Kerio View

Saturday I went with the team to Kerio View. We drove about 45 minutes to a beautiful view overlooking the Rift Valley and then went to Kerio View hotel for lunch. Had a great time hiking around the hotel grounds and taking pictures before our relaxing lunch of salad, fish sticks, and french fries!

Classic!

The Rift Valley

 

It started pouring down rain on our way home but we stopped on the way back to buy trees for the new playground. Can you believe I was the only one who got out of the bus to take a picture of the rain coming down the road? Isn't it amazing?! 

New trees, riding back to the village with us. =)

Kim and Joanna giving Dave some feedback on his driving skills....



Speed bumps + back of the bus = THIS

It's twins!

Dinah

We have recently welcomed twin girls Dinah and Diana to Open Arms Village! They were found abandoned and taken to the hospital. After being treated for pneumonia for about two weeks, they were committed to Open Arms custody and we brought them home!! They are identical and we are keeping their hospital bracelets on until we get to know them well enough to tell them apart!

Diana

 

I soooo wish that videos uploaded easier so you could see more of Agnes in action. She is absolutely hilarious! One of the sweetest, funniest, most adorable babies you will ever meet!

 Benson got his hair cut! This is the before photo....

And...one more! He's just so cute!

And...After! So handsome! 

Mark is growing up! He laughs and smiles all the time now and he has long babbling conversations with himself. He's really starting to show us his personality! So fun to watch him grow up!

Sweet baby Grace is growing and getting strong!! She is gaining weight and becoming really heavy compared to the feather she was when she arrived. And between the time I wrote this post (two weeks ago) and now, when we have internet so I can post it  - she has learned to crawl! I really love this little girl! I bought an "African baby carrier" sheet in town the other day so I can learn how to carry a baby African style! Grace seemed to like it!

How I make Chapati

Just so we're clear, this is not "How to make Chapati" this is How I make Chapati. =) These are photos from my second time making chapati. We have chapati (also known as "chapos" in Kenyan slang) on Tuesdays and  Fridays. Rolling out a batch of 60+ chapatis (enough for ONE family) is time consuming work! They usually make the dough in the morning and start the cooking process around 3pm, Chapos are done by 5 and kept warm until dinner at 6:30. Yum!

I usually miss the first few steps of making the dough, letting it rest, and preparing it for rolling. The initial dough is rolled out and cut into strips which are then rolled into a little "cinnamon roll". This is how it looks when I arrive! All 60 piles are neatly lined up on the table, ready to be flattened.

 The first time I helped, I only rolled about 10. Last time, I rolled about half. Today - I rolled the whole batch! They graciously applaud my rolling skills. Usually my chapos are fairly round but occasionally they are a bit heart shaped. And sometimes I get carried away and roll them so thin they can't fit on the pan. (Those get re-cinnamon rolled and flattened a second time!)

They are then cooked in hot oil over the "bucket of fire". This bucket is so handy, I think I will miss it when I get back to America! It's used for a whole host of Kenyan cooking activities. The chapati griddle fits it perfectly and the only utensil is a spoon for the oil- all the turning and flipping of the chapatis is done with bare hands! So far, they haven't let me near the hot oil and fire just yet. Probably a good idea! 

As they are finished they are stacked into a pan to rest until dinner. I've been told I am not Kenyan until I can eat 3 chapati with dinner. Tonight I ate two! 

The Small Gulls

In the children's homes, the rooms are separated into "small girls, small boys, big girls, big boys". They roll their "R's" here though, and with the Kenyan accent, small girls sounds more like "small gulls." Makes me laugh every time I hear it! While I laugh at some of their English words, they have way more opportunities to laugh at my pronunciation of Swahili words. I am learning Swahili "pole pole" (poll-eh poll-eh, means slowly slowly!) Here's some pictures of the small girls from Tumaini:

Mary - being silly! She ran up to me and said "take my picture" and this was the face I got! Sometimes Mary is really shy, but in small groups, especially when we are home at Tumaini, that is not the case! 

Deborah and Gracie (biological daughters of Tumaini house parents Tom and Emmy). They are both very sweet girls. They are usually the first to greet me in the mornings and we have started a bedtime ritual also - it mostly involves me laying them on their beds and saying "lala salama" (sleep well!). They pretend to sleep for about 10 seconds and then are jumping up ready to "go to bed" again! I have also learned how to say "close your eyes!" (funga macho). You can imagine how quiet, calming, and relaxing this bedtime ritual is...but somehow I haven't been thrown out of the house just yet!

Beaty is NOT shy. She is the wildest, craziest, spunkiest of them all. She constantly amazes me with how strong she is. She will run at me, leap into the air and latch on with her arms and legs and hang there without me holding her at all. Sitting on me lap, she can lean backwards until her head touches the floor and then sit back up again with hardly any help from me. I am also in love with her loud raspy singing voice.
The four of them together make for some fun times in Tumaini house!!

Day of the African Child

 The Day of the African Child has been celebrated since 1991. It was created to raise awareness for the plight of African children and their struggle for education and basic rights. This year's theme focuses on the estimated 30 million street children in Africa. It's usually celebrated on June 16th, but Kenya celebrated it on June 11. 

Open Arms attended with 26 kids from the village and another 20 or so from the Kambi Teso feeding program. 

 To start the event, there was a ceremonial march of people that came from the center of town to the Tumaini Rescue Center - which is a housing/rehab center for street kids. 

This year's theme: "All together for urgent actions in favor of street children."

There was a tree planting ceremony and over 100 trees were planted around the rescue center. 

 

This little girl was so cute looking for an empty hole to place her tree! =)

The kids' shirts sporting this year's theme. The street kids all got a free shirt also. =)

 They had so many speakers and performers that they actually ran out of time for everyone to perform! 

There were performances by kids from all the represented children's homes (the Open Arms kids danced - see their practice video in my earlier post!) as well as a few speeches by some ex-street children who were helped by homes/organizations and are now going to college. Their testimonies were amazing, but a lot of it was also in Swahili so some of it I didn't understand.

Standing in line for lunch! All the kids got a free hot lunch and their own soda. 

And one more random photo that I liked:

The Village Live!

The kids here love to sing and dance! Here is a short video of their talent (the best I can do with my little camera...=)

We also have Aggie in the baby home, who is constantly singing and dancing. She can dance to anything, including the songs in her head! Baby Benson shows off some of his dancing skills too!

Just a quick note. =)

Me and Beatie

Happy Sunday! Thought I would just write you a quick note to say hi. I have some free time to sit and type and relax the rest of the day. Yesterday we went to the Day of the African Child celebration, which took up the day so today was my cleaning and laundry day. The house parents surprised me with my own (new, and clean!) mop this week, so this week my floors got really cleaned. I did a load of laundry in the washing machine to hang on the line, then did my hand laundry (the delicates that aren't allowed to be paraded outside on the line, and anything that didn't come clean in the machine) and swept and mopped my room and bathroom before church. Church was inside because our church tent got pretty muddy at the celebration yesterday, so we had church in the office until the tent can be cleaned.  

Now I am catching up on some blogging (I'm writing extra so you'll have something to read all week!) and listening to the rain slam against the house. The roof is metal, so the rain sounds amazing!

I hope you are doing well and I want you to know how much I love reading your comments and e-mails from the blog! I am so blessed to be this far away from home but still able to keep in touch. Thanks for reading!

-Ok, seriously, the rain just started coming down even harder! Wish I could take a picture of it (yeah, i tried, no luck). I'm not sure I've ever seen rain like this! Maybe tomorrow we can go boating in the village! =)