Life in Kenya

While we have all had so many emotional stories that have forever changed our lives, we have times here in Africa that we just have to laugh. So I thought I would enlighten those at home to give you a bit of insight to what other things we have been experiencing. 

-African time | When someone says we need to be somewhere at 9, you can usually plan on starting around an hour or more later. 

-Road Rules | There are none. It's a constant game of chicken, literally. Everyone passes everybody and when there is a speed limit, it is never followed. We are use to having to stop for a cow or goat crossing the road. The taxi driver often just hot-wires the car to get it started. It's an adventure needless to say.

Food | All of the girls were planning on losing a lot of weight on this trip, because its Africa right? False, all we eat is carbs, carbs and more carbs. Pastor Simons wife, momma margret and her niece vicky cook for us three times a day, so we never go without food. We typically eat pancakes or french toast or mandzi (kinda like a funnel cake) for breakfast. Lunch and dinner is usually some type of potato, bean, vegtable dish, wish a side of Chapti- which is amazing bread that we LOVE. It looks like a tortilla but it tastes much much better. We are within walking distance of a gas station as well as a convient store that both sell soda. I'm not much of a soda drinker, but you can get a glass bottle of coke for 23 shillings, which is roughly 25 cents (94 shillings = $1 US dollar), For some reason we have all become a huge fan of peanut butter, so we buy it by the jar  and enjoy by the spoonful. 

Kids | They all love to say 'how are you' and they quickly reply for us by saying 'fine' right after, in a weird accient (we think they are trying to make themselves sound more American). Many of the kids are afriad of us because they have never seen a white person before, so we are quite scary to some. Many of them don't remember our name, so we respond to them saying Muzungu which means white person. But most of all we have never seen so many smiles, they have such joyful spirits and are happy to assist whenever you need help. 

Bathrooms | For the first three tribes we stayed at, there was none, really. We had to use what they call a squatty which consist of a hole in the ground. They have a little house built around it, so you do have some privacy, but we have gotten use to making sure we carry tolit paper with us at all times in th event of needing to use the squatty. As for showers, we had a tarp and a bucket for the first 6 weeks. So we got use to just going a week without a bucket shower, just because of low water supply. 

The Market | We have a little farmers market we go to in Kijabe on a regular basis. They sell fruit and jewley/tourist gifts, and for some reason we feel the need to go there almost everyday. We are always checking to see if they have anything new in the crafts, and we have become really good at negotiating with them. The avacado's are 15 shillings, and mangos go for 30 shillings..so how could we not go everyday?!

Tenting | It has become the norm to call our room a tent. We have three large tents that we sleep in, in Kijabe. The two boys share one tent and 5 girls and 6 girls in the other. We quite enjoy the large tents in comparison to our small tents we slept in at the tribes. It's like one big sleep over with the big tents. 

Games | We are mostly professionals at playing solitare and 9 holes of golf ( a card game), but we really get into a card games and almost always keep score because we are rather competitive. 

Pictures | We usually all have our cameras out whereever we go, and we all feel the need to get the same pictures on ALL of the camera's, so group shots take a couple minutes to take when you have at least 10 to pose for.

We have a lot of fun here in Kenya, and love eachother so much. We have cired, laughed and loved one another and have memories that will last us a life time. Time has flown by, but I'm excited to see what God has planned for us for the last four weeks of this amazing journey.