You want to buy a purse? I give you a good price.

It’s Saturday today, the last official day of the tour. This morning, Corrie Lynn and I went for breakfast with Stefan Lutz and his wife (I can’t remember her name) and their son Oliver. We ate at the Java House. Stefan works for CRWRC in Kenya. We had an interesting discussion about his views on food aid, the challenges with CFGB and the tied aid regulations, etc.

After breakfast, they dropped us off at the village market. It was a little expensive, so we didn’t buy much, but I did buy a few dresses for the girls.

We took a taxi downtown to the High Court market. It’s not a regular market – just set up on Saturdays in a parking lot. It was fairly intense being there – a lot of high pressure sales tactics. Some people work on your sympathy – saying they need to feed their kids – others work on guilt. Most are very skilful at convincing you that you really MUST buy their stuff. It’s really hard to say no. Even when you say no, they try to convince you to come back again later. I bought a fair bit of stuff – mostly gifts.

We got worn out from the heat and the high pressure sales, and so we looked for a place to sit down for a cool drink. Even on a Saturday, the streets of downtown Nairobi are packed with people. It was hard to manoeuvre ourselves through the crowds. And everywhere there were beggars, trying to appeal to our sympathies. I can shut most of it out – I’ve gotten kind of used to that in downtown Winnipeg – but what bothered me were the small children out on the street begging. Some were no older than Nikki and Julie. It’s hard to believe there is any future for kids who already have to resort to begging.

We took the bus back to Church Road and walked to the Hampton House. Everyone else was packing up their things. We hung out with them for awhile until they were ready to leave for the airport, and then we walked to the Mennonite Guest House for supper. Now, it’s only Dan, Corrie Lynn and I left.

After supper, I sat on Corrie Lynn’s bed and watched her pack, and then we went to relax in the sitting room for awhile.