Breanna vs. the ditch

Last Tuesday. But first let me explain the state I was in before what happened. I had been sick with the flu a few days, starting to feel a bit better, but still weak and sometimes feverish, sometimes flu brained=spacey. Also, I was not taking my required prescribed medication for clinical depression...why would I do that? I was trying to save some shillings. My scrip costs us about $125/ month here, thanks to the available Indian generic, however, $125 is still a lot when you have not had your medical insurance company reimburse any of your medications this year so far and it seems to be coming out of pocket, for the time being, and you're trying to save as much as possible for the time being in order to have LOTS of fun when Mom and Dad visit the end of November. This is a silly argument, and I now know my little experiment to see "if I actually still need it, anyway" failed miserably. It was a rotten week and a rotten day. I had agreed with a vendor to pick up 50 pictures made from Banana tree bark to send to the US for Christmas gifts. He would only be at the westgate shopping center that Tuesday (a traveling craft/ artisans' market). I had asked him to make these 50 pictures, and had already delayed pick up one time. So, I sallied forth with Jerry's gps (global positioning system) to enable me to easily arrive at this shopping center which is rather complicated to get to in my estimation. Sadly, Betty, our gps, was having difficulty connecting to satellites, so I had to travel mostly from memory, which you will remember is somewhat compromised due to flu...but the artist has been calling all day to find if I'm still coming with his windfall. Because of traffic, I can't get into the left lane I need to be in to turn, so have to go around, in the process, I find a pretty sad road I choose to shortcut across, and follow van in front of me who seems to be maneuvering around the rain filled holes in the road rather well. I follow him up to turn onto the main road I was supposed to be on anyway. Off he goes. Off I try to go, but am held back, by, I assume, a curb. I give it gas, rock back and forth, it's a no go. By now, a handful of Kenyan men walking by have stopped to watch the mzungu (term used for us westerners here). I decide to take a peek at this curb I'm stuck on. Wowie, wow, wow! (As Junie B. Jones would say). It IS a curb I am hung up on, but I am straddling a 4 foot wide cement culvert, my rear tire is hanging over it, useless, and my front tire has been punctured between the curb and culvert and is very flat. I am amazed I did not drive headlong into the thing and totally wreck the car. Now the handful of Kenyan men watching me and observing my handiwork is about ten or 15 guys. They offer to help, but expect payment (likely because I'm mzungu). I have no cash on me but 5 US dollars I was planning to exchange at the shopping center, as well as getting Kenyan shillings out of the atm. So, in Swahili, the men discuss the exchange rate for a US dollar to determine if this is reasonable payment. I get the gist of what they are saying, but am frustrated at my very small grasp of Swahili for a situation such as this! I get in the car and call Jerry, now maybe 20 guys crowded around the car. I'm not sure they are going to help. Jerry answers, I ask if he's busy and he says, "Yes." I find out later he is actually sitting in an airplane getting ready to take off to do one final test he must take before submitting his paperwork, finally, to receive his Kenyan Pilot's license. I instantly start bawling. Normally I am not a crier. In fact, I'll usually say, "It's just a fact. I don't cry." But the combination of the flu, my poor unmedicated chemically imbalanced brain, possibly having ruined the car, and being helpless in a crowd of strangers that could easily take advantage of me, well, I lost it! 


Jerry said he was on his way. 


In the meantime, the group of men picked up and moved the car out of and away from the ditch and changed my tire. I gave them the $5 and the change in my wallet. One guy in the crowd complained, several other guys assured me it was fine and to not worry. Thanks God, for those kindly guys! 


I hobbled over to the shopping center, I was only about a mile away. I pulled into the parking garage and bawled. When I saw Jerry I bawled again. 


He bought mea latte at a coffee shop and went and found the guy to get the pictures from. He bought pizza for dinner and drove home with me, leaving the motorcycle in the parking garage. What a guy! He only looked at the damage after all that and didn't seem particularly annoyed. I love this man!


oh and btw, to any close friends, family or medical professionals reading this, I will never voluntarily be without my meds again, lesson learned. :) Thank you, God for meds!

Just so you know...

Yesterday our next door neighbor kindly informed me that his maid had spotted a "rather large"snake in their yard and he thought they had scared into our yard. Lovely. He didn't know what kind, just that it was "rather large". He said he was going to get some of the gate guards to help him try and get it out. So, not knowing what we're looking for, I informed the kids and wisely headed,  my househelper, Truphena's advice to close the doors so it doesn't come inside (yikes, I hadn't even thought of that, THANK GOD she was here! We usually leave our doors open most all the time for breeze...we're on the equator here, you'll remember, no fall weather now) I also put our dog outside to perform his guardly duties and hopefully alert us if he discovered the snake in question. I'm not deathly afraid of snakes, though I would likely not choose one as a pet....but here the poisonous snake possibilities are many: puff adder, mamba -green or black, even cobras in the desert regions. Several minutes later, we were trying to carry on with home schooling, but were overwhelmed with smokiness. Smoke is normal....lots of neighbors cook on charcoal stoves just outside their kitchens. This was no charcoal fire. They were burning paper and lots of it, blowing right in our front windows (and not wafting very quickly out the back windows) they were trying to smoke the snake out, but they were about to smoke us out as we weighed going outside and facing a snake or staying in coughing. I got our our rotating fan and it made breathing and schoolwork manageable again. But I thought about our neighbors and the guards trying to smoke out the snake at our fence line, I imagined they might smoke him out, but probably into our yard and not into their waiting trap. That was yesterday, still no sign of the snake. Pray it's just a garden snake!

The Prayer of a Four-Year Old

Lately Isaiah's been volunteering to pray at dinner and bedtime and we love it! Not just because of his willingness to talk to our Big Daddy, but how he does it... with eyes apparently squeezed shut, but if you look close you can see his eyes- a little sliver, and he holds his fingers up by his eyes, as if to keep himself from peeking. He even scrunches hi nose up. We'll get a pic someday when we can figure out how to snap a pic and maintain reverence in the prayer :) Here's a sample:

Deah Gahd,

Thank you for Gahd and mommy, daddy and my seestahs, and Keely[our dog, Kilimanjaro, we call Kili] and Caspian [our kitten]. Thank you for Mommy feel better and daddy pass he test. Amen (Big Grin)

Mommy was still sick and Dad had not yet passed his test, but he prays in such faith! Or just can't get his tenses right :) While we know the latter is true, we still love it when he prays because of the former.

My Perfect Iced Tea

Boil about 4c. water and pour onto one decaf constant comment tea bag and two decaf black tea bags. Let steep. Add two serving spoon size spoons of Splenda. Pour into 2 liter bottle and fill with cold water. Shake it up good (with lid on :) enjoy!

OR if you happen to live in Kenya and can't find constant comment tea or decaf black tea...

Boil about 4c. water. Grate the peel off an orange and lay out on a plate to dry. Eat the orange while still juicy and don't wait 4 days to try and eat the thing like I may or may not have done once. Put three black tea bags (sorry, no decaf....just be sure and drink real water throughout the day :) in saucepan with a sprinkle of grated orange peel, a few cinnamon stick pieces, a dash of ground cloves, a dash of tropical heat tea masala (spice we can get here, but you sad schmucks in the US likely cannot, ha!) By now your water has probably cooled, so go again, THEN pour it over your tea and steep. Add two serving size spoon fulls of Splenda while your Splenda stash holds out. Pour into 2 liter bottle. Add cold filtered water. Shake it up good, with the lid on. Enjoy :)

"It is very kind to send us food, but this is Africa and we are used to being hungry..."

Sorry, my first post in months I meant it to be a little more lighthearted....but Sudan has been on my heart for years, and is much of the reason we choose to live and work here in Africa. In fact, I had a dream I lived in Darfur with my children -before I even knew where Darfur was. This dream occurred years before we planned to live in Kenya in order to somehow help the people of Sudan

As the time draws near for the first vote in 24 years in Sudan and a referendum for the independence of Southern Sudan is proposed....almost all I talk to who have recently been in Sudan believe war is imminent.

I have been studying up on the Sudanese civil war to understand their history.  Right now I'm reading Emma's War by Deborah Scroggins. What are your suggestions for further reading?

Last week my husband flew into Sudan for the first time since we've been here in Africa, and he will much more once his Kenyan pilot's license is granted(remember, TIA, This Is Africa, everything takes a long time.)...so to me, my husband and our co-workers, this is important. But I don't pretend that OUR family is making some great sacrifice. We do not live in Sudan and our children do not have pictures to draw, like Aisha does...

"It is very kind to send us food, but this is Africa and we are used to being hungry. What I ask is that you please take the guns away from the people who are killing us."  -Aisha, a child in the Darfur region of Sudan, who was eight years old when her village was attacked.

The International Criminal Court is accepting supporting evidence of children's drawings of the alleged crimes committed in Darfur.

Here's the story and the kids' drawings

 Child's Drawings of Darfur