Day 5: "So, why are you guys not freaking out right now?"

This week I've been on vacation while the Wright family went to Kenya to drop their daughter off at boarding school. Anna's in the 11th grade at Rift Valley Academy, a fantastic Christian school where missionary kids from all over Africa come to get a great high school education and enjoy the benefits of school - extracurriculars, broader course offerings, friends that aren't hours away -- that are hard if not impossible to come by when you live in the middle of nowhere.

The family said their goodbyes and had just left the school in Kijabe an hour before getting pulled over by the  Kenyan police. The same thing happened when I was travelling back from Kijabe with the Wrights a couple months ago. To be honest, it's a corrupt system, and the police are looking for bribes. Last time, Bob was charged with speeding, our van was impounded, and we had to sit in the police station for about an hour while Bob talked with the officials. The thing is, that old van can't speed. It starts vibrating violently at 80 kph (the speed limit), and their charges that we were driving over 100 kph are simply impossible.  

Today, however, Bob actually got arrested and put in a jail cell for a few hours, while the family had to wait in the station for him. I don't have all the details yet, but from what I understand they got pulled over between 8 and 9AM and were there till after lunchtime. Thankfully they let Bob go and didn't keep him overnight.

We were all buzzing about it at lunch here in Karamoja, but we weren't overly concerned. We stopped to pray for them. We trusted that God had the situation all under control, and we figured that Bob would at the most have to spend one night in jail. When we told our short term visitor Rebecca what had happened, her face was priceless. She couldn't believe how nonchalant we were. "So, why are you guys not freaking out right now?"

What can I say? TIA -- This Is Africa! Expect the unexpected. Flexibility is key. And all those other schnazzy mottos that sound so nice and easy till you're standing in a Kenyan jail cell on false charges. Yup.