Bananas

We think we may have good internet now!! I’ve skyped with Haley, Traci and my family in Corpus so hopefully this will continue to work well. Here's a pic of some boiled bananas that Fiona cooked for us the other night...



And here's what the bananas look like here- they're FAT.


Other than that, this week has been very different as we have been watching the kids while all of the staff is on a retreat. Fiona has helped out a lot and been staying with us here at the visitor’s center. Really its more like we are helping her out because she’s the main one in charge right now. We are leaving thanksgiving night to go to Uganda and visit some missionaries there. We’ll stay for a week and take lots of pictures to I’ll post more after that trip.

“MOCK SCHEDULE”

There’s not always a pattern here but just to give you and idea here’s
how it all went down last week…

Sunday:
9AM-12PM Bible class, Kamulu Church service
3:00-5:00 Afternoon class w/ all students

Monday:
AM: Walk the Streets with Larry
PM: Buy groceries for the week
Chicken Spaghetti dinner w/ Fiona

Tuesday:
AM: Farm w/ kids
PM: Internet attempting time
Study Swahili
Girl’s Bible study

Wednesday:
AM: Meet w/ Victor about crop rotation schedule
PM: Farming
Study Swahili

Thursday:
AM: Farm work w/ kids
PM: Write out Crop Rotation Mapping
Study Swahili
Chalupa & Mango Dinner w/ two of the girls- Maggie and Sara

Friday:
Read, Sing, Games w/ kids while all staff goes to Eastleigh Streets for the day
Study Swahili

Saturday:
“Safari Walk” in Nairobi Nat’l Park with Mother’s and kids

**Every weekday we have chapel at 8AM and Lunch at 1PM cooked by the
students at the Learning Center. We usually wake up around 6:30
because that’s when the kids get up to do their chores… and shout at
each other.

***Based on this schedule you’d probably be surprised to find that I
still know very little Swahili. All the people we talk to and books
we read say things like “Swahili is probably the easiest language to
learn.” I would appreciate it if people would stop saying that
because all we hear is “You’re really dumb.”

Safari Walk

Today we took the mother’s and their children to a zoo like
natural habitat place in Nairobi’s National Park. L and I were
excited not only to spend time with the mother’s but also to finally
see an animal more exotic than a kitten. Most of the mothers here are
very shy around us and don’t come to our room just to hang out like
the other girls. On the other hand, their children come to our room
more than we can handle. So it was nice to finally spend time with
both of them in a place outside of the farm.
We left around 9AM but because we had to make a few pit stops
and because its Nairobi, we didn’t make it to our destination until
12:15pm. Before going inside we had a picnic for on a grassy hill
outside the entrance. We found out later that we may have over estimated the amount of
liquids the little ones could handle. Larry had to relieve himself
three times along the trail and didn’t mind pulling his little pants
down to do so. We just made sure our tour guide didn’t notice and
each walked carefully over his claimed territory.

While we were there we saw Baboons that walked right up to us
along the trail. Some weren’t suppose to be in the area and we were
warned to keep the kids away from them. We also saw a huge rhino,
ostrich, albino zebras (they look like faded, dusty zebras), a leopard
eating lunch, wildebeests, and some beautiful long haired monkeys that
I know Debby would love.

Our tour guide even took us through a secret entrance where only
the staff was allowed so that we could see a male and female sleeping
lion. He kept telling us to come quickly and be quiet but I think
most of us were just confused as we carried these kids through the
jungle, under metal beams, and next to electric fences. It was nice
to see the lions but only lasted a second as he said we had to hurry
back before anyone caught us.
On the way back we picked up our kids that are in the youth group
from a singing, drama, poetry competition. They we’re excited because
they won the overall competition and had a trophy to prove it. Other
than that, the young married couple from Pepperdine just got in

11/9 & 10 Digging

Peter (one of the younger students) and I started planting popcorn
and sorghum in the field next to the girls compound. To plant in the
dryland someone takes a hoe and digs a hole in the ground then takes a
step forward and repeats while walking in a straight line to the end
of the field. Another follows far behind with the seed, dropping it
in the tilled hole and then covering it with more soil. Generally
there’s a crew of people doing this with one of the older guys leading
everyone to make sure they are evenly spaced and straight. If you
were to see how rocky and bumpy the land is before this process you
would understand how confusing this is to a new comer. When I first
went out to help drop the seed I think I slowed the process with my
constant “this hole? is this a hole? where’s the next hole?” while
one of the boys had to keep picking up the seed and showing me where
to put it.
So today it was just me and Peter and no hoe so we either used
our bare hands or small shovels. The soil here is sometimes rock hard
and after a rain it clumps together even more so we weren’t making
much progress in our tiny field. Fortunately for me most of the local
bachelors around here are attracted to white skin so it wasn’t long
before “Stano” came by with a hoe and did all of the manual labor
while we followed behind with the seed.

The next day Laquita and I finished planting the rest on our own
since we didn’t want to take the kids away from their normal duties.
This area of land happens to be right next to one of the main dirt
roads so it gets a lot of foot traffic. We’re used to people staring
or giggling or little ones crying at the sight of us but today was
funny. I got out there first and started tilling when an older man
immediately came up to the fence and just stood there watching. He
said “Welcome” and then asked a question as he pointed to the ground.
His first question was “You know how to dig?” followed by “Where did
you get your training?”. I didn’t know what to say so I just replied,
“Texas…they dig there too.” Then he watched me and L for a bit longer
before telling us that he was leaving now. Another man came by asking
questions all in Swahili. We just tried answering any questions we
thought he might be asking while also using our ten words we know but
in the end he just kept saying “Hello” while looking at his phone. L
wondered if he was looking up English words and I wondered if he was
actually talking to someone on the phone since “Hello” is generally
used for phone greetings. After saying Hello back and forth about 32
times we decided to just keep going about our work until he got tired
of waiting for one of us to miraculously know the other’s language.
Even as he said good-bye it still came out as “Hello”.

11/8

11/8 Monday- Kenyans are Friendly People
While we were driving back from Nairobi we stopped to get
groceries. The boys that go with us will stay in the van and wait for
us while we do our shopping. We usually buy them a drink mostly
because it makes us feel a little better about the fact that they are
sitting in a hot van the whole time waiting. Today Ken was driving.
As we drove through the crowded streets with buses merging into lanes
of traffic a larger bus pulled up next to us and one of the passengers
hung his head out the window and started talking to Ken in Swahili.
After a short conversation, Ken, who had drank about a third of his
Fanta and was resting it on the window frame, passed the drink to the
fellow guy who gladly took it as our vans parted ways. Laquita and I
both knew the answer to this question but we just had to ask “Did you
know that guy?” to which Ken just laughed “No.”

Sites around Nairobi

Where we live

Here's some pics of where we stay in the Girl's compound....