Little News from Kenya

Hi Everyone:

I'll quickly tell my story of frustration, then get on with this blog entry. I had prewritten the blog entry on my lovely Mac laptop, then made the journey to the internet care to copy and paste. After one hour, I paid my shilings and left as it would just turn to computer garbage every time. So now I will type it out again on this internet cafe computer and it should go. Then I will attempt to send photos to Mark and he will enter them on my blog - you will then have updated news from me!

Life for me here is just going along well. The weather is heating up, so I am used to sweating now and realizing it takes about an hour to totally cool down after being out walking in the hot sun. I must have eaten something that was not washed properly last week as I did have some bowel/stomach problems, but after a couple of days I was up and at it again. I have to be very careful what and where I eat as it will make a person very sick to get some of these parasites on your food. I have started buying apples (30 shilings each = 45 Canadian) which I bleach then eat and, oh my, what a treat! Have not tried a salad yet - all of the contents would have to be bleached.

Couple of questions I will answer: no, I have not rode giraffe ... yet! Candice and David did have a ride on a camel at the Agricultural Show (photo on team's blog). The weather: yes, getting hotter. Think December will be the hottest. Our home stays very cool as I am surprised when I go outside how hot it really is. The rains have stopped ... for now. You never know when there will be a huge shower though. I have not seen one snake here, which is good!! I also have seen very few spiders and the ones I have seen are very small. The only bugs which are pests are roaches (few of those), crickets (always two in my room doing stereo chirping) and mosquitos, which come out at night and buzz around my mosquito net, which I sure am so thankful for! The games the kids at the orphanage play - well, yes, they make up their own as they have very few games. Lots of volleyball and football and rolling of old tires around the grounds by using a stick. I have taught them concentration with a deck of cards which they enjoy. In December we will be spending lots of time with them as their school year is over then and we will be entertaining them. I brought lots of new songs (thanks, Jean) and crafts (thanks, Jean) which will be a hoot to do with the children.

Last Friday our team paid for a field trip for the grades 6/7 to go to Kisumu, which is the third largest city in Kenya and is on Lake Victoria. The trip included a visit to the post office, the court house/courts, the airport (the children were invited to go up to the control tower, which is rarely done but the manager had worked for an orphanage for 10 years and had a soft spot for our students - their behaviour was impeccable!), then to Lake Victoria. It looks like the ocean. Some of the kids had never seen a body of water like that - they were thrilled. Wish we had had more time at the lake, but everything takes more time than you think. The trip there and back was beautiful. You leave the Rift Valley and enter a different torraine. Tea and sugar canes are grown in that area.

The Friday before we had gone with the grades 4/5 to the Agricultural Show which comes to Kitale every year sponsored by the Kenyan government. The children went on one ride each. The ones on the ferris wheel were wheeled around by hand power!

This Wednesday we will go again to Faith Community Church where the street kids will congregate and will be able to have a bath, wash their clothes, have their wounds/sores tended to, fed a meal and receive a piece of clothing. We really enjoy doing this as it starts a relationship with the street kids. We see them again everytime we go to Kitale.

Our chicken project at MCCH is almost ready for the final touches - the chicks (or kukus as they call it here). The coup has been wonderfully made and the kukus arrived a couple days ago. When it's in full operation, there should be 300 + chickens laying eggs or ready for broiling. The next project is a green house to grow tomatoes to eat and sell. Kenyans are hired to build these structures.

Speaking of kukus, last week at Church a lady, Josephine, gave our team a live kuku as an honor for us coming to Canada. It is a tradition to do that. So we brought it home on the matatu (taxi van) hoping it would stay in the bag! The tradition is to continue where the next day you kill the kuku and have it served for dinner. Well we named him Fred and he's still alive!! I think the plan is to keep it until my birthday, then have a feast of our little Fred!

I phoned Dana for his 35th birthday and had a little boohoo afterwards. Imagine that he's 35. I hear Scruffy and Farrell have races up my stairs - my little buddy must have been teasing me when he kept 'saying' "carry me - I can't walk."

I'll keep better notes on our lives for the next blog post. In the meantime, miss you all!!

Love, Nancy