Farewell Party and Animal Masks

Last night we had a farewell party for Virginia. She left to return to Canada. It felt a bit like Christmas b/c we had lots of food and candy, and even left over snacks...a rarity here. We had pilau (sp?) too, one of my favorite dishes. it's rice mixed with spices like ginger, garlic, salt, etc. and a bit of meat and then served with "salad"--tomatoes, carrots, parsley. It's always a huge goodbye party when someone leaves. We had about 20 people at the house, and then some people spent the night b/c it's cheaper than paying for transport to go back home. so they take a mattress and sleep on the living room floor.

speaking of transport, on the way home today our matatu passed an ambulance, one that had it's lights flashing and was on it's way to the hospital. isn't it strange that people don't pull over here and that we can out drive an emergency vehicle. Nice. the other different thing about the ambulance is that there are windows on the back, so you can basically see partly into the car and know how many people are inside.

we went to sara junior today and i made paper plate animal masks with the kids. again, very interesting with 65 kids who don't really understand english yet. but it worked. today i felt particularly drained being there though. i think of that worship song that says, "all who are thirsty, all who are weak, come to the fountain, dip your hand in the streams of life. let the pain and the sorrow be washed away. and we say come Lord Jesus Come." yeah, that's really speaking to me now. i know it's partially that i haven't slept. but also, the chaotic environment can be too much sometimes. they have lots of little recess breaks, but there is no where to play, so often they're running around inside. or sometimes they're outside, which is starting to turn my stomach a bit...i've seen so many kids lately just peeing right outside the school. there are bathrooms, but i think it's pretty common that people go wherever. yesterday we went by this river, not in a slum either, and lots of homeless people were washing their clothes there--some were completely naked. people always talk about flying toilets in kibera, and i don't want to get into this, but you get the idea of raw sewage out in the open being very common. i know maybe this makes you want to laugh, but it's crazy to me to think this is really how people live everyday. the other gross thing is that i sometimes see men raking the trash/nasty water mix (that probably has sewage in it), which runs all over the street here. discipline at the school, is a little lax too, and i feel like kids are always fighting and hitting each other. i do think the teachers are doing their best and they are so grateful for us coming. but it's so different from american schools. i know that a lot of these things are cultural and you can't come in and make people completely change things. mostly i'm just there as a helper.

about my health, b/c i never followed up after my hospital visit, praise God i am feeling better. i think my malaria medicine was irritating my stomach. i'm not sure that i'm 100%, but i can deal with this. so thank you for your prayers. i think a lot of it has to do with getting used to the food. most of you would freak out if you saw where, not what, i've been eating. all the MSTs were reminiscing about that crash course we got at the doctor on what not to eat. but if we followed all those things, we would never eat. i do try to be careful about the lettuce and fruits, but other things are difficult. like whenever we're at sara junior the teachers always want us to have tea. it's pretty rude not too, and i know that the water has been boiled, so eventually we all just broke down and started drinking it...while saying a prayer of course. most of the food we have at the house is fine but sometimes there are fresh tomatoes or other fruit, so yell at me if you want, but you'd do the same thing if it was you too.

patrick met up with the skateboarder today. it was funny b/c we all expected this guy to be about 25. nope, it's definitely a bunch of 17 year olds. it was hilarious b/c patrick was skateboarding around the city just a bit, and every person would turn and stare. they've never seen anything like it. while he was meeting the skateboarders, richard and i started working on these picture frames we're making at camp. we had to cut out cardboard with a utility knife. so here we are downtown nairobi, just at these random steps cutting stuff out. we also got a lot of stares as well--i felt a little ridiculous. and then this group of police officers walked by and gave richard a look that said, "um what the heck are you doing with a knife?" so he looked up and smiled and said, "we're making picture frames." and they just kept walking.

patrick just tells me there was a flood in our house. when the water comes on, eunice (the house keeper) runs a hose from the sink into these big black barrels--3 outside, 1 inside. apparently, eunice fell asleep and the water ran over the one in the house. it's right by where the chicken is kept. the chicken is actually tied to this bag of coal. so the chicken was standing in all this water and couldn't move, and was squawking i guess. kind of funny. patrick just said he wants us to cut his hair...this could be fun!! he has long hair, as long as mine, and wants it short. hmmm..we could really make this interesting!