First off, let me just say that I am very happy with the alliterative quality of this post’s title. Secondly, let me apologize in advance for this long-winded post. I have some serious catching up to do, but from here on out plan to do much more regular, and bite-sized posts. But now on to the real reason you are probably reading this blog: Kenya updates! The past few days have been SOOO crazy! My flights to Amsterdam and Nairobi were rather uneventful other than the fact that they lost one of my bags in Amsterdam, but the good news is it just got to me today! Once we were in Nairobi and had gone through the process to say that we weren’t experiencing any symptoms of swine flu, got our visas, and filed the claim for my missing luggage (Bre’s and Alice’s made it through without a hitch!) we got picked up by a friend of Saddleback by the name of Allen. He and his friend took us and our luggage to the Methodist Guest House where we spent the short night before heading off to Kitale.

(Funny side note: We had to wake up at 5:30am to leave for the airport, which is pretty early after all of our travelling, and I didn’t have any working time/alarm utility so my body was hyperaware and woke me up at 1:30 and I tried to use my iPod to tell the time and thought I was right on time. It turns out it was really 1:30 which I figured out after showering and getting dressed so then I went back to bed for another four hours. Whoops!)

We are ready to fly from Nairobi to Kitale!

The flight to Kitale was uneventful but wow, it was such a small airplane! Check it out!

Once we landed in Kitale, we were driven straight from the airstrip (yes, airstrip, NOT airport. I will try to get pictures when we fly out) to our compound. We dropped our bags off and headed straight to the Oasis of Hope center. The kids were all out and about and we had a lot of fun playing with them right off the bat despite being exhausted. We played the Swahili versions of Red Rover and Duck, Duck, Goose and just hung out and got to know Geoffrey and some of the other volunteer staff at the center along with the students.

After our visit there, we went to the girls’ home to meet the girls who live there and have dinner with them. I really fell in love with all of these girls. They were so much fun and were so silly to watch play and dance. They played one game with marbles which basically consisted of catapulting your own marble at the others’ marbles and every time you hit one, you got ten points and got to go again. The first to one hundred points won the game. It looked like SO much fun, but I was so busy still taking everything in that I did not participate. Alice tried her hand at it, but wasn’t able to quite get the catapulting technique.

The girls playing their marble game

After the marble game, came some form of hopscotch which I could tell just by watching, that I had NO chance of playing, so I stood by as a cheerleader!

The girls' hopscotch-esque game

While all the games and dancing were going on, other girls and the house mom, Rebecca were preparing dinner for us. Dinner consisted of rice, green grams, potatoes, and chapati. For those who haven’t heard from past Kenya visitors, green grams are a delicious kind of lentils and chapati is like flatbread and is SO tasty, but also SO filling.

The girls flattening out dough for chapati

After dinner, we went back to our home and fell fast asleep. The next day we headed out to Kitale Family for family visiting day. These are all kids who started out at the Oasis center, and now they attend boarding school (the school is called Kitale Family). Since they are all street kids, their family is the people at Oasis of Hope so we are who visit them on family visiting day. Olivia, Geoffrey’s wife, brought them chips (French fries) and sodas as a treat. We picnicked outside for a while, but then it began to rain so we ran into one of the classrooms and sang songs inside and chatted and hung out. Here are a few pictures from that!

Bre and I with all of the Kitale Family Kids

Sweet little Irene who is a sister of some of the kids I have adored most since being here.

Irene attends Kitale Family and she has three sisters that I have met, Christine and Ajix who live in the girls’ house, and Lucy who attends the Oasis center, and one brother that I briefly met named Patrick. They are all such adorable kids with SUCH personality.

After Kitale Family, we went to the Oasis center for a youth meeting where the older kids all come together and essentially have a bible study of sorts and also have a round-table type discussion to help each other with whatever they may be going through at the time. It was SO cool to witness the faith of all these guys and girls and see them praise the Lord and help each other out. That wrapped up our Saturday.

On Sunday, we woke up and went to church at the Oasis center. First, let me just say how much I LOVE the singing style out here. It is so cool to witness them sing, whether for worship or for recreation. It’s so hard to describe but it is almost all acapella and clapping and it is just so beautiful. After the service (which was mostly in Swahili, but partly translated) we all went out into the outside area and just hung out and played with all of the kids for a couple hours and Alice tutored some of the older boys who have their exams coming up quickly to decide what secondary school (high school) they can get into.

Kamau and David were SO stinkin' cute. We fake fought and wrestled and whenever I "knocked" them down I would throw my fists in the air and yell "Winner!" So you see Kamau imitating that here.

Kamau and David give me their best fighting poses

Left to Right: Ajix, Hellen, David, Kamau, Christine

I let the kids have my camera for a little while and here are some of the pictures that came back to me afterwards:

Janet holding baby Verity (who is terrified of Muzungus (white people))

Christine and Janet styling Bre's hair

Alice, who was so shy at first gets silly for pictures

Left to right: David, me, Michael

David decided to usher me off as a prisoner

...so then I got him back later!

Christine and Janet play with my hair while Michael squeezes in his flowers.

All the while, Alice was tutoring.

The rain was coming so we eventually left the center and tried to make our way into town. We had to stop under a little shop’s roof while the rain came and went and made a friend there, Edward, who gave us his email address to keep in touch. We got to town and ate and then came home and I went to sleep at around 6pm because I was SO exhausted.

Today, we went to Oasis in the beginning of the day and Bre and I helped to teach an English class while Alice talked with Geoffrey and built our schedule for the week. After that, we went into town to make copies of math assignments for more tutoring and also got lunch. While Alice was finishing the copying, I got to talk to several street kids which was SUCH an awesome experience. It was pretty brief, but I hope to get to do it more over the next several weeks we are here.

After that we went to the boys’ home #2 and Bre and I helped Alice keep tutoring the older boys in math for a couple of hours before returning home to a delicious dinner of githeri (maize, beans, and potatoes) prepared  by Leila and Emmanuel and now I am going straight to bed! But first, a last few pictures of Alice tutoring the boys.

Left to right: Alice, Martin, Moses, Steward

Class 7 (7th grade) tutoring table

Th-th-that’s all for now folks! I promise to be much more brief from now on. For anyone who actually read this far: God bless your soul and I sincerely apologize for delaying and thus, dragging out the length of this post.

Peace and love,
J