(Nov. 12-25)
Note:: I may have mixed up the details of some of the days! lol
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| Kevin :) |
MONDAY
“Feed the Children” day. Richard
was such a little whine baby today! Seriously. So whiny. Most of the kids were pretty good but the
little chub-a-love just would not stop crying! Furthermore, I swear it was
“Let’s make nail painting as difficult as we can for Kate and Cait” day! The
kids kept stealing the open bottles of nail polish, running off with them, and
spilling them all over the place. Times like this remind me that they are crazy
little kids at heart! Love them…but they are just as devious as any other kids!
TUESDAY-THURSDAY
The beginning of the week went by pretty monotonously. We
spent most of our days in the convent kitchen helping to prepare vegetables and
meat since they were under-staffed this week. I learned that Kate is really
squimish about cutting fresh meat, so alas I was the one allotted this task!
The whole week I was just trying to kill time to get to take-off day for the
Uganda trip. Wednesday, Harris came back with Sr. Serva to the convent in
anticipation of the up-coming trip. We thought we were leaving Thursday
morning but ended up leaving Friday morning.
FRIDAY
5am Friday morning! OMG. I’m not a morning
person, but it was kind of fun getting up that early and packing up the car for
the journey ahead. Kate and I shared the trunk on the way to Chesongoch. I
slept most of the morning but woke up to see some zebras off in the distance. So cool! Around midday, we took a pit stop on the road. The view was pretty awesome!
Mountains everywhere! For the most part, Kate and I had a grand time goofing
around in the trunk…until we hit the dirt roads. The dirt roads to the Rift
Valley were quite an adventure! We crossed some pretty big “streams” and there
were plenty of times when I swore we were going to crash. Plus,
there were goats, cows, and donkeys EVERYWHERE! It was wicked awesome.
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| "Happy Kate"...before she started getting car sick. lol |
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| Yaaa...we crossed THAT. |
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| Goats and cows EVERYWHERE. |
We made it right on time for lunch. The sisters at
Chesongoch greeted us and prepared a lunch of rice, eggs, potatoes, and
fruits. It was very delicious but I was also completely exhausted from the
ride. After a brief nap, we headed over to the convent at Endo with Evans
around 3:30. We hung out with Sr. Consulata (who had originally been at Karen)
and were given a tour of the facilities including a random hike to see the
water tower.
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| Church at Endo |
Back at Chesongoch, we had dinner with Evans in the guest
room. We watched “Cool Runnings” which was pretty sweet. As much as I really
like the scenic mountain view and the sisters there, I must inform you that the
heat, bugs, and constant crowing of roosters was brutal torture! Don’t be
surprised if in January I report that the roosters have been found dead during
our one month stay….they are evil! Nobody deserves to be woken up at 4am by
their non-stop vocals! Ok…I’m done venting.
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| Can't wait to wake up to this view every morning in January!! |
SATURDAY
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| Evil roosters! |
We went on a tour of the dispensary. We were told that the
main health problems in the area are malaria and measles. Also, we were shown
the new “theatre” (which is just a fancy way of saying the new dispensary
operating facilities). What is so disappointing about this is that they have
all this updated equipment kept useless under covers since they don’t have a doctor, nurses, and enough manpower to operate. Something to think about if you are
a nursing student or someone interested in doing some volunteer work over here…they
could definitely use your help! Look into it, people!!
After lunch we headed out to Kimumu and Eldoret! It took
about 5 ½ hrs to get there but the journey was quite entertaining! The route
was scenic and every once in while we would end up on a muddy dirt road where I
thought we would fall to our deaths off the side of the mountain! I kid you
not. Those roads are scary!
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| They got stuck! |
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| "I know...You're from CANADA!" "NOOO!!!" |
We made it to Kimumu on time for tea break. I swear the nuns
plan all of our trips around meal times! No complaints here! After tea break,
we took a little trip with some of the sisters down the street to check out the
convent’s “shamba”. We hung out there for a little bit and met the family who
takes care of the farm.
The 1st dinner we had at Kimumu was by far the
BEST dinner I have had since coming to Africa! I don’t just mean that the food
was good. It was just a hilariously good time! Everybody was cracking jokes (mostly at Harris' expense...sorryyy) and
just kidding around the whole time. It reminded me of family dinners back home.
Such a great time!
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| "Gumby" showing the sisters how to contort their arms around their heads. So funny! They loved it. |
SUNDAY
We spent another day hanging out in Eldoret. After morning
mass, we hung out at the convent for a bit then went to lunch with Evans at “Poa
Place”. THE FOOD WAS INCREDIBLE! Oh my goodness. By far the best meal I have had
here! I got a chicken vegetable sizzler platter with a ridiculous amount of
fries. Kate commented: “That’s the most I've seen you eat since we've been
here!”…What can I say? I appreciate good food!
After lunch we headed to Kimumu to meet with the sisters. We
ended up taking a nap in the car since they were still in their meeting. We got
roped into dropping off this woman named Theresa at her house. Since this is
Africa, we got invited into Theresa’s house to meet her family, watch some TV,
have tea break, and take a tour of the family’s “shamba”. The family was very
welcoming and it was a great way to spend a few hours while we waited for the
sisters to finish their meeting. We even got a “unique” history lesson about
the origin of America’s name which we were told came from a story about “a
marriage gun”…long story…If you want to learn more about it read Harris’ blog.
Following our extended visit with Theresa’s family, we went
back for Vespers and dinner with the sisters. We watched a video of the school’s
graduation during dinner which was pretty entertaining.
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| How cool is that?! |
MONDAY
On the road again! This time we were headed for Jinja,
Uganda! FINALLY! The road to Jinja was mostly paved so it was a lot less
harrowing then the previous car rides. It took us about 2 ½ hrs or so to make
it to the Kenya/Uganda border. The Visa process was a lot faster than I
expected. We all hung out in the car while Sr. Michael Marie had the car papers
approved. Uganda is a cool place! Very green! Lots of neat little straw hut
homes that reminded me of “The Jungle Book” for some reason. There were also a
lot of rice patties which surprised me as well as tons of fruit trees!
After lunch, everybody took a nap and then we went on an
excursion to the “source of the Nile”! This guy named Charles who works at the
convent’s primary school was our guide. At first, he took us to this sketchy
little slum so that we could see the shore of Lake Victoria. This guy tried to
convince us to go on his boat tour but we decided against it. We ended up going
to this tourist place where we got to take a real boat tour around the source
of the Nile and Lake Victoria. IT WAS AWESOME…despite the fact that Sr. Pia
took a little spill into the river in an attempt to get in the boat…oops.
Seriously, though, so unreal! Like how many people can say they’ve been to the
source of the Nile?! Check that off the bucket list! J
At dinner, we celebrated Sr. Elizabeth’s name day. I locked
the keys in Kate and my bedroom by accident…Kate wasn’t too happy about that!
Luckily the sisters had a spare key! Before heading to bed, we watched some
slideshows of Sr. Elizabeth’s travels as well as a video of an elephant birth!
Harris did not seem as interested in the baby elephant’s birth as everyone
else.
TUESDAY
We got up at the crack of dawn (5:45am) to go see the sunrise over Lake Victoria. Now I am not a morning person...but this was by far one of the best parts of the trip! Oh my gosh...perfection.
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| "Never lose the opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson |
Before leaving in the afternoon, we went on a tour of the
convent’s facilities. We got to see all of the dispensary (and when I mean all I literally mean a door-to-door tour!), the primary school, and the shamba. The
dispensary was a lot bigger than the other ones we’ve seen and they had a huge
waiting line! They are also planning on adding a dentistry upstairs which I
found interesting since I love teeth! The tour of the primary school was a lot
of fun because we got to see all the kids! As usual, each classroom introduced
their grade level and most of them sang us a song. So cute!
I always feel like
we are “Mzungus on Parade” because of the way we are lead around like some sort
of display. Think "The Princess Diaries", people! "Thank you for being here today!" (royal wave of the hand with the slight bend in the elbow)
What was even more amusing is the fact that after we left each
classroom it was as if the teachers had no control over the kids as they left
their classrooms to follow us to the next room.
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| I love this picture! <3 |
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| Harris teaching the kids a game... |
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| Harris being attacked after he decides to end the game. |
So after all the hustle bustle of the convent tour we had
some time to chill, eat lunch, and then…yup….back on the road! Instead of
driving all the way back to Nairobi in one day, we ended up stopping in Eldoret
for the night. We had a minor set-back at the border when we tried to get our
Visas stamped without having them first stamped on the Uganda side, but alas
that did not slow down our journey more than a few wasted minutes and a swing
back to the Uganda checking point.
The electricity went out during Vespers and dinner at
Eldoret, resulting in a candlelit dinner which was pretty awesome in my humble
opinion. After dinner, Kate, Harris, and I hung out with Sr. Michael Marie and
Sr. Pia...actually I just kind of sat there while they talked about camp…what
else is new? Fortunately, the electricity came back on which I know was a big
relief to the sisters who were worried that there hundreds of baby chicks were
going to die from the cold over night. Africa problems.
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday morning we embarked on the last leg of our journey
back to Karen! Harris and I just chilled in the back watching episode after
episode of “House” until his computer died. Halfway there we stopped for gas
which led to this ridiculous dispute between the gas station attendant and the
sisters because the attendant didn’t stop the fuel at 5,000schillings and the
sisters were refusing to pay for his mistake. We wasted about a half hour
trying to solve the problem. Finally, Sr. Michael Marie decided to just pay the
extra schillings than have them destroy the car in the process of draining the
excess fuel.
Oh ya...Did I mention that we crossed the equator?! No big deal. BUCKET LIST. done and done. ;)
Anyways…by the end of the trip I was so glad to be back home
in Karen! It was good to be back in a familiar place and to know that I was
going to be stuffed in the trunk with Harris and all the random boxes of fruit
and what not! Back to my bed and my white rice and my favorite nuns! :)
Sr. Michael Marie pardoned us from Vespers so that Kate,
Harris, and I could walk into town to buy supplies to make apple crisps for
Thanksgiving. After dinner, we put our baking skills to work! Of course I was
assigned to the mundane task of slicing and dicing apples out of fear that I
would ruin the batch with my extreme lack of cooking skills. Despite my
influence on the preparation it all turned out to be quite delicious!
THURSDAY
Kate, Harris, and I spent the entire day in Nairobi with Sr.
Serva renewing our Visas. It was a wicked long day but now I am officially an “alien”
in Kenya! Booyaa! Plus, Sr. Serva took us out to lunch and provided free
entertainment with her crazy driving skills!
“Smile at the people, Kate!” ~Sr. Serva as she tries to cut
off people on the road....
She is seriously the funniest, cutest, old Korean sister
ever! Love her!
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
Anywhooo…this weekend I’ve pretty much been a bum and done
nothing productive with my life! I’ve been catching up on my beauty sleep and
refusing to blog…Hence why I am just getting around to it now….oops. It’s been
a crazy few weeks and I’ll be glad to go back to work tomorrow and see my
precious little cherubims!
Oh…and did I mention that Kate, Harris, the Germans, and I
are going to Mombasa to chill at the beach on Thursday?! Oh ya! That’s
happening! AND on top of that announcement of greatness, we are in the process
of booking our trip to Mount Kilimanjaro!!! AAHH!! YES.I.AM.FREAKING.OUT. So
excited!!! So I hope you all look forward to updates from our upcoming adventures!
I can’t believe we are halfway through our stay here! Time flies when your
swatting flies!....but really… ;)
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love love love
Got to Skype all of these goons today!!
First time since arriving in Africa that I got to video chat my younger sibs and parents! :)
