Habari!

Well well well. Kenya is still good, although at the moment I am ridiculously tired. Our weekend of staying in the village to relax was not quite relaxing enough. On Saturday we ended up meeting the construction workers at 10 to go see their houses and shambas (farms.) Turns out to get there we had to walk about 6km through the hills! So that was intense! Worth it though, since their homes were so beautiful! They're all neighbors with small farms (cows, chickens, maize, sugar cane, miraa, cassava, lots more.) One of the guys, James, has two wives, which is....interesting, to say the least. So we had tea and a snack then went off to walk down this steep trail to this gorgeous waterfall! Very pretty. Then 6km back home in the hot sun; needless to say, we were all exhausted when we got home. Relaxed for awhile, then at 4 we had to leave again to walk down the same road to meet another man for dinner! Thankfully we didn't have to walk quite as far. It was a really beautiful house too, the guy is really rich. He also had a tree nursery which was fun to see. They served us dinner and we tried to explain to them about snow, and skiing and sledding and all that. They just can't picture what our winters are like, it's so funny. They also invited a lot of their young neighbors so we talked to a bunch of Kenyans around our age. That was cool.

Sunday Chris and I went to church which was quite an experience. The service was in Kimeru, Kiswahili, and English. They kept switching back and forth and some translating. The songs were fun, although they weren't quite as lively as I had hoped. The sermon was good and enthusiastic, but the service was just so long! 3 hours! And of course we had to get up in front of the whole congregation and introduce ourselves and say what we were doing. It was a good thing though because just today a lot of people who saw us there stopped by the orphanage to say hi and see us working. We're hoping it might lead to some more funding for Edward and Huruma. Sunday night we just hung out and had a good dinner of spaghetti.

Today was back to work as usual, we're almost done with the walls of the dorm. I'm going back to the orphanage tonight to read and play with the kids. Bari and Kristie are cooking and supposedly they're concocting some type of dessert so I am excited! I miss chocolate!!!! We leave early this Saturday to go to Lake Nakuru (famous for rhinos and flamingos) and Maasai Mara National Reserve! Wildebeest migration and Maasai villages! And Edward, our host, is coming with us! So is the other OCA Kenya group (they're stationed in Kisimu) actually, so it will be awesome. Reunion of the wazungu! (the Swahili word for "white person" that everyone calls us). So yeah, working hard this week, then an amazing weekend! I can't wait!

Next post after I'm back from safari!