My African Hand, A Birthday, A Teacher, Baptism, the Moving on of Some Beloved Staff and a Modest Request...

This photo of me was taken by Morgan. It appears that I am trying to cover my face with a rather, umm, "ethnic" hand. I have not begun to change colors, yet. The hand is from Mary Anna. I don't know what it is about these kids and wanting to put hands in front of a camera lense, it's crazy. Some kind of nervous tick I guess. It would be amusing if not so annoying! But I will forgive them. The picture made me laugh.

So this last Tuesday was dear Tammi's birthday, our girls all growed up! Twenty-six! Can you believe it?! It was like just like week she twenty five. Where does the time go? It was weird being away from home for her birthday, and I am sure it will be even weirder being away for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. If Yom Kippur is any indication, we have a hard road ahead of us! We thought we had slid under the radar of any kind of celebration in the house. We were going to have a party with hot dogs and chips (FRIES!), but opted to wait for Kelly's arrival. So the third came and went, oh well. The next evening Margaret came home with a tin of biscuits (COOKIES!) and we thought they were just a prize for the children, but no, it was all for Tammi (and the kids, too)! Everyone sang Happy Birthday, it was fun! Here, we had witnessed an extra verse to the song when it was Margaret's birthday which goes "Happy birthday to you, I went to the zoo, saw a fat monkey and thought it was you!" We thought it was hilarious, and were expecting it for Tammi's song but all we got was "I saw a (awkward pause) monkey and thought it was you". Still funny. Enjoy a partial video of the event:



So we found out last Saturday that one of the primary teachers, Purity, had quit. I, of course volunteered to fill in until they could find a replacment. So starting last Monday, I taught full time, for the first time, ever! It felt good. I didn't get to use too much Montessori materials, but I think I offered something different to the everyday classroom routine (including high fives, trash talk, and using heads to lean on). Call it unprofessional, I think the majority of the enjoyed it. They brought in a replacement teacher on Friday, and they wanted me to show her the ropes, go figure! I will probably teach full time for a few more days next week until the new teacher gets her assignments. I taught mainly English, CRE (Christian Religous Education [talk about hard to stretch into an hour long lesson!] and Creative Arts (Tammi helped me in this class. We had two rules: you can't use a ruler and you can't draw a damn house! [omit the damn]). It was fun.

Last night we had Friday Fellowship. Tammi and I had both been fighting fevers all week, and frankly, we just wanted to go to sleep. But we went, and thank goodness we did. We discussed 1 Peter 3:13-22, and ended up focusing on the baptism aspect of it. We feared awkwardness, and of course there was a little (no more than being in a room full of people who are tired and don't wish to talk), but there were some serious questions about baptism, how we feel about it, what the Bible says about it, and what it is like in America. This went on to a conversation about what it means to be saved. Really incredible stuff. We told everyone if they wished to discuss baptism more that we could talk with them and see what we could do. We were told by Margaret after the meeting that most of the people in attendance had indeed given their lives to God, but not yet been baptised. Big things are in store!

In the past couple of weeks we have been losing a lot of the staff that was here when we arrived here and it has been a little hard. First Teresa, our cook, left with family problems, but now she gets to live with her children, whom she had to live away from before for the sake of her job. She was replaced with Elizabeth, whom I am convinced makes fun of me. Then Carol, the auntie who had replaced another auntie we only knew for a few days, left. She was twenty, and related closely to her. She was replaced by Little Agnes (since we already have an Agnes, everyone calls her by her African name, which we can NEVER remember, hence the "Little"), she is nice. Then, unexpectedly last week Catherine, the lady who washed the dishes, left to take care of her six month old baby that no one knew about. She was really funny. She liked Tammi a lot, and I know Tammi really liked her. Her replacement, Lillian, is now here, and I, so far, don't have an opinion on her. It's difficult for us, at least, to have all of these new faces, but it appears the children are handling it well. It's good that all of the new people started at the same time, hopefully they will all bond and not get too annoyed by the white people in the house.

As mentioned above, Purity also left, and her replacement is named Catherine. She is quiet.

A modest proposal:
Whoever would wanted to by me an 80 GB Black iPod, I would be eternally greatful. If you founded just 100 people to give $3.50, it could be mine! Just think about it.

note: I don't really expect this, it was done in god humor.

note 2: but it would be cool, and by cool I mean totally sweet.

Extra Videos!

They girls doing their hair. The scratchiness was intended:


ZEBRAS!!! (These were seen on the way out of the neighborhood/village:


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A bit of play by play...
10/2/06-
I went to the washroom (aka restroom) earlier today and found a large black cricket, I asked Michael if he thought it was important to take care of it or not and by taking care of I mean killing it. He said “no I saw him earlier and he is fast and well I just did my business with him in the room and he was fine”. So we thought that was then end to the story of the rather large black cricket but it was not, we came to get in bed for the night and Michael wanted to go wash his feet, so I go to get in the bed and guess who was all curled up under the blankets with just his head sticking out? The large black cricket! I asked Michael to come into the room that he had made a new friend and we both could not help but to the think it was cute and it reminded me of Fletch a little. So Michael put him in a glass and took him outside.

I keep forgetting to tell you all about spending the night with the nuns, it was so much fun. They were so welcoming and so excited to have us over, they wanted to show us everything and tell us about everything. They live in a city called Karen and it is where all the rich Kenyans live and we do mean rich by anyones standards. The houses were huge and the land was very beautiful. We stayed up really late, just sitting in a room playing with laptops and sharing music and pictures. It felt so good to have something to offer someone. Michael was afraid that he would feel weird being the only male but that was not the case at all, they teased him and quickly put him to work on the main computer in the house. One of the nuns named Sister Ester told us all about a people group that she lives with now (she was just home for a visit) and we are really going to try to go visit in November. They live in another part of Kenya about 4-5 hours away and they are called the Pokot people. The sister also told us about the project they have in Tanzania that again we may try to go visit in December. We will keep you posted on all the details about the nuns. Just wanted everyone to know that we have a great time and it felt a little like a slumber party all the time. They all work so wonderful together and they have a true sense of community. It was very beautiful to see and to be a part of even for just a day. Also forgot to tell you we took our first ride in the public transportation. It is called the city hoppa and it was very exciting. We took it from Karen back to the downtown Nairobi. We did not take it alone, Sister Jennifer took it with us, but I think we can take it alone now that we understand it.


I promise I will get Tammi to be more consistent with her journal. We have been sick and busy this week sorry!

Next week: KELLY! It will be good to be sarcastic to someone other than Tammi again. Sarcasm does not really exist in Kenya and as most of you know, it is my bread and butter.

BYE!