Long-in-coming Africa update

March 28th & 29th

Travel to Tenwek

Four checked bags (filled to capacity including over 120 diapers), 1 carry-on suitcase, 1 carry-on hiking backpack, 1 baby backpack carrier, 1 diaper bag, and 1 gigantic car seat… Amazingly, travel through the airports with all of our carry-on luggage was relatively easy.

Our flights were all on-time and we had some difficulty with Eli’s ticket because it was an electronic ticket. Apparently on Delta, for an infant traveling under 2, they require a paper ticket…since our reservations were made through Northwest (while it still existed), an electronic ticket was acceptable. Since Northwest no longer exists…the electronic ticket was not acceptable. So in Minneapolis, we spent a little over an hour at the ticket counter waiting to get our boarding passes (fortunately we got there with plenty of time), however they were unable to give us boarding passes for our flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi. The ticket agent told us to go to the KLM Transfer station at the Amsterdam airport to get our boarding passes and that everything should be fine with that. Sure..ok,…no problem…we can do that.

We arrive in Amsterdam after our lovely overnight 8 hour flight (Eli had a hard time getting to sleep and was a bit fussy, but truly, it was not that bad…)…and we go to the Transfer Station to get our boarding passes…they have a number system (like at the deli counter in a grocery store…) we asked an agent there assisting people in getting numbers if we were in the correct place to do what we needed to do. She said yes and printed us a number. There were 4 agents assisting those with numbers and each time one became available…we heard a ding and the number changed. Agent 1- at A068, Agent 2- at A067, Agent 3- at B124 (how do you even get a B number?), Agent 4- at A070…our number…A0005. Hmmmmmm, well if the lines go quickly, we should be able to make our flight…after all my watch indicated it was 7:45 Amsterdam time and our flight isn’t until 10:10am. 45 minutes goes by and I strike up a conversation with the women next to me because I am getting concerned since the numbers were now as follows: Agent 1- at A077, Agent 2- A067, Agent 3- at B125, Agent 4- at A078. Just to make sure of the time, I asked the woman what time she had and she said it was 9:30am. Um…really…that is an hour later than I thought it was. At this point, Adam and I talked and decided we would try to go to the gate our plane was departing from…the only problem was that at some of their gates they have security before you can get into the specific gate area and you need a boarding pass to get to the ticket agent. We decided to try. We got to the gate and there was an agent outside the security area that we went to and explained our situation. She said ok and bumped us to the front of the line to get through security. We got through and the security agent opened my passport pouch to review my passport and boarding pass and even though there was no boarding pass she passed us through. We asked the agent scanning boarding passes about our situation and she said, to hold on…she looked something up in the computer, printed us passes and said that we were in the bulk head (front of a section…more leg room) and asked if that was ok. We were thrilled…she printed the boarding passes and we were literally the first people on the plane. Eli slept a majority of this flight…Adam and I also were able to get some sleep.

In the Nairobi airport, we hurried to get to the customs line which was already about 30 people long. It was stifling hot…89 degrees and no air conditioner. We decided to take off Eli’s shirt since he is a warm boy and was starting to fuss. He was fairly happy after we took off his shirt but we had already waited 10 minutes and only 1 person had moved through the line. An airport official came by the end of our line and started herding people to another line in another room about 50 feet down the hallway. We were part of the herded group and ended up in another line that was about 20 people long. We waited an hour and there were still 10 people in front of us. Eli began fussing because it was 9pm Nairobi time and he was getting very tired. The people at the front of the line told us to go before them and everyone else in the line agreed. We got to the counter and the airport official quickly took care of Adam and Eli’s passport and told them to go before she was done with me. Apparently, fussing babies are not common or popular here in Kenya J. And I thought Eli was a good boy.

We got to the Mennonite guest house where we were staying that night and Eli, Adam and I slept the whole night through.

The next day (3/29), we traveled to Tenwek by van. We were expecting 4 hours of very bumpy dirt roads, and were pleasantly surprised when we arrived at Tenwek a little over 2 hours and fairly nice paved roads later.

Thus ends my very detailed account of our travel to Tenwek, but as you can see…God’s hand was in it and providing small graces throughout our travel.


March 30th

First full day at Tenwek and Adam started right in at the hospital in the morning. I stayed home working on getting settled (groceries unpacked, luggage unpacked…gifts for missionaries organized, etc…) Something I love already is that all the doctors leave the hospital and come home for lunch at 1pm every day and stay at home for 1 hour. It makes for a great time to touch base with one another and I think helps to keep us connected. When I saw Adam today at lunchtime, he looked a little overwhelmed with how different things are here at the hospital. After lunchtime, I spent time with Reena (our friends from Pittsburgh who are also here for the month) figuring out our housing for the month. I hadn’t realized quite how labor-intensive the food making/housekeeping processes were here. In light of this, we decided to move the next day into an apartment that we could share (two couples each with one child) so that we could streamline all of our meals to be together. So…all of the things we had unpacked the night before and that morning, we repacked for moving the next day. Thus ends the first full day…

March 31st

This morning we finished packing up and at 9am, 6 Kenyans showed up at our apartment door and began hauling us from one side of the compound to the other. 5 of them were women and 1 was a man. The trek entailed several muddy roads and a couple of hills. It’s beautiful here by the way…more on that later. Anyway, several hours later, we were all moved to an apartment in closer proximity to the other long-term missionary homes. It poured outside and hailed quite a bit just as we were headed out to meet our husbands at the hospital Canteen for lunch (it is standard to have lunch every Wednesday at the hospital Canteen). We are about 30 miles south of the equator so everything here feels quite tropical. It rains every afternoon and everywhere you look you see green and lush trees and hills.

After lunch, we came back and worked on getting our kids down for naps to get them on schedule with Kenya time (8 hours time difference from Minnesota). We were successful in getting them to sleep and spent that time unpacking the rest of our things. Dinner time was spent at the guest house where we had our last provided meal with the other short-term workers (1-2 months in length). The kids didn’t last very long after dinner so we came home and all went to bed.

April 1st

Today was the first day that Milka (our Kenyan househelp) came. Here it is common and encouraged to get a house helper to help clean and sometimes cook because it helps to stimulate the economy and maintain and encourage relationships with local communities. We worked together in the morning to make homemade bread for our dinner and also worked on making homemade tortillas for lunch and future meals. Things were going quite well until the power went our around lunch time. We had been having constant rain and a section of the compound had issues with their generator. We were still able to do a bit of cooking since the stove is a gas stove, but ended up having to move all of our food that could spoil back into one of the guesthouse refrigerators so that it didn’t spoil since we didn’t get power back until the middle of the day on the 2nd. We made do with what we could and had a candle-lit dinner where all of us were together (Adam, me, Andy, Reena, Arathena and Eli). After dinner, we put the kids to bed and played Settlers by candlelight (a little down time J). The kids both slept through the night that night…praise the Lord!

April 7th

Elijah
Eli has been slowly adjusting to life here in Kenya. It has now been just over a week since we have been settled in a two bedroom apartment with our friends Andy, Reena and their daughter Arathena (almost 2 ½). This has been a bit challenging as both children are only children back in the States and are not used to sharing living space with other children that require parental attention. So, Eli, being the younger of the two, is trying to imitate Arathena is most things she does…unfortunately, this does include some not so fun new words like “mine” and “mommy, mommy” over and over, but for the most part, his imitation of her is sweet and I know that he will miss her after we get home to Minnesota. He has also revealed some passive aggressive tendencies because he has found out that just by pretending to touch Arathena’s arm he will get a strong reaction from her…so of course…he likes to push the limit on a regular basis. This has resulted in a bit more discipline and lots of mama/Eli heart to heart conversations. They are both improving I think as they learn how to live with each other and in a different culture than they are used to.

Elijah has also been quite a hit with the Kenyans we’ve seen since being here. I think that they like him because he is a super chubby, super white baby boy. When we went into the local village, Bomet this past weekend, we had one woman offer to purchase Eli from us (no, we didn’t ask how much), and another woman offer to trade her son Manuel for our son. I’m pretty certain they were joking…

Elijah also draws attention from the Kenyans sometimes just because Adam will carry him around in the backpack carrier on his back. It is not normal for men in this culture to carry the babies…everywhere you look, you can see women carrying around children in slings…never do you see a man carrying the baby. As we walked through Bomet, we drew open stares and open laughter from the Kenyans about this. No one seemed offended, it just struck them as hilarious. I’ve never experienced walking anywhere and being openly laughed at as we walk along.

Some of Eli’s favorite things to do here include going to “see the turtles.” One of the missionary families have three turtles as pets that roam around in the backyard. One of them is quite large (the size of a car tire). There are also a couple of dogs that are missionary pets but who have free reign of the missionary compound. Eli loves to run up and pet these dogs and they are very patient with his exhuberant hellos. Lastly, Eli loves to play bubbles outside which tends to draw the local Kenyan children (who are all so beautiful). They all run after the bubbles and try to pop them.

Overall, Eli is doing well here, but he still requires a lot of my time and energy (I’m not surprised). My time has predominantly been spent with him and on cooking meals for us, with just a few additional things here and there (playing piano for part of the Easter sunrise service, giving a voice lesson to one of the missionary kids, organizing sheet music for a couple of the missionary families, and doing some typing/proof-reading for the Community Health office.) I have been convicted that these things are still helpful and that I am still primarily here to be a support to my husband and I am still called to be a good mother to my child. I am still thrilled that we have this opportunity to be here and with all that we are learning and still have yet to learn. In fact…God is bringing to mind daily the fruit of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-Control (Galations 5.)