And then we had an excellent breakfast, a necessary part of any good day.  I had two fresh simosas (small triangular pastries stuffed with spicy beef and onion), a fresh mandazi (I would describe a mandazi as a croissant crossed with a pita bread) eaten with two fried eggs.  Not exactly Paleo, I know, I know, but sometimes you have to make exceptions in order to really experience a place and it's culture through food.
We went from there to deliver the taxes and then started on our way home.  But nothing in Kenya ever goes as planned.  Only about 15 minutes in to our journey home we were pulled over, not because we were doing anything wrong, but because the police man wanted us to take a woman and her baby girl into the nearby town to go to the hospital.  The baby, Anne was her name, was apparently sick, with what we never found out.  But let me tell you, little Anne was one of the most adorable babies I have ever seen.  She had a very serious little face, and big, dark, curious eyes.  Beautiful.
And then came the really dramatic moment: the breaks in the truck stopped working and the hood flipped up while we were driving down the freeway.  Luckily, we were quite close to a town where Seeds actually has a house.  So, we put the hood down and drove carefully back to town.  It took some time to fix, but everything was resolved with the car and we were able to return home safely.