A Slightly Ironic Day

The other morning, I noticed the tail of a rat behind the couch in the living room. I was aware of at least one around due to the nibbled holes in packages of cornmeal, flour & oats that were in double zip lock bags hoping to enclose the scent, and even packets of milk were nibbled and leaked all over the place beginning on Lesley’s last couple days. Therefore, I was more than happy to move the trap I had in the kitchen over to the end of the couch and barricade both ends with shoeboxes. Sure enough, curiosity killed the rat (to modify the common phrase) and it was caught within about 5 minutes! It was a big one too, but I’ll spare you the pictures. I reset the trap in the kitchen just in case there are more, and found another caught later in the day too.

The irony comes in when I picked up the book The Wind In the Willows that evening… this is a book that I’ve never had the chance to read until now (Lesley’s parents sent it in a care package recently for us to read if we want and donate to the school). Yet, I’ve long loved the following quote from it (as many sailors probably do), “There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half as much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Little did I realize that the phrase is declared by Mr. Grahame’s Water Rat character.

Looking back, I also took a new computer mouse to the school among a few other things. Mouse or rat, the live ones are both creepy, annoying rodents if you ask me.

Home safely

Just in case you were wondering, I (Lesley) made it back to the US safely as scheduled. Thankfully I was not held up by the BA crew strike, nor were there any additional natural disasters to stop air traffic.

I am going to be in northern California until Chris gets back, so please feel free to be in contact with me via email (I don't have a phone yet, and will not likely be on skype). Chris can still be reached by his email, skype, etc.

That's all for now, hopefully Chris will still update the blog from Kenya :-)

Anticipating Home

I have tried not to complain much about our living circumstances here, and we have adapted fairly well (I think) with rural living. However, there are definitely a number of things I am looking forward to upon returning to the US!

· Seeing my family and friends
· Cooking meals, or even snacks, in less than two hours
· Driving a car
· Driving a car to a grocery store that is less than an hour and a half away
· Eating healthy, fresh food
· Starbucks/Peet’s/various other coffee establishments
· TV
· Restaurants, cafes, and any other place that has food that I didn’t cook
· Weather that calls for wearing jeans and a sweater
· A haircut
· Laundry machines
· Not having bugs in my food, my dishes, my clothes, my bed …
· Hot showers and hair driers
· Libraries and bookstores
· Not having mold grow on everything

At the same time, I am a little nervous about the reverse culture-shock that I’m fairly certain is coming my way (during her visit, Katie regularly told me how shocked I’m going to be). My fashion sense has deteriorated to what my mother calls “missionary clothes:” long skirts, ugly sandals, faded but modest shirts (to be fair, most missionaries I know are very stylish – I call the look “peace corps chic”). We have been out-of-touch with technology: it is only thanks to facebook that I have heard of an ipad (but I still don’t know what it is). We walk everywhere here and take public transportation – I’m looking forward to driving again, but I don’t know how I will react to American car culture. And what about materialism? And the amount of skin an average person shows on a summer afternoon? And the fact that you don’t typically greet every person you pass on the street? I know we will miss the infamous African hospitality that we have become so accustomed to giving and receiving. How will we adjust to the pace of life and values that emphasize more and more, faster and faster, bigger and better?

Some things are a mixed bag. As much as I look forward to being able to understand everything that everyone says (in English), I will miss learning and practicing Swahili. It will be nice to be updated on current events, but I have realized how much stress is removed from life when you are not constantly inundated with information and bad news from around the world. The weather in CA is ideal, but my body has actually adjusted to the Mombasa heat. However beautiful our future home is, I can’t imagine anything will compare with the incredible views of and from Ribe. I am ecstatic to see my friends and family again, but I know I will miss the friends we have made here and our host family.

Of course our return to the US will be bittersweet and it will take some time to adjust back (I may hibernate for the first couple days). I will miss Chris a ton, and it will be weird getting to know the US again without him at first. But I thank God for a great 10 months in Kenya, and am looking forward to seeing how our time here will have a lasting impact on us as well as the local community.

A quick update - heading home

A quick update for those of you who don't follow us via Facebook ... I (Lesley) am getting ready to leave Kenya in a few days. The original plan was to stay through June, but I have been interviewing for jobs and it makes more sense for me to come home earlier in order to do some on-campus interviews (interviews in June, position would start July or August). I was supposed to come home the 30th, but after some crazy airline mix-ups I am now re-scheduled to arrive in San Francisco on May 24th. Chris will remain in Kenya for at least a few weeks to continue/finish up working on some of the school construction.

Although our plans for the next couple months are ambiguous, we hope to be in the St. Louis area in late June, potentially in So Cal in July (depending on job situation), and possibly Chicago/Wisconsin for a weekend in September or October. Otherwise we will be in Northern California unless God leads us elsewhere!

Visit with Baby Christiana

Last Saturday we visited the home of a fellow teacher, Mr. Farah, to hang out and meet his family, especially his three-month-old baby daughter Christiana. She is the first (and only) baby named after me! When his wife was nearing her due date, Mr. Farah and I were talking about names and he asked my suggestions. I gave him a list of my favorite names, and also mentioned my own name, Lesley Christiana. Since the baby was born on a Sunday and in local tradition names are often related to the day/season of the birth, Mr. Farah and his family thought a name that reflects the Christian day of worship was appropriate. Her full name is Pili (also refers to Sunday in the local language) Christiana Medza (a family name). They don’t use a surname the way we do, but rather give each child a different name from a family member. She is such a happy, smiling baby – she loves to “stand” and dance and giggle!





When someone has a namesake here, the two people are jokingly referred to as being interchangeable. So, I became a daughter to Mr. Farah and a sister to his other kids, while baby Christiana became a wife to Chris. All throughout the day we laughed and joked about our new extended family!



To celebrate the meeting of the Christianas, the family hosted us with coconuts, tea, sweet breads, and pilau (a meat and rice dish made on holidays). To make the traditional pilau, they slaughtered a chicken and a goat! This is a very special thing usually reserved for holidays, weddings, and other celebrations.





We spent the whole day with their family, hanging out and eating, mostly. I tried to help the women cook, but after crouching over a smoky wood fire and big steamy pot in a tiny room, my eyes started to burn and I had to bow out. At the end of the day, Mr. Farah presented us with another tradition – a leg from the goat they had killed! He said it is proper to send the guests home with something to eat for a few days.



A fun but somewhat tiring day, as we had to hike 30-40 minutes each way between our home and theirs. It was definitely worth it, though, and I hope I get to see my little namesake again!

Things I’ve Learned in Kenya

· I learned to be completely unfazed by, and even fairly interested in, slaughtering chickens and goats
· I learned to treat my elders with respect
· I learned how to be the 15th (or 16th, or 17th, or 18th) person in a 14-seat matatu
· I learned to be okay with it when people referred to me as fat – it’s descriptive, not derogatory
· I learned to appreciate my government
· I learned how to make everything from chili to pizza from scratch and on a charcoal stove
· I learned to honestly and truly laugh at myself
· I learned at least 20 ways to greet people, depending on the person and circumstance
· I learned (and am still learning) how to serve, and the value of serving
· I learned to live on 1-2 buckets of water a day
· I learned how to fry things
· I learned how to “shangwe na vigelegele” (celebrate and ululate)
· I learned to like doing to dishes
· I learned to stand up for what I believe in, but also when to pick my battles
· I learned to converse with my husband about every intimate thing, from poop to predestination
· I learned that God is the ultimate answer to issues of poverty and development – he is the end and the means

The Comedic Trials of Constructing a Stairway Handrail in Kenya (almost) by Yourself

This story begins with another character, because when the group from Project Kenya was here in March, Mr. Tucker began to construct this handrail pretty much by himself as the rest of us focused on getting the corridor railings finished. All the hammers were being used and the handsaws were free, so he cut many of the pieces to length and I helped him briefly to mark where the concrete needed to be drilled to affix the frame. However, the impact drill was occupied with the corridor handrails for the rest of the time.

Therefore, we specified that those pieces were to be set aside for these stairs handrails, and Lesley and I set off for Nairobi with the group as we wrote about before. Upon returning to Ribe after exploring Western Kenya, to my disappointment, the timber was merely set aside within the wide-open school building (granted up on the upper floor, but still…), and to my amazement, all the pieces were still there. Therefore, I not so wisely allowed them to stay as they were as we resumed work with plastering around the windows and sealing the handrails along the corridor with some gloss varnish.

You guessed it – a couple pieces went missing! I was especially baffled, because one of the missing ones was a 2x6 and 2x2 screwed together to make a 2x8 to fix to the concrete; how does that not cry “done intentionally,” huh? We discovered/recovered the 2x2 with the half dozen screws and the remaining bits of the other part that had been ripped off to be used as firewood! Furthermore, by the time I wished to construct the handrail, I had forgotten that the chuck key for the drill was misplaced in all the chaos of the last day the group was in Ribe. I also found that the chuck of the drill was already beginning to rust in the Kenyan coast humidity!

So, now that the stage is set, here are excerpts from my little work/activity journal (more of a “log” since I don’t do much analytical “journaling”):

· Went to the school to measure and layout timber for the stairway handrail. Tom (the school watchman) had a saw, so we cut the replacements needed from leftover timber.

· Got the drill from the school store (locked closet), and made a template of the holes that were marked on the concrete to drill the replacement upright board. Borrowed chuck key from a local handyman to drill the replacement board, but the key was not a good fit & the already rusting chuck cannot fit the other bit for the concrete.

· Went to the hardware shop while in Kaloleni to look for chuck key & anti-rust, but they had neither, so I sent Tito a text message requesting his help getting them from Mombasa.

· Tito brought anti-rust (WD-40), but had to take the drill to ensure the correct chuck key.

· Tito did not make it to the hardware shop due to business meetings & then the shops were closed since it was Sunday.

· On Monday, I picked up the drill from Tito’s office in Mombasa and went to get the chuck key, and also bought more WD-40.

· Finally able to work on the handrail! Couldn’t find Tito’s extension cable, so went to borrow one from the local handyman and return his chuck key. Had some minor frustrations screwing the concrete screws into the concrete, but worked through lunch – which confused Tom (who was helping me); at 1 pm, he asked if I didn’t want lunch today & I told him, “I had wanted to work on this all last week, so I want to do as much as possible.” Got the uprights & top rails in place!

· Fortified the uprights and installed the lower rails, but electricity went out at about lunchtime, so no more power drill.

· [Occupied with other plans with Lesley and Katie for several days]

· Back to the school to enhance the handrail, and discover that the head teacher wants the top rails replaced with some better timber in the school’s storage room (especially since the somewhat questionable timber (but the best long enough of what was left from the corridor handrails) had now been rained on). Yet, it still would’ve been nice if he had said something when he saw them before we installed them!

Found replacement timber with Tom (the watchman) and cut one to length, but the other was a 6x2 board [over 10 feet long], so I carried it [across Ribe] to Tito’s workshop and cut it on his table saw over lunchtime.

Carried the now 2x4 & 2x2 rails back to the school, but Tom went to the hospital for his fever. Couldn’t get the drill from Tom’s store (locked closet), but one of the teachers helped me cut the angles on the ends & temporarily screw them in place.

· Reinforced the replacement handrails & installed vertical balusters at the top (on the landing). Unfortunately broke a couple tired drill bits, but hope to finish tomorrow!

· Got sidetracked from finishing the handrail by some tasks that required going to Kaloleni.

· On Friday before going to Nairobi to sightsee with Katie and then bid her farewell, I went to the school and began improvising with the drill bits to install vertical balusters on the upper stretch of stairs. Broke another drill bit due to the improvising, and got smarter with my creativity.

Took a late lunch, but determined to come back to finish. The same teacher as before offered to meet me to help complete the job.

We resumed at 4 pm and installed the balusters on the lower stretch of stairs before dusk set in (at around 6:30).

Finally finished!

Now, it just needs a touch of

sandpaper and some sealing varnish…

...along with that wall of alternating blocks getting plastered, among just a few other things remaining on this new school building!

best.visit.ever.