Sunday Aug 5

Sunday August 5

Swahili word for the day: Hapana—no. used often with the kids

So it's Sunday and we got up for church. One thing in Kenya is that you don't wear anything above the knee and you dress up for church. So we were all wearing long skirt (except Joe). I should mention ttah the temperature here is amazing. They think it’s cold (in fact everyone kept apologizing that we had to see Kenya in such bad weather) we think it’s perfect. it’s about 65. granted it can get a little cool at night because the houses are so open, think southwest style houses with clay roofs. Miriam kept asking us if we need jacket and we kept telling her we were fine. For breakfast we had eggs, chicken sausage (which was quite good) chapos, advocado’s, pineapple and toast. they make toast on that sandwich thing like Mel got me for Christmas, they just butter the bread and put to slices together. And the pineapple is amazing, I could even eat all the way through the center. the advocado was the biggest I’d ever seen and they told me it was a small one.

Kenyan time is much like Mexican time. so where we intended to leave at 8:00 (church is at 9:00 and we wanted to go to Tumaini first) we left at 8:45. It is about a half hour to Tumaini from Miriam’s . The way to Tumaini we drive through a small village and people just stared at us. When we got to Tumaini they hadn’t left for church yet, church runs on Kenyan time to so it didn’t matter. When we got to Tumaini we had kid jumping all over us. The church is Anglican church and it’s very close to Tumaini, less than a 5 min walk. The church was circular. The alter and pulpit were up front and the people in a semi circle. the service was in English but still hard to understand. It was very formal with a lot of liturgy. The passage preached in was Luke 12:13-21 (you can read it here http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2012:13-21&version=31). I though the passage was quite ironic. we did communion. Anne says that this only happens a few times a year because they don’t get a priest that often, so it was neat to be there for that. They did communion with wafer and wine like that Catholics. I really liked some of the liturgy. I’ll have to check out an Anglican liturgy book to see if I can find it when I get back. I have to say though that the service in general was kind of disappointing. It was very unlively and boring.

After church we went back to Tumaini. This was our first real interaction with the kids. They go to Sunday school during church. We walked into the room where the toddlers were and they just jumped on us. I think there is 17 of them. Jacob was the first to run toward me and just grabbed my legs. They were so excited to see us. I kept asking Anne the names of the kids because they looked different than the picture (we had pictures and quizzed ourselves to learn them before we came). She said they looked the same, but there are so many feature you can’t see from a picture.

we went with the toddlers to the “park” (the back yard of someone in the church that had had a swing set with 2 swings. with the swings weren’t on it was just chains but they grabbed them anyways and swung) Cira and Nene we attached to my hand on the walk there. Stephen was attached to Joe. In fact Joe was the only one Stephen cared about. It was really crazy at the park and I didn’t know what to do. I’m not the best with kids to begin with and here were lots of them who didn’t speak English. but still it was fun.

(note on language: the older kids that have been at Tumaini longer know English fairly well. the toddles do ok. and even if they did know it they never spoke English to each other so you had no idea what was going on. they either spoke Swahili or Kikuyu which is the tribe in that area)

After the park it was time to eat. The toddlers eat first and then the older kids after them. I helped feed the babies while the toddlers ate. That was an adventure. I’d actually never fed a baby anything other than milk before. The food ended up everywhere except in Elizabeth’s mouth. Anne came and taught me how to put one arm behind me and hold the other down to keep them from putting their hands in the food. I learned more stuff by watching the moms. I still wasn’t so good but I improved.

I went and ate when the older kids ate. We had what they called beef stew over rice. what beef stew actually was was carrots and potatoes and beef broth. my plate didn’t have any meat. I think most plates had a piece or two. after lunch I helped with the babies again, they are bathed and changed after lunch. I was showed how to change a “napie”, a cloth diaper, but I didn’t get a chance to try myself. I did dress then after they were changed. Which was another adventure because I never done that before and they don’t stay still.

after that we went to the school (it is just past the church) where the field was and watched the older boys play soccer. the field was almost all dirt and not too flat. the boys are pretty good. Joseph played but us girls just sat and watched because we were still in skirts from church, we decide that we’d be sure and play the next tomorrow.

After that we went and played with the babies again and then the toddlers. One of the toddlers Stacy was very possessive of me and would push other away and cry if I didn’t pay attention to her. so I left and came back and it was a little better. Baraka was another one that hung on me a lot. He’s really cute. Anne had taught some the itsy bitsy spider and he had to sing that to me. Peter is funny. Every time he sees Jami or me he point and says “glasses” Purhaps it’s the only English word he knows and is proud. Anne told me that she was in the toddler’s room and she asked Baraka if he knew her name and he said yes Anne. Then he proceeded to tell her all of our names which was quite impressive. the he said, Julie number 1. That makes me feel good. Sadly we had to leave because we had to be back at the house before dark. The toddlers really didn’t want us to leave, Baraka in particular but I told him we would see him tomorrow.

for a snack when we got home we had mangos and pineapple. For dinner we had ugali which isn’t the best. it is corn meal mixed with water and then cooked until is becomes a gross consistency. we eat that with skoomawiki which is like spinach. we also had rice and stew (this had meat) and then chicken that was cooked in some sauce that was good. I had a hard time eating the chicken because of the hair still on the chicken. at least I know it’s fresh but still it’s a little unappetizing.

After dinner we gave presents to Joy and Miriam. We brought Miriam a chaneel (sp?) blanket and a nice candle as a thank you. and we gave joy some of the school supplies we brought. Joy is really sweet. She’s 13. She came with up to Tumaini today, she hadn’t been there before. She isn’t going to be able to go tomorrow because she has school. (we never did figure out how it is she is in school when the kids at Tumaini are out) We went to bed early because were tiered. I didn’t sleep well. The bed is ok but just a tin mattress on a hard bed so I woke up many time through the night.

Saturday Aug 4nd 2007

Saturday Aug 4nd 2007

(Ok so this s posting them backward, if i can't fix it just pay attention to the date)

In London they have these really neat posters in the walk ways. They are two posters that go together. Like on had a chili pepper and then its counterpart had a red high healed shoe. They put the two near each other and under the chili pepper it said “pain” and other the high healed shoe “pleasure” the it put them again and under the chili it said “pleasure” and under the shoe “pain.” there were tons of different ones all about how we all see the world differently. I really liked them. So in London we had to switch terminals. So we exited the ramp thing and saw the line we were supposed to be in to go through security and started following it to find the end. And we walked and we walked and we walked, past 3 or 4 moving sidewalks that weren’t moving, and about what I would guess was a quarter mile later we found the end of the line. The people kept going by and asking for people whose flight was leaving soon and pulled them to the front. They said this was unusual but that there was nothing wrong it was just that busy.

One thing about London is that you are allowed one carry one. And they mean it. If you have a blanket that is your carry on, if you have the smallest purse ever, that is your carry one. This was a slight issue for us because we were bringing blankets for all the older kids at Tumaini and Kate (who is incredibly wonderful) packed all she could, she even packed everything she needed in a carry on and used both her checked luggage for blankets, but there we two that couldn’t fit, so we had to jam them into our carry ons, it took some effort moving things around but worked ok. When we finally made it to the front of the line (or so we thought) we found ourselves instead in a room where the lines snaked all around, it reminded me of Disney world. But we did get through and we found ourselves some food. It was funny I walked by one place and say people eating breakfast and thought that was odd until I remembered that it was not night it was like 6 in the morning.

We walked to our gate to eat our food because we didn’t have a ton of time. I was filling up my water bottle at the drinking fountain (which I did quite often, in fact I think I win the award for the most hydrated which can be evidenced by how much I peed) anyways, I was filling up my water bottle and a nice man gave me one of his extra bottle of water (yes it was sealed) because he’s gotten it buy one get one free. The other cool thing was the water said that ll the proceeds from purchases go to build wells for clean water in Africa.

Our plane ride to Nairobi was Ok, I was able to sleep about 3 hours. The bad thing was the person in front of me put their seat all the way back out 10 minutes into the flight and left it there the entire time, even when eating. Our flight was about 8 hours. I had wanted to look down over the Mediterranean but ended up sleeping during that time. I did however make sure I was up for both meals J the first one was quite disappointing though, they asked me if I wanted chicken or beef, I really should have asked more questions but I said chicken and it ended up being curry chicken, I really don’t like curry. But there was a really cool strawberry cheese cake for desert.

I did get to look down at the Sahara desert which was quite cool. And I got to see the Nile a bit before it got cloudy. Unfortunately along with the clouds came the turbulence. It wasn’t so bad except for once. And I would describe that turbulence as “thank goodness I had my seatbelt on/are we going to die.” I really hope I never experience that on a flight again.

On the approach to Nairobi it was night time (our arrival was 8:45) I was really surprised how few lights there were. I saw no lights except the actual city and even then not near as bright as one of our cities, in fact it kind of sneaked up on you. We landed uneventfully but the taxiing took a long time because something about an immobile plane (use your imagination about how that happened) on the strip we were supposed to land on so we used a different one and had to be towed to the gate. No matter the reason, there is just something that makes you uneasy about your plane being towed.

When we got to the airport we found immigration and as was our custom picked the slowest line. The immigration guy was very nice though. We all went to get carts and then Joe and I stood by them and the other three went to collect luggage. We were a little nervous that our luggage would make all the switches. But they all came YEA!!! When we left the airport we saw Davis right away which was good, we were a little nervous about that because 1 it was night and 2 Anne had said that there are often kids who want to take your luggage to where you need it and they are very forceful. David was there with his Godmother Miriam (whose house we were staying at), he daughter Joy and his friend Wash. We got all our stuff and us in two cars. I road with Joy (she’s 13), Kate and then Wash drove. Wash is 21ish, He’s an architecture student. He had to go 6 years for that and said that he really likes the art part of it.

Driving in Kenya is an adventure. From what I can gather people drive in the middle until there is a reason not to. They are also crazy drivers. I was glad to be with Wash, he was a quite cautious driver. we got to Miriam’s and there we met Roselyn and Joshua, David’s brother and sister, he had another sister Janet who wasn’t’ there. There was also Grace who was the house keeper. Prepared for us was chapos (like homemade tortillas), stew, fresh oranges and rice. Miriam told us about herself (I’ll write about that later, this is getting long). And we went to bed that night and slept very well but we didn’t get to bed until after 12 and got up for church at 7 so we were quite tired. I think it took us in all about 30 hours to get there.

Fri August 3, 2007

Fri August 3, 2007

We left Anne and Joe’s at 9:oo to head to RDU. Jason another student pastor was kind enough to give up a ride to we didn’t have to pay for parking. We were able to check our luggage all the way to Nairobi which was exciting. We watched them at security in case they opened the big bins we brought (yes mom I got it right this time it’s a bin not a bucket) we could tape them back up again. I really don’t think anyone was watching the security screen when they were scanned, that was a little unnerving. From Chicago to London to Nairobi be had book through a travel agent but we’d done are add on flight to Chicago ourselves and even though it was through American Airlines (British Airways partner) we still weren’t sure how that would work.

It was quite an uneventful flight to Chicago. We landed got some food and went to the gate to meet Kate and Jami, they were flying in from St. Louis. They were 1.5 hours late but it didn’t matter we had a 5 hour layover. Kate and Jami had to go out of security to claim their luggage because they couldn’t get it checked through, and Anne went with them. Joe and I headed to the international terminal and unfortunately we had to go out of security too. We found the security line insanely long (this was a continuing theme for us) it was technically three line but really it was one big mass about 100 years long. We got to the front about 30 minute later only to find that we were supposed to have gotten out boarding pass stamped by Bristish airways. Thankfully the lady told us that after we do that to just come right to the front, not to wait in line again. So we went to the British Airways counter and found Jami, Kate and Anne so we stepped in with them and got stamped and then they joined us going all the way to the front of the line in security so it worked out well. One the other side of security Anne laughed that she’d made it through (not meaning to) with water. By this time we are questioning American security. Remember this when I describe the security in Nairobi when we left.

Chicago really does have an ugly international terminal. but we were only there for 30 minute before we started boarding. It was a huge plane 3-4-3 with an upstairs. We sat Jami, Kate and I by the window and then Joe and Anne in front of us. We did a very poor job picking these seats and when I say we I mainly mean me. We were right in front of the bathrooms (the ones the middle of the plane) so our seats barely leaned back at all, plus we were on the side of the plane where the sun would both set and rise (it’s the same side because they fly north over Greenland and then back down again, not straight across). But it wasn’t a big deal, I hadn’t really planned on sleeping. We had this really cool thing where we could watch movies, or tv shows as we wanted and there as probably like 15 new releases and 30 other movies to choose from. They also fed us twice, it was a 7 hour flight. I’m a dork and got excited about the number of airline meals we would get on this trip. Not that they are the best food, I just find them fun to eat because there are several sides and even dessert, I never have that much variety. So we arrived at London at 7:30.

Why I Went to Kenya

Of course I went because I wanted to do good, because I thought that going there would be at of some good to the people I went to. But mostly I’d say I went for myself. I hesitate to say that, and have hesitated to say that because of what people think I mean when I say that. I do not mean that I went for fun, or to experience live, or to have an adventure or anything else like that. When I say I went for myself I’m acknowledging that trips like this are just as beneficial for the ones who go as for the ones gone to. I went because in some strange way I had to go. I had to see a different way of life, the Christian community is a global community and I needed to see that to experience that. I knew I’d come away with a different perspective, that’s what happens when you open yourself up to different people, I also knew I’d come back and be able to tell what I saw, what I experienced, what challenged me or inspired me with you all and with people I haven’t even met yet. I knew that as I came back and shared this trip with others that this trip would reach further and do good in more areas that just Tumaini Children’s home in Wangigi Kenya. So I set out with high expectation, I set out with the desire to love those that I was going to and an openness to take in everything around me.