The weekend update

On Friday, after some absence from the Mother of the Year contest, I earned my way to a submission.

Eli and Lucy used to share a room at our home in Portland. We, or I, made the change to separate rooms for them out of desparation….too many naptimes were becoming screamtimes, on their part and mine.

When we arrived here in Thika, the beds for the kids were in the same room. We figured this was ok, because in a strange environment, the kids might appreciate the security of having each other close. So we thought. They also appreciate the ability to talk, and play, and generally goof off when they should be sleeping.

On Friday, after much threatening, and yelling, and gosh knows what, Eli was moved into our bedroom to take a nap. I made a specific point to tell him NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING (last time he had way too much fun with the alarm clock that subsequently went off in the middle of the night when I was happily sleeping). After about 15 minutes, I went back in to check on him because things were strangely quiet. I opened the door to the bedroom and heard a pop sound followed by a WOW! and then the smell of sulphur. Eli had found the wooden matches in a box on the nightstand and had figured out how to strike one to light it.

I was furious, he was scared. Nuff said. I must say though, and perhaps this will discredit me from the award, I DID not leave the matches there. That was daddy’s doing.

As if that and seeing the person hit by the matatu weren’t enough, we got a lovely email message from our bank last night describing “unusual activity”. Thanks to so long and drawn out sleuthing on Ian’s mother’s part, we were notified that someone had used our debit card number (neither of our cards were missing) to make a payment of $2700 odd dollars to a dental clinic in Nairobi. And had attempted the transaction more than once. Monthly wage for a teacher here runs up to about 30,000. The charge on our card was 195,000 give or take a few shillings. Generally I’m irritated by the banks’ fraud department and them putting unnecessary holds on my account. Today I was glad. Now I’m just trying to figure who and how they got the number….cause I don’t use that card but in a few places and it hasn’t been out of my sight…..as my mother in law said, we’re learning the ropes of Africa.

And no, we won’t call the police cause last we heard, if your house was bugularized, and you wanted them to investigate, you have to go to the station, find one, pick them up and take them back to your house. Just guessing that card fraud isn’t top on their list. But, I might be making a visit to a dental clinic here soon. I think my tooth hurts.

Ok, so no, I’m not really going to the clinic. Sheesh.