Bike Taxis

I forgot to mention this crazy thing that happened last week. I was walking home, and there's always bike taxis (one person bike and a person sitting on the back) nearby the route to the house. it's pretty dangerous b/c it's a normal size bike with an extra pad right behind the regular seat. anyway, one wrecked and a pregnant woman was riding on the back. she flew off and landed on her back in the middle of the street. She just lay there for several minutes. it was awful. she did finally get up and was walking around. i'm not sure what happened after that. but why would she be riding on there in the first place.

another day, several weeks ago, i was downtown and this woman came running out in the middle of the street and threw her phone down. she was screaming and crying in swahili. this huge group gathered around her. we later found out that someone had called her and told her that her son was dead.

on a happy note, last night all the MSTs cooked dinner. we made egg salad, pasta salad, and fruit salad...quite a salady meal. peter and amie thought it was the greatest thing ever calling it gourmet food. i was just extremely happy to eat something not fried and slightly familiar. i do like the food here, but a reminder of home is good.

on saturday night, i decided i didn't care if i looked ridiculous and that i would go running around the "neighborhood" where we live. it's very out of the ordinary to do this. but it was safe b/c the neighboorhood is small. all the kids playing in the streets had quite a time staring at me. but at least they didn't chase after me, which is what happened when the last MST went running. i was very excited to finally get some exercise, although of course i still am sore since it's been forever since i did anything.

we went to visit Lilian today, the girl with the young daughter, who lives in Kibera. It was good to just sit and visit, laugh, and show love to someone who probably desparately needs it. liz got to hold the baby the whole time and she is truly beautiful. we also taught the Blue House kids in Kibera about telling time today. i finally made paper plate clocks that they could use. and wow, do these kids need help. we worked with 3rd-6th graders and they mostly didn't have a clue about most of it. I'm pretty sure that one of the kids I helped has special needs. of course special ed. doesn't exist here, which is so depressing. it's already easy enough to fall through the cracks as it is. I was watching the news the other night and someone in charge of education in kenya was discussing the illiteracy problem here. she said kids need to learn to read for pleasure. this concept is almost non existent here with children. you see very few books here. even my host family, although they have many adult books, have only 1 or 2 kids books for baraka. i've never seen them read to him ever. it's just not important here. and when the students have reading in school, they only read stories from their textbooks. the stories are short and very boring. this whole school needs lots of prayer everyone. a lot of things need to change. i'm not sure if i'm in the position to be able to make that happen or not. it is very poorly run, underfunded, and the teachers are poorly trained. so keep this situation in your prayers. the kids are going on break till september, and i would like to have some sort of goal for the situation when break is over.

speaking of t.v. , in case you wondered, we do have a t.v. at our house. and they show lots of american things. like the amazing race from 4 years ago, the first season of so you think you can dance, 24, cold case, prison break (season 1 probably), etc. they also have the most lame spanish soap operas that have been dubbed over in english. the characters talk in really high pitched squeaky voices. and of course the news is on. it's nice b/c most things are in english. and about movies....everything is pirated here, and poorly pirated at that. we bought an american movie to watch the other day and it only cost $3. Here's why--we were only able to watch half of it, and then it started skipping like crazy and completely froze. we couldn't watch anymore. in no way do i think it's okay to buy pirated movies, but there aren't any other options. after this experience though, i think my movie watching days here are over.