My third Sunday in Kenya…

October 14, 2012
My third Sunday in Kenya…Every week holds the same overall schedule during the lecture phase of DTS, so we count time with Sundays and speakers.  I can tell this base is starting to feel like a second home, or at least I’m getting used to (most) everything (not the continuous presence of spiders in the pit toilet at night…), because when they changed things up on us for the weekend it began to feel foreign.  Over half of our team has been on outreach for the weekend, serving at an orphanage near Nairobi.  I didn’t think it could get more quiet and peaceful here than it already was.  I was definitely wrong!  We’ve definitely been missing some big personalities around here lately.  I’m looking forward to all my brothers and sisters getting home tonight!
However, I have appreciated the chance to relax the past few days.  The quiet was especially beneficial on Friday after I almost fainted from dehydration (I’m presuming) combined with the heat of the traditional African kitchen when we were cooking dinner.  After some severe dizziness, I sat down outside in the refreshing breeze and then went back to my room to lie down until it was time for dinner.  And with rest, some food, water, and extra electrolytes in me I felt much better, and I have ever since! (I would be honest if I was feeling anything else!)  The loving prayers of my family and some long-awaited Skype sessions also helped lift my spirits significantly!
Now, I’ve grown up with brothers.  I’m not too much of a “girl’s girl,” you might say…So Saturday was also very refreshing. The birds woke me to a grey, rainy African morning.  Which, of course, helped me to feel right at home!  It struck me as funny though that our group felt it necessary to wait out the rain before we moved on with our day-definitely not something an Oregonian is used to!  But I played along and waited in the dining hall with Fred and Menzo & Tobi (the two European guys on our team) until the rain calmed to a sprinkle.  Then the four of us walked about 15-20 minutes to the nearest town.  We had to wait a bit for a reasonably priced (less than 50 cents) mutatu, or “van bus” as I like to call it, because they had raised the prices due to the rain and the number of people waiting (not to mention there were a few muzungus present, although we were assured that had nothing to do with it).  I was especially grateful guys traveling with me when a drunken man started singing “You’re so beautiful, you’re so beautiful…” to me.  I may have boarded the mutatu that had just arrived by the grace of God with a little more determination….But my brothers here really do a great job of looking out for me!  We sat 4 YWAMers across the bench with me on the inside, and as we walked through our main town I was always the middle duckling that followed Fred around.  I’m sure we were quite a sight!  Once we’d been dropped at the bus stop, our first trip was to the ATM for the Europeans to withdraw money.  We then made our way to the supermarket (it really is a supermarket!) and shared some factory packaged meat and dinner rolls to make sandwiches along with our own juice or soda (I had a bottle of Pepsi!).  Then Fred went to get his shoes fixed while the three of us wandered around together doing our muzungu shopping.  For me, this included: popcorn, apples, a Kit-Kat, apple juice, chips for Lisa, and laundry soap & highlighters for Emily.  Finally, probably my favorite thing that we did in town was go to the traditional produce market.  I so wish I had pictures of this place!  But we’ve been really discouraged from taking pictures without asking, a lot of Kenyans believe muzungus take pictures to take them home and laugh with their friends, and I’m not sure I why I wanted to take a picture would have translated well even with Swahili translation.  Maybe my next trip will provide a better opportunity.  For now, I’m satisfied with my green oranges that taste a little more like limes! (The lady we bought them from gave me an extra than what I paid her for, I guess because I was sweet! ;) When she asked which I wanted, I asked her to pick because she knew which were best-but who knows how much of that translated.)
And today was another, very traditional African Sunday…I was the only muzungu who went to church with this group, so I got a lot of extra attention from giggling faces peeking around their friends! It was precious.  And I was told multiple times that I looked like a real Kenyan lady, my long blue dress proved I knew how to dress for African church-so that might have added to the children’s confusion. :) When we went outside to “help” with Sunday school because there wasn’t going to be a translation during the Swahili service, we discovered that we WERE Sunday school!  Which at first glance isn’t a huge issue, we had a Swahili-speaking girl with us, my sister Antonia, but…not one of the younger children even spoke Swahili! There was no chance of translation or communication whatsoever.  We managed to explain Duck, Duck, Goose first in English to Antonia, then in Swahili to one of the two teenagers present, then in a Kenyan tribal language to the kids; and so we played that for a good 45+ minutes.  But even that turned into “Jack, Jack, Ghost!”  Afterwards it was all we could do to relax with the kids and make sure they didn’t fall and crack their heads open on the giant pile of stones they were climbing on until service ended.  It was quite the experience!  Following the service they had prepared an exceptionally nice lunch for our base leader (because he is on staff at the church) and us, his visitors.  We ate chipati (a tortilla is the only similar thing I can think of), white rice, and cabbage with other veggies and some kind of meat in it.  The amount of work and preparation that had gone into our meal is quite obvious.  So as the only muzungu present, I prayed that I wouldn’t get sick from anything that might have come in contact with the food during its preparation, and ate up!  It was so humbling…Truly an experience I will never forget.
~Chloe Anne