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."