A longish day of driving. A truck with the bikes. Two vans with bikers and others of us. A jeep with baggage and more people. And Michaell and Lisa have arrived in Nairobi and will fly to join us in the morning, here in Kisumu, to begin the "trek". We make 7 stops tomorrow. Some are at schools, some are shopping areas, and some are just brief rest stops, I believe. The distance to cover tomorrow is only 52 km, but with all the stops it will be a long day.
The area we are in is centered with a city called Eldoret. It is the area where much of the violence happened after the last election, in 2007. The next election is set for 2012 and the country is fearful. When I asked one rider, whose name is Pablo (he is also an artist) why the violence was centered in this area, he said that people know clearly with Maasai land begins and ends, and they know clearly where Kikuyu land begins and ends. And they compete for power, for influence. They are very conscious of who they are. All of the community groups seem to have a strong ethnic centeredness. The violence, said Pablo, did not have directly to do with the differences though; it had to do with the groups following the inciting "iinstructions" of their leaders, who tend, he said, to take advantage of the differences that are there. And so, they began to kill each other. We hope that with this Cycle for Life adventure, we can meet people, drop the walls between us a little bit lower, perhaps have a few less answers for each other, but a greater commitment to getting to know each other.
Went with Cindy Klassen to meet a group from a Canadian church here this evening. They are going out to evangelize tomorrow, and in the days to come. They prayed for our cyclists and we prayed for their work as well.
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