The Road to Thika!!

Today we ventured on our first major drive. We travelled on the new super highway to Thika (I’ll come back to that in a minute!!) Thika is home to 2 Salvation Army Schools for the physically disabled (Joytown) and a School for the Visually Impaired.  It also houses a vocation centre for young women and the Officers Training College. However the purpose of our visit was for the final festival of the music school. The week had been led by a delegation from the Kenya Trust (UK) and their inspirational leader and trustee Territorial Envoy Ken Clark.  It was a great final festival and the standard of music was very high. I thoroughly enjoyed the day. For me, highlights included the timbrel group with no timbrels, the Trombone Ensemble playing and singing Cairo Red Shield (sounds a bit corny but to see the heartfelt way in which the guys sang and played was a real blessing) and two of the band pieces (There’s no one like Jesus and Praise Party).

The trombone ensemble.....

The timbrel group with no timbrels!

Band complete with sousaphone!

The band in full flow

It was a three hour festival and a number of people highlighted that the time length was not bad for an African meeting such as this. The only dissenting voice was Luke, who comment that it was “a really long Army for a little boy like me” was fairly perceptive.

Now, I come back to the road; a superhighway. A super highway = 3 lanes and my understanding is that it is supposed to mirror a motorway from back home. HOWEVER, where it differs is that this particular superhighway has no road markings but does have speed bumps, zebra crossing, people sitting at the side of the road, the occasional car coming head on towards you and numerous diversions. Quite frankly it is crazy, crazy, crazy!!