Tea, Stone and Coffee

 Today the group took a tourist day.

 Every morning, we meet for breakfast at 7:30. This morning we had fresh pineapple (delish), eggs and toast as well as red plum jam (which is also delicious.) We didn't spend as much time at breakfast this morning though, because we wanted to get over to see the Chogoria Complex Primary School's morning assembly. We ended up being a little late. (Breakfast is served at 7:30 and the assembly starts at 8. It's a tough squeeze every morning.)

After we watched the morning assembly, I tried to use a couple ATM's. I was unsuccessful. One machine simply wouldn't take my card and the other one would, but it was out of money today.

We headed back to the house just in time to see Tony, our driver for most of the outings we take and a good friend of Chris and Jamestown College, pull up in a land rover, just like the picture posted below. We piled in and took off.

Roads are very interesting in Chogoria. Some are paved, but have HUGE potholes and very large speed bumps. The dirt roads are in bad condition this time of year because of the rain: imagine a prairie trail in North Dakota. (Very bumpy.) And others are paved and perfect. Roads are a process here, just like they are everywhere else in the world.

Tony is a good driver, and the land rover handles the roads pretty well, but the drive was a rough one.

We reached the stone quarry first. It is HUGE. Massive walls of the hill have already been carved away leaving a gaping hole in the ground that fills with water sometimes. The stones are all cut from hand. Stones from that quarry are used all over the district to build houses, schools and churches. The guide who showed us the operation also took us to see a nearby waterfall. In order to get to the waterfall we had to cross a bridge that was pretty rickety. Some of the boards were bending under the lightest member's weight, but the view was worth it.

On our way back to the land rover, our guide was telling us that it is dangerous work to cut rock. During the rainy season especially, the rock can become unstable and rock slides are not unheard of. He told us one happened that killed seven workers. Another larger one happend, but luckily it happened at night.

Jacie standing next to stones that were almost as tall as she was!

Hannah and Abby in the back of the landrover. The scenery was so beautiful, we stared out the windows most of the time.

The men who work there walk around in bare feet and scale the rock walls very quickly. Some of us had trouble even in our tennis shoes.

Then we headed to the tea factory where we learned about the process and a little bit about the chemistry of harvesting and producing tea. Kenya only drinks 2% of the tea they produce and they drink tea up to three times a day. We had tea time before we left the tea factory, which kind of served as our lunch.

Our last stop was the coffee factory, which was a much different place. Instead of the machines we saw in the tea factory, the sorting and moving of the coffee is all done by hand and with water. The racks of coffee drying were very impressive, but very pale. None of the roasting takes place at that factory, so they ship it to Nairobi to be processed.

This is what coffee beans look like before they are roasted, while laying on drying racks in the sun.