New friend

My daughter Ellie and her boyfriend Andy should, as I type, be somewhere over the United Arab Emirates. I’m sure I’m becoming more paranoid about flight schedules as I grow older. Having experienced a series of delayed flights in and out of Kenya in the course of our most recent visitors’ schedules it gets increasingly difficult to build enough of a margin of error into departure times without losing whole days. It was a little unnerving arriving at Kisumu airport this morning and seeing no evidence of Ellie and Andy’s flight on the departure board. I did manage to see them board the plane and take off, (ten minutes early!)

I had a little time to kill at the airport before my appointment to see the Principal at one of the High Schools in Kisumu. Whenever you sit down for long outside an airport in Kenya you attract taxi drivers touting for business. This is occasionally annoying but they normally back off with good grace if you politely decline their offer. This morning I made a really useful new friend called Bright. Just as I was thinking “I ought to go and find a taxi now”, she approached me and asked if I needed a ride to town. I was surprised, as every other taxi driver I have used has been a guy. She offered to take me to Kisumu for significantly less than the usual fare. Chatting to her on the way to my appointment it turned out that she had been a taxi driver since the year 2000 having previously been employed by a bank. Being an enterprising woman she decided to set up in her own taxi business when she finished working for the bank and now has a number of regular clients who prefer her to the other taxi drivers in Kisumu. I can understand why. She is the politest driver I have driven with in all of our time in Kenya, showing great courtesy to other road users and making a point of driving carefully. In Kenya that gives her at least two USPs, (Unique Selling Points). I’ve booked her for my next ride to the airport when I travel back to the UK on August 9^th.