Kenya Day 4

I slept in until 8am, had a shower and breakfast and put on a shirt and tie (no jacket). I made it to the office in under 15 minutes, which was very convenient. The office was warm and Peter the advocate gave me a breakdown of what work the CLEAR Kisumu office carries out. Due to the time of the year and lack of funding, most of the prison visits and legal education have finished; hence I am bound to the office much more.

I was given a recent criminal case to read to in order to get a feel of what goes on. Nothing is typed and instead hand written so I was unable to understand what was happening until Peter explained. This caused a mini crisis in my head and sent me into a period of worry – would I struggle to understand everything here just because the writing is illegible? In addition, the office did not have wireless and so I am unable to use my mac for anything but word processing during the day. Also, there doesn’t seem to be any work for me to do and I’ve been left (for the time being) to wait. This has been a steep learning curve moving into an African office despite being warned! I continue to remind myself of why I am here and ask God for patience and contentment until things pick up.

The afternoon was much better as I bought something to eat and worked through some documents, which outlined more of the work carried out in the office. I decided to just go with the pace of the office and maybe devote more time to learning the local languages.

On the way home I stopped at the supermarket to get various items. Tonight I knew I was coming home to an empty flat for the first time so was prepared. I read a little and attempted to get connected to the internet but to no avail. Lillian was still there when I got back so we chatted for a while. I cooked pasta, sausages and mixed vegetables which made me feel ill. Bed early as I have a criminal case to attend in court at 9am.