Sacrifice For A Better Tomorrow

"Sacrifice for a better tomorrow" 

    - one of the many signs 

Last night we ran into some trouble. It all started when we went to dinner at the Kiboko Bay Resort to witness the beautiful sunset over Lake Victoria. After enjoying the scenery and hearty food, we left to head back to our hotel. Of course, by this time it was dark outside. We noticed our driver Peter was driving faster than usual but didn't think much of it at the time. When we got to the hotel, we realized why.

We had just pulled into our hotel compound and parked. As we look up and prepare to get out, we notice the watchman that had opened the gate for us zooming past the front of our van toward the hotel. Looking back the other way we see that only one side of the gate was closed. Suddenly we hear Natalya scream "PETER! GUN!" and see that through the open side, two gunmen are running in towards us. They surround our van and start banging on the windows telling us to open them. The back of the van where most of us were sitting was locked, but they opened the front two doors and took Natalya's bag and Peter's wallet. At this point we realize it would be best to just cooperate. We let them open the van door, and gave them whatever they asked for. Less than a minute later, they were gone.

Many of us lost our phone, wallet, or both. But luckily, nothing more important was in the van or on us at the time. And most importantly, none of us were hurt. We immediately called the local police, US Embassy, and International SOS to report what had happened. We also called our banks to cancel all our cards. Earlier the watchman had pulled the alarm, so the police had already been alerted and were on the scene very quickly, within a few minutes. They took down all our information and assured us that we were safe and will remain under their protection for the remainder of our stay.

Unfortunately, our stay will not last much longer. With many lost cards and little cash left, we decided the best strategy would be to return home as soon as possible. However, we are not aborting the project. We will leave the management of construction in the hands of another capable engineer and one of Peter Odour's friends here in Kisumu, Jared, and the school Principal Gregory and Chairman of the WatSan Simon. We met with Jared this morning, and were glad to hear that he would take on this challenge and oversee the completion of the project. Tomorrow, we will visit the community in Kolunje for the last time and give Jared a rundown of everything yet to be done. We will also give everyone a crash course on the maintenance of the system, and leave them Operations and Maintenance Manuals. Peter, Gregory, and Simon have agreed to send us pictures of every stage of construction, and we are very confident that they will see it through to completion.

Also this morning, the police came back to dust our van for fingerprints. They also had to take our fingerprints to make sure they didn't mistake our prints for the robbers'. We also drove down to the police station to give official statements. We each also looked at a lineup of suspects and were asked if we could identify anyone from the night before, The police have actually arrested one guy with a motorbike who they are very confident was involved.

We will update you all one more time from Kenya tomorrow night, with everything we discuss in the village. See you soon!