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.