Arrival, marriage proposals, and jenga

we have officially arrived.  after 3 planes and 27 hours of flying and layovers, we finally arrived this morning at 5 a.m.  By the time we made it through the long bathroom line, the visa line, and claimed our baggage, it was almost 6:30.  Alex, Popo, Steve, and Victor were all there waiting to pick us up (they arrived at 5 a.m....definitely on American time, and didn't sleep much the night before because they were excited).  I started screaming and running towards them when i saw them.  i must say i have so much peace about everything right now.  I started having moments on the plane where I was questioning things and wondering if it was all going to work out, but it has beautifully so far.  I really like the house where we're staying.  it's in a suburb called Jamhuri, which is right next to Kibera (biggest slum in East Africa in case you don't know).  We can actually walk right to Kibera, which is a huge improvement over last time.  The house is small but painted bright blue and green colors.  Pretty much everything except the kitchen and bathroom is covered in mattresses.  Mattresses in the bedrooms and in the living room; and by the way they're not the comfy American ones, but rather simple thin foam ones which is precisely what i expected.  we have no furniture except a t.v. and a broken trunk that popo stepped on during a dance party last week, but We have hot water!!!  yes, you heard me right.  The bathroom is just one floor for the shower and for the rest of the room, so the floor will probably be all wet most of the time, but i don't care.  at least the water is running.  truly i'm blessed.  After the boys picked us up, we returned to the house and put things away.  there is a very SMALL closet that we were able to put most things in.  we have to prop the mattresses against the wall during the day so we can walk around the room because it's so tiny.  Then julius made us tea and triple layer bread and butter sandwiches.  As always, Popo and Alex are hilarious!  i couldn't stop laughing at their funny jokes all morning.  Alex led us in a short devotional about not worrying, trusting God, and being joyful.  he said something about no matter if they have food or no food, house or no house, they are always trying to be joyful.  i can see it shining through everything they are doing.  i can tell Alex has really grown in his faith since i last saw him.  he is so passionate about serving.  he walked us through the whole week's schedule and we even wrote it down!  i'm impressed.  and they are doing a good job watching out for us wherever we go.  alex led us on a short tour around Nairobi since Ash has never been here and Rachel only briefly.  I feel like they are doing a million times better at having things organized and watching out for us then the last organization i was with.  I truly feel so blessed right now and that this is exactly where i'm supposed to be.  i love these people and can't wait to spend the summer with them. 

we had a dance party in the living room to kenyan music and ash and i did this partner dance that we still remember from our days together on Dancz Catz and Dance Energy.  popo thought it was really great.  then we pulled out the Jenga game.  OH my goodness...this was the best thing ever to bring along.  we pulled it out of the suitcase in the airport in ghana during our layover.  all these ghanians gathered around to watch.  everyone was fascinated by this concentration game the white girls were playing.  we ended up getting several people to join in and play.  i know that this is a simple basic game, but people here really like it.  one of the ghanians who joined us was phillip.  we briefly talked with him before he asked if i'd like to marry him :)  seriously, less than 3 hours in the african continent and i was already getting proposed to.  after politely declining he really wouldn't steer away from the discussion.  he said, "Why not?"  and i explained that i didn't even know him.  He said it only takes 1 day to get to know someone and decided, but i said, no in my country it takes many days.  we eventually moved on and offered everyone some of my homemade cookies i brought.  everyone was excited to try them, but i don't think anyone liked them.  they kept saying, "Oh, it's soooo sweet.  so much sugar." 

Besides those fun times in the airport, the ghana experience was quite funny.  apparently, no one knows what to do with people who are on connecting flights.  there is no set system.  we had to get in line w/ all the people who were actually staying in ghana in the same immigration line even though we had no visa and weren't declaring anything.  we kept hearing different stories about whether or not we should fill out the customs form--yes, no, yes, etc.  the immigration guy let us go through no problem, but we still didn't know where to go.  luggage was sitting everywhere, and we spotted ours, which was wierd since it was supposed to go through all the way to nairobi.  workers started pulling connecting flight luggage aside and scanning it (don't they normally pull off the connecting flight luggage before sending it on the baggage cart conveyer belt?  someone told us to collect our luggage and check it back in; someone else told us to leave it there (that's what we did). there were no signs for connecting flights.  all the white people seemed to be walking right past the declaration stage of customs (which was the next stop).  it seemed that it was optional if you wanted to tell them what you were bringing in.  several people helped us navigate out of the airport.  we had to actually completely walk out of the airport, turn left, and go up some steps, before we were at the entrance of the airport and could walk back in and then we still couldn't check in yet.  i'm pretty sure that even though we had no visa that we could have easily left the airport in a taxi without getting into any sort of trouble...just to have lunch or something.  but we had too much carry on luggage to drag around and i didn't want to go outside too much since the risk of malaria is greater there and i'm not taking malaria medicine since nairobi is low risk.  this is one of the smallest airports ever.  kenya airways shares a desk with other airlines, and they just change the signs based on when flights are leaving and people need to check in.  there are only 5 gates total, and all of the planes require that you load from outside on the tarmac after getting dumped off by a bus.  so the 7 hours we were there were pretty long because there was only a short stretch to walk back and forth.  i tried walking around other places but kept getting yelled at that i couldn't go there.  ashley correctly pointed out that all the people working in the airport (the people who ended up playing jenga with us) were just hanging out.  true, there wasn't much for them to do.  they were mostly on cleaning crew, but it seemed over staffed to say the least.  phillip told us he takes a 3 hour bus ride one way to get to work every morning.  that means he has a 6 hour commute in total!

also, plastic wrap is the latest trend for luggage apparently.  people were paying to have their luggage saran wrapped in ghana.  and let me tell you, they put a lot of bright blue saran wrap on, around and around (there is a special machine for it).  phillip said it kept people from opening the bags and stealing things.  i hope it doesn't prevent the transportation department from checking for dangerous things too :)