August 11th

Ok, so I know that I have been terrible at posting on this thing. First off, I’m fairly private so there isn’t a whole lot that I want transmitted to the world. Secondly, I’m really forgetful. Together these two things keep me from becoming a regular blogger. Hopefully you can forgive me for that.

So to make up for the lack of posts for some time I am typing this up in my room and not waiting to have an internet connection to compose this post. The downside of that is I can’t check the blog to see what I have already said so I hope I don’t repeat myself. I’ll start with today and work backwards.

Today I went to a church in Karen. Karen has been the white area of Nairobi but that is now changing. The author Karen Blitzen had a place in Karen and when she became famous after writing Out of Africa they named the town after her. Many of the British settled in this area and that’s why it’s full of whites. The area is for the more upper class Kenyans and as the opportunities have increased for the black Kenyans more and more of them have moved into the area. The church I went to today is a black church. It was established 10 years ago and by Kenyan standards is a small congregation with about 200 members. I was at the church because my friend Esther, who I met in Kitui while on the mission trip, was invited to preach at this church and she asked me to come with her. I don’t go anywhere without singing for my supper so to speak so I gave the children’s message. I was asked to give the children’s message about 10 minutes before the service started. I used to hate being asked to say or something with so little notice but over the last two months I have gotten used to it. I just roll with the punches these days. After church she and I went out to lunch to catch up before she caught a matatu to Kitui. I also caught a matatu back to where I live to avoid the several block walk. I’ve been feeling so brave taking public transportation in a foreign city where the conversational language is one I don’t understand. The 20 Kenyan Shilling fare, which comes to 30 cents in US Dollars, seemed so worth it. It turns out I don’t know the public transportation as well as I thought. I couldn’t get out where I wanted to and ended up with a several block walk back to my home anyways. I have not done so much walking in my life. It’s no wonder why my clothes are all too big for me now. I feel a bit silly with my clothes so baggy but I can’t bring myself to buy new clothes. I’d rather go back to the US and buy the clothes off the rack than buy used clothes from the US on the street. The clothes off the rack here don’t last very long from what I hear so people buy used American and European clothes.

Ok so yesterday I went to a wedding in Kikuyu. David Wakogy was the groom and he is a friend of Evans who is a fellow student at SFTS. I received David’s contact information from Evans before I left the US and managed to meet David after arriving in Kenya. David runs a school in Kikuyu and went to visit the school one day in July. During that visit someone else at the school mentioned that David was getting married and that I should come to the wedding. It turns out that I was free yesterday and so I decided to go. I brought a translator with me; he also served as a traveling partner for the matatu ride from Nairobi to Kikuyu. (In town I’ll brave the matatus, traveling between towns I’m not too excited to do by myself yet.) I was not the only white person at this wedding, the best man and the best maid were an Irish couple. The wedding was at The Church of the Torch which is the first Presbyterian church the missionaries established in Kenya. There were beside the Irish couple, a couple of American missionaries who regularly bring teams from New Jersey to the Church of the Torch. So I was one of five whites. I was the only one not doing something in the service so in the middle of the service they asked if I wanted to come and sing a song for the newly wedded couple. I politely declined but did have to stand and wave to the congregation. Ahh the Kenyans and their surprises. At the reception I was seated in the tent with the bridal party. I do try to be one of the crowd but I seem to always be treated to some honor. My translator was a little uncomfortable with it but he just had to adjust, as did I.

Last week at work was pretty quiet. I haven’t been able to meet with the Moderator in three weeks because either his or mine schedule did not permit it. This means that I don’t have too much work to do. I’m starting to get a bit frustrated by that and so I hope that will change. The head of the Children’s Ministry has learned of my lack of work and has put me second in command of Vacation Bible School, which begins next week. I won’t be bored next week. We are expecting between 200 and 300 children to come. It will last from Monday to Saturday. VBS is even eating up my two days off, Mondays and Saturdays. I guess I’ll not complain about having nothing to do again. On a sad note, I did learn that my Great Aunt Mary Lou is very ill with cancer and has been given 1 to 2 months to live. I hope to see her again before she passes but it is possible that I won’t. That does make me feel far from home. Please pray for my family as we all prepare for her passing. The only excitement of last week was buying a new camera battery after my camera battery refused to hold a charge.

I learned that my camera was having trouble the week before when I was in Mombasa. I went with the Women’s Guild, which is similar to the Presbyterian Women in the US. The Women’s Guild had their retreat in Mombasa so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to see the coast. I’ve been hearing so much about the coast since arriving here and many people suggested that a trip to Kenya was not complete without a visit to the coast. The retreat was jam packed with things to do so there wasn’t much free time but I did manage to swim in the Indian Ocean. The water seemed very nice to me but the lifeguards told me the water was cold. The lifeguards were told to stand next to me while I was in the ocean because most of the ladies who went didn’t know how to swim and they were not that confident that I knew how to swim. Reverend Esther from St. Andrews would not learn the beach area until she saw me come in from the ocean. She told me later that she was worried that if I drowned in the ocean that she would have lots of questions to answer back in Nairobi. I tried to explain that I’ve been swimming since I was six but as the lifeguards explained to me, many of the people from up country don’t know how to swim and are terrified of the ocean. I’m just so happy that I was able to get into the water and relax some even if no one with me was relaxed. I also took a short trip to old city Mombasa with some of the women but the shopping was not that interesting to me as the ladies wanted to buy household items and I don’t need household items right now. I just walked around with the women while drunk men tried to impress me by shouting things at me, at first in English and then in Kiswahili. The women talked back in Kiswahili and took care of the problem for me. Don’t worry Mom, I was well protected by these women because most have children my age so I was with 50 second mothers.

The biggest surprise I’ve had in Kenya happened July 30th. A classmate of mine, Don, is also in Kenya. He has been in Kenya nearly the entire time I’ve been here. He and I were good friends but had a huge falling out during the Spring Semester. When we discovered we were both heading to Kenya we agreed not to see each other while in Kenya. I have not paid attention to where he has been in Kenya. He however was aware that I was working in St. Andrews and on July 30th came to St. Andrews and my co-workers at St. Andrews were very excited to bring us together. I almost fell out of my chair when he walked in the Youth Office. We had a nice visit. I think we were both trying to be polite as Don came with his supervisor from his internship and a Maasai friend. He invited me to visit him in Amboseli but I’d rather go to the Maasai Mara. Hopefully I’ll go next week.We’ll see though.

I don’t know if this now brings you all up to date or not. If I think of something important that happened that I haven’t mentioned I’ll try to get that into my next post.