I can’t believe that my first three weeks of Kenya is already over! Our first week we spent taking Swahili and culture classes which our awesome teacher and new friend Josephine taught. We are staying at the Church of the Nazarene compound in Nairobi at one of the missionaries houses. My team now consists of eight members and has three new members, Japheth, Janet and Willie. Japheth is our site coordinator and is also the Africa East Field Youth Coordinator. He is the one that planned out our whole summer and prepared everything for us. Janet is the co-children’s coordinator of the Africa East Field and is also Japheth’s sister. We now know Janet as, “mama Janet.” She is so sweet and takes such good care of us. Willie is a college student that is a member of the church that Janet attends and he is involved with the missionary work with Japheth. I love the new members of our team. They are all very nice and have planned our every thing extremely well. I love working with them because we can have fun and joke around, but know when to be serious and get the things that we are there for done.
We also got to experience an African Safari our first week in Kenya. We left at 5am because the bigger animals usually come out during the morning hours and it was about a 2 hour drive. The safari was so much fun! We got to see all kinds of animals including baboons, water buffalos, flamingos, zebras, gazelles, lions, giraffes, impalas, pelicans, turtles, rhinos, a snake, and wart hogs (warthogs, according to Kenyans) We went to a place called Baboon Lookout. This place was beautiful, it looked over the whole park that the safari was in and it had a little place to eat your lunch. The name should have been our first clue… as soon as we were finished eating lunch we were taking pictures of the park and someone noticed a baboon climbing the cliff… we all turn to take a picture of it when all of a sudden the baboon speed climbs the cliff and jumps into the little gazebo that we were still standing in. It took my apple juice and then ran under a tree not to far away. After a little bit we noticed that now there are two baboons and we were trying to gather all of our food and belongings when they decided to join us for our picnic again. This time grabbing Jeb’s leg, trying this get his sandwich hand hitting Devon’s leg on the way out of our lunch area. We put our food back in the van and went back out to take some more pictures, when another van pulls up and gets out their cooler and food… before we could warn them that they should probably eat lunch in their van the baboons run over to them and nearly wipes out their little boy… these baboons would not leave us alone because they new that we had food so we decided to leave. We had to have Japheth and Mike, our driver, stand guard to make sure that none of the baboons tried to get into our van while we were getting in… and they had to run some of the off because they were staking out our van. That was probably the most eventful lunch I have ever had… it was scary when it happened, but now it just makes a good story and a good memory J
We also made a trip to Kibera, the biggest slum in all of Africa. Kibera is where Janet and Japheth grew up. I am so glad that we took the time to visit Kibera. We went to the school that Janet works at… it is a private Nazarene primary school. I later found out that Grace, Janet and Japheth’s mother, started the school. We went into every classroom at the school and introduced ourselves and the children greeted us with a song and then introduced themselves to us. We had learned some Swahili songs from Japheth and Joshu earlier in the week so we sang on of the songs that we learned and most of them knew it and joined in with us. It was such a great experience and my heart just grew for every child at that school. We have made other side stops to different schools along the way and I think it is really neat how God uses those times to speak to us. I know that while we are doing our conferences during the day that the people in attendance are very thankful and get a lot from it but it just shows that God works in unexpected ways. We have scheduled out different trips around Kenya and Tanzania and know that God is doing great things during those times, but it is neat to see God at work everyday… even when we didn’t plan anything or we least expect it. God is good and is definitely doing things in East Africa.
We just got back from our first trip, which lasted two weeks. We went to Siaya zone and then Homabay zone. While we were in Siaya we stayed with Japheth’s and Janet’s parents, Grace and Peter. Peter is the D.S. of the East Africa district. It was great to be able to stay at their house and get to know them better. We also got a taste of what it is like to live in the village.. complete with bucket showers every other day, hand washing your clothes and calling a hole in the ground the bathroom. I was really impressed with my team and myself as we adjusted because it did not take very long to get the hang of it. Siaya and Homabay are hotspots for Malaria, so we had to make sure we sprayed our room every night and sleep with mosquito nets, I like to call it our princess bed J We were all very careful to make sure we took our malaria prevention medicines as well as using bug spray and sunscreen, we were on the equator! The days were hot and it cooled off at night with a light shower and an occasional thunderstorm, which we all loved!! The stars in Siaya were BEAUTIFUL and they were so bright because we were no where near the city!
Our usual schedule of the day would look something like this.. wake up at around 7am shower, get ready, devotional and eat breakfast at 8am. Leave by around 9.. or whenever they felt like it… time is not a big thing in Kenya, which is kind of nice at times but it has its pros and cons. When we got to the church it is tradition for the visitors to go to the pastor’s house to have tea and breakfast… when I found this out I adjusted the amount of food I ate at the first breakfast… it is considered rude if you don’t eat at one. After the second breakfast and chai we would go back to the church and do introductions and then start the service. Our team decided to break up into three different groups during the day to make it a little easier. Jeb and Japheth led the youth leader seminar, Ashley and Janet led the children’s leader seminar and Devon, Tori and I led the children via Willie, our translator. We taught the children the story of Noah and the Ark, Joshua and the battle of Jericho and we made salvation bracelets. The morning session would be dedicated to the youth leaders and then we would break for lunch and the afternoon session was dedicated to the children’s leaders. Lunch was always at the pastor’s house and it usually always consisted of either fish, chicken or beef stew with Ugali and rice and hot tea. Ugali is something that is served with almost every meal here in Africa. I am not really sure how to describe it… it is soft, somewhat spongy, gritty, tasteless cornmeal, and usually white or brown. We were scheduled to end the service at 4pm, but it usually lasted until 5… that is good for Kenyans J Then we would go back to the homestead and would spray our rooms and set up our princess beds and then journal until it was time for dinner… which was usually at 8:30 or 9pm and then we would call it a night. That basically sums up our life in Siaya, we stayed there for a week and then left for Homabay.
While in Homabay Zone, we stayed at a hotel called Las Jona in a village called Rongo. It was great to have the experience of the actual village life, but we were all so glad to see a real toilet again!! Our first full day in Rongo was a rest day for us, so we got to see the village a little bit. We walked around and saw Rongo and scoped out a good place to get sodas and Devon and I found a good place to get our hair braided. Then we went to one of the schools near by. This school was for the hearing impaired, it was called Kuja primary school for the deaf. We went to every classroom and introduced ourselves and told them where we were from and they did the same. We found out that each one of the students there was given a sign name when they enrolled and that is a unique sign name that no one else in the school has so after we introduced ourselves they gave us our own personal sign names. After getting a tour of the school we went back to the hotel and Devon and I went to get our hair braided at a place connected to the hotel. Getting your hair braided hurts… a lot. It cost us 200 shillings, that is about $2.50. After that, we got dinner and then we prepared for the next day.
Our daily schedule was about the same as it was in Siaya. Jeb was still doing the youth leaders with Japheth. Victoria decided to help Ashley and Janet with the children leaders and Devon and I still led the children with help from Janet. Willie was not able to travel with us to the churches because he got sick with malaria. The first day, we had to leave him at a nearby hospital because he was getting sick along the way. The third day that we were in Homabay zone Willie, Victoria and I stayed at the hotel because Willie had malaria, Victoria was getting over a cold and I had gotten sick that morning because I brushed my teeth with the water from the sink… or at least I think that is what it was from. I was feeling a lot better after resting but I got sick all throughout the night again and couldn’t sleep because my stomach hurt too much, so I stayed behind again along with Willie the next day as well. I was told not to eat anything, just in case it was because of something that I ate, and to drink lots and lots of water, just in case it was dehydration. I felt horrible until about 3pm when I was finally able to fall asleep and then I kept getting better throughout the day, which I am so thankful for because I started to think I might have malaria and that is not something that I would want, especially after seeing my friend Willie trying to get over it. I hated to leave my team to go and do the work by themselves, but it was a good thing that they made me stay because I probably would have been even worse if I went with them. We went to church this morning at Rongo Central Church of the Nazarene and then we ate at youth leaders house and then we left from there to head back to Nairobi. I am praying that the time that we have in Nairobi to rest will work in Willie’s favor. He has been taking his medicine and will be finished with it on Tuesday, which is tomorrow, but he is still getting sick and feels horrible and we had to take him back to the hospital today. He is usually the one that cannot stop smiling and is always singing and joking around, so it is hard to see him not feeling well. Please keep him in your prayers while he is getting over this sickness.
There are so many little stories that I wish I could tell you all about, but I only have a limited time on the internet and I would love to tell you all about them in person sometime! This is just an update on what has been going on in East Africa and with my team. We leave for Kitine in 2 days and will be gone for a week so I probably wont have an update until we get back from there. I hope that you all are doing well and are having a great summer. Thank you for your interest in my trip and for all of your prayers!
