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the photo above is a sneak peek at the post below....
I wrote this on 11/30, didn't post it, and now i am. sometimes i just feel like blogging!
This time last year I was on my way to Tumaini! I had already spent a full week in Nairobi and had the yummiest sweet potato casserole EVER (ryan....where are you? and almost as important, where is the recipe to the hawaiian sweet potato casserole??).
Lots of things have been reminding me of Kenya lately, I hope my co-workers don't get tired of hearing about it. =/ Thanksgiving, Apples to Apples, getting out Christmas decorations - all that reminds me of Kenya? yep.
I cooked bok choy tonight (never had it before, it was pretty good!), and I was reminded of all the times Lindsey and I watched Ryan cook up some fancy sakumaweke (spinach-like plant) on our skillet...the same skillet that we had probably cooked eggs and raw meat on earlier that day. =) I didn't know we had green onions growing in the shamba (farm) until Ryan brought them in to cook one day, haha! So tonight when I washed and chopped my green onions, I had a flashback to picking green onions out of the dirt and rinsing them under the faucet in the shamba, the same faucet that the kids used to wash clothes. One time, sweet Isaac saw me rinsing the onions, and he came over, took them from me, and didn't give them back until he had thoroughly washed all of them. =) Could I picture one of my current students doing the same thing? Not really...but if I dropped an onion, it'd be a fight to see who could pick it up for me first. Kids really are sweet, even if the first words out of their mouths after a week long break are, "Miss Thornton, my tummy hurts." "I don't feel good." "She kicked me."
So glad to see you, too!!! =)
I also watched the new Hallmark Christmas movie last night, "A Dog Named Christmas." I didn't used to watch Hallmark movies, but they're Lindsey's FAVORITES, and she had about 6 or 7 different ones plus the Love Comes Softly series, and we watched them ALL the time. I'd walk into her room during break times from school, and she'd have on a Hallmark Christmas movie in the background while she worked. So in honor of Lindsey, I watched A Dog Named Christmas.
Our movie nights used to be like a little getaway back to our normal lives. We figured out how to make homemade popcorn (grew the seeds ourselves! not.), and we'd add cinnamon and sugar to it. We even had a system for it (leave it to the Americans) - the plain popcorn stayed in our big metal pot, while we filled our own little metal bowls with popcorn that we topped with either salt or cinnamon sugar. We'd usually get a Coke from the duka and save it for a special night, OR, if someone had sent us a Cosmic Brownie, we'd eat that. No matter what we were eating though, the movies stayed consistent - chick flicks.
Balancing rest time and immersion in Kenyan life was tricky. With purpose in mind and only 5 months in Africa, it was hard to justify rest time or alone time. But, I guess it was needed, or I would've been worn out. Maybe it was tricky because I lived at my ministry...ya know? Nothing was really separated, I lived and worked and taught all in the same place.
That was it, I didn't really finish it, but I thought I'd go ahead and post it because it's just a little more of a look into my life in Kenya. Here are a few pictures that I love.
my card game buddy, margaret njoki - miiiiss her & her wonderful laugh.
me & rindsey (as the Kikuyus called her)
sheep heads also make good toys.
