power 2

so on friday this last week...we noticed that we didn't have power. We realized later that in actually we had low power. So some lights would come on when you flipped the switch, just not as bright. There wasn't enough power to keep the fridge running or the small appliences in operation.

in the US we are used to the power being off or on, but not low power so we were unsure if it was just our house or if it was widespread. I opened the fuse box flipped the switches and nothing happened.

later we found out it was "low power" all over Narok.

power

so we often (1-3 times per week) lose power... (Swahili - stima). so it isn't a rare occurrence for us to be doing something and suddenly the lights go off followed by a shout of "no stima!!!"

This last weekend we had no power from about 9 in the morning until about 6 at night. most things went on like normal...shops still operated...we still had tea we cooked meals (gas stove and oven).

we came to find out today that this particular outage was do to a labor dispute at the electric company. there are more threats of country wide loss of power starting tonight at midnight (countdown from now is just over 4.5 hours). will it happen? who knows...it really doesn't changes our lives that much...we may go to bed earlier...we may not be on the computer, but not a huge change to our lives.

what we do

I was writing an e-mail to a friend in ft myers and thought that maybe I'd paste a copy of our weekly schedule here. just so you can picture what our life is like (chronologically at least).

our weekly schedule looks a little like this

M-F

7am wake up and eat breakfast

8am kevin starts class and danielle begins teaching the kids

10am tea time

10:30am danielle begins class and Kevin teaches the kids

12:30pm lunch break....our house help, Jackline, cooks lunch for us and our teacher every week day. It is a Kenyan meal and we really enjoy it.

2pm kids nap and kevin and danielle are both in class

4pm tea time

4:30pm danielle begin dinner preparations and kevin plays with the kids/ goes to the market

5:45pm dinner

6:30pm play with the kids

7pm M goes to sleep

8pm J and E go to sleep

then Danielle and I catch up on homework/e-mails/talking with people in the office/etc...

saturday

Morning- we have this as a time that we eat breakfast then we all walk into town and do shopping as well as work on our Swahili. We have really begun to enjoy these trips as we have begun new relationships with several people that we see each week.

Lunch- we are try to get back home so we can eat lunch and get the kids down for their naps.

Afternoon -kids nap while Kevin and Danielle do Swahili work...4:15 skype with family

Evening- eat dinner and play outside until dark

Sunday

morning- get up and get breakfast a little more relaxed. (right now we are mostly going to church close to town, so we have little travel time)

10:30 walk to church

1:30 or so Church is over and we walk home eat a quick lunch and get the kids down for their nap.

afternoon this is our Sabbath!!! late afternoon we might skype with family and Kevin goes to town

evening eat, then have fun, then off to bed for the kids…after the kids are in bed, then we get ready for Swahili class on Monday.

This is what our weeks look like in general at least for the next month or so….

slugs

We have been blessed with a lot of rain over the last few days. at times it has been a lot of rain quickly other times it has been more like a slow, deep, soaking rain. I have asked several people if this is what is expected for this time of year, and most people don't think this is normal. Some say that what we have been having is a complete random bunch of rain that we have gotten, not part of any wet season. Others think that the Short rains that we get in nov and dec have just come early.

we have no idea...the only thing that we do know is that we have had enough rain to bring out the slugs...3-4in blobs of slim that melt when salt is added.

Cards in 7...

so here we are in kenya and we caught the end of the game this morning...we started "watching" game 6 at 7pm (top of the 9th) via our computer and a sports website that continues to update as play unfolds. may less exciting than seeing it live, or maybe more.

so now the goal is how we can work out a way to actually see the game starting at like 3am friday morning...

kenya threat update...

so just a quick note concerning the violence around Nairobi over the last week. The Kenyan authorities have arrested a man who is suspected of carrying out the two bombings. This man has also confessed to these acts and seemed to have a store of bomb making materials.

school

We have been doing school with the kids for three weeks now. The schedule has changed a bit from week to week, but some things have stayed the same. Either Kevin and I begin language at 8:00am. Soon afterwards, we begin school. T

his week we have been starting with a time of singing and worship music, lead by youtube, and then we do our Bible lesson for the day.

M enjoys participating in worship time before going down for a nap.

Next, we do Calendar time, going over the days of the week, the months of the year, today's date, other important events coming up in the next few weeks, etc. The kids both participate and enjoy pointing things out on the calendar.

our homemade calendar

Here is where the schedule varies from day to day. We have a preschool book for John and a kindergarten book for both J and E. They usually do some work in these each days as well as other activities. J does work with letters, recognizing them, saying their sounds, and writing them. E is working on sight words and writing as well. E is easily distracted by whatever J is doing so sometimes it works to be in separate rooms. E can do a lot more on her own so J is usually needing encouragement and guidance. When J starts getting antsy, he gets to play soccer for a bit outside and go and find Jackline, our house helper, and talk with her for a bit. Some days, the kids paint or draw or make decorations or help bake something. This week, the kids put together a fall craft Nana sent and it's now hanging in our dining room. Today, I was wanting to make zucchini bread with them, but maybe that can happen tomorrow. I feel like one day a week is more relaxed and less gets accomplished. We usually spend about three hours doing school each day. Kevin and I both get time teaching them which I think makes it more enjoyable for the kids as well. We're fortunate in that the kids all nap in the afternoon while we have Swahili class for two hours.

Any craft ideas or fun activities for the kids are welcome!

kenya threat

the below is actually a note written by our teammate to all of our families who may be concerned about the current news of kenya and specifically the two bombings in nairobi.

"Greetings from our family in Kenya. You might have heard on the news that there have been two small bombings in Nairobi, Kenya in the last 24 hours. These bombings are likely tied to a Somali rebel group, a which has been threatening Kenya with such attacks over the last few weeks.

We want to let you know that we and the rest of our team are all safe in Narok. Fortunately, the area that we live and minister is far removed from Nairobi and other areas of potential risk. In consultation with a local security expert who has served with the U.S. military and a number of missions organizations, we as a team are taking a number of precautions to avoid risk. Please know that while the news is unsettling we do feel safe here in Narok. AfricaHope and New Mission Systems will continue monitoring the situation in the coming weeks and days.

For now we ask that you will please pray for the countries of Kenya and Somalia. Please pray for safety and security for Kenya and that God would free the people of Somalia from oppression."

hair cut

the other day I (kevin) was walking through town all by myself when I passes a barber shop. I walked up to the shop from which was coming loud music (maybe people don't like the sound of hair clippers).

ME: "how much for a hair cut?"

HE: "100"

ME "do you cut white peoples hair"

HE: "(he said something...but the music was too loud for me to make it out)" said while shaking his head in the nearly universal sign for "yes".

100 seemed a little high so I walked on. After a few more tasks kinda in a ally way I saw another barber and decided to ask what he would charge to cut my hair. He said 50 ksh. 50cents for a haircut I decided I couldn't pass up. So I stepped inside and got a hair cut. This hair cut wasn't much different from what you would imagine with the exception of instead of a brush to brush away the hair after completion of the trim, they had a brush made from an animal's tail (not sure what animal it may have been from).

As I was getting my hair cut, there was a crowd that gathered around...I'd guess that not may tourists get their hair cut here, and so I bet I was one of only a handful of non-African hair cuts that this man had given.

So there were a couple of small errors that he made...like one really short patch on one side. So danielle had to redo the do.

Will i try this again...I think that I will, but next time I will take danielle with me to show the barber how to cut my hair. I'd bet every time after that I would get a good cut for 50 cents.

bee keeping part 2

so I returned to the bee hunters today (Sunday)

this time the price started at 300 but quickly dropped to 250...Language wise this time it was mostly in Swahili. I spent the first bit of time convincing them that I was not just a tourist. After about 15 minutes asking for the honey to be 200...it came to pass. I left with the honey at a fair price.

bee keeping

As I am liking to do I will post an approximate conversation. This one is with a woman who is of a traditional honey hunting tribe in kenya.

I approached a stall were there were jars from small peanut butter sized up to 5 gallon bucket sized.

ME: "hello...(greetings)...etc..."

She "hello (greetings)...."

ME: " so is this honey?" With the number of bees that were present it was an educated guess.

She: "ah yes honey...do you want some."

ME: "Is this honey pure? does it have any additives" Adding water is a common way of stretching the amount of honey that you have.

SHE: "no no ...it is pure...do you want a taste"

ME: "Sure..." I said as in my mind I tried to think of any reason why I should,t have some of this honey...not coming up with any I held out my fingers. "Just a little bit." it came out slowly and I got a glob on my finger that contained not only honey, but also a leg of bee....then I ate it. Tasted like pure honey to me. so now for the price... "so how much is this bottle of honey?"

SHE: "this one is 600"

ME: "600!!?? Oh that is too much. What is a better price?" Always haggling with a smile)

SHE: "ummm you know I can give it to you for 500. You know we have to travel from far far away to bring this honey here"

ME: "500?!! you know I too have had to walk from over that hill over there...so you know that I am not a tourist...what is the real price? "

SHE: "ummm for this bottle I can do 400."

ME: "what about 300?

SHE : "300?!!!, you know we had to come from a long way off and we robbed the bees of this honey and....400"

ME: "oh okay...well, then I guess that I can not buy today" and I walked away without honey.

Heroes Day - Mashujaa Day, Oct. 20

Today is Heroes Day, or Mashujaa Day. This is only the second annual Mashujaa Day. It was previously known as Kenyatta day which was set-up by president Kenyatta as a day to honor himself. After the new constitution was passed, all days to honor previous presidents were abolished and instead, we now have Mashujaa Day to honor those who have fought for the independence of Kenya. I think it's kind of like our Veteran's Day.

During school, the kids and I talked about what a hero is. Our list consisted of:

- someone who saves people from bad guys

- brave

- good

- powerful

- nice

- uses God's help

- obeys God

I was impressed and surprised. They listed heroes they know or have heard of. E and J's heroes are:

Daddy

Matt

God

Jesus

Moses

Joshua

soldiers

They then drew pictures of heroes while I read them stories of Christian heroes. We read about Florence Nightingale, Jim Eliot, Mary Slessor, and Amy Carmichael.

breakfast

...with Madelyn unable to eat milk and we are finding even eating things with milk in them seems to not be so good. Danielle tried a pancake recipe she had found that didn't require milk. they tasted good...john really thought they were great so he ate 6 pancakes.

today is also heroes day in Kenya ...most kenyans get the day off...but we do not. I start language school in 9 minutes and the kids start school in a little over an hour. I do hope to figure out a little more about heroes day as we really don't know much about it....

fried foods

so we are realizing with our kenyan lunches that the use of cooking oil is high on the list of ingredients for any and every meal. At our traditional sunday night treat of Mummies fast food is all deep fat fried...the fries, the samosas and the sausages. this week on my mummies stop I saw some things that looked a little like doughnuts. but as with my experience on other "treasure hunts" I have learned to ask questions to gain understanding. so here is the conversation....

ME "ah sir"

HE" yes..."

ME "I was wondering what these things here are (pointing to good sized round objects)"

HE "doughnuts"

ME "oh" still not totally convinced, "so it is like just bits of dough that you put in there" Pointing to the deep fat frier that would make a small MacDonalds proud.

HE "yes...yes."

so there you have it...I will tell you that it looked like the doughnuts may have been in the display case for a few hours and having filled my weekly quota of grease for the week already at lunch, I passed on trying one....this time.

kids

here's a new favorite picture of the kids. enjoy!!

language learning

We began formal language learning on Monday, October 10. Our teacher, Elias, normally teaches at a school in Nairobi. He has been teaching kiswahili for 19 years. He came to Narok on Sunday when Kevin met him at the guest house and showed him how to get to our house. This week, our schedule has been me meeting with Elias from 8-10am, breaking for chai from 10 to 10:30am. Kevin meets with Elias from 10:30-12:30pm. We have a lunch break from 12:30-2:00pm. Jackline cooks Kenya lunch for all of us and we eat then have time to put the kids down for naps before starting back up at 2:00pm with Elias. Both Kevin and I meet with Elias from 2-4:00pm while the kids are mostly sleeping. At 4:00pm, we have chai before Elias returns to his guest house for the night. Kevin has been doing school with the kids form 9-10am and then I finish up from 10:30-12.

We have had a couple opportunities to get into town and practice as well. We're looking forward to going to town on Saturday and getting some things taken care of as well as practice what we've learned this week.

After our brownie failure last Friday, the kids and I made snickerdoodles today and are hoping for a better turn out. We seem to be going through flour a lot faster here then we do in the States. I guess that's not surprising though. However, I have found that before making pizza dough for dinner tonight, I'm going to have to make a trip to Naivas for some flour.

This week has been good. It's felt productive and we seem to be closer to knowing Swahili than we were last week. We'll see how much we remember come Monday!

Treasure Hunt

I was dropped in town....

From this point I began my "treasure hunt" for a sink stopper for the kitchen sink. Stop 1. small shop that is labeled "hardware"...

(greetings)

ME "...so I was wondering if maybe you have a rubber stopper for a sink drain...it is something that will hold water in the sink and not allow it to go down the drain..."

HE "ahhhhhh...do you need the whole sink?"

ME" no...all that I need is something that will stop the water from leaving the sink."

HE " ahhhh yes we have." then he motions to a fellow worker who he directs as to where the box of stoppers is all in Swahili. Once this guy finds the right box in the stack of boxes, he pulls some small stopper.

ME"...okay, I was thinking of maybe one that is bigger...do you have anything like that? "

HE "ahhhh no"

so I say my farewell and leave shop #1...

Walking down the street I find hardware shop # 2 just opening for the day

(greeting everyone there as I am not sure who is the actually person at this shop who could help me)

ME "....so who is the owner of this shop?"

SHE (no english only swahili)" ....it is me"

ME" ...so I was wondering if maybe you have a rubber stopper for a sink drain...it is something that will hold water in the sink and not allow it to go down the drain..."

SHE (blank stare) "aaaaaaa...the name of it is?"

ME "all that I need is something that will stop the water from leaving the sink."

SHE (seemingly relieved that another man was joining us in the conversation) " he will show you"

HE "yes yes...I will take you"

and he does take me to shop #3

I walk in...

HE "ahhh yes what do you need?"

ME"...so I was wondering if maybe you have a rubber stopper for a sink drain...it is something that will hold water in the sink and not allow it to go down the drain..."

HE " yes, we have....what size do you need?"

ME " I need a bigger drain plug if you have it"

HE "like maybe 4 inch"

ME "sure...let me see it"

he motions to a man who brings forth a plastic cap to cap off a 4inch pipe

ME " no no...ahhh...this is not it...I am looking for something that is made of rubber that you place in a sink so that water will not drain from it."

HE "oh... oh... ya, we don't have."

so the search continues.....

small town

I caught a ride into town from jordan who was headed to work...he dropped me in the middle of town. At this point I started my "treasure hunt" (separate post on "treasure hunt"). Shortly after the treasure hunt, I was walking down a street when I saw a nice Surf (this is a car). It looked like one of maybe 15 in narok...but nicer than 90% of the cars in narok so I looked around for who may be the owner. That is when I spotted Tim...So of course I greeted him and conversed for a few minutes. And he was able to send me in the direction of Lorna's shop that we had been looking for 4 or 5 times never finding it until today. so I stopped by there for a few more minutes of conversation and then went off to the local super market.

monkeys again

yes it happened again about lunch time there were monkeys out of our kitchen window. They took the next hour and a half to go across the edge of the yard and several began playing in a tree that was close to our yard. we put the kids down for a nap....and about 20 minutes after they went to sleep we hard them jumping on our second floor porch. so danielle and I went to go check them out...took some pictures....and then realized we were "the exhibit" as the monkeys were free and we were in the glass and rock enclosure.

will the monkeys get old? Well maybe...

we also had a walk into town today with the family and the kids did really well...J and E both got a sausage from Mr.super duka. we also found some chili peppers and saw some huge carrots. all in all about 2 miles of walking . the kids only started complaining in the last half mile...good job to them.

We are thinking that we may go to an english church service...it will be earlier in both the start time as well as the let out time so it may work better for our schedule, and we are thinking that we'd like to understand a bit more of the service that we have in the last 4 Sundays.

sweets

Sweet things are less common here in Kenya. If you know me (Danielle), you know I have a sweet tooth. So, it shouldn't be too surprising that only after being in our house for a few days, I was making a cake. E and I had bought a pineapple at the market so Pineapple Upside-down Cake seemed like a good option. I began making it when our house-helper, Jackline, asked me what I was preparing. I invited her to help me which meant she read the recipe and watched me. I also offered her a piece when it was finished so she good try our creation. I usually don't measure precisely when I'm baking except for things like baking powder/soda. Also, some things are a little different here, like brown sugar, so I will probably measure more than "normal" for a bit until I get used to things here. While I was measuring the baking powder, Jackline told me that Africans think that's a waste of time, the measuring. Well, actually, I do too but I want my cake to turn out, so for now, I"ll measure.

The pineapple upside-down cake turned out wonderfully and we were able to share it with our teammates Tim and Liz on Friday night during out scheduled electricity outage. We couldn't see it real well, but it tasted wonderfully!

I also got some zucchini at the market so zucchini bread is sounding pretty good!

the weekend...

this weekend was a nice, slow, relaxing time.

On Saturday Kevin, E and J all went for a hike with Jordan and B as well as Tim and Liz. the destination was the river that runs thru town...but upstream from town where it is still a little cleaner. Upon our arrival we waded into the freezing cold water. Tim commented about the fact that it was African water at the temperature that you would imagine to be closer to Canadian water. this didn't stop B from stripping down and getting in. Tim, Jordan and Kevin rolled up our trousers and waded in and E pulled up her skirt enough to get her knees wet. J and Liz took to eating the bananas that we had brought and sitting on the bank watching the rest of us. Eventually, J stripped down to his shirt and stepped into the water for a minute. After about 45 mins of fun we hiked back.

On Sunday we went to church...the Swahili service so that we can work on picking out words that we know as well as get the pace and tone of the language. There were about 75 people in this service and one of a handful of visitors. each of whom get the chance during the service to introduce ourselves to the congregation and be welcomed. it is at this point everyone know how little Swahilli we can speak and often a translator is provided for us (as well as being told about the English service that they have). So the 10:30- 12 service ended about 1:15 or so and we walked home to get PB and J sandwiches and get the kids down for a nap. After lunch there were about 8-9 monkeys that were playing on our fence that we took a little bit of time to watch.

What to eat for meals this is still a little bit of a challenge for us as to having the right stuff and working in the time to make it (with what is locally available). So we had an evening meal from Mummy's Fast Food. Kevin walked to town (30 mins) did a bit of quick grocery store shopping for the things needed for breakfast on Monday. Then to Mummy's....the ordering is the fastest part...samosas 8....chips 3....sausages 2. then the line to pick up the food (15 mins). on the way home Kevin saw the banana guy (bananas in his wheel borrow) and bought bananas. headed back home uphill (45mins). not noted with in the trip are the people who wanted to talk to Kevin, or the friends that Kevin saw on the way (45mins) so Mummy's Fast food only takes about 2.5 hours.

all in a weekend...