Sunday lunch

We joined a small group from church. For you non-churchies…that is just a way of saying being assigned a group of friends that you meet with to socialize, and support, and study with.

We’re trying to expand our social circle a little…..it’s a big adjustment to go from many close, close friends in Portland to very few here.

The other families in our group have been in Kenya for almost 10 years each. They’re old pros.

As old pros, they suggested that we go to lunch at Diamond Plaza. The best Indian food around they advertized.

This Diamond Plaza is a place we pass all of the time and cringe….because the traffic is always so backed up there. Crazy drivers going every direction at once. We arrive and the lot is PACKED OUT. Ian, being his forward self asks the security guard who they are saving the “Reserved” spot for. The guard doens’t answer Ian, but tells him he can park, “Right Here”. We took it. No hunting. Good job Ian.

We walk through the plaza which is filled with every kind of shop you would imagine that you would find in India. This truly was like “little India”. Electronics, knock off kids Diesel jeans, rugs & scarfs, buddhas or other gods I’m not aware of…..

And then we arrived outside to the food court. Holy cow!

 

I ordered a mango juice and an avocado juice.  They came mixed together.  Not what I anticipated, but good anyhow! 

Here is a sampling of the other food we ordered:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is this???

My mango juice and advocado juice came “together”. Not quite what I expected, but it worked and was actually pretty yummy.

These amazing sliced/fried potatos with cilantro. Mmmmm. Almost better than fries!

Chicken Palak. Looks a little gross. Tasted yummy!

You sit at the table and all of the different vendors swarm you trying to get your business

More Indian food than I’d ever seen in my life

Our friends had a “Flat Stanley” from a 3rd grade class somewhere in the U.S. He’s making his way around the world. He liked the Coke the best.

 

Happy Birthday Ian!

Today (8/22) we celebrate Ian’s birthday!

He’s a big whopping 35 years old.  He is an amazing husband, father, friend and leader!  I am so proud of everything he has directed here in Africa.  He really knows how to get things done!

Here’s what he looked like when we were first married, I think this was at a casino in Tahoe when we were there for a relatives wedding:

Ok, well this was almost 4 years into marriage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s what he looks like today (in all of his full beard glory):

 

Note: I pulled this self portrait from Ian's BEARD file on the computer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went to the market here in Makongeni and designed/ordered a pair of sandal type shoes for him earlier in the week.  The man assured me they would be ready by yesterday.  Silly me,  I forgot I lived in Kenya and believed his time frame.

I went to pick up the shoes yesterday late afternoon after work and…..they weren’t ready.  They hadn’t even been started.  ARGGH.  But, he did have a huge gigormous pile of about 30 other sandals he had made sitting there on the workbench.  When I enquired what they were for, he replied, “Nairobi”.  Dang, I don’t think my 1 shoe order can compare to the demand of the Nairobi market!

Anyhow, at least Ian gets some birthday loving from the kids (complete with way too early morning back scratching) and a birthday outing, dinner & cake.

SKIP FORWARD….THIS IS AN UPDATE ON THE REST OF BIRTH-DAY

So, we went out for our birthday adventure to explore new places of Nairobi with Ian & I both feeling a bit under the weather.  Our explorations to 2 new places in Nairobi were dampened (literally) by ran and horrible traffic.  In total, we probably spent 4-5 hours in the car (with 2 preschoolers) in traffic.  Not the best way to spend the day when you aren’t feeling well, let alone on your birthday.

Megan and I drug Ian and the kids to the Toi Market which we discovered last week.   We thought it was WONDERFUL!   Ian described it as his worst nightmare, but here he is in a rare moment looking at something in the market:

 

Looking for new *old* pants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eli enjoyed the market, especially because vendors kept trying shoes on him:

 

the vendor trying to cram Bob the Builder sandals on Eli

When we got home, Megan and I worked at making dinner and Ian’s birthday cup-cakes:

We ended Ian’s birthday by lighting the candles on his birthday cupcakes and singing happy birthday to him with his parents who had just skyped in.  But, because it had been less than a *perfect* day already, Eli added some drama by throwing up his last tiny, tinybite of soup and then some that dad had somewhat insisted he eat..all over himself, the chair and the floor.  We had to take a little break before we felt ready to eat cupcakes after seeing and cleaning that up.  But in the end, the cupcakes were delish and we all went to bed happy and full.

 

Until now, diapers seemed normal

You know how in the states you just assume that any kid who is NOT potty trained is pretty much in diapers or some type of equivalent?   Silly me for assuming that such would be the case here!

I guess in the program planning here we (or at least I) didn’t consider that there would be little kids wandering around letting nature take it’s course wherever and however….without diapers, or nappies, or underwear.

Let me paint a visual picture for you girlfriends there in Portland with young ones.  Imagine a Portland Public Parks, or Tualatin Hills Parks Play Gym day….with 50 little kids…..all without diapers or underwear!!!  And no experience using toilets.

So, it truly is a miracle that we have not been peed on or pooped on more than we have.  Megan takes the award for actually having a kid poop on her while sitting on her lap.  That whole wet, warm feeling when it shouldn’t be there!!!  I haven’t had the pleasure, just some piddle all over my pants.  I have had the not so awesome pleasure of having to clean up after some kiddos have stood in class and just let loose….wow…I don’t know about you, but I hardly enjoy cleaning up my own kids poo, let alone someone elses when it is all over their pants, their legs, all the way down to their socks and shoes.

With all of that said, these little kids are making amazing progress….in just a few weeks time they have gone from being clueless over how to to use a squat toilet and running wild all messy to being able to walk single file in a cute little duckie type line to the bathroom where they are able to potty and wash appropriately.  That is a great life skill!

So, if you have any grand ideas on how we can move (a whole group of children from the slums whose parents can’t afford diapers, let alone a single nappie or plastic pants) to something more hygienic for all of us, let us know!  We thankfully have some extra baby/toddler clothes on hand here at the center, so we can change them into something clean and dry.  You are all welcome to always send over any used clothes 6months – 4 years on over, they are always put to good use.

 

And this would be?

So on Friday after the program let out I took Megan in to the Makongeni market with me to do a little veggie shopping. She had been to the market previously with Ian, but on an off day…one with very few vendors and a crazy man screaming at them that they didn’t belong here in Africa, and to go back home. Not a great first market experience.

We walked to the market to avoid all of the trouble taking a car into the market can cause, and were there in no time. It is just a little bit across Garissa Road from the Karibu Centre. We made a short side trip to the post office to pay the electricity bill (which costs pretty much the same as in the States) and then entered through the main market gate.

It didn’t take long to find the vendors with pineapple, avocados, carrots and tomatos and then I convinced Megan to browse the purse and clothing vendors with me. We thought this purse would be perfect for her:

　

So did the vendor.

After browsing the clothing and not finding anything, we turned home. We decided to take the back path from the market to the Makongeni Police Station that allows one to miss most of the Garissa Road traffic. On the way I enjoyed seeing Megan’s face as we passed the various butchers with entire carcasses hanging in their windows. Then we saw a man cooking what looked like sausages on a grill.

It wasn’t readily apparent what kind of sausages they were. I think he said they were pork or beef. I really can’t remember because all I could see were the huge chunks inside of them. No Jimmy Dean sausage here.

I dared Megan to eat some. She took my dare. I didn’t really think she’d agree, and then I was stuck!

This is what we were faced with eating, I wish I’d gotten a picture of the sausage before the butcher made these slices:

Then I figured that if I said, “No, you go first!” that Megan would chicken out and we wouldn’t have to eat them.

She didn’t. Here’s the proof:

　

I couldn’t believe that she popped the whole thing in her mouth at one time. Then I had to pony up and eat one too. It looked worse than it tasted. Mostly, it tasted like salt. I’m not usually a chewed gum saver, but in this case we had both saved our gum so we could quickly pop it in to rid our mouths of the taste.

Phew, am I glad that’s over! That’s about as close as I’m getting to Fear Factor.

　

 

One stop shopping

This is a short post, but I had to share my horror or perhaps laughter???

My house help Esther asked if we could stop on the way to her house at the dentist so she could get some medicine for her son who just had a tooth extracted.

I waited in the car while she ran and got it in Mokongeni.

She returned, hopped in the car and we were off.

As we drove, she pointed out the building where the dentist practiced.   Then she added:

He does dental work, and circumcision too.

I turned to her aghast, and explained that in the States those two things would never be practiced together.

Seemed perfectly normal to her. 

A new business concept?

Trust me, there really weren’t any appropriate pictures for circumcision.  Try a google image search yourself.

 

Sniff, sniff

In talking with my twin brother Andy and his wife Kori last night

, Ian and I realized that we have not done a post of the “smells” of Kenya. There are some things here that after a week or two, you just start to take it for granted and you forget how unique or different it is.

That is the amazing ability of the mind….to filter out routine or non-threatening stimuli so that your mind can remain alert for new and possibly threatening stimuli. I started an amazing book before I left that talks about this: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dogby Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Was-Raised-Psychiatrists/dp/0465056520. The book talks about the effects of trauma on children (and people for that matter) giving true life case studies. It has a bit of everything….neurology, psychology, funny, sad.

Anyhow, back to the topic of smells. Everything here smells stronger. Whether it is the pollution, or trash being burnt (that’s how most people get rid of their trash…remember my horror of Lucy’s burning diapers wafting in my window), or the trash just sitting by the side of the road,

or Jikos cooking lunch/dinner (a  jiko is a ceramic container held in a metal frame that utilizes charcoal, or another heat source for cooking), or body odor (yes, American are obsessed with smelling clean compared to anywhere else in the world), or the smell of raw sewage (we are SOO lucky to have the city sewer line run right through our property) when the main pipeline gets backed up, or the many smells that emminate from a herd of cows or goats walking down the highway by your car ,

or untreated industrial waste water, or chemicals used on fields.

There is a constant barrage of smells coming at one here, and after a while, the mind tunes them out and you stop smelling them.

We discovered that this was happening when Ian noticed that he was having to wear about 5 sprays of cologne every day rather than the usual 1 spritz it would take at home. He has to use that much just to compete with all of the other smells that are assaulting the nose on a regular basis here.

We had to laugh at the fact.

That and the fact that if a Kenyan (Ok, not every Kenyan, but most) rides in the car with us the smell of B.O. lingers for a LONG time. But geez, you can’t blame them…most of them hardly have enough money to make ends meet let alone worry about buying and applying deodorant.

Ian says he kind of likes the smell of B.O. here. Figures. If you know Ian, it wouldn’t surprise you that he says that! It just gives him the opportunity to try “something new” and go on another deodorant fast.

Chris Livingston: no cancer from deodorant aluminum for Ian.

 

Nyama Choma

I really wish I had some pictures for this post but I don’t, so I’ll have to do my best description with words alone. Yesterday I was out running errands for the center:  buying sugar, salt, 50kg of beans, and 50gk of Maize to make Githeri (a simple complete meal they love) for the center kids. I have Tito with me and we decide to go to lunch at a very typical place; he was excited to eat some Nyama Choma. Nyama = meat, Choma = grilled. This is basically the equivalent of our BBQ, minus the sauce and made with the worst, reject, old meat possible… so it’s very cheap. Our whole meal cost KES 250 ($3.30 USD) Every Kenyan I’ve met loves it, and so I followed my theory once again that what’s good for anyone is good for me.

So in we go to a tiny place that looks more like a morgue than a restaurant. There are old dried up animal carcasses hanging about, and a man flipping unidentifiable chunks of meat with his bare hands over a coal grill. He’s standing under what looks like an oven hood, but it has no exhaust pipe out the top so he’s basically in a smoker from the shoulders up. We order 2 KG of Nyama and go sit in a back “patio” (more like a gravel parking lot) area to wait. After a short time the guy brings our meat out on a big peice of wood that is heavily worn from lots of use. He starts to cut up our meat into bite sized chunks. He’s not even looking, let alone trying to cut meat off the bone or cut fat and guts off, just cutting right through everything so the pieces are small enough to fit in your mouth.

They said it was cow, some of it tasted like cow, but who knows. Each piece was an adventure, like a little treasure hunt for something that seemed like the meat I am used to. Who knew meat could be so colorful and textured? There were yellow parts, green parts, black parts, red parts, little tubes, balls, stringy things and more grissle that I’ve ever seen in one place. I asked about hot sauce or something…I got a pile of salt on the board. We also ate Ugali which is a pile of thick wheat flower and water, (think left over cream of wheat after sitting  in the pot and drying out to a paste).  I don’t know what I ate, but I know I ate a lot of animal parts I’ve never had before and overall it was a good experience. I also probably ate a few flies since pretty much everything there was covered in them. No problem, you just shoo them away with your hand when going for another piece and try very hard not to visualize them flying from the open pit toilet 50 feet away. I think this would rival any fear factor event, and it just proved what Anne has said before:  that I might do pretty well on that show.

Now Tito would probably pay to be on fear factor. He can eat. At one point I looked over to the sound of some serious crunching and he said with pleasure, “Mmm this is a soft bone, I love these.”  He also commented that not even a dog could get anything more off the bones he’d eaten. His words, not mine. So, today my teeth are sore but I feel fine. I was a little concerned I might get sick but so far so good. I hear there’s a great Nyama Choma place right by our house so I look forward to taking Anne.   We’ll remember the camera on that trip!

Ian

 

Hopefully some pictures

 

 

 

 

our front porch

 

 yesterday morning’s bugs that came through the shut door

 

 

 

 

 

 

 tucking the kids into bed, their beds were handmade by Salvation Army’s students at Variety Village

 

 

 

 

 

 

 driving into Thika, note the roadside furniture for sale on the  left

 

 

 

 

looking out our “back” door to the front of the property and in the distance a main road

 

 

It is early morning here, about 7:15 am.  We wake with the sun as it rises every day at 6am.  Yesterday started out rough as we woke to find the house filled with the white ants (that drop their wings and then look like grubs) all over the house.  We were cheered by a visit from John V. a recent frient introduced to us by Armida.  He brought us gifts which are never necessary but always appreciated!  Included was a new little canister vacuum to suck up additional occurences of the ants.  Apparently they will leave with the rainy season as it passes here at the end of June, but until then, as it rans they come up out of the ground and into our buildings!  It is quite a sight.   John’s wonderful wife also sent us some chocolate chip cookies. Yum!  John is just old enough for the kids to think he is grandpa material and then glom onto him and climb all over him when they see him.  I am happy they have found that connection.

We are still trying to figure out food.  Trying some local (the kids pretty much left it all on their plates last night at dinner as we sat on our newly cleaned cement floor) and trying to find some familiar things.  We are so spoiled by our “ready-made” culture in America.  Ian found me a whole chicken with skin and bones and I was like, “What do I do with this?”  Guess I’ll learn to cook!  The assumption on our  part was that food would be cheap, if you eat local cuisine, it can be, but for more American type things, even chicken or oatmeal/Musli, you pay a good price.  We’ll get there eventually!

Last night as we were getting ready for bed I flushed the toilet because I saw toilet paper in it (hopefully the kids don’t clog this one) and a gecko was in there.  Poor guy, I don’t know where he went.  I saw him frantically trying to claw out of the bowl, but then he was gone.  Or so I was hoping in the middle of the night when I had to use it!

We heard some stories from local people (including Esther who will help us out in the house 2 times a week) about some of the unsafe places to be and unsafe times to be there.  I wasn’t too bothered by the talk then, but it did keep me awake last night.  I am reminded that God does not give us a spirit of fear nor condemnation, but of hope and security in the Father.  I finally able to settle down and sleep after making Ian turn on a “night light” for me. 

I am thankful for communication with you all back home as we are able to get it and for new friends and connections here who so faithfully check in on us and share with us.

We’ll see what today brings!  I don’t hear any shrieks from the front room.  No rain=no bugs, and I put blankets in front of the doors to keep any stray ones from crawling in…..

Love to you all.

 

GUM

Today at an outdoor shopping mall I was walking a short distance behind a 3-4 year old girl, and 2 women (I’m guessing her mom and her aunt) who were chatting away.  ALL of a sudden, the little girl bends down and grabs at a huge gob of fresh blue gum stuck to the sidewalk and lifts it up to her mouth….with a string all of the way from her mouth to the sidewalk….that’s right the gum remained stuck to the sidewalk and yet was in her mouth.  At the same moment as I audibly went “UGH”, a couple walking the other direction saw her do this and mouthed, “Did you see that?”  The two women were oblivious to what happened.  The little girl walked off chewing a chunk of blue gum.  It was easily the grossest thing I witnessed today.  In that spirit, here are some other gross gum moments:

If I had had my camera with me today it easily would have been up there in the gross factor with these pictures I found on google.