Well this past week has been quite interesting. We will start with all the fun and then share the boring part.
We went to Sunrise Acres in Eldama Ravine to spend some time away and also with the Davis family. We left on Tuesday morning around 11 am and got to Naivasha around 12:15. At that time we were pulled over for speeding. We will not debate whether we were or not speeding. We were told to wait on the side of the road since we did not have space to take the police officer with us in the car. We had all the seats full with me, Angela and the kids in the back. We called Rich and Stacy and asked them to come and pick up the kids since we did not know what was going to happen. They came and got the kids and took them to Delamere for lunch. Rich and I talked with the officers in Swahili trying to figure out what was going on to no luck though. We told the officers that we had a seat open now and we could go to the police station. Normally when you say that they let you go because they are looking for you to give them a bribe, but once they know you are not going to give them money they let you go. This day was different. They took me to the police station and said I would need to go to court the next day. I told that we were on the way to a week vacation and asked if the court case could be moved to the week after. They said they would need to talk with there bosses. They quickly gave back my 3000 KSH bail money and kept my drivers license. The police officer took me over to the courthouse and I joined about 100 other guys who had been “arrested” early that day for traffic offenses. The magistrate was still hearing criminal cases from earlier in the day and those ended around 1 pm. Normally the lunch hour is from 1 pm to 2 pm and in court they can take longer, but one of the advocates or lawyers for several other asked the magistrate if they could continue since some of the people had been there since 6 am. The magistrate agreed to have a short lunch of about 15 minutes and then come back to take care of the rest of the cases. We waited about 25 minutes and the magistrate finally came back around 1:30 pm. He started hearing the traffic cases and moved things along very quickly. Even though I came late in the day my case came up around 1:45 pm and I plead guilty to speeding was charged with a fine of 1,000 KSH which is around $12. Know things started to get really interesting. As we finished our hearing we were taken out to a room that was about 9′ x 9′ where we were to wait for our judgement receipt. We ended up having about 50 guys in this 9′ x 9′ room that only had a door and small window. Thankfully there were several businessmen and lawyers here also and they informed me that once we were given the judgement receipt we needed someone to go to the local bank which was about 15 minutes away and pay the fine. Once I heard this I informed Rich and Angela that they would need to go pay for me. About 5 minutes after I received the receipt Angela showed up and picked up the receipt from me and then they headed to the bank. They got to the bank and got in line and waited for the next 2 hours for it to be there turn at one of the cashiers. During this time I was moved from the 9’x9′ cell to about another court jail area. This one was outside and about 2,000′ from the other one. It was an area that was about 10′ x 30′ and had a huge tree on one end. There were also 2 outside bathrooms and 3 other covered rooms where people were waiting. One of the covered rooms had about 10 women waiting to get bail for them to be released. All this time Angela and I were texting or SMS’ing back and forth on the progress of things. Finally around 4:15 they left the bank with the receipt in hand and headed back to where I was. They got there around 4:30 and asked where we had been taken to and then proceeded to show the cashier the receipt from the bank and were then given another receipt so they could get me out. Just after 4:45 I was finally out of “jail” just as they were getting ready to take all the prisoners to the main jail for the night. We headed to the police station so I could get my license and our cars. We then headed to Eldama Ravine, but stopped to pick up Stacy and the kids. Stacy and Rich were such a big help to use and sacrified mightily for us. Thank you so much! We then headed to Eldama Ravine and arrived there around 7:30 to start our vacation. We are so grateful for the protection He gave us and how He provided for us during this ordeal.
