Even with Shoes

Even with shoes you can get a thorn in the foot.  Ed is holding the thorn that we pulled out of her shoe today that went all the way through the sole.  (You can see the hole in the shoe inside of the white box.)  Despite thorns, hookworm, and rocks, I see many kids romping around campus barefoot.  I guess us newbies wearing shoes are just a bunch of tenderfoots.

First Encounter with Safari Ants

Safari Ants, Pinching Ants, Army Ants, Flesh Eaters, Siafu. We have heard these ants called many different things. On our first morning here at Rift Valley Academy we passed by a column of them on the warpath and every day since we have simply stepped over a column of them whenever we walked by. Last night we were on our way to supper with some friends when we saw the end of a warpath of Safari Ants where they were disassembling one of these guys.

Then when we were at supper, the kids came running in yelling, “K.D. is getting bitten by ants!” We rushed outside to see him dancing about swatting at his pants. While he was eating dinner outside, some Safari Ants found him. Our host knew just what to do. He sent his son to go fetch a robe and had us strip K.D. down. We shook the ants out of his clothes, K.D. got dressed again, and we went on to have a wonderful evening. It is great that the ants don't sting you so that after you get them off, there is no itching or much ongoing pain – as long as you get them off before they remove too much of your flesh, that is. :-) You can read more about these fun little guys here on Wikipedia.

Teen Life at ABO

The teens at Africa Based Orientation captured life there in a video that they made. They had a chance to show it to the whole group during the talent show on "Fun Night."

First Birthday in Kenya

Ed turned 15 last week while we were at our ABO training. We had brought some gifts from the states and added a few with local flair – like a hand-carved baby elephant. We found a few minutes between training sessions to have a family party in one of our dorm rooms. The ABO coordinators were thoughtful enough to plan brownies and ice cream for dessert after dinner and the people there signed a large poster with birthday wishes. It will be exciting to see what will transpire between now and when she celebrates her next birthday.

Reliable Systems

I am coming to appreciate how unreliable systems can lead to more reliable systems.  At the school I taught at in America, if the power went out, school was cancelled.  Here on the campus where I am currently attending training, things are not that way.  Since the power goes out frequently, they have a backup generator to keep school in session during outages.  So in some ways, power is more reliable here.

I found out the other day, though, that not everything runs on the generator - like the water pump that fills the tank for the building I am staying in.  It can be a real problem when you have 70 people staying in a building and there is no water to flush the toilets - at least it is a real problem in America.  Here in Africa when that happens, buckets of water to flush the toilets magically appear in all of the bathrooms.  It turns out that they have a backup system for that too.

The Sun

The other day Anna was playing with one of her new friends who does not know much English.  When the sun came out from behind the clouds, I said, "The sun, the sun!"  The little girl immediately sang a little song about the sun and getting ready in the morning.  I am not sure if this is something they teach in school or if she learned it somewhere else, but it sure was cute!

A Kenyan Church Experience

On Sunday we ventured forth to go to church and an adventure we did have.  We got ready in the morning while the power was out and then we walked about half a mile out to a main road that was paved.  There a cultural guide hailed down two mutatus (smaller than a minivan and used like public transportation busses) that were half full and negotiated for all of the people to get out of one and into the other one so that one of them would be empty.  We then packed 10 people into 7 seats and the driver went off his normal route to take us to church.

We arrived right at 10:00 am, just when the service was supposed to be starting.  We thought we were late since the service was in session, but it turned out that it was an earlier service that had not let out yet.  We hung out in the church yard for nearly an hour trying to learn Swahili from the kids while we waited for the first service to finish.

The service (in Swahili) got started just before 11 am.  It was packed.  The ushers would bring someone down and show them to a pew that looked like it was already full, but then everybody in the pew would scrunch a little bit more and the person could sit down.  The pews were so close together that when we stood up, I could not stand up straight and had to keep my knees slightly bent. 

A mom with lots of kids joined us in our pew.  When she sat down, she was pressed up against me so that there would be room for everybody.  When we stood up next, she did not stand up.  When went to sit down, I saw why – she was nursing a baby and I had to work my way back into a sitting position scrunched between the two pews, CrazyMom, and the baby's head cradled in her mom's arms. 

The first hour was a lot of great music and prayer.  I really enjoyed all that was going on.  Most of the songs I did not know but some of the songs were great hymns of the faith sung in Swahili.  At one point about 15-20 young adults got up and did a choreographed dance to what seemed like a more modern worship song.  The African flair to this worship time was fun to experience.

An hour into the service, one of the men on stage stood up and appeared to be reading a prepared statement.  I heard the English word “constitution” when he was talking and figured it was something about the church constitution.  When he finished, someone from the crowed stood up and started speaking passionately about what the man had read and a man from the choir stood up evidently to argue the other side of things.  The two of them went back and forth about the issue at hand and there was lots of murmuring throughout the congregation.  Suddenly, there was a big commotion and about a third of the people got up and walked out of the church while people who were standing in back because there were no seats for them moved forward to get seats.  The women and her children next to me left and two older girls slipped into their spots.  Things then settled in as if nothing had happened and the service when on.

The preacher pointed us out and said something about the church's love for their brother and sisters in the Lord who could not speak Swahili.  During his sermon he would occasional use an English word, phrase, and sometimes even a few sentences.  It was just enough so that we could follow along.  I could not tell if he was doing this for our benefit or if he normally flows between English and Swahili in this bilingual country.

After the 2 hour and 15 minute service, we decided to walk home rather than trying to figure out how to get all of us in multiple mutatus.  It took about 40 minutes to walk back to where we were staying and since we got there late, lunch was over and most of the food was gone.  CrazyMom had a loaf of bread and peanut butter in the room for just an occasion such as this and I walked out and bought 9 bananas and 9 oranges for 135 Kenyan shillings, which is a little over $1.50 USD.

I look forward to the time when I know a little Swahili and understand the culture better so that I will be able to worship with our Kenyan brothers and sisters rather than just sitting in a service trying to figure out what in the world is going on.

The Lions Can Get Out

“This is the Nairobi National Park,” our driver was saying as we passed by a high wall.  It seemed a bit strange to us to have animals – such as lions – roaming about in the large park inside of a city, but the driver assured us that they can't get out.

A hour later we were sitting through a presentation at the Giraffe Center whose goal is to be a breeding ground for Rothschild giraffes, which are endangered.  With a 15 month gestation period, you don't get too many calves in a year, so CrazyMom asked how many were born last year.

“We were fortunate,” said the presenter.  “We had five calves born last year.”

“But then,” he went on, “some lions snuck out of the Nairobi National Park and killed two of our calves.”

So the lions can get out . . .

Miss Social

“Dad, can I go to the playground with my friends?” Anna was asking me. I looked up expecting to see some of the other kids from our group, bur rather saw two kids from the local area here in Machakos, Kenya.

For those of you who know Anna, you know how social she is. It takes her just a few moments to make friends wherever she is. When an adult comes up to me and says that they met one of my kids, I usually ask them if the child hugged them. If they say yes, then I know it was Miss Social.

A Little Tourism

After two days of rest and getting some things in order, we were ready to head out today from the guesthouse.  We visited the Giraffe Center where they are breeding Rothschild giraffes to help build their population.  We also went to the elephant orphanage that takes in elephants that have been orphaned by poachers or natural means.  Ed is a big fan of elephants, so here she is with her best friends.

The highlight of the elephant center for me was taking KD to the bathroom and discovering that they had a lock on the outside of the door.

I could not come up with a reason why the lock would be on the outside other than to lock people in while they were using the bathroom, so of course, I had to lock KD in.  I am happy to report that it worked quite well.  KD could not get out until I unlocked the door.

 

We leave the guest house tomorrow and head to ABO - Africa Based Orientation.  It is a three week long training that will give us a jump start on figuring out how to get along well in Africa.