The following day would see us return to Nairobi,
but we could still squeeze in one more job along the way.
We headed South
for about an hour, then West to the Nzoi river. At this Malawe Bridge,
the posts had been fitted, but anchors needed to be set. We were to
help set everything up then leave Freddie, Sylvester and some locals
to finish off. This river has a notorious reputation for taking life
and although the water was low it was still very deep and fast flowing.
One could easy envisage what this river must look like in full spate.
The other side of the river was completely inaccessible
by road, so we had to devise some sort of system to get materials from
one side to the other. Paul had sent for a strong swimmer from the local
community over an hour ago, but there was still no sign. Time was moving
on, we hadn't done anything
yet and we still had a 6 hour drive back to Nairobi. "Are there any
animals living in it?" was my question to Paul. "Apart from a few rats
and a lot of bacteria, err... no!" After double checking with one of
the locals, there was no other option, so off came my trousers. I had
to start a little upstream to allow for the current but once swimming,
adrenalin took over and before I knew it I was across.
The difficult
part was trying to get out the other side, much to the amusement
of my dry friends! Is it only in the RAF that people will find humour
in potentially hazardous situations? As I stumbled and scrambled my way
up the bank I had to suppress a laugh at comments about the over 40's
fitness test and all the girlish giggling coming from the other side!
Eventually we got a line across and in no time at all we had a pulley
and raft system going.
After about 20 minutes a local appeared on my
side of the bank. He arrived by bicycle carrying 3 bags of cement,
can you believe it? When all the materials had been ferried across I
enjoyed my raft trip back to the other side. We said our farewells to
Freddie and Sylvester and headed back to Nairobi.
RAFLO Tony Randerson
had very kindly offered us a night at his house. Tony and his family
made us most welcome and were very generous with their hospitality
for our last night in Kenya. His wife and kids listened with great interest
at our stories of the bush. After perhaps too much beer, we contentedly
settled down into the most comfortable, satisfying and deep slumber...it
was almost over. |
