Glowing and blowing

Time is slipping by too fast. This week has been a lot of  'last times.' On Monday we went to Village Market (one of our favourite places to go--where we went for my birthday) to do some glow-in-the-dark mini golf.

After doing some investigation with her friends, she discovered that they all received their mission calls on Monday afternoon, which would be just after midnight here. She said Monday was going to be agony for her, so we did a little outing to distract her.

Going on a Monday afternoon, we had the place to ourselves. It was different than any other minigolf I have been to.

Each hole had obstacles made from discarded materials, like computer hard drive, or a bike wheel, a broken pipe. The decor was basically made from things you might find in a junk yard--broken bits of machinery. To me this was very African. I think they try more here to be more circular with using waste products.

Monday night Elizabeth and I stayed up past 12:45 am to see if her call would come. It was not  easy to stay awake and by 12:40 when it hadn't come I was ready to give up and go to bed. Just as I was going, she realized that fall back had just happened and there is now another hour's difference between us and church headquarters, so with renewed hope she stayed up waiting. Sure enough, it came at 1:14 am. Then we had to make all the arrangements for her to open her call the next morning...it was a very late night and we had to up for 7 am to open it.😫 

In our efforts to to fit everything in before we leave, we headed off to Kitengala glass after going to the temple this week. We were late getting out of the temple because the baptisms went on forever. For one girl they did 40 baptisms! I know we can't complain because she could have travelled from so far to get there and it could be a long time before she gets the chance to go again. The drive to Kitengala was rough. In parts the road was a pitted dirt road with ruts and large stones--it was terrible! Even though it would destroy any car or truck that tried to go fast, there were steep speed bumps that cause the car to bottom out.

Once we got there the place was pretty fun with lots of different art all around.

 

Elizabeth said it made her think of Bozenka's house. We paid for an experience which meant we each got to make 2 tumblers or 1 large vase or bowl. We all chose the tumblers. The experience was different than when Laura, Nat and I went to a glass blowing factory in Okinawa. There we had to tie our hair back, wear  some kind of protective apron, watch a demo and we were far from where the artisans were working. Here we received no demo and were just given a protective sleeve. We walked through where artisans were working with molten glass and got up really close to everything. 

I went first. I had to try to understand a soft-spoken Kenyan with a strong accent telling me what to do while there was the noise of the furnaces and factory behind me. I managed.

It made me nervous when our instructor left me alone turning the blob of glass in the furnace because I could see it drooping and becoming more and more lopsided. But when he returned, he fixed it. At the end, with the tumbler still attached to a pipe, they had us each stand with it and they put newspaper in it which instantly caught fire for a little photo op.

Then they put it in a really hot kiln to cool down gradually. Thankfully we didn't have to return to collect our items, they delivered them right to our door. Hopefully we will be able to transport them home safely.

We explored the grounds a little when we were done--I wish we had had more time, but our driver needed to get back. We found a couple hyraxes while we looked around.

I first learned of hyraxes last year when we were in Nanyuki. Every night I could hear these loud noises and screams outside my window and no one else but the reds and I seemed to even notice it. I did some googling and discovered it was a hyrax. But this was the first time we had ever seen them. They kind of made me think of bunnies they way they moved and played. They are a little hard to see in the pictures--they weren't easy to take pictures of.

Yesterday we went to Mathare for possibly our last time. There weren't many kids when we arrived, but more came as they saw us. They drew for awhile and then we taught them how to play 'Go Fish.' Some kids took a long time to understand the purpose of the game--asking other children for cards they knew the other person had, but which they didn't need--therefore failing to make a match. When we finished up in the library, we trekked across Mathare to the football field and watched the 2nd half of the Mathare River Kings play.

They won, so that was fun. The peculiar part was than in the middle of the game, other people were chalking out the lines. Literally. One player had to run around the string they were using to guide the lines to chase another player down. Kind of crazy.

Tonight we attended the senior missionary FHE. It is always fun to join and there is always way too much yummy food. Everyone was so excited for Lizzie. We came home with lots of leftovers. And we said lots of goodbyes. It has come to that part of our visit. As Elizabeth is known to say: "sadness."

 

Spring in Kenya

It is getting hot and the mosquitoes have arrived. The windows in my room have screens, but they aren't completely flush over the window and every morning I wake up with more mosquito bites. Sometimes when I am just about to fall asleep I am awakened by the buzzing of a mosquito near my ear. That snaps me awake, but when I turn on the lights I can't find it. So now I don't open any windows. The issue is, there are still mosquitoes in our apartment.  We can't figure out where they are coming in from.

I think we have finally entered the short rainy season that was supposed to begin in the beginning of October. Almost everyday (but mostly at night) it rains really hard. It always makes me stop and watch because it is so different from rain at home. 

And then it stops and the sun comes out. Rain is much needed here so I can't complain and actually  it has the added bonus of bringing temperatures down slightly.

This week we went to Kazuri beads where women make beads out of clay and paint little designs on them.

It was started as a way for women to earn a living. The beads were very beautiful but also rather expensive.

One of the large birds we saw one day

We are here on a tourist visa which means we are allowed to stay for 90 days. However, at my professor's request, we are here for 97 days. I mentioned this little visa problem to her before we left and she said it wouldn't be a problem...When I asked her what I needed to do to extend our visa, she was rather alarmed and said she wished she had known this earlier. 😑😑😑 

She had me reach out to someone that would know what I need to do, and I got all the information. It sounded simple: create an account, log on and request a visa extension, pay the money, then take the receipt to Nyayo house (where the immigration office is) and get our passports stamped...But it wasn't that simple. I tried for a few hours to create an account and log in. It just wouldn't let me. Finally, (by 2 am) I gave up and instead opted for google's AI advice, which was to go there first thing in the morning, before it opens, print off my tickets and bank statements, hope for the best in taking the lift (it asked me if I could walk the 17 flights because the lifts are slow and crowded), and when I get there, tell reception that I am asking for a grace period extension and that I need it done manually because I had a glitch in the system that wouldn't allow me to log in.

How it actually worked: As soon as we got out of the uber, there was a man waiting there wanting to assist us. But my uber driver had already talked to a security guard who would take us to a printing kiosk. The other man kept following us until the security guard literally pushed him away. We printed the documents and went to Nyayo house. The security guard there asked us if we had completed our application, (which we hadn't) and said this other guy would help us get our applications sent off. He walked us a couple blocks away from Nyayo house to a very small and cramped office with far too many people in it. It was stifling hot and every time someone came in or left, Malachi would squish his heat emanating legs against me. After we sat there for at least 40 minutes, a worker there took me to a bank to make the payment. I felt we were getting taken advantage of, especially when she told me the price of their service. I refused to use that bank that would only take my credit card and not debit so she sent us off to a different bank. At this point, I decided to go back to Nyayo house (instead of the bank) and not talk to the security guard and see if we could just get them to do a our application manually. The lift was a little scary--at one point it just stopped with a jolt and stayed there for a few minutes. But we made it and contrary to the what the security guard said, they did manually process our application. 

Since we are nearing the end of our time, we decided to go back to the Maasai market to get some more souvenirs. That place sucks the life out of you. Everybody is trying to get you to buy from them and most of the products are very similar. They act so friendly as they ask ridiculously high prices and tell you they are giving you a deal. I mostly let Lizzie handle all the transactions, but once they started telling her that if she bought something they would be able to get lunch, she caved. We got a pretty good haul, but fear we may have to go back one more time.

It was pouring rain on the day that we were supposed to go to Mathare and do park activities. We switched gears and planned for another library day, but by the time we got there, the rain had stopped. So in spite of all the protests from the reds, we headed down to the park. The library boy pulled a large suitcase behind him full of books.

The children this time were harder to engage. I think it was because they were a little younger and couldn't understand us.

But we managed to get them involved when we pulled out the speaker to play freeze dance. They picked a song and then they all started doing the same dance moves. It was entertaining.

Today we were invited to a birthday party of a girl we met here. She is Kenyan Canadian and recently moved back from Ottawa. The party turned out to be mostly a family affair which was a little awkward, but it was also kind of a cool cultural experience. They sing a different birthday song where everybody dances and it goes on for a bit. The birthday girl was not impressed and seemed rather upset during the singing. She went home shortly after.

I got to try nyama choma (roast goat) for the first time. It was yummy. 

We have only 2 weeks left here. I need to plan a little vacation for us, but we are having a hard time deciding between the options. I hope to get that all figured out in the next couple of days.

Mountaineering

This week we headed off to Ngong hills. If you have ever seen Out of Africa, there is a famous line in there about them. I haven't seen it, but that is what I was told. I've been trying to go for awhile, but there has always been some reason that we couldn't. The most recent was that our driver went out of town. I found another driver and we set out on Wednesday morning. Ngong is knuckle in Swahili so the name refers to a series of hills.

It was a hot day--perhaps even the hottest we have had since being here (29 degrees).  I don't know how describe it, but the power of the sun just feels stronger here, so 29 degrees is hot.

The hills were beautiful and grueling.

From far off they look like gentle slopes, but some of them were steep! And for some reason, when I climb, I get so breathless. I missed Brent, who always makes us stop while he catches his breath. This time I was the weak link. We didn't walk all 7 hills, but we hiked almost half of the park. At the start there were wind turbines which were quite loud when we were close to them, but the wind in that part was delicious. Elizabeth did a kilometer long zipline there, but Malachi was too scared.

We saw lots of sheep and goats grazing there. After we passed the turbines, it was very quiet. There weren't even any birds singing. On our way back, we passed a man carrying a styrofoam box. Our guide told us he sold ice cream. It was only 50 shillings, so we welcomed a cool treat. The cones were small, like not much bigger than a toonie, but it wasn't bad for 50 bob (as they say here). 

We discovered when we got home, that we all missed some little spots when we had applied sunscreen so we all had random areas of sunburn. For Elizabeth, it was the back of her knees--ouch!.

We also stopped and bought a drink from a family that had some kind of juicer plugged into a power line up there. The juice had sugar cane, beet, turmeric, ginger, lime, and aloe vera. I wasn't sure how it was going to be. The reds wanted just lime and ginger, but she misunderstood, so we all got everything. It was delicious--so gingery and yummy.

Even though it was so hot, her little boy was all bundled up. 

It was the same at church today. It was so hot, the fans were barely on, and the toddler girl we saw was wearing a thick fleece vest and thick, warm, ear warmers. Because it has been so hot, and I have been roasting in my room, I bought a small hand held  electric fan. It is amazing! 

This week the Mathare library boy called and asked us to come do library work on Saturday, so we headed there not really knowing what to expect. When we arrived, he was outside peeling potatoes. He told me he was doing a little business today and he would show me later. Then he took us into the library which was full of kids and left us there to go back to his potato peeling. Ummm, what? So we decided to read some books to them. We held up different books and they chose the one they wanted us to read. Many kids voted for every book. I don't think they understood us. We read one book and then they handed us another. The second book was much longer and I had my doubts about how many were actually understanding it. To liven things up, we decided to play some games. We taught them beat master, which they all loved, and then Simon says. The library is a small room and there were a lot of kids in there with us, so it was hard to do much activity in there.

We took them outside the library and did a few more games. Elizabeth really took charge of leading the games. One that they  really liked was concentration, but Elizabeth does it with a complicated clapping rhythm, so I gave up quickly.

They have such good rhythm, it was fun to watch them play.

After playing with the kids for a while, we got to see what the library boy was making. He made Bhajia, which is a Mathare street food. He had a little fire right outside of the Mathare library which he cooked over. He deep fried the potatoes in a wok. They had some kind of Indian spices on them--I'm guessing turmeric, because they were very orange. We had a little taste--they were yummy. I wish I had taken some pictures.

Kenya is always interesting to view as we drive around.

 It was a pretty uneventful week for us. One highlight was visiting the home of the founder of Mto Wangu. He and his family came last week and we had tacos. I felt like they didn't really like it, but we were told that his son asked for tacos for his next playdate meal. The founder didn't actually make it home while we were at his house, but we had a nice visit with his wife. They have  9 month old baby that was very charming. Dinner was delicious and we were sent home with chapati (a Kenyan form of roti). Walking home after dark was a little scary for us. We usually don't go out after 6:30 because that is when all the crime happens. Luckily they live very close and it was a short walk on a quiet residential road. 

We spend Saturday at Village Market, a very nice upscale mall that has lots of places for me to sit and work while the kids explore.

They didn't do much exploring without me though. Elizabeth, who is anxious to get her mission call was on the hunt for mission clothes.

One of the things that entertains us when we drive is looking at the different things they haul around by motorbike.

I've seen them carrying large TVs, a couch, and 4 people at once. When it rains they have little umbrellas.

Here are some of the pictures we have taken.

We also saw camels while driving around this last week. The uber driver told me they come from Somalia.

I have gotten the kids into a habit that every day we go work out in the little gym in our apartment building. When you are living with 2 kids with ADHD and they don't go out much, this is essential. But they find it very boring and begged me to do Just Dance with them. Malachi didn't bring that game, so we just do it on YouTube, which has allowed them to get nostalgic with all the old dances they did from our Wii game. I have discovered you can get a good cardio workout from doing just dance.

Ebola has come to Nairobi. A Kenyan man that had been living in the DRC travelled home to Kenya and died a day or two later. He went directly from the airport to the hospital and they have done contact tracing. Since then, 6 more people (that had been in quarantine) have contracted Ebola. It isn't out in the community yet, but it is worrying. I don't want to even think about what would happen if it spreads into Nairobi. Please pray for the people here and the medical professionals. (3 of the 6 that have contracted Ebola are healthcare workers.)

Tea Farm Adventure

The senior sister's group that we attend organized a trip to a tea farm this week. To be honest, it didn't sound like the most exciting excursion, so I was going to pass. But then, our driver had a family emergency and so the outing I had planned wasn't going to happen, so I decided to join the tea farm trip. Lizzie and Malachi were not too thrilled either. We had to get up early because it takes a couple hours to get there and we were supposed to meet at the area offices, which are about a 40 minute drive from here. So we got up early an were eating our breakfast when I received the text that the cost will be almost double for us because we aren't residents. Non-residents pay higher prices for some government run places like national parks and even Karura Forest, which I understand because we don't pay taxes and we have generally have a higher income than the locals. But when private businesses charge you more for not being a resident, it feels a bit like price gauging. We decided to give up on the tea farm trip and were just figuring out what to do with our day, when I received the text that she had talked them into giving us the resident price.

So off we went. We met at the museum. While we waited we took some pics.

Not that many sisters actually went. Marie was the organizer. She isn't a missionary; her husband does legal counsel for the church. They are from Calgary. The drive out there was full of chatter and quick subject changes ( 2 of the sisters have ADHD). I learned about their different mission assignments and I told them about working with the kids in Mathare. It is hard to tell them much more of what I do, because somehow the conversation always changes. So in their minds I work at a nursery school. Kenyan roads have speed bumps everywhere. Like everywhere. In the middle of the highways. On residential roads. On busy roads with 4 lanes of traffic. Everywhere. And they aren't always marked. Let's just say that Lizzie and Malachi were launched a few times in the back seat.

When we arrived at the farm it was raining. That was a problem because it had been hot for several days in Nairobi and it was when we left as well, so we didn't bring any warmer clothes. Instead we brought swimming clothes for the swimming hole. Luckily the rain stopped almost immediately after we had to leave the shelter, but Malachi still stubbornly held on to his umbrella.

The tour started with a "breakfast" of a small scone with hibiscus tea and hibiscus jam. The kids did not like the tea, but the jam was a big hit. After breakfast the we walked down to the farm where we were given baskets and taught how to pick the tea leaves.

It felt kind of weird just tossing the leaves over my head or shoulder and expecting them to land in the basket. After we picked a handful each, we took our haul back to the house where we roasted the leaves and then rolled them. I learned all about the differences between black tea, oolong tea, and green tea. There is also purple tea, white tea and yellow tea. All are made from the same tea leaves--it mostly has to do with how long they are left sitting before they are processed. The earlier they are processed ( green and purple are processed the fastest) the lower the caffeine.

The area was so scenic.

The pictures look like we are standing in front of a backdrop, but it was real. After our tea education, we walked down to the waterfall. We walked through a bamboo forest.

The bamboo was so big and arched way above our heads.

Of course the waterfall was beautiful, but none of us went swimming because it just wasn't quite warm enough. The tour concluded with a fancy lunch. The chef shared all his recipes with us, which was surprising and we drove back feeling uncomfortably full and with Marie hitting only a couple speed bumps at full speed.

Yesterday we attended a farewell and welcome party for the senior missionaries going home and the recent arrivals. For us, it was the first time meeting most of the husbands. It was nice doing a little socializing. The sisters that went to the tea farm with us greeted us like we were old friends. It seems like a really special tight knit group and we feel privileged to be included. They invited us to attend their FHE which was tonight, but we had company coming couldn't go.

I think I mentioned before that the founder of the organization I work with lives just around the corner. Today he and his family came for dinner. I wasn't sure what to make, so we opted for tacos and taco salad. I'm not sure what they thought. Elizabeth practiced her card tricks on the kids and then we were taught a few card games. One of them was basically Uno but with face cards. It was fun. I managed to not get too competitive. 😉