In Memorium, Mwanza, Drinking with Nuns, and Twenty Limping Boys

The memorial service for the one year anniversary of Naftali Basigwa’s death was tough. I won’t go into too much detail out of respect but despite the discomfort it feels as if there was a certain amount of closure for all those who knew Naftali, specifically with the children and Margaret. Some “snapshots” that will be with me forever:
- Sarah, in her stoicism, refusing to let anyone see her cry to the point of being lead out f the room with her face covered.
- Mary, so mature for her few years, openly crying during everyone’s accounts of the Naftali died, but still eager to be the first child to speak despite her pain. I am still haunted by her words and her ability to speak them.
- Head Teacher Njagi, who didn’t know Naftali, urging everyone in the community to continue to raise the children as Naftali would see fit.
I prepared a slideshow of pictures of Naftali set to music to show. The speakers of the computer did project too well into the room but it seemed like people liked it. The memorial service ended up being about four hours long and ended with a large meal for the entire community. In this time it seems like healing took place.

The day after the service Tammi, Kelly, and I departed for Mwanza, Tanzania to visit our friend, Sister Jennifer who has been placed at a Montessori Training Center ran by a sister from the Sisters of Divine Providence, named Sister Denise. We decided to travel by bus. I have never travelled anywhere by bus. Let’s say it was definetly an experience. It’s kinda like traveling by airplane but slower and stinkier and with no bathrooms and with out the luxurious leg space offered by the airlines. We were set to depart at 9:30 PM from Nairobi and travel through the night. Our friends from the Sisters of the Incarnate Word in Karen dropped us at the station at 8 PM and we boarded the bus at 9 PM and didn’t depart until 11:30 PM. Yes, a two hour delay without one word from the bus line.
What we had read to be a 11-12 hour trip soon became a 16 hours. You heard correctly: from Nairobi to Mwanza, roughly the equivalent of Galveston to San Antonio, took almost the same amount of time as a flight from Houston, Texas to Nairobi, Kenya.
You’ll about what happened at the border and on our arrival in Mwanza from Tammi.
Sister Denise was a firecracker of a woman. She is a nun from Switzerland and speaks German really loudly. It was really intimidating but she was a really nice woman. I was sick the whole time we were in Mwanza and she kept giving me medicines whose labels were in German. On the second night, she said “You’re a man, I’ll give you a whiskey tonight. That should clear everything up!” Being a rum man, I was a little nervous. That night we went to her house and she started digging through the cabinet saying that people always bring bottles of alcohol to her as gifts and she rarely drinks, so I was welcome to it. She sat two bottles of whiskey, a bottle of sherry, a bottle of grappa, and bottle of Bailey’s type alcohol on the table with a sake’ glass for me. She said she was going to prepare cocktails for the ladies.
Let’s just say I slept well that night and felt a little better in the morning.
The next day we went to Saane Island which is a wildlie reserve on an island in Lake Victoria. It was pretty neat. Aside from the sad looking caged hyena and lion, we had a good time. We got back in time to go dinner with Sister Denise, Isabella and Maya (two girls Sister Denise took in, and who attend her school), Bettina (a girl from Switzerland volunteering at the Training Center), Sister Jennifer and some other lady at a restaurant on the beach of Lake Victoria. It was spectacular. You will have to see the pictures.
We sadly departed Mwanza the next day for our long trek home, this time it was a meager 15 hours.
We scheduled our return home for the twenty oldest boys circumcision ceremony that was supposed to happen early the next morning (Saturday). We arrived home and found out it was to be rescheduled for Monday, so we left with Margaret, Cyrus, Felista, Miriam, Sam, and Mary Anna to visit Margaret’s grandmother, only to find out on the way that the doctor wished to perform the procedure on Sunday. So we turned around, made purchases, and headed home to begin preparing the boys for their big day. I was placed on a panel with Cyrus, Samuel, Joseph, and Wabogo to discuss with boys the procedure and what it means. I kept thinking “This happened to me when I was 8 days old! What do I have to offer to this 5-14 year old boys?” I thought of somethings to say, I’m not sure if I helped or not.
The next morning we piled twenty nervous boys into the small van and headed to the doctors office.
It was a harrowing morning. It took nearly 6 hours to “work over” ten of the boys, who I then escorted home.
Needless to say it was a rough day. The boys were in pain that they never thought would go away. But they still ate and became their oldselves by the days end, only now with considerable limping.
Things were good until yesterday, Wednesday, when the nurse came to remove the bandages and examine them. The boys became scared that it was happening again, and some couldn’t be consoled. It became necessary for Joseph, Cyrus, and I to hold down a number of them for the routine examination. It was clear afterwards that the boys were shaken up and so was I. I keep seeing Josiah in my head screaming “Hapana, Hapana” (“No,No”) at the top of his lungs while being restrained.
Needless to say, my son, if and when I have a son, will be snipped well before he learns the word “no”.
Heartbreaking.

I must apologize for the lack of multimedia this week. We went to the Sarit Centre (Center!) and their glorious internet was down. So here we are at the Nakumatt. We have 430 pictures waiting to be uploaded. Let’s hope nothing worthy of recording happens this week!
We love all of you and miss you, you have no idea how much we miss you.

Here’s Tammi:

So much…

Our Trip to Mwanza, Tanzania
It was not until I was awake in a bus at 3 in the morning that I realized that I have no idea where I am and that it was a little strange to travel in a third world country at night in a bus with lots of rain and lots of fog and bad, bad roads. Either way we all sank into our seats and fell asleep the best we could. When we got to the border we got told that our visas has expired, we had gotten a six month visa before we left but apparently that is not good enough because at the airport they are only allowed to give us a three month visa and we were not aware of that until we got told at the border that if we were found with an expired visa that we could be arrested. So he lets us go and tells us that we will have to buy ($25, we think) another visa on the way back in to Kenya. So fast forward to the border to get into Kenya and we borrow 3500/= from Kelly thinking that is $25 and that will be enough but low and behold it is $25 each thus $50 and the guy at first asks us for America currency and we say we have not been in America for almost 4 mo. so he says ok and we give him the 3500/= and he says ok that is enough for one I need another $25 and it just so happened that God was so with us because we had left over Tanzania currency, 70000/=, and Michael has just that amount in his wallet. So off we go and not 15 min. down the road we get flagged down by two police officers, now this is not uncommon, we had this happen all the time on the way to Tanzania, they would just come on with guns and walk up and down the aisle and then we wait forever but then we are on our way. However this time was different we are told that we must all get off the bus with all our things and we are to get into two separate lines, girls in one and boys in another. So we find ourselves on the side of the road with our luggage in our hands getting patted down by people with guns. We were a little scared, ok I was a little scared but all in all we were fine. So needless to say when we got pulled over by the police with Charles (the driver) on the way home because we did not have insurance and we were told that we would have to have the car impounded we were not scared in the least. Margaret took care of the situation and we were on our way soon enough.
Almost forgot to tell you the best part of our journey. When we got to Mwanza we quickly found ourselves with no Tanzania currency and no cell phone and no idea where the nuns lived. We got out of the bus and tried to call Sister Jennifer but our cell phone was a no go and we were stuck. We found a taxi driver that spoke a few words of English that was willing to take Kenya currency (we did not get too ripped off) and he took us to where all the other white people hang out (a very nice hotel) and we asked a women at the desk if we could borrow her cell phone and we got a hold of the Sisters.

Now on to the beauty of Mwanza
Mwanza, Tanzania was amazing, such beauty, it was breathtaking. The house we stayed at was really a dorm house for teachers coming to the Montessori training center, it over looked Lake Victoria, which is a spectacular view. The Sisters were so hospitable, the food, weather and town were all very nice. Sister Jennifer was so happy to see us and Sister Denise (a nun from Switzerland) was so happy to learn about us and she was quick to show off her Montessori school. She has started a nursery school, Primary and now a secondary Montessori school. All in Africa! She has been in Tanzania for 25 years and believe it of not has never heard of Oprah. Sister Denise was also quick to take advantage of Michael’s knowledge of the computer. He designed a very nice brochure for her training center and said he would work on a web site for her. The last night we were there we ate dinner on the beach of Lake Victoria. Never did I think I would be playing volleyball in the sand of Lake Victoria, unbelievable! God only knows what is in store for us but we hope Mwanza is a part of it.


Other things
*About a 15 minute walk from the House of Hope you can see a group of Zebras, about 50-100, just hanging out. They have been there for a while and we really enjoy our walks with our Zebra friends.

*We have a group of frogs that sing us to bed at night. All the rain has given them a sweet song to sing. Sometimes it is so load we laugh while we are dozing off to bed. Sweet dreams of happy frogs.

Tanzania, Rain, More Rain, Some Pictures, and a Video

This Friday is the one year anniversary of Margaret's husband, Naftali's, death. Margaret closed the school and allowed all of the workers a day off. We will be having a program to remember him. There will be prayers and sharing and probably a lot of meat. It should be a somber day and we hope Margaret is able to stay strong. This morning she asked me to help her prepare one of his pictures for an announcement in this Friday's paper. While doing so I stumbled upon the pictures of the funeral that Moses had put on her computer. She said she had no idea that they were there. In those pictures we found a picture of Naftali in his uniform. She said that was the picture she wanted, and she was glad I found it. I told her I was glad I could help. We made the picture her desktop wallpaper. She said it would help her. This Friday, remember Naftali in your own way.

This Saturday, however, due to exams all next week, Tammi, Kelly and I will be bussing our way to Mwanza, Tanzania to visit Sister Jennifer at her school there. It will be nice to see Montessori in a primary school setting. Also it will be good to get away for a little while. What won't be good is a 12-13 bus ride in the dead of night. Please envy us, I know you want to! We will be seeing Lake Victoria, which is exciting, but we are a little nervous. We have travelled extensively in the U.S. but there is something about a roadtrip in Africa that takes a bit of getting used to, I am sure we will fare well, though!

In other news: the wet season is among us! I never thought I would miss dry so much. You get to know yourself when you base the importance of something against having to put on your gumboots (RAIN BOOTS!). The blasted mud! Not that I want their crops to wither and die, but a few days of dryness and sunshine would be nice. What about God? Do me a solid!

Along with the rain a smell has made itself known near the stair to our homes. Initially I chalked it up to the rain causing the sewage to back up, but as of late itself, it is smelling more and more like death. It kills me and everyone who has to walk that way. Thank you rain for making dead things moist enough to throw off a mighty stink.

One good thing about the rain:

Tammi's smoking gum boots!

Dear Michael's Dad:
This one's for you:


Love-
Michael's Colon

And finally, my favorite picture lately. It's Sarah at the Boy's Dorm Party. Try not to smile:


Now here's a video from the boy's dorm, yes those are girls:



If you have time look at the new pictures. They include our trip to the slums in Kibera, the boy's dorm party (with more meat), and nuns playing volleyball. Don't miss it!

Here's Tammi:

11/7/06

We have been here 3 months today or maybe we left 3 months ago today, it does not really matter I guess. Who is counting any ways?

Michael is in the kitchen cooking spaghetti and I am at Kelly’s place typing this journal entry. I think of all the things I have not shared with you and I could blame lack of time but that would be a lie. I am really not sure why I have stopped sharing so much with you. I think because it is not so new any more, don’t get me wrong there are many moments that are strange and still very hard to swallow however that happens more times then I could keep up with and it has also become not so new.

Our Fieldtrip with House of Hope
I did not really say much about the fieldtrip with all the children, I think it was because we had just come back from being with Margaret’s family that the field trip was just too much to process. We had a great time and the children really seemed to enjoy themselves. We left somewhat early, not as early as Margaret would have liked but early none-the-less. We really did not know where we were going we just knew Rift Valley and well the Rift Valley is huge, it is a Province of Kenya, west of Nairobi. So off we went on what felt like the longest road trip of our lives, it could have been because the bus was full of 44 children and 11 adults. Either way we got to Rift Valley and it was amazing, again I wish I could described the beauty but I come up empty every time, I think all I can say is God is amazing (also I am sure you have seen the photos). It is just amazing that you can go just a few hours outside the city and everything comes alive and it is green and fresh and the air is sweet and cool and people are here and there all quick to wave to you. So still clueless of our final destination we can tell the kids are needing to go to the “choo” and well when you have a call you go wherever you can go. Right before we stop to go to the restroom on the side of the road, I noticed that George has fallen asleep in the seat behind me and he is preventing Beth from sitting down so I pick up George and hold him in my lap to allow him to sleep and Beth to sit. So all is well except George has horrible gas and well when the time came for us to stop to let the kids go pee I thought maybe George needs to go #2 so I wake him up to go with the other boys to a big bush to pee and when he comes back he goes right back on my lap and we are off again. So a few minutes later George starts to look like he is going to cry and I ask him what is wrong and he will not tell me so I get a teacher to help that was sitting across from me and he tells me that George is not feeling well and well I think I best take him to an auntie so Agnes wins and she gets George and not 30 minutes later, at most, we all smell something pretty gross and low and behold George has pooed all over her and all over him self and on the floor. We have to make a stop at a market place so Margaret can buy George some clothes and Agnes can clean him up. We thought George would feel weird for the rest of the trip but nope, he was quick to show off his new clothes. Man was I lucky! If I have not said this before Agnes is an amazing women!
So back to our trip, we finally get to our destination, Lake Nakuru National Park. We park the bus and Margaret goes in to pay for the park entry and then Cyrus comes to get us, we go to the office and find out that it costs about $1 for the kids and $7 for the adults except if you were white, it was $40 and we were all a little overwhelmed with the price. At first we thought, well we don’t need to be here, we can just go into town and explore but Margaret was not having it, so off inside the park we go. We drive and we see all kinds of animals, it was pretty amazing and I am glad I did not miss it but still it sucks sometimes to be white. So I am sure you have all seen the photos and well that about wraps the trip up. We did think that Michael’s parents would love it, I hope they get to see it one day. So we do not really ever get out of the bus, we get to stop at one place that was a cliff that over looked the lake and it was beautiful but it was a short stop, we could not eat there because the baboons were crazy intense and would have ran off with Nicholas or Loise. So back into the bus we go and back home we make our way.


We tackled the city by ourselves
Margaret leaves for work really early and well it has been raining and so we did not want to risk not being able to go into the city so we suggest that we leave with her in the morning and we go where we need to go in the city taking the public transportation. She agrees and we are excited. So we wake up and leave at around 6ish and all the males in the community push the van out to the semi-main road. They had to push because the van was a little broken. So off we go and we drop Margaret off at work and we head to the Westlands because we are hopeful that Kelly will get her package and she does!! So we head back to downtown where the main post office is and Cyrus drops us off at a random place that we had seen before but was not 100% sure of how to get to the post office but we say “when in Rome” and off we go. So we are a little hungry since we got up so early so we enjoy a really large breakfast for 180/= which is a little over $2 and we eat and get full and are ready for our adventure. Before we left Cyrus points us in the direction of the post office and we have been to the post office before and it is on a rather main road in the city so we head that way and low and behold we find it or rather Michael finds it! He is amazing in any city, he makes tons of mental notes and he is great at finding his way around. So we go get Kelly’s package that should be noted as a funny situation because she had to go to about 5 different people just to pick up her package, we kept thinking that someone has got to be watching this on video. So we go to find a way to Westlands where the Sarit Centre (aka fast internet and lots of white people) is. So we go to the bus stop or Citi Hoppa and are told that no Citi Hoppa go to Westlands that we will need to take a Matatu aka a very small van that goes really really fast. So we find one and are told we need to hurry up since they stop in the middle of the road to pick us up and we head down the Uhuru Highway to the Westlands. We quickly discover that the music is hip hop and really loud for that matter, I totally think of Kimberly because I know that she would have been dancing in the aisle. Oh and the best part of the Matatu, and I know you were thinking the music was the best part, is the price, it was only 40/= which is less than $1 so you get a ride and music all for $.50 can’t beat that! So we go take care of our internet needs at the Westlands and we see that time is telling us to head back to the Nakumatt Mega to do our shopping and to meet up with Margaret and head home. So we think that the Matatu should be just as easy the second time around so we hop on another one this time we are in a mini bus of sorts and we have not just music but we have a TV that is playing hip hop videos, I call it soft porn but to each his own. So we dance in our seats and ask if this bus takes us where we want to go and we get a “yes” until we find ourselves lost and in the middle of the city (part of the city we had never been in) and we are told if we go somewhere we will find a Matatu that will take us the rest of the way. So we are lost and not wanting to look lost because well we were the only white people for miles and we were also running a little late by this time. So again Michael’s beard saves the day and a man comes over and ask if we are lost and we humble ourselves and say “yes” so he takes us where we need to go and we get on another Matatu and find ourselves safely at the Nakumatt right before Margaret gets there! Little side note, we hope to go back to the part of town we got lost in because we saw some great shops we would like to look it, I think it works to get lost sometimes!

The Boys Dorm & Kibera

The Boys Dorm -or- I hope having a bed to yourself is worth your foreskin

This last Saturday we moved the first ten boys into the newly finished boys dormitory. John Felix, Lukas, Peter, PK, Mugo, Ben, Juma, Aaron, Morgan, and Joshua made the shift in a mad flurry of clothes, toys, and wooden objects crudely put together with nails, string, or anything they could find. It was a bittersweet event, mostly for Tammi and I. We had always hoped that there would be a place for us at the House of Hope as dorm parents, but it appears that's not in God's plan for us. But Patricia is now the head of the boys dorm, which she deserves, because she does work her butt off everyday (you may remember the expose' in our last newsletter---she washes the clothes by hand everyday. We did finally get the washer everyone is always talking about, but we think it slows her down, so she doesn't use it much), and now she has a room to herself.

Due to the boys moving in we had a large party! You know what that means? MEAT! Two kilograms of it to be exact. Crazy! We ate nyama choma (roasted meat), rice, and Tammi's favorite, a carrot and cabbage dish. The kids got fat, we got tired, overall, an exciting evening.

But to "cut" to the chase: the twenty oldest boys, this month, as a rite of passage, will be circumsized. Yes, you heard me, circumcision. I am slated to help talk to the boys about this. What do I say? "Well boys, the same thing happened to me when I was eight days old, I am pretty sure it will be about the same as when you are thirteen..." It happens the day after school lets out. Merry Christmas, boys, it is better to give than to receive...

No, there will be no pictures of this event.

---

Kibera

Today we went to visit our friends, the nuns, in Karen. Sister Rose took us to their school, which is on the edge of one of the largest slums in Nairobi, known as Kibera (you may have seen it in the film The Constant Gardener). She showed the school then walked us arond the outskirts of the slum. It was surreal. We didn't really know what to expect. Well we expected squalor, you know, weeping and gnashing of teeth, kind of thing, but no, there was none of that. For being called slums it really seemed like a community of well below average homes/shacks. We know this is just the perception of a well-off white person who only walked around the still green edge of an otherwise brown and grey "slum". We saw families going about their daily routine, and didn't feel sorry for them, because that would not help them. They seemed to have their own joy that we (those who live in permanent housing) could never understand. I know that it has to be a hard life there, I am in no way doubting that. It was an experience. I hope to go back.

There will be no pictures this week as we are in the Nakumatt. Hopefully next week you will see the boys dorm, kibera, and volleyball with the nuns...sorry!

It is also my fault that there is nothing from Tammi this week, sorry X 2.

Bye!

A New Day, Rain, and the Return of Tammi

Hello everybody!

From now on we will be coming into town on Wednesdays instead of Fridays due to confusion with purchases Cyrus must make and the picking up of Margaret. They thought it easier for us to come to town midweek. It was fine with us because it splits our week in half giving the illusion of two Fridays instead of only one, which is pretty cool, and by cool I mean totally sweet.

"But Michael", you say, "by our International Date Line Decoder Ring, it is now Thursday, not Wednesday, you silly goose!" I can answer this anomaly for you in one word: rain. A pirate's booty of the stuff. This much rain mixed with the 4-wheel drive of our van going out means no town for the Mzungus. So being short on food we hatched a plan: wake up super early and ride into town with Margaret on Thursday and then take public transportation everywhere we needed. So that is what we did, and after about 20 minutes of pushing by every grown male at House of Hope we were on our way, and here we are! We navigated through the Town Centre (Center or Downtown) on foot and took a matatu for the first time to the Westlands and our ever beloved Sarit Centre (CENTER!), all for 20/= each (about forty cents). We will be taking some form of transportation, whether it be matatu or City Hoppa, to the Nakumatt for some much needed shopping and to be picked up by our now gimpy/ hopefully fixed van. What a day!

So now that the wet season is here (hopefully), we will have to now stop thinking about it and actually buy a pair of gum boots (rain boots).

A majority of the pictures posted this week (all 26! We thougtht we would give our avid readers a break from staring at flickr for a crazy amount of time) are from a walk we had with about half of the kids from House of Hope and a few kids from the neighborhood last Saturday.

Sorry, no new videos, maybe that will be remedied by next Wednesday. Remember that day; if you have something to e-mail us, do not, I repeat DO NOT wait until Friday, we won't see it until the next week.

And now the long awaited return of Tammi:

10/20/06

So this Friday was much different then any other Friday however we did not know that at first. We got up late because the kids were on vacation that day do to a special Kenya holiday that honors Jomo Kenyatta ( original last name was Kamau), Kenya’s first president. Kenyatta was the strong man that lead this country to independence in 1963. It is hard to wrap our minds around the idea of this country only really being 43 years old, it is beautiful to be a part of something so young and you can feel that one day it will be much better then it is right now, however you can also feel like it will come with great struggles. So back to our Friday, we got up and found out that we would be going into town at 11am or so. So we got ready to go to the Sarit center aka that European mall. So we get our computer ready and for some reason I think I should take our camera, just incase we see some wild animals on the way to town. So at around noon we head off with us, Kelly, Ben, Margaret and Charles, our driver, all piled into the van. We head into town and Margaret tells me that she wants to show us the countryside so she wants to take us on a drive. We all get very excited to go on a trip to see the countryside, we had read that the countryside is amazing. After about 3-4 hours of driving and stopping to buy fresh fruit off the side of road. We get to our final destination, a village where Margaret grew up, near mount Kenya. Mount Kenya looks amazing, we could see it from Margaret’s father’s garden. Mount Kenya was really neat to see it was almost easy to miss it believe it or not. The land is all lush and green mountains all around it and then you see in the distance the huge mountain behind it, it looks out of place almost, you could see snow on the top and we were sitting in almost tropical weather on the mountain we were on it. I hope you can make it out in the photos but I know the photos will not do it justice because the whole environment was breath taking, I have never seen such beauty in all my life. Coffee was everywhere, and people were everywhere they waved to us as we passed by. Charles our driver came from the same village and everyone knows him, so they saw him and saw he was driving a white person and they would began to wave and get very excited. Margaret told us that many from this village had never seen a white person. I hope I represented all white people well. Charles was very excited to be so close to home that he asked if we would like to go visit his family, and of course we did. His family was all very excited for us to stop by, they quickly greeted us with hugs and kisses. They were also quick to give us sweet bananas and greens from their garden. I know these people have very little and yet they were able to still give us so much. Charles’s mother was a very cute woman, she was very old, however she seemed in great shape, she was also incredibly short. His son and daughter seemed really nice. We stayed long enough to take some good photos of the family and see their sitting room but it was already late in the day and we really needed to get to Margaret’s father’s house. So off we went to what would be our final destination. Margaret’s father had not seen a white person since he was fighting for independence, it made us a little nervous to think that the last time he saw a white person he was trying to kill them. He was very nice to us and very excited for us to visit him and his family. When we got to his house we had not peed since we left our house so needless to say we needed to go badly. However they did not, have any western style toilets, just a nice deep hole in the ground with a concrete around it. So this was my first time and Kelly’s first time to pee in a hole, sure we have camped but this is a little different, I am note sure why it is different it just is. However we both did great and it was just a little smelly at times but it was nice and it worked. I think things would be different if I had to go poo or if it was that time of the month if you know what I mean. However all in all peeing in a hole; not that bad. Some women had already been cooking for us, we got a freshly slaughtered chicken for our first dinner. We had potatoes with the chicken and we had cooked bananas and a chicken broth soup to put on top. It was all very nice however we had a few difficulties with the chicken because it was super tough to chew, Michael was given the leg because the men are suppose to have the leg and it was so hard that Margaret keep giving him a hard time for not eating the leg. She said but that is the best part and the man are suppose to just rip it off the bone. Michael just told her that he was not a man and could not do it. He put up a great fight but in the end the chicken won and Michael left a little meat on the bone. So we ate and got very full and the sunset before we could see too much around the house. Margaret had asked us if it would be ok for us to stay the night or go into town and get a hotel room. We said we would love to stay and plus who wants to stay in a crazy African hotel in a town that has not seen white people. So we get excited about the idea of staying the night with all these great people. So we stayed outside with a lantern and some very good tea. We were surrounded with more coffee then anyone knows what to do and we are taking tea, crazy but it was good. So we have tea and talk with a few relatives that stop by to see the visitors and to have some tea. We enjoy our time in the beautiful night with the millions of stars right above us, until it started to rain. So we get excited about the idea of staying the night with all these great people. So we quickly move the party inside where we sit by a lanterns and listen to Margaret translate two men’s story on how they fought for independence. Margaret’s uncle and father both fought and lived in the bush for seven years only eating what the near by villagers would bring them. Margaret’s uncle began to ask us questions about our lives and how we lived before we came. He asked if we lived with our family and we said we did but we are the exception not the norm. He asked what we did before we came here and what kind of jobs do people have back home. He also asked if Michael paid a dowry to my family and when they found out that he did not and you do not do that they could not stop talking about that. They just keep saying that live would be so much easier for everyone if there were no dowry. We asked what kind of things could be a dowry and they said cows, goat, and of course money. We started to talk about something else for a while and then the two men started talking again and Margaret said they started to talk about the dowry again. Time was going by and we were getting kind of tired so we thought we would be going to bed soon but no not these people we needed to eat again. So we enjoyed some good old fashion BEEF, yes little bit size cubes of beef with lots and lots of nice hardy fat on them. So we eat what little we can and off to bed we go. Michael and I get a very nice room with a nice size bed and Margaret and Kelly sleeps on the couches in the sitting room. I am not sure where Ben sleep or Margaret’s father slept. We however slept very well and the extremely load rain was mostly funny because when it was barely raining Kelly said, “aww I really like the sound of rain”. But we knew that if it rained hard it would sound so load because the roof was just a thin tin roof. So after everyone went to bed it started to rain so load you could not even hear yourself think. I just kept laughing and thinking about Kelly. She said the next day that she was fine and that it woke her up a few times. The rain did not stop all night long and we got up to it still raining. We ate some small sweet bananas and some bread and waiting for the next meal to come. We found out that morning that a goat was going to be slaughtered for us, we had mix feelings about the whole thing because we had just had chicken and beef the night before so we were not really jumping at the idea of having yet a different meat. If you have not figured it out yet, meat is kind of a big deal here, so if you are different and special you get tons of meat and you should feel very honored. So we met our fate with open arms and started to eat tons of food. We ate some kind of a veggi dish right before the goat came that was pretty good. Beans, potatoes, maze, and greens all mashed together. We sat very in the kitchen and at it with all the other ladies. The food sat very heavy in our stomach so we all decided to take a nap and by we I mean me, Michael and Kelly took a nap. We were woken up by the smell of goat. Just the first course of goat meat; the intestines and liver and some mystery parts. Kelly ate way too much liver I think because she was sick the whole next day. Neither Michael or I ate the liver, good thing I guess huh. The next round of goat meat was shared among many friends that all came to have goat and visit with outsiders. So we enjoyed lots of goat and had a soda to wash it all down with. We got asked many questions and we took many photos. The time was passing by and if we wanted to get home anytime soon we need to be heading out soon. So after the large fest we packed out things and we headed back home. We said all our good-byes and gave many hugs and kisses and we were invited to return whenever we wanted. Margaret asked if we wanted to stop at a large market on the way back home and we said of course. So we stopped and we all got some goodies. Kelly and I got a nice bag/basket and a nice wraps and a few other things. We did not stay long which was a good thing because people were starting to say some rude things to us in Swahili and asking us for money. However people keep mistaken Michael for an Israeli man, I guess it is the crazy beard. Margaret over heard a man tell another man, that had been saying some bad things about us in Swahili, that how could he say that about a man that comes from the line of Jesus. We all had a good laugh about that on the way home. Our journey home was nice but long. We stopped to pick up Moses at his school that was on our way home. By the time we got home, Kelly was feeling very sick and was quick to go to her room. Michael and I felt fine and we cleaned up and cooked a good meal. It was nice to be excited about coming home to house of hope. We had not really had that feeling yet, to miss this place. We still had that feeling of living out of a bag and well you don’t really miss that. So we had a home to miss now and that was a good feeling. We feel at home here and we still miss things every now and then but for the most part the homesickness is gone and that is a nice feeling.


Bonus Image:
This is an abnormally large fly (notice the other fly for scale) I assassinated in our bedroom last week. I think this guy ate whole turd and half a lime flavored Life Saver himself. He is still laying in that same place as I type, if you really wanted to know. I have never been a hunter, but this hoss is worthy of mounting (no jokes, Tim or Joel)


See you next when?

That's right, Wednesday!

Love to all of you!