A Fifth of the Journey

I have been in Kenya for just over two months now and it has been exciting, challenging, overwhelming at times and colorful to say the least! Here are the top 10 most interesting things that have happened to me since my last post. For those of you that really just want to see pictures... they're at the bottom.

1. I have become an official Naomi’s Village driver, which means I have somehow successfully learned to drive on the left side of the road in the right side of the car, shifting with my left hand and signaling with my right. I am also learning to drive a stick since most vehicles in Kenya are standards. It has been scary for both me and all passengers involved but so far so good!

2. A few weeks ago NV welcomed home two new children, Laban (age 6) and James (age 4) from a nearby holding facility called a safehouse. The kids have been at the facility for two years and as far as we know, they never left the building. I was able to go to the safehouse with our nurse, social worker and Rikki Tai to pick them up. When we arrived we learned that Laban and James were leaving two sisters behind, one who had been raped and impregnated by a family member at the age of 14. It was heartbreaking to watch them say goodbye but truly amazing to watch their sweet faces as Laban and James arrived at the NV gate and saw their first glimpse of their new life.

3. We are in the middle of the rainy season of Kenya and when it rains, it pours, and when it pours, it washes the roads away. A few weeks ago I rode up to Kijabe with the Mendonsas after a heavy rain. On the way up the mountain the back end of our landcruiser slid into a ditch and all the women had to get out to try to push the cruiser up and back onto the road. This didn’t seem like that big of a deal until we got it about ¾ of the way out of the ditch and before we knew it, the giant landcruiser was sliding back into the ditch that we were all standing in. Thank the good Lord above we all jumped out of the ditch in time. We realized it was too dangerous to keep trying because the ditch was so deep. Thankfully another SUV passed us and tied our landcruiser to the back of their vehicle to pull us out. We thought that was all they were going to do but once they pulled us out they just kept driving and we couldn’t really do anything about it so we proceeded down the mountain, tied to their vehicle. Only in Kenya!

4. Every Monday is Chapati Day at NV. Chipati is basically a flat, fried piece of pita bread and is one of Kenya’s most popular foods. A few weeks ago I offered to help the kitchen make chipati and after about an hour and 59 attempts to roll a perfectly round chipati, I finally rolled one that didn’t need alterations from one of our cooks. I celebrated by making a heart-shaped chipati that inspired holiday shaped chipatis in the near future. This Christmas, be expecting an elaborate chipati nativity scene made by yours truly.

5. A few weeks ago I joined a volunteer team from The Village Church on a visit to the Wells of Joy Preschool in the Lunga Lunga Slums of Nairobi. The night before we left for the slums we had all our NV kids pick out something of their own to give to the kids in the slums. Their generous hearts blew us away when it came time for them to choose their gifts. Many gave away some of their favorite toys and clothes.

Six of our orphans came from a nearby slum after a gas pipeline exploded and killed over 300 people including two sisters who were born on the same day, died on the same day and left two sets of siblings orphaned in the blink of an eye. The morning we left for the slums, one of those little ones, Esther, reminded me that her mom had burned to death in that fire. She told me she had seen her mom when she died and then reenacted what she looked like when she saw her. It broke my heart to see Esther straighten her body, close her eyes and say, “My mom was all black and she looked like this.” You can’t imagine what its like to hear stories like that out of a child’s mouth and know that they come from that child’s real life experience.

6. Never did I expect to come to Africa and walk in a parade for the first time but sure enough, two months in and I have already walked in a parade through the dusty streets of Naivasha in a herd of children, chanting who-knows-what in Swahili to the beat of an African drum. The parade ended in a park where I sang the song “There’s No Place I’d Rather Be” with the NV kids in front of a thousand people. The event concluded with refreshments of one loaf of bread and a triangle-shaped bag of milk for each person. Yummy!

7. I didn’t realize until this year that June 16 is the birthday of both my nephew, Parker, and my NV sponsor child, Paul. While skyping with Parker on the 16^th, Paul met Parker for the first time and was instantly fascinated by him. Parker sang Happy Birthday to Paul and then Paul sang Happy Birthday to Parker. It was adorable!

8. I had one of those moments where I felt like a real mom at dinner the other night. I was sitting across the table from one of my favorites named Kevin. We were laughing about something and then, out of nowhere, he threw up his entire dinner right back onto his plate. Classic.

9. In Kenya, your birthday is also your “bathday” meaning every time its someone’s birthday, everyone gets a giant bucket of water to throw on you. In an orphanage with 32 kids and 35 staff, people tend to get a little wet. I’ve experienced quite a few “bathdays” since I got here but none was as memorable as the first one. We had just finished dinner when all of the sudden, all of the kids came running out of the kitchen into the dining hall with buckets of water and ran straight to an un-expecting volunteer named Jenny. As soon as the water started flying, the dining hall floor became a slip n’ slide and before I knew it, half the kids were lying on the ground while the other half where standing intermittently in between screaming at the top of their lungs. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to my birthday next month!

10. I met some new friends from a volunteer group called Love Africa who invited Rikki Tai and I to a little beach village on the Indian Ocean called Watamu. The week was beyond any adjective I could think to use but simply put, it was amazing! It deserves its own blog post, which I will post later this week!

Laban & James 

Leaving the Safehouse

African Children's Day Parade

Need I Say More

Result of Our Landcruiser

Getting Stuck in a Ditch

Kevin (far right) an hour 

before his surprise dinner plate vomit 

Bob's Kenyan "Bathday"

 Welcoming James & Laban

to Naomi's Village

Surprise African Baby Mohawks

Gotta Love Em!