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!

in kenya now

it has been so long sice updating that now we are in kenya and doing well. We are in what many call the "honeymoon period" where everything is new and automatically good and wonderful. Over the next few posts, perhaps you will see the highlights of our lives in Kenya.

highlight number 1: the animals-

Even on our way out of nairobi to narok, the kids and danielle got to see baboons, various birds and several herds of dom

esticated animals...all of which drew a lot of excitement and anticipation of the next sighting.

Just after moving to our home here in Narok, we spoted some monkeys just up the street...how good and wonderful. a couple of days later...they were right on our front porch.

Our new home has a great view, we can see across the river, but in a lot of ways it is nearly resort quality views of plant life. with such wonderful plants and trees, there is a draw for the birds. And the variety of the birds is amazing.

We have even spotted several animals that we don't know. one little guy that we have seen a couple of times is a furry little fellow that is about 4 inches tall at the shoulder and about a foot long, with fur and four legs. could it be a ferret? or something else?

So in all of this we are amazed by our surroundings, but fully aware of the need for us to get back to studying. Our formal language teacher isn't arriving until the 10th of OCT so for the present we are self teaching. Our focus has been on vocab as nearly anyone will correct how you say something so our helpers are nearly endless. we anticipate a time when we will get more interaction than flashcards and will get to begin to understand the grammar of Swahili.