Things I love about Kenya

I will admit that there are some things about Kenya and especially living in Nairobi that are taking some getting used to (traffic, sporadic electricity, and dust to name a few).   On the other hand there are so many things I am coming to love about Kenya, just in the brief five weeks we have been here.  I decided I wanted to list them to acknowledge how grateful I am to be in this place at this time. 

So here you have it: Things I love about Kenya:

• The elephant orphanage (nothing is better than baby elephants)
• Learning Swahili ( I admit that I am ambivalent about this, but today I love it)
• Java House and Dorman’s Coffee Shops (they both serve amazing chocolate croissants)
•  A successful drive to church without getting lost. (and no close calls!)
• Beautiful weather and abundant sunshine
• The amazing diverse Kenyan people
• The Rift Valley (what a range of scenic views)
• A dual-Sim Card Cell Phone and the ability to call America for 3 cents a minute.
• Bargaining with street vendors for “today’s best price”.
• Learning to cook from scratch again and at an altitude of 5,000 plus feet.
• Working together with my husband ( so far this is something I love!)

Bwana Asifiwe!   We are very thankful for these wonderful blessings and for the chance to learn to love these people in this place.

 

 

 

Elephants at last

Today I experienced Africa, in the way I had been anticipating.  We were able to make a short stop at the David Sheldrick Elephant orphanage.   The elephants are only allowed human visitors for an hour each day, but they definitely made it worth our while.  Elephants are rescued from throughout Kenya and brought to the orphanage to be cared for until they can be reintroduced into the wild.  Those living at the orphanage today ranged in age from 2 months to almost 3 years.   These babies and toddlers have all lost their mom’s and families primarily due to poaching.   They live at the orphanage with 24/hour a day care (including round the clock bottle feeding every 3 hours) until they are at leat 3 or 4 years, at which time the move to another wildlife rehabilitation center.  They stay at these centers another couple of years, until they are ready to live with a group of elephants in the wild.  “the elephants decide when they are ready to go”.   Apparently the babies can grieve quite some time for their families and truly do have good memories.  The elephant keepers spend all day with these kiddos in the park refuge and sleep with them in their stalls at night.  (They have to wake up every 3 hours for the night-time bottles!) I was touched by these little guys, their joy in drinking their bottles, followed by a rousing mud fight with each other.  What an impressive example of God’s creation, in their complexity of design and emotion.  So people stop destroying the creation and give the elephants a chance.  Also if you think it takes forever for your kids to grow-up and be on their own, remember that elephant parents experience the same thing.

Things I have learned during my first week in Kenya.

We have been in for exactly one week and despite major jet lag I have actually learned a few things.  I wanted to share some of them with you, in case you ever get the chance to come to Kenya.

1.  How to flush a toilet.   The toilet flushing system is a siphon and requires vigorous pumping of the handle 10-15 times before flushing

2. How to drink mixed tea and chai.  Mixed tea is half tea and half milk and requires a pretty strong tolerance for lactose and lots of sugar in order to prevent later suffering. Chai requires the same qualities.

3. How to find to right adapaters so we can plug in computers, hairdryers and a coffee pot.   In the hardware section of our local

4.  How to filter our water

5.  How to install a water filter in our bathroom so I can brush my teeth without using  a bottle of water for rinsing.

6.  How to turn the hotwater heater on an off at the right time so hot water is available for a shower.

7. How to say “thank you and your welcome” in Swahili

New Year 2012

It is that time when many among us are starting to think about the improvements we want to make for 2012, otherwise known as the “resolutions”.    I haven’t heard any unique ideas this year.  Just the usual such as  lose weight, stop smoking, exercise,  be nicer , go to church, spend more time with family.  All great ideas by the way!   If those are among your list,  jump in and stick with them.   I have to admit that most of my resolutions are  pretty standard as well.  But since we are embarking for Kenya in about 36 hours, I decided to think about what I resolve for 2012.   The word resolve expresses committment and decision.  The idea of “going all in” for something..   Maybe if we thought about the word “resolve” more when we made our “resolutions”   our success rates would increase.  So this year as I make my resolutions and think about what I want 2012 to look like, I am contemplating the word  “resolve“ .  What am I committed to and willing to “go all in” for during the next 12 months?   I guess selling the house, quitting the jobs we loved, leaving a church and community we loved  and making plans to move to Kenya implies some resolve on our part, but that was 2011.  What will my resolve look like for 2012 as I plant roots in Kenya?  I hope that I will stick with it and go all in creating a life there that has meaning and allows me to invest something in others.   I hope that I will remember to pay attention to those around me and to those I am leaving behind. I hope that I will take advantage of every opportunity (or at least most opportunities) to learn about the people an cultures of Africa.    I hope that I will find ways to positively impact children around me.  I hope I am resolved to do a better job of focusing on the nobler things of life and not linger so much on the lesser things.  We will see in about 12 months.     Maybe you have some things that you are resolving for 2012.  I hope that they will prove to be significant for you and for those in your path.   Let me know how it goes for you.

The perfect suitcase

We have just a short time before we leave for Africa, and as you can imagine there are always more details than you thought to take care of.   If you have traveled overseas for any length of time, you realize that a lot of time and effort is needed to weigh each bag, shift their contents, and throw some stuff out in order to  get them to the maximum allowed, but not go over.  I am optimistic by nature, so I feel that a half pound or a pound over is the ideal for each suitcase.  My more pessimistically natured husband wishes to err on the side of caution, and go for the half pound or even pound under the allowed weight.   Today we had to go out and buy one more suitcase.   Never mind that it is only five days until Christmas and going to the mall is worthy of a its own commentary.     Off we traipsed to the  mall and negotiated the parking lot successfully, without incident.   We examined all of the possible choices at Macy’s.  By that time we were hungry, so we decided to visit the food court.   People can get very tense apparently around the issue of fast food during Christmas time!  We chose the restaurant with the least people in line.  Sometimes that does not work in one’s favor, but today was a good experience.   Now to scope out the bags in Dillard’s!   Is it possible that there are actually people willing to spend $400.00 for a suitcase?  I mean, have you ever seen what they do to your luggage at the airport?   If you are at all the anxious type, don’t look out the window of the plane and watch them load the luggage.  You might inadvertently see your suitcase run over by one of those little trucks.   Our goal was a suitcase that would withstand these kind of travel experiences, have good wheels, and not be too heavy.  I hate it when ten pounds of the allowable weight is taken up by the suitcase itself.  We had almost given up, but there it was, the perfect color (red-orange  and easily distinguishable from the common color of black), the perfect size and only weighed 7 pounds and marked down from $350.00 to $98.00 .  Feeling great about ourselves and our bargain hunting skills we took our suitcase home.  Don just asked me  ‘what are we putting in this suitcase’?   I thought to myself,  I don’t know, so I guess that means another shopping trip tomorrow.

The Journey

For the last year or so we have been on a journey that will end in less than a month.  When we land in Nairobi I want to say the journey is over and we have arrived.  But that is the funny thing about journey’s, especially those to new (and let’s just go ahead and say it) exotic places– Arriving at the destination doesn’t end the journey.   For the last couple of months we have been packing and repacking our suitcases— and will probably repack them at least one more time!  We have also been packing our hearts and minds learning about the culture, language, health and safety, food, AIDS in Africa—.  I think we will have to do some additional packing and repacking of our brains as well.   That is the funny thing about journeys they are frequently composed of a thousand mundane, boring and anxiety producing details and if you are not careful you can forget about the big picture—- We are going to be staying in Africa!   We want to share some of these details about our journey  including the things we learn and wish we had learned.  Hopefully we won’t forget the big picture in the luggage!