monday

Photo captions.

1. Sandy, Kevin and Paige with Daniel Tuke, his wife Jennifer, three of his 11 children and another man named Daniel who is kind of training under Daniel Tuke. This is their home where we ate lunch after church

2.Church under a tree, Kevin and I were asked to speak and we brought greetings from our church to theirs.

3. Paige inside Nolkiraou’s house. It’s hard to tell how DARK it was in there because the flash lights it up. There were lots of children, women, goats, dogs and a cat in there while dinner was being cooked

Today, Monday, is a catch up day in Nairobi. We slept in late and Connie did some errands while we stayed home. Our weekend was very full. Saturday, we visited Augustin, who works as a house helper in the Crum’s home. He and his wife, Lister, and daughters, Sylvia and Lorna, live in Kangemi Centre. It’s a slum area of Nairobi and he lives in a three story building that houses 50 families. Each family had two rooms that open onto a central stairwell open area. It was laundry day so we walked under LOTS of laundry hung out to dry! The girls’ cousin Vivian, a neighbor, Enoch, another cousin and sister-in-law, and a few other people popped in to say hi. The little girls loved playing with Paige and Rachel’s long hair and playing with the digital camera and checking out their pictures. It was fun to get to know them in their home setting, to realize how hard their lives are, but how much they are trying to make a better life for their children. Both Augustin and Lister are hard workers, responsible parents, etc. but they have a struggle to pay the girls school fees and ever get ahead. The community supports each other, watching each other’s children, borrowing dishes when someone has company, etc. and they live near a lot of family, but they miss their extended family who live out in their home area of the country. We have been honored by the invitation into many homes of those who have very little, but are glad to share what they have and give visitors the best seat, the first food and their gift of friendship. I don’t think anyone can come away from an experience like this and not be changed. Check out Paige’s blog for her impression of our day on Sunday! I’ve resized a few of our favorite photos, so hopefully I can post those and you can get a better idea of what we’ve been doing!

nairobi

We're back in Nairobi and having a quiet relaxed morning. Connie and Dan are meeting with some teammates and Rachel drove us over to Roslyn Academy where we ran on the track and worked with weights. That felt good, getting some exercise. Paige is helping with household chores. We have taken over 1000 photos, between our two cameras and some of the pictures look like encyclopedia pictures, but we really did take them!

I'm covered with little red spots at this point. Dan thinks it's grass fleas. He has some too. We got some antihistime ointment and I'm taking an antihistimine, so I'll survieve, but I'm glad I'm not wearing shorts and tank tops.

The weather is like camping in the summer on a cool day. It's like 65-68, drizzles and good bit and is overcast. The bush are was warm and sunny, but here things stay kind of damp and cool.

One thing we've noticed here is that there are people wandering all over at all times of day. Everyone is outside walking around or watching other people walking around. It's not like the suburbs in the states where you see houses but no people! We also noticed the guys in fatigues with machine guns over their shoulders at the mall, but we didn't take their pictures. They might not like that and I'm not going to clash with them!

The internet is on and off all day, so I'll try to send this now.

back from the bush

If I wrote all my impressions of the last 5 days, I’d be here all day and no one could read it all!

A day in the home of Ole’Salepu was an experience I’ll never forget. His land is at the top of a ridge, with a view 360 degrees around. We arrived just before the cows started to come home, had a wonderful dinner of rice and potatoes and chatted with Salepu and his wife, through Dan and Connie as interpreters. Connie knows a lot of Maa, the local language, but Dan speaks it almost like a local. We enjoyed many cups of chai, the beverage of tea, whole milk straight from the cow, and sugar. As Paige says, we can say was spent the night in a Maasai home, but it wouldn’t be exactly accurate to say we slept in there. We shared beds, but in a different environment, with unusual sounds, smells, etc. our senses had a hard time turning off for sleep. It was SO worth losing a night of sleep to share this experience though!

Another highlight was our day of game viewing. We got up early, took our boxed lunches and headed out to look for wildlife. We found a family of elephants less than a ¼ mile from our camp. The baby was very shy and kind of hid from us. Not much farther away we found our first lioness. She was sitting on a small mound and watching intently into the distance. What amazed us the whole day was how unaffected the animals were by our presence. Other than the baby elephant and the hyena, most of the animals just went about their business. The lioness started calling to her friend, another lioness who arrived after a bit. We probably stayed to watch them for an hour and at one point they walked within 6 feet of the land rover! It was amazing to watch God's creatures in their natural habitat.

The tent camp was neat, we had full bathrooms in our tents, wonderful food and we could hear the lions roar and the hippos grunt or growl (Paige speaks fluent hippo now) while we were falling asleep. The camp had an electric fence around it that at least gives you the illusion of security!

We're paying a good bit for internet time, so no pictures until we return!

We have been negotiating in the marketplace, spending Kenyan shillings by the thousands. I have some vague idea of what things are costing!

We go tomorrow to a Kenyan home and then on Sunday to another Maasai area for worship. What a great culture, we're enjoying soaking it all in.

We are finally adjusted to the time zone and for the most part are sleeping well. What a difference that makes!

We will have great stories and pictures and video to share when we return. We think of our friends and family in the US often!!! HI to you all.

London blog:

Hilton: best breakfast we’ve ever had, really, and we’ve had some nice ones!
Double Decker busses: great way to see London, cheap and manageable for us.
Sites we saw walked to: Piccadilly Circus, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Fountain, Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abby, The Mall, River Themes, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Horse Guards, Scotland Yard: rode past the London Eye, Marble Arch, Hyde Park, Notting Hill neighborhood, probably more but I can’t remember now.

Things that were interesting/fun to notice: London Black Taxis, Look Left signs on the street, Telephone booths, fashionable clothing, dogs off leash, everyone drinking a pint on the street outside the pub after work.

People we had conversations with were from Morocco, Brazil, Afghanistan.

Things we actually did: see Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Monet, Seurat, Cezanne and Turner paintings at the National Gallery, eat fish and chips in a wonderful old pub, ride the tube (subway), ride a double decker bus, walk, walk, get lost, walk, enjoy experiencing a brief taste of London and get a bit of the time adjustment and the jet lag out of the way.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Our first full day in Kenya. We had a good night’s rest and felt pretty good after a shower this morning. After a breakfast of bacon, eggs, yogurt, mango and granola, we went on errands with Connie. Our impressions of Nairobi, much more hilly and jungle like or tropical than we expected. It’s a huge city, but if you just plopped us down in the middle we might think we were on St. Croix with the mix of regular western style buildings, little places of business where people are selling baskets, bananas, carved art, etc. right next to the steet. Paige wanted to bring home some puppies a man was holding out for sale by the side of the road. There were cars on the left side of the road, a rather ill defined traffic pattern that looks like chaos to us. Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way here and we have to remember that! We also stopped at a mall that would fit in beautifully in St. Charles, lovely landscaping, outdoor ponds, stairways, tropical flowers and stores full of beautiful things! We ran into some of the CMF teammates there, the Browns and Caziers and Rachel saw some teachers from school, and it has a nice neighborhood market feeling. We changed money, went to a supermarket and enjoyed seeing similarities and differences there. The only thing we’ve purchased so far was medicine for Paige. She’s suffering from a sore throat, congestion, headache, etc. and we got “Day Nurse/Night Nurse”. It’s like a Nyquil day and night package that we can buy in the states and it was actually less expensive or about the same price as I’d expect to pay at home. Please pray that she feels better soon! She’s a trooper and hanging in there, but she’s not herself and wants to feel better! While Kevin and Paige took an afternoon nap, I woke up from a shorter nap and went for a walk with the Crum ladies in the neighborhood. One of the things we find amusing is the housing under construction. The houses in the neighborhood and big and beautiful, but while building these concrete structures, the “scaffolding” is made of what looks like sticks held together by twine.

We had our “opening of the suitcases” and brought out two huge laundry buckets of the things that people sent over with us. That was really fun. One of the things that I intended to do and didn’t was to bring a church directory. Connie and Dan remember a number of names from FVCC, but a photo directory would have been helpful. Rachel was delighted to have all the gum she will be able to enjoy, the treats from home will be much appreciated and I realized why the DVD’s are especially enjoyed, they don’t have TV service at home, so it’s just a VCR/DVD player if you want to watch something. I like the lower level of electronic entertainment, but I admit that I’d suffer from internet withdrawal! The connection speed here is slow and the service goes out frequently while you are online. We hope to stop by Java House, a near by coffee house, where the internet is wireless and free to load this blog entry.

When we were packing, Connie told me it would be cool. I believed her in my head, but I was still surprised by how cool it is. I’ve worn my light weight jacket almost constantly since I got here. I’ll be fine, but I wish I’d left in that other pair of long pants and skipped the other pair of shorts! I will be glad I brought my fleece vest, which seemed really silly to bring to Africa!

Connie made her tortillas and we had a delicious taco dinner complete with guacamole made from avocados from the avocado tree in their yard, as we watched Lord of the Rings on video, Kevin is the only Oler that managed to stay awake for the whole thing; we’re still adjusting to the time. I’m writing this at 1 am Sunday morning, 5 pm Saturday in the states. Daylight savings makes it 8 hours difference from St. Charles, rather than the 9 I thought it was. I slept for three hours, then fell awake, hopefully I’ll get back to sleep soon. My pattern at home is similar, so, I’m not too worried.

First Leg

We made it to london. British airways was great, as good as flying coach over night can be. We managed to take the tube to our hotel, but check Paige's blog for the whole story. Its starting to seem more funny than tragic. After a nap we saw a lot of the major london sites, from dubble decker buses and a lot of walking. Fish and chips from Alberts was very authentic. Time for bed soon! Private car to the airport tomorrow, no more getting confused on public transport!

Things are coming together

Eight days until we leave and things are coming together. It's been so encouraging for us to have the support of the church body at FVCC. Most of the things from Connie's list have been purchased and dropped off. I bought a luggage scale so we can check to be sure we stay within British Airways weight limits. We can each bring two 51 pound suitcases.

According to the internet, the time difference will be 9 hours from Chicago. Nairobi is in the same time zone as Moscow. It's easier for me to change am to pm and then subtract 3, for instance I'm typing this at 8 am, and it's 5 pm in Kenya.

All our immunizations are complete, we've notified our bank and credit card companies, we have cleared off our camera memory cards, now the biggest thing on the to-do list is updating our video camera. I tried to be economical and bought a reconditioned one on E-bay. Bad idea. So, figuring it out and making a decision on a new camcorder is today's project. I suffer from paralysis by analysis, I try so hard to make a good decision that I never get one made!

The countdown stands at 42 days until we leave and we're getting excited. I realized what an international world we live in when I called a Chicago phone number and talked to a customer service agent in India about our flight from Nairobi to Malindi, Kenya. We plan to have a letter out to the church on May 18th with more details about our trip. Connie has sent a list of items that can't be purchased in Kenya and we plan to take those things over with us in our suitcases. If the bags are full of instant pudding, peanut butter, sunscreen, dental floss and gifts for the Maasai people on our way over, then we have room to bring home some Kenyan items! June 1st is the sending service and a day to take an offering from the church at FVCC to the Maasai church. If you get this blog link and want the church letter sent to you by e-mail, let me know at Olermom@aol.com.